The swelling of the great rivers is a matter of great uncertainty; sometimes they rise very early, before the quantity of rain that falls in the lower provinces could lead to the expectation of their doing so: when this is the case, it is not uncommon to see the Cossimbazar river, commonly called the Baugrutty, nearly dry at night, and full twenty feet, or more, deep the next morning. In other seasons the waters are very tardy; a matter of serious moment to the husbandman, who is naturally anxious to plant his crop of rice in due time, so that it may be securely attached to the soil before the great inundation comes on. The growth of the rice stalk is certainly one of the most curious proofs of nature’s adaptation of that plant to the situation in which it is cultivated; namely, in the water: it will not thrive unless the stem be immersed for several inches; and, owing to the formation of its stalk, which draws out like the concentric tubes of a pocket telescope, it can put forth many feet in the course of a few hours, so as, apparently, to grow as fast as the water may rise, and to keep its pannicle from being overflowed. It is by no means rare for the rice stalks to shoot forth from five to six feet during the twenty-four hours: I have seen it do much more!
In parts subject to the regular annual inundation, all the villages are built on rising grounds: many stand on artificial mounds, formed by excavations around their bases, so that they are surrounded nearly by moats, in which their dingies, or small boats, are immersed during the dry season, and affording admirable refreshment to their buffaloes during the summer heats. But it sometimes happens, that the waters rise to so great a height as to endanger even these elevated villages; some of which are then completely inundated. To avoid this, most of the houses are built upon piles, or stakes, thereby to raise their floors from four to six feet above the ground, and open enough to permit the waters to pass through with freedom. In the dry time of the year, the cattle are occasionally kept within the areas thus enclosed under the floors; but, while the inundation is at its height, so as to insulate a village completely, all the live stock are kept in boats moored around it, where they are fed by a species of the doob, or doop-grass, dragged up from the bottom of the waters by means of split bamboos, made to serve as forks: but for so providential a supply, the cattle must be led scores of miles to some part of the country, whose elevation exempts it from inundation.
The mention of a country being so completely under water, cannot but cause considerable surprize. The fact is, however, too well known to be disputed. Even at Berhampore, which is not considered within the ordinary verge of inundation, it is common to see boats of great burthen, perhaps fifty tons, sailing over the plains, as through a boundless sea. As to the country lying between the mouth of the Jellinghy and the debouchures of the Ganges, that is always overflowed for full three months, perhaps to the average depth of ten or twelve feet. I have sailed over it full a hundred miles by the compass; aided, indeed, by some remarkable villages, mosques, banks, &c., well known to the boatmen, who, probably from their earliest days, had traversed the same expanse during every rainy season.
Were it not for the water being strongly colored, and the strength of the current, it would not be easy in many places to distinguish the great rivers which are crossed in steering through this fresh-water ocean: the water of the inundation is generally of a bluish tinge, derived from the quantity of vegetable matter at the bottom, of which a certain quantity decays, and partially taints the fluid. A large portion is concealed by the d’haun, (or rice,) which rises above its surface. This, in the first instance, bears the appearance of a long grass, of a rich green, rising above the surface, so as to be mistaken at a little distance for terra firma: gradually, the pannicles shoot forth, of a pale-dun color, turning, as they ripen, to a deep dun, or light clay.
The grains of rice, which are called by Europeans ‘paddy,’ retain the name of d’haun so long as in their coats; as we often see a few grains among the rice imported to us: these coats are peculiarly harsh to the feel, and are fluted longitudinally, so that no water can lodge upon them. Each grain is fastened to a short stalk, joining to a main stem, and furnishing a very pleasing bunch of grain, not very dissimilar to an ear of oats, but far richer, both in color, and in quantity. Rice has no husk or chaff; therefore is easily separated from the straw, which is eaten by cattle when no other provender can be had, and makes excellent litter, it being very long and soft. Where the inundation prevails, the straw is of little use: the grain being cut in boats, and the straw settling at the bottom as the waters subside; thereby adding to the natural fertility of the soil. In the more elevated parts, the straw is cut the same as in the rubbee, or corn crops, and bundled for domestic purposes: there, its length rarely exceeds two feet, whereas, among the inundations, it is often seen from fifteen to eighteen feet in length. The head, or pannicle, generally bears from a hundred and fifty, to three hundred, grains of rice.
Two modes of clearing rice from the shell are in use; the one performed by the very simple process of scalding, which occasions the rice to swell, and to burst the shell, so that the latter is removed with very little trouble; the other is, by putting the d’haun into an immense wooden mortar, called an ookly, and beating it by the application of two or more beetles, called moosuls, of about four feet in length, by three inches in diameter, shod at the bottom with iron ferules, and thinned towards their centres, so as to be grasped by the women; each alternately impelling one, in nearly a perpendicular direction, among the d’haun in the ookly. After the shells have been duly separated, the rice, now called choul, is separated, by winnowing either in a strong draught of air, or by means of a kind of scoop, made of fine wicker-work, called a soop, wherewith the native women can most dexterously separate different kinds of corn, and effectually remove all rubbish. The coat of rice is peculiarly harsh, and not much relished by cattle: I have seen it mixed with dung for fuel with excellent effect.
The natives, in general, make little distinction between the rice separated by scalding, which is called oosnah, and that dressed by the ookly, which is called urwah; but some of the more fastidious prefer one or the other, according to particular prejudices handed down in their families, or supposed to appertain to their respective sects. I think the scalded rice generally deficient in flavor; the grains are larger, and less compact; the beaten rice certainly boils with rather more difficulty, but appears whiter, and drier. The scalded rice does not immediately separate from the coat, but is usually submitted to the operation of a machine composed of a stout beam, nearly equipoised by means of a thorough-pin, on a fork, of wood also, fixed in the ground.
It is inconceivable what quantities of rice, of a coarse reddish cast, but peculiarly sweet, and large grained, are prepared, about Backergunge, near the debouchure of the Megna, for exportation. In that quarter fuel is cheap, and water conveyance every where at hand; so that the immense crops raised in the inundated districts find a ready sale. The average return from a bigah of 1600 square yards, of three bigahs to our statute acre, sown with about twenty-five seers of d’haun, may be taken at nine maunds. The price of the grain, when cleared of its coat, may be from thirty to forty seers of fine rice, and from sixty even to a hundred and twenty seers (i.e. three maunds) of coarse, commonly called ‘cargo-rice.’ But the demand always regulates the value; especially when great consignments are forwarded to the coast of Coromandel.
Large quantities of rice are usually cleared by contract, the operator receiving the grain at the door of the golah, or warehouse, where he sets up his cauldron and machines, and returning twenty-five seers of clean rice for every maund (forty seers) delivered to him; he finding the fuel, and reserving the husks. In a country where labor is so very cheap, it is not so very necessary to have recourse to mechanical devices for the purpose of diminishing the expence of such operations; yet it occurs to me, that, were tide wheels to be used at Backergunge and elsewhere, or a floating mill, like that moored between Blackfriars’ and London Bridge, to be made out of some condemned hulk, an immense advantage would be gained in regard to time. By the proper adaptation of machinery, whereby the rice might be hoisted in, or lowered down, either by the force of water, or of steam, and the beetles be properly worked, the grain might certainly be prepared for market in less time, and infinitely less charge for cooly hire, in landing, loading, &c.: should this hint be well received by any speculating European, it might tend to lower the prices of rice at those times, when, either from want of laborers, or from the expediency of shipping off with as little delay as possible, the saving of a few days might prove an object of importance. At all events, the work might be done more regularly, more frugally, and more independently, than by manual process.
The rice grown in the low countries by no means equals that produced in the uplands, where it is cultivated with great care, and subjected to many vicissitudes in regard to the state of moisture in which its roots are retained. In many parts of the most hilly districts d’haun is to be seen in every little narrow valley, winding among the bases of those stupendous eminences from which the torrents of rain supply a superabundant flow of moisture at one time, while, at others, only the little rills proceeding from boggy springs seem to feed the artificial pools in which the growing plants are kept in a state of semi-immersion, by means of small embankments made of mud. In every instance the d’haun is to be kept duly watered; else it withers, and becomes unproductive. In order to preserve the water as much as possible, the bed, or level, nearest to the springs, is raised as high as can be afforded, and its exterior border banked up, to about a foot and a half, with soil: the next level may be from a foot to a yard lower, and receives the overflow; which is again passed on to the next lower bed; and thus, in succession, for perhaps a mile or more; the ends of the beds requiring no embankment, on account of the land rising on either side. Such situations afford a certain crop in ordinary seasons; and, if the rains should fail, the dews falling on the adjacent hills, generally covered with jungle of some kind, ordinarily afford moisture enough to keep up the springs, thus causing sufficient dampness to prevent the rice from perishing, before some ample showers may again float the whole of the irrigated cultivation. Rice thus produced is commonly small in grain, rather long and wiry, but remarkably white, and admirably suited to the table. The natives, though they admire its appearance, are not partial to it; they generally preferring the larger-bodied grain, with a reddish inner rind, which does not readily separate, when new, from the rice: this kind, as I have before expressed, is assuredly the sweetest, and is, on that account, preferred by those who distil arrack.