grew in the woods, and parasitic Orchids on the
trees, which were covered with a climbing fern, so that
we easily doubled our flora of the river banks before
arriving at Maldah.
This once populous town is, like Berhampore, now
quite decayed, since the decline of its silk and indigo
trad e s: the staple product, called “ Maldy," a mixture
of silk and cotton, very durable, and which washes well,
now forms its only trade, and is exported through
Sikkim to the north-west provinces and Tibet. I t is
•still famous for the size and excellence of its mangos,
which ripen late in May; but this year the crop had
been destroyed by the damp heats of spring, the usual
north-west dry winds not having prevailed.
* The ruins of the once famous city of Gour, a few
miles distant, are now covered with jungle, and the
buildings are fast disappearing, owing to the bricks
being carried away to be used elsewhere.
Below Maldah the river gets broader, and willow
becomes common. We found specimens of a Planorbis
in the mud of the stream, and saw apparently a boring
shell in the alluvium, but could not land to examine it.
Chalky masses of alligators’ dropping, like coprolites,
were very common, buried in the banks, which become
twenty feet high at the junction with the Ganges,
where we arrived on the 14th. The waters of this
great river were nearly two degrees cooler than those
of the Mahanuddee.
Bampore-Bauleah is a large station on the north
bank of the Ganges, whose stream is at this season
fully a mile wide, with a very slow current; its banks
are thirty feet above the water. We were most kindly
deceived by Mr. Bell, the collector of the district,
to whom we were greatly indebted for furthering us on
our voyage : boats being very difficult to procure,
we were detained here from the 16th to the 19th.
The elevation of the station is 130 feet above the
sea, that of Kishengunj 131: so that the Gangetic
valley is nearly a dead level for fully a hundred miles
north, beyond which it rises. As Rampore is at the
head of the Gangetic delta, which points from the
Sunderbunds obliquely to the north-west, it is much
damper than any locality further west, as is evidenced
by the abundance of two kinds of palm, which do not
ascend the Ganges beyond Monghyr.
From Rampore we made very slow progress south-
eastwards, with a gentle current, but against constant
easterly winds, and often violent gales and thunderstorms,
which obliged us to bring up under shelter
of banks and islands of sand. Sometimes we sailed
along the broad river, whose opposite shores were
rarely both visible at once, and at others tracked the
boat through narrow creeks that unite the many
Himalayan streams, causing them to form a network
soon after leaving their mountain valleys.
A few miles beyond Pubna we passed from a narrow
canal at once into the main stream of the Burrampooter
at Jaffergunj: our maps had led us to expect that
this river flowed fully seventy miles to the eastward
in this latitude; and we were surprised to hear that
within the last twenty years the main body had
shifted its course thus far to the westward. This