Remoteness from the sea air is said to be the reason why the up-country rice possesses less saccharine matter than that grown near the sea-coast, and among the inundation; but this appears an erroneous judgment. There is, no doubt, a great encrease of saccharine matter in plants (of the same genus) cultivated on spots well manured: now, few, if any, of the places devoted to the cultivation of rice in the upper country, receive much aid from manure; nor are they, in general, subject to the reception of nutritious particles, such as are either floated down, or are engendered and deposited by, the inundation, which may be viewed as the grand depôt of whatever can enrich the soil. When we look to the large tracts of plain, not subject to such an immense flow of feculous moisture, but seeming merely as reservoirs for the retention of local rains, we shall then see, that the superior sweetness of the rice produced about Backergunge, Dacca, Hajygunge, Luricool, Mahomedpore, Comercolly, Jessore, &c., is to be attributed solely to the superior fatness of the soil, on which the most luxuriant crops of cotton, and of esculents, are raised during the dry season. When the soil is fresh turned up for the second crop, it is generally very offensive, and, doubtless, by no means favorable to the health of the cultivators, who, at that season, (commonly in November, December, and January,) are subjected to very obstinate agues.
Rice is very subject to the weevil, which often multiplies among it so fast, as to threaten destruction to the whole depôt. The natives have recourse to a very simple preventive; viz. by placing one or two live cray-fish within the heap: their effluvia quickly expel the predatory tribe. Here we have a question for naturalists and philosophers; a question pregnant with interest to the agricultural world, namely, ‘Whether there is any particular, and what, property in a live cray-fish, that produces this effect upon insects under such circumstances?’ Whatever may be the cause, the effect is well known; therefore the enquiry is so far forwarded as to furnish data, or at least hints, respecting those results which might be expected both from marine productions, and from other living bodies. The inhabitants of the lower provinces are chiefly Hindus; therefore, owing to religious tenets, by which they are led to consider almost every animal as unclean, few experiments could be expected to take place among them; otherwise, we might probably have found that any living animal, such as a rat, a frog, &c., if confined in a small box, and placed within a heap of rice infested by weevils, would produce a similar effect. Rice is by no means subject to this species of depredation when in the coat, that is, in the state called d’haun, but the natives are averse to retaining it in that form, because the grains shrink considerably, and, when beat out for sale, do not occupy so much space as when exposed to the air. Hence, it is an object with the rice-merchants to dispose of their crops before the month of March, unless the markets may be so glutted as to cause that grain to sell, as it has in some years done, at such low prices as could not fail to ruin the farmer. It has been known so cheap as seven and eight maunds (equal to seven cwt.) for a rupee! When this happens, such merchants as have the command of money rarely fail to make immense fortunes. Many have been known to possess four or five lacs of maunds!
Rice is the most common article of food among the natives, whether Hindus or Mussulmans, throughout the lower provinces, where it is to be found in far greater abundance than corn of any description. The inhabitants of the upper provinces, where wheat and barley are cultivated to such an extent as to be sold in the retail for about a rupee and a quarter, and a rupee, respectively, subsist chiefly on the meals of those grains; which, being well kneaded with water, are made into chow-patties, or bannocks, are baked at the common choolahs, and are both palatable and nourishing. The natives hold an opinion that rice is very injurious to the sight; but, I believe, whatever injury may arise from its use proceeds entirely from eating it too hot, and in such quantities at one meal, generally about sun-set, as can scarcely fail to injure the stomach. Barley-meal is considered, and with great justice, to be very nourishing, but heating; therefore most of those who prefer ottah (meal) to rice, use that made from wheat. Large quantities of rice are carried upwards, towards the Nabob Vizier’s dominions, where it sells to great advantage; while, on the other hand, immense consignments of corn, chiefly wheat, barley, and r’hur, are made from those parts towards the lower districts; where they are consumed by all classes of persons. While the Baugrutty, (i.e. the Cossimbazar river,) and the Jellinghy, both of which branch from the Ganges, and, uniting at Nuddeah, form the Hoogly, which passes Calcutta, are open, boats of all kinds proceed that way; but chiefly through the former channel, on which Moorshadabad, Berhampore, Cossimbazar, and Jungypore, are situate. This is the shortest line of communication by water between the Presidency and the upper provinces; but, unfortunately, it is open only for about six months in the year; it rarely having water before the middle of June, and being commonly reduced to a very low ebb by the middle of December; though, in some years, it remains navigable for small boats for a month or six weeks longer. It may, indeed, be passed in such all the year through, provided they be dragged over the shallows, which, often for a mile or more, oppose the progress of whatever may draw more than a few inches of water: in such case, the bottom of a boat should be good, otherwise she may be strained by the immense exertions of perhaps fifty men, who, ranging along either side, and dragging by means of ropes, as well as by pushing and lifting behind, force her along the shallows, and thus pass her over all the more prominent obstacles. I have, more than once, had a very small pulwar-budjrow navigated, if I may so call it, down the Baugrutty, from Mohanahpore, at the mouth of that river, as far as Berhampore; which, by land, is full forty miles, and, by water, cannot be less than seventy. But there are so many bars, or shoals, between Berhampore and Augah-Deep, about thirty-five miles by land, lower down, as to render that part absolutely impassable, except when the river has an average depth of two feet, or two feet and a half.
During the dry months, the whole of the commodities transmitted from the upper provinces to the Presidency, with the exception of some few articles of small compass, which may be landed at Bagwangolah, and proceed to Augah-Deep overland, are sent down the Ganges for the purpose of proceeding through the Soonderbunds. This highly interesting, but difficult navigation, reaches from the Megna to Calcutta, near to which a canal offers to adventurers a safe and easy communication between the Hoogly and the Salt-Water Lake, which lies at the back of Calcutta. The generality of trading and passage vessels proceed by this cut, paying a moderate toll, either on the tonnage of the former, or the number of oars of the latter. But the salt vessels despatched from Joynaghur, &c., with the produce of the different pans in that quarter, commonly take the lower passages near Chingree-Cauly, and Culpee, which are by far the most dangerous, though rather more direct.
The Soonderbunds, or Sunderbunds, consist of an immense wilderness, full fifty miles in depth, and in length about a hundred and eighty miles. This wilderness, which borders the coast to the water’s edge, forming a strong natural barrier in that quarter, occupies the whole of what is called the Delta of the Ganges; every where intersected by great rivers, and innumerable creeks, in which the tides are so intermixed, that a pilot is absolutely necessary, both to thread the intricacies of the passage, and to point out at what particular parts the currents will, at certain times, be favorable in proceeding either to the eastward or to the westward. In many places there is scarcely breadth for the passing of a single boat, and even then the boughs of the immense trees, and of the subordinate jungle, frequently are found so to hang over, as nearly to debar the progress of ordinary trading vessels. Fortunately, these narrow creeks are short, or, at least, have in various parts such little bays as enable boats to pass: one or two are, however, so limitted throughout in point of width, as to render it expedient that musquets should be discharged before a boat proceeds, in order that others may not enter at the opposite end of the narrow: but for such a precaution, one of them would be compelled to put back. The water being brackish, or rather absolutely salt, throughout the Sunderbunds, it is necessary for all who navigate this passage, to take a good stock; calculating for at least a fortnight’s service. Even the villages, which here and there are to be found on the banks of the great rivers, are sometimes supplied from a great distance; especially during the dry season, when the tides are very powerful.
The regular trading vessels, which pass through the Sunderbunds, perhaps every month, or two, are usually provided with very large nauds, or gounlahs, made in the form of a rather flat turnep, of a black earth which bakes very hard. Casks are never used in India for water; all the ships in the country trade have one or more tanks made of teak wood, rendered perfectly water tight, and containing from twenty to fifty butts. The water is thus carried in a small compass, and remains sweet much longer than when in casks. Even if no other reason could be assigned, it must be obvious, that, in a tank, the surface of wood necessary to contain fifty butts of water, will not exceed six hundred and fifty square feet; whereas, each of the fifty butts would present a surface of more than forty feet, whence the whole must amount to two thousand square feet.
Where a ship is navigated by lascars, many rules and ceremonies are adopted for the preservation of the water from impure contact. When native troops are on board, only particular persons are allowed to lay it in, or to serve it out, and even under such precaution, many of the more fastidious shew great aversion to using the tank water; often undergoing great sufferings, both from hunger and from thirst, rather than drink of it, or even taste of viands prepared therewith. But this prejudice has, of late years, subsided considerably, in consequence of the frequent occasions the British government have had to send native troops on distant expeditions by sea.
Casks would certainly prove obnoxious to servants, and others, proceeding through the Soonderbunds, owing to a general opinion among them, that we convey spirits, meat, &c., in such vessels; which, having been once used for such a purpose, could never be viewed by them as receptacles for beverage, without disgust and execration.
The town of Calcutta is supplied with firewood by persons who resort to the woods, about twenty-five miles from Calcutta, where they cut the smaller kinds of serress, jarrool, soondry, g’hob, &c., into junks about four feet in length, which are rived into two or four pieces, according to their diameter, and carried to market, where such billets are usually retailed at from twelve to fourteen rupees per hundred maunds, delivered at the door. This is the only kind of fuel used in the kitchens of Europeans, and forms the supply of nine-tenths of the native population also: the remainder use the gutties made of dung.
It is to be lamented that Government have never adopted a plan I long ago offered, of employing the convicts in clearing away a sufficient tract around Diamond Harbour, which is now peculiarly unhealthy, and is the grave of full one-fourth of the crews of the India Company’s, and other ships, that generally are moored there for months.