Muhammadan, and even to those visitations of nature, famines, pestilence, and earthquakes, which have periodically swept over the land, and at length rendered it the scene of desolation it now presents; for in this desert, as in that of Egypt, tradition records that its increase has been and still is progressive, as well in the valley of the Indus as towards the Jumna. =Umarkot.=—This stronghold (_kot_) of the Umars, until a very few years back, was the capital of the Sodha Raj, which extended, two centuries ago, into the valley of Sind, and east to the Luni; but the Rathors of Marwar, and the family at present ruling Sind, have together reduced the sovereignty of the Sodhas to a very confined spot, and thrust out of Umarkot (the last of the nine castles of Maru) the descendant of Siharas, who, from Aror, held dominions extending from Kashmir to the ocean. Umarkot has sadly fallen from its ancient grandeur, and instead of the five thousand houses it contained during the opulence of the Sodha princes, it hardly reckons two hundred and fifty houses, or rather huts.[8.2.30] The old castle is to the north-west of the town. It is built of brick, and the bastions, said to be eighteen in number, are of stone. It has an inner citadel, or rather a fortified palace. There is an old canal to the north of the fort, in which water still lodges part of the year. When Raja Man [314] had possession of Umarkot, he founded several villages thereunto, to keep up the communication. The Talpuris then found it to their interest, so long as they had any alarms from their own lord paramount of Kandahar, to court the Rathor prince; but when civil war appeared in that region, as well as in Marwar, the cessation of all fears from the one, banished the desire of paying court to the other, and Umarkot was unhappily placed between the Kalhoras of Sind and the Rathors, each of whom looked upon this frontier post as the proper limit of his sway, and contended for its possession. We shall therefore give an account of a feud between these rivals, which finally sealed the fate of the Sodha prince, and which may contribute something to the history of the ruling family of Sind, still imperfectly known.