G A N G E T I C H I N D O O S T A N. 167 



thirty thoufand boatmen, by their carriage of fait and food 

 for ten milHons of people in Bengal and its dependencies, 

 which occafions a vaft expenditure ; add to this the exports and 

 imports, the common interchange of divers articles within its 

 limits, its fiflieries, and its travellers, which do all together oc- 

 calion annually an expenditure of two millions of money. 



I SHALL not detain my reader any longer than to fay that 

 there are certain tracfts of land which require lefs moiiUire than 

 others from the nature of their production ; thefe are defended 

 from the inundations by vaft dikes, they in various places ex- Vast Dikes, 

 tend a thoufand miles, if united, and are kept up at an enor- 

 mous expence. One branch of the Ganges is thus confined for 

 the extent of feventy miles, and of the breadth of the Thames 

 near Batterjea ; fo that when the river is full, palTengers look 

 down on each fide as from a lofty eminence into the fubjacent 

 country. 



Just before the rains fet in, which is about the middle of AnnualFioods. 

 July-i the waters of the Ganges begin to increafe, occafioned by 

 the fnow on the tops of the hills from w'hence the river ifiTues 

 (above thirteen hundred miles from the fea) being melted by 

 the fun ; as foon as the rains commence it hourly fwells, 

 pouring with the moft impetuous velocity, and the river has 

 the appearance of a fea, and in fome parts, where there happen 

 to be rocks or very high hills on each fide pretty near the river, 

 the water being there pent up, it rifes to a prodigious height, 

 and the current is fo ftrong and rapid, that it is hardly polTible 

 for any boat to ftem it. 



After about two months, when the violence of the rain be- 

 gins 



