n Grant from
the surveyor's plan, shows the appearance of the fort in the midst of
the lake, as seen in 1838 from the west, or from the same point as that
from which Captain Grindlay's sketch (see fig. 72) was taken in 1808,
before the earthquake.

[Illustration: Fig. 73.

View of the Fort of Sindree, from the west, in March, 1838.]

The Runn of Cutch is a flat region of a very peculiar character, and no
less than 7000 square miles in area: a greater superficial extent than
Yorkshire, or about one-fourth the area of Ireland. It is not a desert
of moving sand, nor a marsh, but evidently the dried-up bed of an inland
sea, which for a great part of every year has a hard and dry bottom
uncovered by weeds or grass, and only supporting here and there a few
tamarisks. But during the monsoons, when the sea runs high, the
salt-water driven up from the Gulf of Cutch and the creeks at Luckput
overflows a large part of the Runn, especially after rains, when the
soaked ground permits the sea-water to spread rapidly. The Runn is also
liable to be overflowed occasionally in some parts by river-water: and
it is remarkable that the only portion which was ever highly cultivated
(that anciently called Sayra) is now permanently submerged. The surface
of the Runn is sometimes incrusted with salt about an inch in depth, in
consequence of the evaporation of the sea-water. Islands rise up in some
parts of the waste, and the boundary lands form bays and promontories.
The natives have various traditions respecting the former separation of
Cutch and Sinde by a bay of the sea, and the drying up of the district
called the Runn. But these tales, besides the usual uncertainty of oral
tradition, are farther obscured by mythological fictions. The conversion
of the Runn into land is chiefly ascribed to the miraculous powers of a
Hindoo saint, by name Damorath (or Dhoorunnath), who had previously done
penance for twelve years on the summit of Denodur hill. Captain Grant
infers, on various grounds, that this saint flourished about the
eleventh or twelfth century of our era. In proof of the drying up of
the Runn, some towns far inland are still pointed out as having once
been ancient ports. It has, moreover, been always said that ships were
wrecked and engulphed by the great catastrophe; and in the jets of black
muddy water thrown out of fissures in that region, in 1819, there were
cast up numerous pieces of wrought-iron and ship nails.[643] Cones of
sa