The Cambridge History of India, Vol. I: Ancient India v1.c15.137

v1.c15.137

The brown waste of the plains of the Punjab becomes, after the winter rains, a waving sea of green wheat, extending over thousands of square miles. Far beyond the area within which the rainfall alone suffices, the lower Punjab and the central strip of Sind have been converted into a second Egypt. Though the navigation of the Indus is naturally inferior to that of the Ganges, yet communication has been maintained by boat from the Punjab to the sea from Greek times downward. The Indus flotilla of steamboats has however suffered fatally from the competition of the North-Western Railway, and the wheat exported from Karāchi is now almost wholly rail-borne.