Page:History of India Vol 9.djvu/33

 THE RIVER -COUKSES AND THEIR CHANGES 9 its previous depth, and the other twenty are the meas- ure of the water when it overflows the plains. . . . From what Aristoboulos relates, it is natural that the country should be subject to shocks of earthquakes, since the ground is loose and hollow by excess of mois- ture, and easily splits into fissures, so that even the course of rivers is altered. He says that when he was THE 8ABARMATI, A RIVER OF WESTERN INDIA, ON ITS WAY TO THE SEA. despatched upon some business into the country, he saw a deserted tract of land which contained more than a thousand cities with their dependent villages. The Indus, having left its proper channel, had become diverted into another and much deeper channel on the left hand, and precipitated itself into this like a cata- ract, so that the country on the right hand, from which it had receded, was no longer watered by the inunda- tions, since it was elevated above the level, not only