Thal
This article has been extracted from THE IMPERIAL GAZETTEER OF INDIA , 1908. OXFORD, AT THE CLARENDON PRESS. |
Note: National, provincial and district boundaries have changed considerably since 1908. Typically, old states, ‘divisions’ and districts have been broken into smaller units, units, and many tahsils upgraded to districts.Many units have since been renamed. Therefore, this article is being posted mainly for its historical value.
Thal
The great steppe lying between 30° 30' and 32° o' N. and 70° 30' and 72° E., in the Sind-Sagar Doab, Punjab. It stretches southward from the foot of the Salt Range for 150 miles towards the apex of the dodb as far as the border of Muzaffargarh District, and comprises most of the cis-Indus territory of Mianwali and part of the Khushab tahsil of Shahpur District, being bounded on the west by the high bank of the Indus and on the east by that of the Jhelum. In places its width exceeds 50 miles. A scanty rainfall, a treeless sandy soil, and a precarious and scattered pasturage mark this out as one of the most desolate tracts now remaining in the Punjab. Much of it is real desert, barren and lifeless, and devoid not only of bird and animal life, but almost of vegetation. At first sight the Thai appears a uniformly monotonous desert, but in reality its character varies. The northern Thai has a substratum of hard level soil, the surface of which is covered by a succession of low sandhills with a general north and south direction ; and its appearance is that of a sandy rolling prairie, covered in the rare years of good rainfall with grass and stunted bushes. Cultivation is carried on only in small patches, water is from 40 to 60 feet below the surface, and the sparse population depend chielly on their flocks and herds. It is traversed from west to east by the Sind-Sagar branch of the North-Western Railway, which turns abruptly south at Kundian and runs parallel with the Indus down the western border of the Thai. The eastern part of the steppe is called the Thai Kalan or 'Great Thai'; and here a line of high sandhills, running north-east and south-west, alternates with narrow bottoms of soil, stiff and hard in places, but more often covered with sand. Towards the west the hills become lower and less sandy. Agriculture here replaces pasturage as the occupation of the people, and in the Leiah tahsil a broad strip of nearly level ground runs down from Fatehpur towards Mirhan. This tract is called Daggar in the north and Jandi Thai in the south. The main feature of the Daggar is its central core — a narrow strip of firm, flat, cultivable soil, which runs, like a river, from north to south down its centre. From the line of wells in this portion the Daggar takes its name. The good land ends near Khan- pur in a region of smooth sand, to be succeeded near Karor by another fertile strip, which forms a core similar to the Jandi Thai. 'J'here is little doubt that the Indus once flowed down the middle of the Thai. Last we come to the Powah, a strip of upland some 3 miles broad forming the high bank of the Indus. In the north this bank rises abruptly 40 feet from the river level ; but towards the south it gradually gets lower, until it disappears at Kot Sultan. Large villages, whose lands lie in the riverain tract below, are built on the Powah, where the floods are less likely to reach them. The Thai is peopled by Jat tribes with scattered septs of Sial, Khokhar, and other Rajputs, and it was for a time under the Hot Baloch chiefs of Mankera. That its natural characteristics have a depressing effect on the people is hardly a matter of surprise, and they are, to use their own expression, ' camel-hearted.' The tract will probably be irrigated by the projected Indus Canal.
