The Ganges may be considered as far more pure between Raje-Mahal, in the Jungleterry district, and Mauldah, or Bagwangolah, than for some distance above; during the dry season, it is remarkable for the clearness and lightness of its waters: after leaving this to proceed southward, we find them greatly changed during the rainy season, when the immense inundation which prevails throughout Bengal, properly so called, and which, moving in general at a rate not exceeding half a mile in the hour, may be considered as stagnant.
We now lose the great body of sand that in all the upper country forms the bed, not only of the Ganges, but of every river whose course continues uninterrupted during the dry season; though its stream may become insignificant. Here it should be remarked, that sandy beds generally produce the finest beverage, and that the water will be found more pure in proportion as the sand is coarse. Hence, the waters in the deep parts of such streams are invariably the sweetest; for the coarse sand will naturally find its way to the greatest depths, precipitating the impurities with it. On the contrary, the light floating sands, which with every little motion become agitated, will set the impurities also in action. Such are generally found on the borders of the stream, whence most persons derive their supplies, and where it may usually be seen in an active state; or, if at rest, blended with slime, or fibrous substances.
We should ever remember the distinction between the effects of fine and of coarse sand as strainers. Coarse sand allows heavy, or coarse bodies, to pass through it freely, provided the particles be not adhesive, or too gross for filtration: consequently, when such sand is deposited in the bed of a river, the lesser particles of lime, or of minerals and their ores, will sink, and remain fixed. Not so with fine sand; which has a greater tendency to compactness, and which, gradually filling up the smallest intervals, becomes firm, and resists all admixture with heterogeneous substances; the latter must, of necessity, remain on their surface, subject to be taken up with the water. Persons accustomed to filtration must know, that, owing to this tendency, fine sand is by far the best medium to filter through, while coarse sand is preferable for the purposes of precipitation.
The inundation which overflows Bengal, especially in the districts of Nattore, Dacca, Jessore, the southern parts of Rungpore, and a part of Mahomed-Shi, is, perhaps, one of the most curious of nature’s phenomena! The wisdom of our Creator is most conspicuously shewn in the appropriation of sustenance, both for the human and for the brute species, suited to meet this annual visitation of the waters. However copious the rains may be in the southern provinces, though they might become boggy, and be partially inundated where the lands were low, yet, without the influx of these immense streams, which, owing to the declivity of the surface, pour down from the upper country, Bengal would, at such seasons, be but a miry plain, or a shallow morass. The great inundation does not, generally, take place till a month after the period when the rains have, according to the phrase in use, ‘set in.’ The thirsty soils of Oude, Corch, Allahabad, Benares, Gazypore, Patna, Rungpore, Boglepore, Purneah, and all beyond the 25th degree of latitude, require much moisture to saturate them, as do also those parched plains into which they ultimately pour their streams, before any part of the soil can be covered, indeed, such is the state of the southern provinces after the cold season, that that rich friable soil in which they abound is seen cake-dried and cracked by fissures of many inches in breadth, as though some great convulsion of nature had been exerted to rend the surface into innumerable divisions.
Under the circumstances of a flood, which lasts for many months, fluctuating from the middle or end of July to the beginning of October, (though the water does not drain off before the middle of December in low situations,) the inhabitants might be supposed to suffer under all the miseries of a general ruin and subsequent scarcity. The reverse is, however, the fact; for, provided the rains do not fall in such torrents as to wash away their habitations, and to occasion so rapid a rise in the fluid plain as to overwhelm the growing rice, the more ample the bursauty, (i.e. the rains,) the more plentiful the crop, and generally the less sickly does the season prove. The latter point will appear self-established, when we consider that amplitude of inundation serves, not only to divide the septic matter contained in the water, but likewise to accelerate its action, and cause its proceeding with added impetus to discharge itself into the bay. At this season, rivers are only known by the currents, and consequent swells, which appear amidst this temporary ocean! The navigation, for several months, assumes a new appearance. Vessels of great burthen, perhaps of two thousand maunds, (each 80lb.,) equal to nearly one hundred tons, are seen traversing the country in all directions, principally with the wind, which is then within a few points on either side of south. Noted cities, exalted mosques, and populous gunjes, or grain-markets, on the river’s bank, are not objects of attention. The boatman having set his enormous square sail, proceeds by guess, or, perhaps, guided by experience, through the fields of rice, which every where raise their tasseled heads, seeming to invite the reaper to collect the precious grain. As to depth of water, there is generally from ten to thirty feet, in proportion as the country may be more or less elevated.
It is curious to sail among these insulated towns, which, at this season, appear almost level with the surrounding element, and hemmed in by their numerous dingies, or boats, which, exclusive of the necessity for preparing against an over-abundant inundation, are requisite for the purposes of cutting the paddy: rice being so called while in the husk.
So soon as what is considered the final secession of the inundation is about to commence, the whole of the boats are in motion, and the paddy is cut with astonishing celerity. It is fortunate, that, owing to the country on the borders of the sea being higher than the inundated country, the waters cannot draw off faster than they can find vent, by means of the rivers which discharge into the Bay of Bengal, else the growing rice would be subjected to various fluctuations unsuited to its nature, and occasioning the straw to bend; whereby its growth would be injured, even if it should recover from its reclined state so as again to assume a vigorous appearance on the surface.
The waters of the inundation, it will be seen, are a mixture of all the streams flowing from every part of the extensive valley formed by the ranges of mountains stretching from Chittagong to Loll Dong, or Hurdwar, on the east and north-east, and from Midnapore to Lahore on the west and north-west, a course of not less than fifteen hundred miles, and generally from two to four miles in breadth. It may be supposed, that many impurities must be involved with these contributary streams, as particularized in the foregoing pages: to this we must add the offensive, and certainly not salutary, effect, induced by the Hindu custom of consigning every corpse to the waters of the Ganges, or of any stream flowing into it.
The Hindu religion requires that the deceased should be burnt to ashes, on the borders of the Ganges, and that those ashes, with all the remnants of wood used in the pile, should, together with the small truck bedstead on which the body was brought from the habitation to the river side, be wholly committed to the stream. The wholesomeness of such a practice, in a country where the strides of putrefaction know no bounds, infection and its effects being prodigiously extensive and rapid, cannot be disputed; such an ordinance may vie with the acts of any other legislature, however enlightened. But, either the poverty, the indolence, or the sordidness, of the people, has, in time, converted this wholesome precaution into a perfect nuisance. From fifty to a hundred bodies, in different stages of putrefaction, may be seen floating past any one spot within the course of the day. These having been placed on a scanty pile, and that not suffered to do its office, either on account of hot, cold, or wet, weather, have been pushed, by means of a bamboo pole, into the stream, to the great annoyance of water-travellers, and of all persons abiding near those eddies, where the nuisance may be kept circling for days, until forcibly removed, or until the pariah dogs swim in, and drag the carcase to the shore: there it speedily becomes the prey of various carrion birds, and of the indigenous village curs known by the above designation.
Under all the circumstances of such a combination of putrid animal and vegetable substance, of mineral adulteration, and of the miasma naturally arising from the almost sudden exposure of an immense residuum of slime, &c.; added to the cessation of the pure sea air, the wind changing after the rains from the southerly to the northerly points, are we to wonder at the malignancy of those fevers prevalent throughout the province of Bengal Proper, from the end of September to the early part of January, when the swamps are generally brought into narrow limits, and the air is laden with noxious vapors?