Beyond this desert tract the country is traversed by several irrigation canals, and presents signs of very considerable cultivation right up to Gandáva. At this season the whole country is dry, but during the summer rains it is inundated by the Nárí river, which rises in the hills about Dadur, and spreads its floods broadcast all over the desert tract extending from Gandáva to Jacobabad. Most of this water is allowed to run waste, and from want of care much is lost by evaporation. Under a settled government there is little doubt that most of this desert tract could be brought under cultivation, for the soil appears very good, and the facilities for irrigation during the summer months are at hand. But both are sadly neglected all over the Kachi _pat_, the designation by which the great desert tracts of Kach are known. Gandáva, the capital of Kach, is a decayed-looking town, and its fortifications are fast crumbling into ruin. It is the winter residence of the Khán of Calát, whose mansion is situated in the citadel, which overlooks the town from the north. The town has an extremely sunburnt and desolate appearance. The summer months here are described as excessively hot, and unbearable to all but natives of the country. During this season a poisonous hot wind, called _juloh_, prevails over the plain of Kach, and destroys travellers exposed to its blast. It proves fatal in a few hours, by drying up all the moisture of the body, and the skin of those killed by it appears scorched and fissured, and putrefaction at once takes place. We rested here during the heat of the day in the Khán’s garden on the south of the town, to allow our baggage to pass on. The garden is a neglected wilderness of all sorts of trees crowded together, but to us proved a grateful retreat for the shade it afforded. In its centre are a couple of fine pipal trees (_Ficus religiosa_), and around them we recognised the mango, jujube, sweet lime, vine, date-palm, apricot, cordia myxa, banhinia variegata, sizygium jambolanum, and acacia siris. Proceeding from Gandáva, we left Fatupúr, conspicuous by its lofty domed tombs, to the left, and passing through a thick jangal of capparis, salvadora, and acacia, amongst which were scattered small patches of bright green mustard, came to the Garrú ravine, a wide drainage channel with a sandy bed, covered with a thick belt of tamarisk trees. Beyond this, at eight miles from Gandáva and thirty from Sinjarani, we came to Kotra, and camped at sunset.