Prehistoric India to 1000 B.C. c8.8

c8.8

Curiously enough, the discovery of the great prehistoric civilization of north-western India, with which this book largely deals, was the accidental result of Victorian enterprise in that most characteristic engineering activity of the age, railway construction. By accident, too, we know the circumstances in some detail, and they are worth recounting. In 1856 two brothers, John and William Brunton, were engaged in laying out and building the East Indian Railway from Karachi to Lahore – John was in charge of the southern section, his brother of that in the Punjab, from Multan northwards. John, in retirement, wrote a very delightful book of memoirs for his grandchildren, covering the years 1812 to 1899, and in this he tells how he had heard of a ruined ancient city, Brahminabad, not very far from the line of the railway he was building – ‘I had been much exercised in my mind’, he writes, ‘how we were to get ballast for the line of the Railway. If all I heard were true, this ruined city, built of bricks, would form a grand quarry for ballast.’ Brahminabad (a medieval city) was therefore effectually plundered by this uncompromising English engineer, and the line laid.