1854 Grieve / Indian Navy Nautical Chart of Karachi, Pakistan

A seminal 1854 large-scale Indian Navy Albany M. Grieve nautical map of Karachi Harbor, in the Sindh region of what is today Pakistan. This is the second and certainly the largest map of Karachi, and the first as an East India Company port. It was issued in the same year that marked Karachi Harbor's opening to EIC traders and the completion of the connecting Napier Mole causeway - illustrated here.

A Closer Look

Scope of coverage is roughly the same the 1838 / 1844 Thomas Greer Carless map (Geographicus: Karachi-carless-1838), but this is where the similarities end. The Grieve chart is a far more monumental and comprehensive work, entailing extensive new hydrographic and terrestrial surveys over temperamental and inhospitable terrain. The city of Karachi itself, here identified as 'Old Town' is beginning to take form, with a rough street grid as well as important buildings identified - these include new constructions by the EIC, among them various administrative buildings and warehouses. We also note the completed Napier Gore, an important causeway that gave access to the newly constructed deep water port on Baba Channel some 2.25 miles south of the city. The 'Fakeers Tank' that appeared on the Carless map - where early travelers to the region, including Leopold Von Orlich, writing in 1845, claimed that the fakirs kept some 30 alligators which were trained 'like so many dogs.' - is here correctly identified as Ram Talao, a long-gone holy site then disputed between Sikhs and Hindus.

Karachi, An East India Company City

The British East India Company had their eye on Karachi from at least 1838, when Thomas Greer Carless and this map's primary maker, Albany M. Grieve, performed a preliminary hydrographic survey of the harbor (Geographicus: Karachi-carless-1838). Karachi, at that time, was a minor but diverse fishing and trading town of about 14,000, but it had a strategic defensible location on the Arabian Sea with access to the Indus River Delta, Central Asia, and the Punjab hinterland.

Although adventurers and the India Navy occasionally visited Karachi, it was not occupied by the British East India Company until February 1839, and did not fall fully under British suzerainty until after the 1843 Battle of Miani, in which the EIC effectively took control of Sindh. One year later, in 1844, as the EIC began to implement its grand plans for Karachi, the Carless survey was finally published - only one example of which survives (sold previously by Geographicus).

In the decade between 1844, this map's 1854 publication, and Karachi's opening as a port in the same year, we recognize significant advancement, both in terms of the cartographic and hydrographic understanding of the coastal plain and infrastructure development. Significantly, this map appeared in the year Karachi opened as an East India Company Port and the Napier Mole was completed. The 'Mole' was a long causeway connecting the Old Town with the most inland point on what is today Baba Channel capable of receiving deep draft trading vessels. There they built docks, fortifications, and warehouses. In the Old Town, this map illustrates the beginnings of British colonial infrastructure, with established market areas, a hospital, schools, customs house, and a goal.

The survey reveals a highly defensible port. With a low water depth of only 1 or 2 feet close to the city, it was largely inaccessible to enemy ships, and if even marginally defended, overland invaders. As long as goods could be immediately transported the 2.25 miles between the docks and the Old Town warehouses, they were, for all intent and purposes, secure against piracy or invasion. Of course, the British had much grander plans that included the complete dredging of the mud flats surrounding Karachi that, by the late 1860s, successfully converted the city into a modern port. Today Karachi is a major Indian Ocean port and one of the world's largest cities, with a population of nearly 22 million.

Publication History and Census

This map was surveyed in 1853-54 by Albany Moore Grieve of the Indian Navy, with the assistance of Lieutenants Constable and W. H. Barker. It was engraved and published in London in 1856 by the firm of J. and C. Walker. There are at least two later editions by the British Admiralty in 1868 and 1871, with significant updates. Of the currently offered first edition of this map, we see no holdings in any known collections, public or private.