The members of the little
communities among whom they live on such friendly terms would not
have the heart to shoot them; and travellers either take them to be
domesticated, or are at once disarmed by their tameness.
At Antri a sufficient quantity of salt is manufactured for the
consumption of the people of the town. The earth that contains most
salt is dug up at some distance from the town, and brought to small
reservoirs made close outside the walls. Water is here poured over
it, as over tea and coffee. Passing through the earth, it flows out
below into a small conduit, which takes it to small pits some yards'
distance, whence it is removed in buckets to small enclosed
platforms, where it is exposed to the Sun's rays, till the water
evaporates, and leaves the salt dry.[5] The want of trees over this
vast plain of fine soil from the Sindh river is quite lamentable. The
people of Antri pointed out the place close to my tents where a
beautiful grove of mango-trees had been lately taken off to Gwalior
for _gun-carriages_ and firewood, in spite of all the proprietor
could urge of the detriment to his own interest in this world, and to
those of his ancestors in that to which they had gone.
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