The care and attention devoted to every department of collecting, testing, manipulating, and packing, is quite extraordinary; and the result has been an impulse to the trade, beyond what was anticipated. The natives have been quick at apprehending and supplying the wants of the market, and now there are more demands for licences to grow opium than can be granted. All the opium eaten in India is given out with a permit to licensed dealers, and the drug is so adulterated before it reaches the retailers in the bazaars, that it does not contain one-thirtieth part of the intoxicating power that it did when pure.
Patna is the stronghold of Mahommedanism, and from its central position, its command of the Ganges, and its proximity to Nepal (which latter has been aptly compared to a drawn dagger, pointed at the heart of India), it is an important place. For this reason there are always a European and several Native Regiments stationed there. In the neighbourbood there is little to be seen, and the highly cultivated flat country is unfavourable to native vegetation.
The mudar plant (Calotropis) was abundant here, but I found that its properties and nomenclature were far from settled points. On the banks of the Ganges, the larger, white-flowered, sub-arboreous species prevailed; in the interior, and along my whole previous route, the smaller purple-flowered kind only was seen. Mr. Davis, of Rotas, was in the habit of using the medicine copiously, and vouched for the cure of eighty cases, chiefly of leprosy, by the white mudar, gathered on the Ganges, whilst the purple of Rotas and the neighbourhood was quite inert: Dr. Irvine, again, used the purple only, and found the white inert. The European and native doctors, who knew the two plants, all gave the preference to the white; except Dr. Irvine, whose experience over various parts of India is entitled to great weight.
March 29.—Dropped down the river, experiencing a succession of east and north-east winds during the whole remainder of the voyage. These winds are very prevalent throughout the month of March, and they rendered the passage in my sluggish boat sufficiently tedious. In other respects I had but little bad weather to complain of: only one shower of rain occurred, and but few storms of thunder and lightning. The stream is very strong, and its action on the sand-banks conspicuous. All night I used to hear the falling cliffs precipitated with a dull heavy splash into the water,—a pretty spectacle in the day-time, when the whirling current is seen to carry a cloud of white dust, like smoke, along its course.
The Curruckpore hills, the northern boundary of the gneiss and granite range of Paras-nath, are seen first in the distance, and then throwing out low loosely timbered spurs towards the river; but no rock or hill comes close to the banks till near Monghyr, where two islets of rock rise out of the bed of the river. They are of stratified quartz, dipping, at a high angle, to the south-east; and, as far as I could observe, quite barren, each crowned with a little temple. The swarm of boats from below Patna to this place was quite incredible.
April 1.—Arrived at Monghyr, by far the prettiest town I had seen on the river, backed by a long range of wooded hills,—detached outliers of which rise in the very town. The banks are steep, and they appear more so owing to the fortifications, which are extensive. A number of large, white, two-storied houses, some very imposing, and perched on rounded or conical hills, give a European aspect to the place.
Monghyr is celebrated for its iron manufactures, especially of muskets, in which respect it is the Birmingham of Bengal. Generally speaking, these weapons are poor, though stamped with the first English names. A native workman will, however, if time and sufficient reward be given, turn out a first rate fowling-piece. The inhabitants are reported to be sad drunkards, and the abundance of toddy-palms was quite remarkable. The latter, (here the _Phoenix sylvestris,) I never saw wild, but it is considered to be so in N.W. India; it is still a doubtful point whether it is the same as the African species. In the morning of the following day I went to the hot springs of Seeta-koond (wells of Seeta), a few miles south of the town.
Illustration — MONGHYR ON THE GANGES, WITH THE CURROCKPORE HILLS IN
THE DISTANCE.
The hills are hornstone and quartz, stratified and dipping southerly with a very high angle; they are very barren, and evidently identical with those on the south bank of the Soane; skirting, in both cases, the granite and gneiss range of Paras-nath. The alluvium on the banks of the Ganges is obviously an aqueous deposit subsequent to the elevation of these hills, and is perfectly plane up to their bases. The river has its course through the alluvium, like the Soane. The depth of the former is in many places upwards of 100 feet, and the kunker pebbles it contains are often disposed in parallel undulating bands. It nowhere contains sand pebbles or fossils; concretions of lime (kunker) alone interrupting its uniform consistence. It attains its greatest thickness in the valleys of the Ganges and the Soane, gradually sloping up to the Himalaya and Curruckpore hills on either flank. It is, however, well developed on the Kymore and Paras-nath hills, 1200 to 1500 feet above the Ganges valley, and I have no doubt was deposited in very deep water, when the relative positions of these mountains to the Ganges and Soane valleys were the same that they are now. Like every other part of the surface of India, it has suffered much from denudation, especially on the above-named mountains, and around their bases, where various rocks protrude through it. Along the Ganges again, its surface is an unbroken level between Chunar and the rocks of Monghyr. The origin of its component mineral matter must be sought in the denudation of the Himalayas within a very recent geological period. The contrast between the fertility of the alluvium and the sterility of the protruded quartzy rocks is very striking, cultivation running up to these fields of stones, and suddenly stopping.
Unlike the Soorujkoond hot-springs, those of Seetakoond rise in a plain, and were once covered by a handsome temple. All the water is collected in a tank, some yards square, with steps leading down to it. The water, which is clear and tasteless (temp. 104 degrees), is so pure as to be exported copiously, and the Monghyr manufactory of soda-water presents the anomaly of owing its purity to Seeta's ablutions.