74 GANGES VALLEY. Chap. III.
latter, not till after making a hearty and very noisy
supper. These birds congregate by the sides of pools,
and violently heat the water with their wings, so
as to scare the fish, which thus become an easy prey ;
a fact which was, I believe, first indicated by Pallas,
during his residence on the hanks of the Caspian Sea.
Shells are scarce, and consist of a few small bivalves;
their comparative absence is probably due to the
paucity of limestone in the mountains whence the many
feeders flow.
Flies and mosquitos are terrible pests; and so are
odious flying-bugs, * which insinuate themselves
between one’s skin and clothes, diffusing a dreadful
odour, which is increased by any attempt to touch
or remove them. In the evening it was impossible to
keep insects out of the boat, or to hinder their putting
the lights o u t; and of these the most intolerable was
the above-mentioned flying-bug. Saucy crickets, too,
swarm, and spring up at one’s face, whilst mosquitos
mainia.in a constant guerilla warfare, trying to the
patience no less than to the nerves. Thick webs of
the gossamer spider float across the river during the
heat of the day, as coarse as fine thread, and being
inhaled keep tickling the nose and lips.
On the 18th, the morning commenced with a dust-
storm ; the horizon was about 20 yards off, and ashy
white with clouds of sand, the trees were scarcely
visible, and everything in my boat was covered with a
fine coat of impalpable powder, collected from the
boundless alluvial plains through which the Ganges
* Large Hemipterous insects, of the genus Derecteryx.
March, 1848. DINAPORE.
flows. Trees were scarcely discernible, and so dry was
the wind that drops of water vanished like magic.
On the 25th of March I reached Dinapore, a large
military station, sufficiently insalubrious, particularly
for European troops, the barracks being so misplaced
that the inmates are suffocated: the buildings run
east and west instead of north and south, and therefore
lose all the breeze in the hottest weather. From this
place I sent the boat down to Patna, and proceeded
thither by land to the house of Dr. Irvine, an old
acquaintance and botanist, from whom I received a
most kind welcome. On the road, Bengal forms of
vegetation, to which I had been for three months
a stranger, reappeared; likewise groves of fan and
toddy palms, which are both very rare higher up
the river. In the gardens, Papaw, Croton, Jatropha,
Buddleia, Cookia, Loquat, Litchi, Longan, all kinds of
the orange tribe, and the cocoa-nut, some by their
presence, and many by their profusion, indicated a
decided change of climate, a receding from the desert
north-west of India, and its dry winds, and an approach
to the damper regions of the many-mouthed Ganges.
My main object at Patna being to see the opium
Godowns (stores), I waited on Dr. Corbett, the Assistant-
Agent, who kindly explained everything to me.
The E. I. Company grant licences for the cultivation
of the poppy, and contract for all the produce at certain
rates, varying with the quality. The produce is made
over to district collectors, who approximately fix the
worth of the contents of each jar, and forward it to
Patna, where rewards are given for the best samples,
E 2