Bhambúra, or Bhambúr, is not named in our oldest works on Sind; but it is mentioned in a modern native historian as having been captured during the Khalifat of Hárúnu-r Rashíd. It is the scene of many legendary stories of Sind; and, according to one of them, owes its destruction in a single night to the divine wrath which its ruler's sins drew down upon it. Its ruins skirt the water's edge for about a quarter of a mile, and cover a low hill almost surrounded by a plain of sand, a little to the right of the road from Karáchí to Ghára, and about two miles from the latter place. There are evident marks of its having been at one time flourishing and populous; and even now, after heavy rains, coins, ornaments, and broken vessels are found among the debris of the fort.
Coupling these manifest signs of antiquity, with the fact that the natives commonly considered Bhambúr as the oldest port in Sind, and that the legend at page 332, proves its connection with the main stream of the Indus, it may possibly represent the Barbarik Emporium of the Periplus, and the Barbari of Ptolemy; the easy conversion from the native Bhambúr into the more familiar Barbari being a highly probable result of the wanton mispronunciation to which the Greeks were so much addicted. But opposed to this is the statement of Arrian, that Barbarike was on the centre stream of the Delta, which would make Láhorí-bandar its more likely representative. Perhaps in Arrian's time there may have been direct communication between the main channel and Bhambúr.*