On the 7th of May, about eighty miles in a straight line from the foot of the Himalaya, we found the stratified sandy banks, which had gradually risen to a height of thirteen feet, replaced by the hard alluvial clay of the Gangetic valley, which underlies the sand: the stream contracted, and the features of its banks were materially improved by a jungle of tamarisk, wormwood (Artemisia), and white rose-bushes (Rosa involucrata), whilst mango trees became common, with tamarinds, banyan, and figs. Date and Caryota palms, and rattan canes, grew in the woods, and parasitic Orchids on the trees, which were covered with a climbing fern (Acrosticum scandens), 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 trades: 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. It 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’ droppings, like coprolites, are 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 Mahanuddy.
Rampore-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 received 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, however, detained here from the 16th to the 19th. I was fortunate in being able to compare my barometers with a first-rate standard instrument, and in finding no appreciable alteration since leaving Calcutta in the previous April. The elevation of the station is 130 feet above the sea, that of Kishengunj I made 131; so that the Gangetic valley is nearly a dead level for fully a hundred miles north, beyond which it rises; Titalya, 150 miles to the north, being 360 feet, and Siligoree, at the margin of the Terai, rather higher. The river again falls more considerably than the land; the Mahanuddy, at Kishengunj, being about twenty feet below the level of the plains, or 110 above the sea; whereas the Ganges, at Rampore, is probably not more than eighty feet, even when the water is highest.
The climate of Rampore is marked by greater extremes than that of Calcutta: during our stay the temperature rose above 106°, and fell to 78° at night: the mean was 2·5° higher than at Calcutta, which is 126 miles further south. Being 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 two kinds of Calamus palm abounding, which do not ascend the Ganges beyond Monghyr. Advancing eastwards, the dry north-west wind of the Gangetic valley, which blows here in occasional gusts, is hardly felt; and easterly winds, rising after the sun (or, in other words, following the heating of the open dry country), blow down the great valley of the Burrampooter, or south-easterly ones come up from the Bay of Bengal. The western head of the Gangetic delta is thus placed in what are called “the variables” in naval phraseology; but only so far as its superficial winds are concerned, for its great atmospheric current always blows from the Bay of Bengal, and flows over all northern India, to the lofty regions of Central Asia.
At Rampore I found the temperature of the ground, at three feet depth, varied from 87·8° to 89·8°, being considerably lower than that of the air (94·2°), whilst that of a fine ripening shaddock, into which I plunged a thermometer bulb, varied little from 81°, whether the sun shone on it or not. From this place we made very slow progress south-eastwards, with a gentle current, but against constant easterly winds, and often violent gales and thunder-storms, 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, and 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 it 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 of that river had shifted its course thus far to the westward. This alteration was not effected by the gradual working westwards of the main stream, but by the old eastern channel so rapidly silting up as to be now unnavigable; while the Jummul, which receives the Teesta, and which is laterally connected by branches with the Burrampooter, became consequently wider and deeper, and eventually the principal stream.
Nothing can be more dreary and uninteresting than the scenery of this part of the delta. The water is clay-coloured and turbid, always cooler than the air, which again was 4° or 5° below that of Calcutta, with a damper atmosphere. The banks are of stratified sand and mud, hardly raised above the mean level of the country, and consequently unlike those bordering most annually flooded rivers; for here the material is so unstable, that the current yearly changes its course. A wiry grass sometimes feebly binds the loose soil, on which there are neither houses nor cultivation.
Ascending the Jummul (now the main channel of the Burrampooter) for a few miles, we turned off into a narrower channel, sixty miles long, which passes by Dacca, where we arrived on the 28th, and where we were again detained for boats, the demand for which is rapidly increasing with the extended cultivation of the Sunderbunds and Delta. We stayed with Mr. Atherton, and botanised in the neighbourhood of the town, which was once very extensive, and is still large, though not flourishing. The population is mostly Mahometan; the site, though beautiful and varied, is unhealthy for Europeans. Ruins of great Moorish brick buildings still remain, and a Greek style of ornamenting the houses prevails to a remarkable degree.