Rice is now the staple commodity of Bourbon, and it produces about 26,000 quintals annually.  It forms, together with maize and mandioc, the principal article of food amongst the negroes and colored people.

The Bhull rice lands of Lower Sind.—­Like all large rivers which flow through an alluvial soil, for a very lengthened course, the Indus has a tendency to throw up patches of alluvial deposit at its mouth; and these are in Sind called bhulls, and are in general very valuable for the cultivation of the red rice of the country.  These bhulls are large tracts of very muddy swampy land, almost on a level with the sea, and exposed equally to be flooded both by it and the fresh water; indeed on this depends much of the value of the soil, as a bhull which is not at certain times well covered with salt water, is unfit for cultivation.  They exist on both sides of the principal mouths of the Indus, in the Gorabaree and Shahbunder pergunnas, which part of the province is called by the natives “Kukralla,” and was in olden days, before the era of Goolam Shah Kalora, a small state almost independent of the Ameers of Sind.  On the left bank of the mouths of the river these bhulls are very numerous and form by far the most fertile portion of the surrounding district.  They bear a most dreary, desolate, and swampy appearance—­are intersected in all directions by streams of salt and brackish water, and are generally surrounded by low dykes or embankments, in order to regulate the influx and reflux of the river and sea.  Yet from these dreary swamps a very considerable portion of the rice consumed in Sind is produced; and the Zemindars, who hold them, are esteemed amongst the most respectable and wealthy in Lower Sind.

To visit a bhull is no easy matter.  Route by land there is none, and the only way is to go by boat, in which it is advisable to take at least one day’s provisions and water, as the time occupied in the inspection will be regulated entirely by the state of the tide and weather.  Very difficult is it too, to land on any of these places, the mud being generally two or three feet deep, and it is only here and there that a footing can be secured, in the embankment surrounding the field.

Let me now describe the mode of cultivating these anomalous islands, floating as it were in the ocean, and deriving benefit both from it and the mighty river itself, whose offspring they are.  Should the river during the high season have thrown up a bhull, the Zemindar selecting it for cultivation, first surrounds it with a low bund of mud, which is generally about three feet in height.  When the river has receded to its cold weather level, and the bhull is free of fresh water (for be it remembered, that these bhulls being formed during the inundation, are often considerably removed from the river branches during the low season), he takes advantage of the first high spring tide, opens the bund and allows the whole