the expenses of the
war, under the name of arrears of tribute to Shah-Shoojah,
acknowledging, at the same time, the supremacy, _not of Shah-Shoojah_,
but of the English Government! The tolls on the Indus were also
abolished, and the navigation of the river placed, by a special
stipulation, wholly under the control of British functionaries. Since
this summary procedure, our predominance in Scinde has been undisturbed,
unless by occasional local commotions; but the last advices state that
the whole country is now "in an insurrectionary state;" and it is fully
expected that an attempt will erelong be made to follow the example of
the Affghans, and get rid of the intrusive _Feringhis_; in which case,
as the same accounts inform us, "the Ameers will be sent as
state-prisoners to Benares, and the territory placed wholly under
British administration."

[36] So well were the Scindians aware of this, that Burnes,
when ascending the Indus, on his way to Lahore in 1831,
frequently heard it remarked, "Scinde is now gone, since the
English have seen the river, which is the road to its
conquest."

But whatever may be thought of the strict legality of the conveyance, in
virtue of which Scinde has been converted into an integral part of our
Eastern empire, its geographical position, as well as its natural
products, will render it a most valuable acquisition, both in a
commercial and political point of view. At the beginning of the present
century, the East-India Company had a factory at Tatta, (the Pattala of
the ancients,) the former capital of Scinde, immediately above the Delta
of the Indus; but their agents were withdrawn during the anarchy which
preceded the disruption of the Doorani monarchy. From that period till
the late occurrences, all the commercial intercourse with British India
was maintained either by land-carriage from Cutch, by which mode of
conveyance the opium of Malwa and Marwar (vast quantities of which are
exported in this direction) chiefly found its way into Scinde and
Beloochistan; or by country vessels of a peculiar build, with a
disproportionately lofty poop, and an elongated bow instead of a
bowsprit, which carried on an uncertain and desultory traffic with
Bombay and some of the Malabar ports. To avoid the dangerous sandbanks
at the mouths of the Indus, as well as the intricate navigation through
the winding streams of the Delta, (the course of which, as in the
Mississippi, change