Golden Zennanah; at Ummerapoora it was said that they sometimes were worth a gold mohur each.

August 4.-We made a tolerable progress the early part of the day, and about ten arrived at the eastern or principal entrance of the Sooty or Moorshedabad river. As we passed, a boat with four dervises, sturdy beggars enough, came after us singing. I asked why they did not work, and was told by Abdullah, that it was one of the miseries of the country, that they were all a caste of beggars from father to son, trained to no labour, and even if they desired it, not likely to be employed by any body. I gave them, therefore, a pice a piece, for which they were more grateful than I expected. This entrance, the Bhagirutty, is divided by marshy islands from the other at the distance of about six miles. After we had loosed from the shore, a pretty heavy gale, with thunder and violent rain, came on. Had this occurred before we set out, nothing but a pistol at Mohammed's ear would have induced him to brave it; but as it was, it carried us at a rattling rate beyond a very rapid and difficult part of the stream. The banks are very ugly and miserable, shewing nothing but reeds. I here saw, for the first time, a number of those high anthills, the work of the white ant, of which I had often heard. Many of them were five or six feet high, and probably seven or eight feet in circumference at the base, partially overgrown with grass and ivy, and looking at a distance like the stumps of decayed trees. I think it is Ctesias, among the

Greek writers, who gives an account, alluded to by Lucian in his "Cock," of monstrous ants in India, as large as foxes. The falsehood probably originated in the stupendous fabrics which they rear here, and which certainly might be supposed to be the work of a much larger animal than their real architect. The pyramids, when the comparative bulk of the insects which reared them is taken into the estimate, are as nothing to the works of the termites. The counterpart of one of these hills which I passed to-day, would be, if a nation should set to work to build up an artificial Snowdon, and bore it full of halls and galleries. Our good breeze carried us on till about half-past four, when I saw, with a degree of pleasure which I did not anticipate, but which arose no doubt from the length of time during which I had been accustomed to a perfectly flat surface, a range of blue elevations on my right-hand. At first I watched them with distrust, fearing that they were clouds. They kept their ground, however, and I ran on deck to ask about them, and was told, as I expected, that they were the Rajmahâl hills. It is, I think, Jenny Deans who complains that, after she lost sight of Ingleborough in her way through Yorkshire, Nottinghamshire, and Lincolnshire, "the haill country seemed to be trenched and levelled." But what would she have said if she had traversed Bengal ? At the place where we stopped for the night there were some fine trees, but the rest of the country, for a considerable space, was mere sand, on which the peasants were raising a few patches of cucum

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EFFECTS OF AN INUNDATION.

bers and pulse. One of these men, who was pursuing his work by moonlight, told me that there had been a very large village on this spot, with its gardens, mangoe-orchards, meadows, &c. ; but that the dreadful inundation of last year swept away every thing, and covered the place with sand, as we now saw it. I walked up and down this scene of desolation for some time, but found nothing to mark that any habitation had ever stood here. The sand lay smooth, yet wavy as we see it on a coast exposed to heavy seas, and there were no marks of any thing living or having lived, except some scattered sculls and bones of animals, probably brought from a distance by the terrible stream which had blotted out and hidden the community of this place. Abdullah who joined me, after making some enquiries about our morrow's course, said that the place was very like the deserts, not of Persia, which are stony, but of the Arabian Irak and the country near Bussorah. He observed, naturally enough, that this was a sad place to look upon, and this as naturally brought on a conversation about God's judgements, Hilleh and the Birz ul Nimrouz, or Babylon, and Nunya, or Nineveh. He had not seen the first, but had heard of its stinking wells, which burned like pitch when set on fire," and was much interested to learn that it was the Babylon mentioned in Scripture. The second, as well as the tomb of the prophet " Yunus” in its neighbourhood, he had seen, and described, I believe, accurately, as a small village near Mousul, chiefly inhabited by Christians, but with no

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HINDOO GEOGRAPHY.

251

conspicuous remains of antiquity, except what is called the tomb of Jonah. He was less fortunate, however, in his attempt to account for the inundations of Gunga, which he ascribed, so far as I could understand him at all, to the combined influence of the north and south poles on the mountain Meru! I endeavoured to explain the matter a little better, but could not convince him that the Ganges did not rise immediately under the north pole. This is orthodox Hindoo geography, and it is curious to find that the Mussulmans in India have so completely adopted it.

Being now in the great road from Calcutta northwards, the number of large vessels on the river is very much increased. The majestic stream of the Puddah offered few but fishing-boats, but. here at every point of land we see a coppice of masts, waiting like us for a wind, and many minutes seldom pass without other vessels, with their masts down and all made snug, drifting past us with the stream. The night was very still and close, the first really oppressive one which I had felt since leaving Matabunga.

August 5.-We were tracked this morning along "a land which the rivers had spoiled," and then came to a "Mohanna," or channel of the Moorshedabad river, where we were detained several hours for want of wind; about ten we had a fine breeze, which carried us past this difficulty and another of the same. The rapidity of the stream in this part is ascribed to the freshes from the hills, which as we approach them appear taller

and larger. They resemble in some degree, in outline, the Peckforton hills in Cheshire, and I could almost have fancied myself at one moment on the estuary of the Dee, with my back turned towards the Welch mountains, and looking across the plain of Chester up to Beeston and the Stannaries. The river is here again divided by a string of marshy islands. The country improved as we advanced, being prettily dotted with small woods, and cultivated chiefly with pulse, a crop which shewed that we were leaving Bengal for Hindostan. It still, however, continued as flat as possible, as if all had been a bay of the sea, of which these hills which we were approaching were the termination. And this at some remote period, I conceive, must have been the case. Our advance up this part of the river, craves, I find, a greater wariness in one respect than at any period of our former progress, owing to the number of clumsy and ill-managed pulwars through which we have continually to jostle our way. We have been run foul of three or four times in the course of this morning, and though we have received no harm, have, I apprehend, done some, though not of any serious character. We passed a manufactory of small rope on the shore, carried on, as might be expected, in the simplest manner, but the fabric appearing remarkably good. Our progress during the latter part of the day was uncomfortable and tedious enough, and we were forced to stop just as we had rounded the island and opened on a broad bay, on the other side of which was Rajma