s with every inundation,) they usually discharged
their cargoes at Kurrachee, whence they were transported sixty miles
overland to Tatta, and there embarked in flat-bottomed boats on the main
stream. The port of Kurrachee, fourteen miles N.W. from the Pittee, or
western mouth of the Indus, and Sonmeani, lying in a deep bay in the
territory of Lus, between forty and fifty miles further in the same
direction, are the only harbours of import in the long sea-coast of
Beloochistan; and the possession of them gives the British the undivided
command of a trade which, in spite of the late disasters, already
promises to become considerable; while the interposition of the now
friendly state of Khelat[37] between the coast and the perturbed tribes
of Affghanistan, will secure the merchandise landed here a free passage
into the interior. The trade with these ports deserves, indeed, all the
fostering care of the Indian Government; since they must inevitably be,
at least for some years to come, the only inlet for Indian produce into
Beloochistan, Cabul, and the wide regions of Central Asia beyond them.
The overland carrying trade through Scinde and the Punjab, in which
(according to M. Masson) not less than 6500 camels were annually
employed, has been almost annihilated--not only by the confusion arising
from the war, but from the absolute want of means of transport, from the
unprecedented destruction of the camels occasioned by the exigencies of
the commissariat, &c. The rocky defiles of Affghanistan were heaped with
the carcasses of these indispensable animals, 50,000 of which (as is
proved by the official returns) perished in this manner in the course of
three years; and some years must necessarily elapse before the chasm
thus made in the numbers of the species throughout North-western India
can be supplied. The immense expenditure of the Army of Occupation, at
the same time, brought such an influx of specie into Affghanistan, as
had never been known since the sack of Delhi by Ahmed Shah
Doorani--while the traffic with India being at a stand-still for the
reasons we have just given, the superfluity of capital thus produced was
driven to find an outlet in the northern markets of Bokhara and
Turkestan. The consequence of this has been, that Russian manufactures
to an enormous amount have been poured into these regions, by way of
Astrakhan and the Caspian, to meet this increasing demand; and the value
of Russian commerce with Central A