The Panjab, North-West Frontier Province, and KashmirDouie, James McCrone, Sir
History
The Panjab, North-West Frontier Province, and Kashmir
Douie, James McCrone, Sir
India -- Description and travel; Jammu and Kashmir (India); North-west Frontier Province (Pakistan); Punjab (India)
~The Sutlej.~--The Sutlej is the Shatadru of Vedic hymns and the Zaradros
of Greek writers. The peasant of the Panjab plains knows it as the Nili
or Ghara. After the Indus it is the greatest of Panjab rivers, and for
its source we have to go back to the Manasarowar lakes in Tibet. From
thence it flows for 200 miles in a north-westerly direction to the
British frontier near Shipki. A little beyond the Spiti river brings it
the drainage of the large tract of that name in Kangra and of part of
Western Tibet. From Shipki it runs for forty miles in deep gorges
through Kunawar in the Bashahr State to Chini, a beautiful spot near the
Wangtu bridge, where the Hindustan-Tibet road crosses to the left bank.
A little below Chini the Baspa flows in from the southeast. The fall
between the source and Chini is from 15,000 to 7500 feet. There is
magnificent cliff scenery at Rogi in this reach. Forty miles below Chini
the capital of Bashahr, Rampur, on the south bank, is only 3300 feet
above sea level. There is a second bridge at Rampur, and from about this
point the river becomes the boundary of Bashahr and Kulu, the route to
which from Simla passes over the Luri bridge (2650 feet) below Narkanda.
Beyond Luri the Sutlej runs among low hills through several of the Simla
Hill States. It pierces the Siwaliks at the Hoshyarpur border and then
turns to the south, maintaining that trend till Rupar and the head-works
of the Sirhind canal are reached. For the next hundred miles to the Bias
junction the general direction is west. Above the Harike ferry the
Sutlej again turns, and flows steadily, though with many windings, to
the south-west till it joins the Chenab at the south corner of the
Multan district. There are railway bridges at Phillaur, Ferozepur, and
Adamwahan. In the plains the Sutlej districts are--on the right bank
Hoshyarpur, Jalandhar, Lahore, and Montgomery, and on the left Ambala,
Ludhiana and Ferozepur. Below Ferozepur the river divides Montgomery and
Multan from Bahawalpur (left bank). The Sutle; has a course of 900
miles, and a large catchment area in the hills. Notwithstanding the
heavy toll taken by the Sirhind canal, its floods spread pretty far in
Jalandhar and Ludhiana and below the Bias junction many monsoon canals
have been dug which inundate a large area in the lowlands of the
districts on either bank and of Bahawalpur. The dry bed of the Hakra,
which can be traced through Bahawalpur, Bikaner, and Sindh, formerly
carried the waters of the Sutlej to the sea.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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