l68 G A N G E T 1 C H I N D O O S T A N. 



gins to fubfide, the water falls almoft as fuddenly as it arofe, 

 and that which was of late one entire flieet of water, except 

 perhaps fome tops of trees, now appears to be a fertile country, 

 covered with woods, corn fields, and other plantations, and the 

 different arms which the river branches into, form many little 

 iflands, which in the rainy feafon one has no idea of. 



Some of thefe little iflands produce three and four crops 

 yearly ; rice, which grows only when it is covered with water ; 

 after that corn ; then water melons, Szc. 

 Current. In the dry feafon the current is very flow, not above three 



miles an hour, in the wet feafon from five to eight ; the defcent 

 is only four inches in a mile. In the time of the inundations, 

 the veffels fail in all directions as over a vaft inland fea : the 

 dangers of voyaging is very great, either from the fierce eddies 

 occafloned by other rivers difcharging themfelves into the 

 Ga}2ges, or, in the low feafon, by the falling in of great frag- 

 ments of the banks, or by the flriking on trees funk beneath 

 the furface of the water, which often occafion mofl fatal acci- 

 dents. 



The Indus at one extremity reaches the fea after a courfe of 

 a thoufand miles, the Ganges after a courfe of two thoufand 

 one hundred and fifty, yet their courfe is exceeded by fome of 

 the Sibirian rivers. The length of the Oby, moft part of which 

 is navigable, is two thoufand two hundred miles ; that of the 

 Lena two thoufand five hundred and fifty : thefe are forced 

 northward into the Icy Sea by the Altaic chain, which forms a 

 right angle near the fouthern end of the UraUian chain, and, 

 with their various branches, extend to the northern parts of 



the 



