Another chapter of the Indus book, due to travel to song circle. A lot of it is just the author going on a pathetic boat ride up the river. Cheap falling-apart boat, depressing and depressed river with little water in it.
In 1635, the English couldn't sell anything to the Sindh. The passage is unclear, so Italian goods might have sold, but not English ones; they had to trade silver for Indian cloth.
Anyone with a classical education knew of the Indus, but the British didn't know much *about* the Indus for a surprisingly long time. Even after the Ganges had been thoroughly subjected and exploited, Company maps didn't even have the right mouth for the Indus, let alone stuff on the valley or source.
Eventually they fixed that and conquered that valley too, to much actual moral outrage back home. And disasters, as well; troops were shocked that the virgins of Kabul did not strew their path with flowers in gratitude for overthrowing their native rulers. The river turned out to not be as navigable as boosters had claimed, either. But the 1857 "Mutiny" turned public support back to India, and the Sindh (lower Indus) and Punjab (upper, loosely speaking) had been 'loyal'.
Much damming occurred. Not one drop of water should be wasted in flowing out into the Arabian sea! So dams and canals were built, water was diverted ot wheat and cotton fields in the north... and away from rice fields and mangrove swamps (with shrimp) in the south, which got invaded by ocean salt instead. The delta shrank from 3500 to 250 square km. Farmers turned into fishermen. And Pakistan has continued the trend, plus extra sewage.
See the
DW comments at http://mindstalk.dreamwidth.org/352416.html#comments
In 1635, the English couldn't sell anything to the Sindh. The passage is unclear, so Italian goods might have sold, but not English ones; they had to trade silver for Indian cloth.
Anyone with a classical education knew of the Indus, but the British didn't know much *about* the Indus for a surprisingly long time. Even after the Ganges had been thoroughly subjected and exploited, Company maps didn't even have the right mouth for the Indus, let alone stuff on the valley or source.
Eventually they fixed that and conquered that valley too, to much actual moral outrage back home. And disasters, as well; troops were shocked that the virgins of Kabul did not strew their path with flowers in gratitude for overthrowing their native rulers. The river turned out to not be as navigable as boosters had claimed, either. But the 1857 "Mutiny" turned public support back to India, and the Sindh (lower Indus) and Punjab (upper, loosely speaking) had been 'loyal'.
Much damming occurred. Not one drop of water should be wasted in flowing out into the Arabian sea! So dams and canals were built, water was diverted ot wheat and cotton fields in the north... and away from rice fields and mangrove swamps (with shrimp) in the south, which got invaded by ocean salt instead. The delta shrank from 3500 to 250 square km. Farmers turned into fishermen. And Pakistan has continued the trend, plus extra sewage.
See the
Comments
I didn't mention the author saying that the British were initially kicked out of the Indus region by the Portuguese (later denials of service were by the Muslim rulers). And obviously the Portuguese had some west Indian, err, west coast of Indian, presence with e.g. Goa.
Interesting idea regarding Muslim intermediaries.
Of course as far as history goes, everything I've read seems to point to a huge difference in native sources if not attitudes between China and India.