Page:Provincial geographies of India (Volume 1).djvu/147



Roads.— The alignment of good roads in the plains of the Panjab is easy, and the deposits of calcareous nodules or kankar often found near the surface furnish good metalling material. In the west the rainfall is so scanty and in many parts wheeled traffic so rare that it is often wise to leave the roads unmetalled. There are in the Panjab over 2000 miles of metalled, and above 20,000 miles of unmetalled roads. The greatest highway in the world, the Grand Trunk, which starts from Calcutta and ends at Peshawar, passes through the province from Delhi in the south-east to Attock in the extreme north-west corner, and there crosses the Indus and enters the N.W.F. Province. The greater part of the section from Karnal to Lahore had been completed some years before the Mutiny, that from Lahore to Peshawar was finished in 1863-64. A great loop road connects our arsenal at Ferozepore with the Grand Trunk Road at Lahore and Ludhiana. The fine metalled roads from Ambala to Kalka, and Kalka to Simla have lost much of their importance since the railway was brought to the hill capital. Beyond Simla the Kalka-Simla road is carried on for 150 miles to the Shipki Pass on the borders of Tibet, being maintained as a very excellent hill road adapted to mule carriage. A fine tonga road partly in the plains and partly in the hills joins Murree with Rawalpindi.