802 THE BEAUTIES OF NATURE CHAP. 
snow, so that, arriving later at the scene of 
the struggle, it finds the country already 
occupied by the Megna to such an extent that 
it has been driven nearly 70 miles northwards, 
and forced to find a new channel. 
Under these circumstances it has attacked 
the territory of the Ganges, and being in 
flood earlier than that river, though later 
than the Megna, it has in its turn a great 
advantage. 
Whatever the ultimate result may be the 
struggle continues vigorously. At Sooksaghur, 
says Fergusson, “there was a noble country 
house, built by Warren Hastings, about a mile 
from the banks of the Hoogly. When I first 
knew it in 1830 half the avenue of noble trees, 
which led from the river to the house, was 
gone; when [ last saw it, some eight years 
afterwards, the river was close at hand. Since 
then house, stables, garden, and village are all 
gone, and the river was on the point of break- 
ing through the narrow neck of high land 
that remained, and pouring itself into some 
weak-banded nullahs in the lowlands beyond : 
and if it had succeeded, the Hoogly would 
