in the cold weather to at least double that rate during the rains. In particular spots, as, for instance, where the stream rushes round some projecting point, this rate of motion is exceeded, and boats and steamers find great difficulty in making their way against the current. The rise of water in the main channel between the middle of May and the middle of August is as much as thirty-two feet. The average depth during the dry season is about thirty feet. The main current was formerly in the northern side of the bed, but it is now (1872) changing towards the southern or Murshidábád side. The banks of the Ganges are composed of sand, and shift year by year. They are highly cultivated wherever practicable.

THE BHAGIRATHI branches off from the Ganges at Chhápghátí, not far from the police station of Sutí. Its course, which is very winding, is almost due south; and it finally leaves the District below the village of Bidhupárá, just north of the celebrated battlefield of Plassey. As has been already said, it divides the District into two almost equal portions, and on its banks, chiefly on the eastern or left bank, are situated all the historical and wealthy towns of the District. At Jangipur it receives from the west the united waters of the Bánsloi and Páglá rivers; and near Saktipur, the Chorá Dekrá, a considerable branch of the Dwarká river, flows into it, also from the west. The banks of the Bhagirathí are usually gently sloping on the one side, and abruptly shelving on the other. These changes of slope are due to the varying set of the current, and occur on the same bank by regular alternations from reach to reach. The bed of the river is sandy, mixed with clay and a little Ganges silt; and in some places there are numerous pebbles brought down by the hill streams from the west.

THE BHAIRAB AND THE SIALMARI are two offshoots from the Ganges, which branch out towards the south nearly opposite the town of Rámpur Beauleah on the Rájsháhí side of the river. They both empty themselves, after a very circuitous course, into the Jalangí; the Bhairab at Madhupur, and the Siálmári below the Kapilá factory.

THE JALANGI is another and much more important branch of the Ganges, which nowhere intersects Murshidábád District. It leaves the parent stream a short distance above the police station of Jalangí, and flows in a south-westerly direction, with many windings, until it finally leaves the District with an abrupt turn near the village of Báli. During this part of its course it forms the boundary of the

Districts of Murshidábád and Nadiyá. As a channel for navigation it is hardly of less importance than the Bhágirathí. A full account of the elaborate measures adopted by Government for keeping open the channels of these two rivers will be found in the Statistical Account of Nadiyá, pp. 19-32.

THE BANSLOI is the most considerable tributary of the Bhagirathí. It enters the District from the Santál Parganás not far from the town of Mahespur, and, flowing by the police station of Palsá, pursues on the whole an easterly course, until it falls into the Bhagirathí opposite the large commercial town of Jangipur.

THE DWARKA or BABLA is a moderate-sized stream, which wanders, under several names and with many tributaries and effluents, throughout the south-western corner of Murshidábád. That channel which is considered the main stream, and which bears the name of Dwarká, enters the District from Bírbhúm not far from Margrám. At first it flows in an easterly direction, until its waters are augmented by those of the Bráhminí at Rám Chandrapur. It then turns towards the south-east and intercepts the Mor and the Kuiyá, two rivers which also flow down from Bírbhúm towards the Bhagirathí. Here commence the numerous backwaters and side channels which connect it with the Bhagirathí, and cause great confusion by the changes of name which they occasion. The Banká and the Chorá Dekrá are the two most important of these lines of junction. The main stream continues to flow nearly parallel to the Bhagirathí, and quits the District at Raghupur. This river is navigable for the greater portion of its course, and its frequent points of connection with the Bhagirathí render it a very convenient means of communication.

Among minor rivers may be mentioned the Bráhminí, the Mor or Maurakhi or Káná, and the Kuiyá, which all flow from the west into the Dwarká, and are partially navigable at the height of the rainy season. The Brahminí enters the District at Gopálpur, near the boundary between the Santál Parganás and Bírbhúm. The Mor and the Kuiyá both come from Bírbhúm, the former entering Murshidábád at Maruá, and the latter at Shahbazpur. The beds of all these hill streams are of a yellow clay, and pebbly.

Colonel Gastrell, the Revenue Surveyor, states that 'all the rivers of the District are liable to overflow their banks during the rains, and would annually flood the country if it were not for the numerous embankments (bandhs) which are maintained in all parts of the

District, some by the Government and some by the zamindárs. Accidents to these bandhs frequently occur; but great as is the immediate injury caused by such accidents, it is not unaccompanied by compensations. Fresh and rich deposits are brought in by the inundation waters, fertilizing and raising the soil, and greatly benefiting the crop. The reverse effect, however, is sometimes produced. A layer of sand may impoverish what was before rich soil.' In the western part of the District the inundations are not of the same character as in the east. The rivers partake more or less of the nature of hill torrents, and are subject to sudden and dangerous floods. They often rise from a few feet in depth, overtop their banks, and flood the country, in a single night; their fall being as rapid as their rise.'

CHANGES IN RIVER COURSES.-The District of Murshidábád, as standing at the head of the great Gangetic delta, affords a striking example of the grand operations of nature produced by fluvial action. There can be no doubt that the present channel of the Bhagirathí, with its sacred traditions and ruined cities, marks the ancient course of the Ganges; and it is equally clear that the clayey high lands on the right bank of this river must always have prevented the Ganges from trending any farther towards the west. That portion, however, of the District which lies between the Bhagirathí and the present stream of the Ganges has been the scene of most important river changes within historical times; nor have the causes which produced these changes yet abated their energy. The whole of this area is deeply scored with traces of old river beds, which represent the various channels scooped out by the waters of the Ganges during the period when they were gradually being diverted to their present course. Captain Sherwill, in his Report on the Rivers of Bengal, quotes an extract from a letter written by the French traveller Tavernier in 1666, which proves that the silting up of the channel of the Bhagirathí had then already commenced :'Janvier 6, 1666.

Le 6 estant arrivé à un gros bourg appellé Donapour à six costes de Raje-mehale, j'y laissay Monsieur Bernier qui alloit à Casembazar et de la à Ogouli par terre, parceque quand la rivière est basse, on ne peut passer à cause du grand banc de sable qui est devant une ville appellée Soutique.'-Tavernier's Voyages in India. This is the earliest mention in history of the silting up of the Bhagirathi. There is, however, another tradition, quoted with

apparent acquiescence in Stewart's History of Bengal (ed. 1847, p. 323): Siráj ud Daulá, fearing lest the English should in their warships pass up the Ganges to the east and north of the Kásimbázár island, and so down the Bhagirathí to Murshidábád, caused immense piles to be driven into the river at Sutí, by which the navigation of the Bhagirathí has been closed except for boats, and is only open for them during half the year.'

'If the state of the river,' continues Captain Sherwill, 'was so bad 200 years ago, what would it have been now, had it not been taken in hand by the English Government? Bandháls, or lanes formed of mats and bamboos, are erected in the shallows, to induce the narrowed stream to scour out for itself a deeper passage, and the channel is cleared of sunken trees and timber rafts; but the river remains unnavigable for eight months of the year.' During the rainy season, the freshets from the Ganges still come down the Bhagirathí; but their permanent influence is obliterated by the large deposits of mud which they bring with them, and also by the vast quantity of dry soil that is blown over the river every year by the hot winds from the western high lands. In addition to these causes, it is most important to recollect that the general line of drainage in the District of Murshidábád, is not from north to south along the channel of the Bhagirathí, but from north-west to southeast. The result is, in the first place, that the main waters of the Ganges display a greater inclination to proceed in their present channel than to strike into the Bhagirathí; and, secondly, that the floods of the Bhagirathí have always a tendency to overflow its left or eastern bank, and wander over the country in the old river beds towards the Jalangí river. The surplus water never finds an exit to the westward, over the right bank.

The larger river, the Ganges or Padma, is working its changes by a constant alternation of alluvion and diluvion. During the rainy season, the current impinges with immense weight upon banks composed of loose soil, which are rapidly undermined. An acre of ground has been known to have been swept away in half an hour. Large islands are continually rising in the channel, some of them many miles in length. In the next year, perhaps, they become covered with grass and tamarisk jungle higher than an elephant. Captain Sherwill states that he has seen such islands become inhabited, cleared, and cultivated; the population increases, large villages start up; the land revenue is collected for ten or twelve years;

and then the whole fabric will disappear within one rainy reason.' The Deputy-Collector reported, in 1870, that the largest of these chars, as they are called, was the Bághdángá island, which covered an extent of 20,000 bighás, or more than ten square miles. In the neighbourhood of this island, the Ganges has receded at least four miles during the past century. The battle-field of Gheriá, where the Nawab Mír Kásim Alí Khán made his last stand against the English, was at that time on the brink of the river. Colonel Gastrell, the Revenue Surveyor, states that 'it is now (1857) some miles distant; but every year of late has seen the river coming back to its old channel.' The town of Sutí, which stands near the head of the Bhagirathí, was half swept away by the inundations of 1856; and the Bhagirathí now leaves the Ganges at Chhápghátí, about ten miles below its former point of exit. During the rainy season of 1870, the Nurpur factory, which in 1857 was about four miles from the Ganges, was completely washed away, and the village of the same name partly destroyed. The remaining houses had to be abandoned.

None of the rivers in the District of Murshidábád are subject to the influence of the tides, nor do any of them expand into lakes. The Ganges is the only river which is not fordable at any time during the year. None of them enter the earth by a subterraneous course; but it has been observed that, during the dry weather, the rivers in the eastern half of the District are partly supplied by infiltration from the Ganges. Where that river is broad, and the chars are large, the volume of discharge is sensibly affected by the portion of the stream which thus passes away through the sand. The soil of the river banks has already been described. They are for the most part well cultivated.

LAKES AND MARSHES.-Many small lakes or lagoons (commonly termed bíls or jhils) exist in the District. The largest is the Telkar bil, situated a few miles to the west of the civil station of Barhampur. It is about 3 miles long by 2 broad. The Bhándárdaha bíl is also situated in the eastern portion of the District. To the west of the Bhagirathí are the Belun, Sakorá, and Pálan bíls, which lie close together near Khárgaon, about three miles to the south of the junction of the Bráhminí and Dwarká rivers. These appear to be identical with 'the Bishnupur swamp,' which, according to the мs. Records of the Board of Revenue, was artificially connected with the river, at the expense of Government, in the year 1800. All these bils are joined to the rivers by streams and low kháls, and are each of a good