Note 73 — IV. CONCERNING INDIA THE LESS.[71]

Till half-past nine o’clock. “Quod usque ad mediam tertiam per solis radios ullâtenus possit desiccari.” “The dews” in Lower Sindh, says Burnes, “are very heavy and dangerous.” (iii. p. 254.) The fertility of the country is, however, confined to the tracts inundated or irrigated from the Indus and its branches. As to the absence of rain, Dr. Lord says, that “the rainfall registered by Lt. Wood during one year at Hyderabad was only 2·55 inches, whilst at Larkhana, further north, a shower of rain which fell after the arrival of Burnes’s party was universally ascribed to the good fortune of the Firingis, as for three years, the natives said, rain had scarcely been known.” (Reports and Papers on Sindh, etc.—Calcutta, 1839, p. 61.)