'The Transactions of the Bombay Geographical Society. From January 1863 to December 1864. (Edited by the Secretary.) Volume XVII.' [‎124] (291/524)

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124 RECENT TOUR ROUND THE NORTHERN
The canal here is about 16 feet wide, and runs East and a little
North. j
At 10 a. m. we came to cross canals, one running North to the
Karoon, another South to the Bamsheer, while the Nar-ehEilaheah
having suddenly become very much narrower, continued its original
course. The whole plain round is under water, with the exception of
the narrow bank on either side ot the canal, and that is in many places
broken through. But it looks more like a country deluged by rain, and
in the hot weather it is dry, than an ordinary marsh. Those parts of
the plain where the water is shallow,* are covered with coarse thick
grass, but no reeds. Reeds 12 and 15 feet high are however abun
dant in the canal itself, in many places leaving a passage just the
breadth of the bellam.
The country round is covered with geese, ducks, teal, storks, cranes,
plovers, and sandpipes, and dining the day we must have seen at least
a dozen wild boar.
On the hank of the canal is the tamarisk just getting into flower,
the dwarf tamarind and camel-thorn. During the early part of the
clay we could see vessels to the North of us sailing up the Karoon. At
5-45 p. m. we passed Khanafra, a village of about fifty reed huts.
From this to Dorak the canal is kept in good repair. It is widened,
deepened, and cleared out, and here at every twenty paces is a drain to
lead the water from the canal into the cultivation.
At 7 p. m. both hanks were covered with date trees and gardens, and
we tracked up between those till 9, when we arrived opposite the
Wukeel’s house, and pitched our tents under a mulberry tree.
We had scarcely arrived, when a drunken Moolah, a Persian, came
with all manner of offers and protestations, as he said, from the Sheikh;
but next morning be drew in bis horns and became a very small man.
The Chief of the Cbaab Arabs is Sheik Lufta-ibn-Badr, but he is at
present at Shuster, settling a dispute between Sheikh Jabar of Maliom- i
merah and himself.
His nephew Sheikh Farass-ibn-Graith for the present rules in Dorak. j
March \2>th .—It was very difficult to form an idea of the size of i
Borack or Felaheah as it is generally called by the natives ; for the |
piace is not only straggling in itself, but there are so many date trees,
you cannot see it all at once.