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Cfcapter I. 



HE incident I am about to relate took place on 

 the 28th January in the year 1871, at Palaspai, 

 Midnapore. Midnapore is one of the largest and 

 most important districts of Bengal. The town and 

 station is seventy miles West of Calcutta. Its 

 largest river, the Cossye, is two hundred and forty 

 miles in length, and discharges itself into the Hoogly. 

 The Hoogly river is formed by the junction of the 

 Bhagaruttee and Tellinghee, two branches of the 

 Ganges. It runs South to Calcutta; South-West 

 to Diamond Harbour ; East and South-West into 

 the sea at Saugor roadstead, by an estuary fifteen 

 miles wide. In its windings it reaches a length of 

 one hundred and sixty miles. It receives the 

 Dummoodah, three hundred and fifty miles long ; 

 Dalkissore, one hundred and seventy miles ; and 

 the Cossye, two hundred and forty miles. It was 

 formerly navigable, for a line of battle ship, as far 

 up as Chandernagore, a French town, twenty miles 

 North of Calcutta ; now vessels, drawing more than 

 seventeen feet, are not safe in passing from Calcutta 



