Bhaugulpore is noted for its silk manufacture, particularly for a very light material much used in dishabille, as well as for screens, punkahs, etc. The trade has latterly been much promoted by the facility of exportation by the Calcutta steamers, for this is one of the Company's stations.
On the 1st of June, we started at daybreak, and arrived at Colgong at half-past-seven A.M., having passed three singular and romantic looking rocks, rising to a height of about sixty feet from the bed of the river, and covered with verdure, among which some fanatics have built a few sheds.
We left Colgong at eight, A.M. on the same day. Seven miles below Colgong, the river takes a singular turn, round a hill covered with wood, and where some rocks, with carvings of Hindoo deities, jut out boldly into the stream. These rocks are very dangerous, because in descending the river, you must hug the right bank, so as to keep them on your left hand, for just below the rocks, which rise in the middle of the river, there is a strong back-water. The captain's object is to prevent his boat from getting into this back-water, and thus being carried and lost upon, these rocks. There is moreover a kind of whirlpool near the spot, so that we may call it the "Scylla and Charybdis" of the Ganges. Boats ascending the river keep to the left, where the stream is not rapid; but in descending, the boatmen, in order to meet and overcome this back-water, must pull very hard, and for a sixteen-oared boat at least twelve or fourteen of the crew must row. The back-water is probably caused by the tendency of the water to run to the rocks, in consequence of the turn in the river to the right, the rocks being on the left.
The Jungheera rocks, lower down the river, are very picturesque. A Fakeer resides in a small dwelling, on one of these rocks. The natives furnish him with food; but he sometimes makes an excursion on shore, and supplies himself. The Fakeer pleasantly sleeps in the midst of the howling storm, none the worse for the wind and rain; neither has he any fear of being blown out of his cabin, or of his house being washed down the stream; a few monkeys keep him company, and possibly some fairy queen may visit this presiding deity of the stream, and soothe, what to a stranger, would appear a wretched existence.
Just before passing Peerpointee, on the right bank, the river Koosee flows into the Ganges, and above Sickreegullee, or the dangerous pass, so called from the difficulty I have named, which the steamers and boats have in rounding it, we reached the place where the Teryagullee hills end, and those of Rajmahal commence. They are crowded with fine forest trees, shrubs, and other verdure, most pleasing for the eye to rest upon, after the tameness of the first part of our voyage. The hills abound in game; and the sportsman would be rewarded with a variety not frequently met with.
The Rajmahal hills, are intersected by a line which runs as far south as Balasore, traversing the districts of Nagore and Bishunpore, and the mountain chain between Kimore and the Ganges. Extensive coal-beds have recently been discovered along this line of demarcation, and have greatly enhanced the value and importance of the whole district. This mountain-chain is broken by numerous valleys, defiles, and wide-spreading plains, many of which are very fertile, and well cultivated, especially those which lie at the base of the mountains. The highest part of these ridges may be estimated at 4,000 feet, and some of the plains run along at an elevation of more than 2,000 feet above the level of the Ganges.
This chain is for the most part covered with lofty timber trees, and various kinds of woods, which are much used by the natives in building and in cabinet manufactures. These hills are clothed from the base to the summit, and the trees grow in tiers or terraces, down into the plain of the Ganges. In the northern rear of this chain, run the Rajmahal hills, which are divided from the Kimore range by the narrow valley of the Sone. The mountain-chain runs so close to the Ganges, between Bhaugulpore and the Rajmahal hills, as scarcely to admit of a causeway along the banks of the river. The government has wisely met this difficulty, by constructing a good road between Rajmahal and Colgong, which crosses the narrow defile of Sickreegullee.
We anchored off Rajmahal at a quarter to six in the evening of the 1st of June; and having to take in coal, we waited for the night. As usual, whenever an opportunity occurred, I hastened on shore for a stroll. Rajmahal is in the Province of Bengal, and about seventy miles from Berhampore. The Province of Bengal terminates a little below Sickreegullee, a village cultivated by invalided Sepoys, who have redeemed the land from the wilderness of former times. At Teryagullee, on the borders of the district, is the pass of Sickreegullee, which, during the Hindoo and Mahomedan dynasties, was the commanding entrance from Bahar into Bengal, and was strongly fortified. It runs up a narrow winding road, where the traveller will see a ruined gateway and fort, to tell of days gone by. He will also find a great deal of waste land, and mountainous tracts of country. The people are a wild race, quite distinct from those of the plains. They are low in stature, but stout and well proportioned, many being under four feet ten inches high, and many more under five feet three inches, than above that standard. The women are small indeed. They have flat noses, and lips thicker than those of the Lowlanders. They do not venerate the cow like the Hindoos, and have no knowledge of letters, or of any kind of written characters. They subsist principally on maize—the Indian corn. Nearly all the laborious work is done by the women; and a man is rich in proportion to the number of his wives, and who are indeed so many labourers, or, I may say, domestic slaves. These mountaineers have a great regard for the truth, and an utter abhorrence of lying, which ranks them far above their brothers of the plains, where lying is joined to the other vices.
Their traffic is in bedsteads, wood, planks, charcoal, cotton, honey, plantains, and sweet potatoes, which they barter for tobacco, rice, salt, cloth, iron arrow-heads, hatchets, crooks, and iron implements. Their weapons are the bow and arrow; but some few among them possess swords and matchlocks. Their domestic animals are hogs, goats, fowls, dogs, and cats.
It was among these wild races that Mr. Augustus Cleveland, the judge and magistrate of the district, made a permanent settlement about the year 1780. Unfortunately he died at the early age of twenty-nine, in the year 1784, as I have before observed. A monument, in the form of a pagoda, was erected by the Zumindars, or landholders of the neighbourhood, to commemorate his exemplary conduct, and another was put up at the expense of the Government, in honour of a man, who, though young, had done so much to benefit his fellow-creatures.