garh _tahsil_. The
rest of that district is a heavily inundated or irrigated tract, the
part above flood level being easily reached by inundation canals. Dry
cultivation is impossible with a yearly rainfall of about six inches.
The chief crop is wheat. In the south of the district the people live in
frail grass huts, and when the floods are out transfer themselves and
their scanty belongings to wooden platforms.

[Illustration: Fig. 114.]

[Sidenote: Area, 5325 sq. m.
Cultd area,
1723 sq. m.
Pop. 499,860;
88 p.c. M.
Land Rev.
Rs. 542,473
= L36,165.]

~Dera Ghazi Khan district.~--When the N. W. Frontier Province was
separated from the Panjab, the older province retained all the
trans-Indus country in which Biluches were the predominant tribe. The
Panjab therefore kept Dera Ghazi Khan. It has a river frontage on the
Indus about 230 miles in length and on the west is bounded by the
Suliman Range, part of which is included within the district. The Deputy
Commissioner of Dera Ghazi Khan and the Commissioner of Multan spend
part of the hot weather at Fort Munro. The wide Indus valley is known as
the Sindh. The tract between it and the Hills is the Pachadh. It is
seamed by hill torrents, three of which, the Vehoa, the Sangarh, and the
Kaha, have a thread of water even in the cold season. The heat in summer
is extreme, and the _luh_, a moving current of hot air, claims its human
victims from time to time. The cultivation in the Sindh depends on the
river floods and inundation canals, helped by wells. In the Pachadh dams
are built to divert the water of the torrents into embanked fields. The
cultivated area is recorded as 1723 square miles, but this is enormously
in excess of the cropped areas, for a very large part of the embanked
area is often unsown. The encroachments of the Indus have enforced the
transfer of the district headquarters from Dera Ghazi Khan to a new town
at Choratta. Biluches are the dominant tribe both in numbers and
political importance. They with few exceptions belong to one or other of
the eight organized clans or tumans, Kasranis, Sori Lunds, Khosas,
Lagharis, Tibbi Lunds, Gurchanis, Drishaks, and Mazaris. The most
important clans are Mazaris, Lagharis, and Gurchanis. Care has been
taken to uphold the authority of the chiefs. The Deputy Commissioner is
political officer for such of the independent Biluch tribes across the
administrative frontier as are not included in the Biluchistan Agency.
Regu