'History of the Indian Navy. (1613-1863).' [‎397] (416/622)

HISTORY OF THE INDIAN NAYY.
397
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The ' Euphrates' sailed on the 23rd of October, and prosecuted
the survey of the coast from Vomani Point, the north-west ex
treme of the Kattywar coast, to Porebunder, # and returned to
Bombay on the 4th March, 1853. Though this survey was executed
with great accuracy and minuteness, Lieutenant Constable found
liimself now superseded by Commander Albany Grieve, who had
arrived from Europe, and sailed in the 'Euphrates' as Assistant-
Surveyor under that officer, when the survey of the remaining
portion of the Kattywar coast, from Porebunder to Diu, was
completed. This supercession affords an example of the evils
of a strictly seniority service, for the work just completed by
Lieutenant Constable was so admirable that the Court of Direc
tors, in a despatch to the Bombay Government, dated the 30tli
of May, 1854, expressed their thanks to that officer. Finally,
on Commander Grieve being ordered to survey the maze of
creeks and channels in the delta of the Indus,f Lieutenant
Constable resumed command of the 'Euphrates,' with Mr.
Stiffe as Assistant-Surveyor.
In October, 1850, the Bombay Government received instruc
tions to despatch, with as little delay as possible, a naval officer
of experience to join the Governor-General at Lahore, and
accompany him as far as Peshawur, for the purpose of inspect
ing the whole of the rivers on the North-West frontier Region of British India bordering Afghanistan. , with a
view to their navigation as far as practicable. Lieutenant
Grounds was selected for this duty, and, says the " Bombay
Times," of the 25th of October, " a better selection could not,
we believe, well have been made ; the officer just named,
besides being a man of sound sense, ability, and attainments,
is an excellent surveyor, and has had much experience in inland
navigation on the Tigris and Euphrates."
By a General Order of the Supreme Government, dated
Simla, the 16th of October, 1851, the Governor-General noti
fied that "additional vessels having been provided, a regular
communication by Government steam-vessels has been esta
blished between Kalabagh and Mooltan. A survey of the
Upper Indus and of the River Jhelum has been for some time
* The chart was drawn on ttie scale of one inch to the mile, and it is only
within the last year or two that Grovernment have had this survey lithographed A lithograph is an image reproduced from a printing plate whose image areas attract ink and non-image areas repel it.
in three sheets.
t Lieutenant Stiffe has recently been employed on a resurvey of the mouths
of the Indus, and his chart and report are now in the hands of the Admiralty.
The survey was made in order to see what changes had occurred in the banks
and channels. It may be mentioned as explanatory of the frequent resurveys of
the Delta of the Indus, and other places mentioned in these pages, that the
rapid changes which occur where sandbanks and channels are subjected to the
action of rivers, are almost incredible. For instance, Lieutenant Stiffe reports
that the old main mouth of the Indus, as laid down by Captains Carless and
Selby in their surveys, is now unnavigable, and that now employed for navigation
is some miles distant. Captain Carless also mentioned, when the transport
' Hannah 5 was wrecked in this locality about 1840, that his ship, the ' Palinurus,'
had anchored on the same spot in five fathoms of water.