'The Transactions of the Bombay Geographical Society. From January 1863 to December 1864. (Edited by the Secretary.) Volume XVII.' [‎132] (299/524)

RECENT TOUR ROUND THE NORTHERN
\
132
proached he levelled his firelock at Yusuf, but turned again. Now there
was only one thing for it. Go at him ; and befoie he could screw up his
courage to fire, we had closed with him. lie certainly thought his
last hour had come. Panting for breath he stood holding in his left
hand his firelock, and his right grasping a large pistol in his belt.
When asked the road to Hindeean, he could make only a sign, and it was
some moments before he could recovei speech. He then expressed his
astonishment that his sheep were still theie, and he not a dead man,
and it was not till we had explained to him who we were, what we were
doing, and where we w r ere going, that he became sufficiently composed
to show us the way by which he had just come ; and even after we had
turned to go, it was evident he could scarcely believe we had left him
unmolested ; but after we had gone a little, he hauled out an invitation
to dinner, which was declined.
4- 4 5 p. m. —We were now r passing over a beautiful plain rising gently
towards the South and covered with nothing but young grass.
The town of Hindeean lay in front of us, and looked well in the
evening sun, and to our left about ten miles off was the low range of
hills.
All the way from Imam Abdul Hassan, in the district of Khater, to
this has been one uninterrupted plain without either canal, nullah, or
river, and devoid of water unless at Bunder Mashoor.
The road to Dey Mollah seems a pretty well-beaten track, indeed, it is
the way almost invariably used to get from here to Bunder Mashoor,
and then it is made a two days’ journey. By the plain over which we
came there is no road ; after rain it is a swamp, and before rain there is
not a drop of water.
5- 20 p. m. —Encamped on the right bank of the Hindeean.
Our tents were pitched on a strip of cultivation between the river and
the town. Looking up the bank we saw' ten fine old cedars, and across
the river the ruins of a village and ground cultivated with beans and
barley, and watered from three or four wells.
The town of Hindeean is in ruins. It might at one time have held
from three to four thousand inhabitants, but at present there are not
above four or five hundred.
Buggarahs come here from Koweit and Bushire, but the trade seems
small.