Fulgora, or fire-flies. Ignes fa tu i were ' perpetually rifing out
of the nitrous foil, like fo many lambent flames, and often
globes o f fire appeared rifing and fpinning over the ground,
till exhaufted, they feemed to fink into the place from whence
they rofe. Birds o f rich plumage enliven the trees, and gro-
tefque monkies gambol amidft the branches; fiihes fport in
their element, and the land often prefents the awful glimpfe
o f treacherous tygers and fpotted panthers,
Which huih’d in grim repofe expeit their evening prey !
I-: s h a l l here remark, that there is not a quarry on the Quarts verV
banks of the Ganges for the fpace of five hundred miles, fo RARE*
that buildings of ftone are in moft places very expenfive. I
muft add, that the depth for the fame extent, even quite to
■the fea,-is; thirty feet; but immediately at the mouth is ob-
-ftrudted by the mud brought down by the floods, that the
-eaftern or true channel o f the river cannot be entered by any
large veflels. . .
A b o u t fifty miles below Rajabmahei, and fixteen from the M oorsheda-
.-weftern fide o f the Ganges, ftands Moorjhedabad or Muxadabad,
■a modern city, now o f vaft extent, founded by Moorbed Kuii
■:Khdn, Soubahdar aiBengal*, who was afterwards nobilitated
by the emperor, according to the cuftom o f the courr, with
: titles, _flgniiying the .faithful ferwant o f .the empire, the gfaty
.of the fa te ,, and Jaffer. Khan, tbe viShrious in saiarf .by, that*»#
* Narrative of the Government o f Bengal, tranflated from the Psrfian, by Fr. Gladwin
Efq.^p. 4.3. -