o 



66 G x\ N G E T I C HINDOO S T.A N, 



very name, after a couiTe of numbers of miles more than its 

 rivdr river. Tlie^o;'^ up the river Megna, and other difcharges. 

 of the Ganges, are often twelve feet high. In the rainy feafon, 

 air the water at thefe enormous mouths is frefli, and .even con- 

 tinues, on the furface, at left many miles into the fea. 

 '■^I SHALL now return as far as Lat. 25° north, to defcrihe tyvo 

 fmall diftricts little known, and which are parts of the Hi?i- 

 doojlan empire, or, if you pleafe, part of the EngliJJj, as lords of 



SilhetandTi- Bengal. Thefe are the little provinces of Silbet and Tipera, 

 bounded by the Burrampooter, or Megna, on the weft, and by. 

 the chain of mountains, and the forefts of Meckley on the eaft ; 

 their northern limits are a line drawn from I. at. 25° ; the 

 fovithern, the fea. The firft, Silbet, is exactly midway between 

 Calcutta and China, three hundred and fifty miles from each, 

 a'tempting fliortnefs of way for our adventurous heroes, did not . 

 the wife Chinefe fliut all the doors againft the Europeans. 



WildEle- I^^ the vaft forefts of Tripura, or Tipera, in the eaft oi Bengal, . 



which ftretch far into Meckley, is ftill abundance of elephants, 

 which in November quit the woods, and vifit the new-dried 

 marflies to ravage the adjacent crops of rice and fugar-canes. 

 Thefe prove probable objects of chace. The account of the 

 captures is very curious. It is given in vol. iii. p. 229, of the 

 Afiatic Refearcbes, and is worthy of the reader's perufal. The 

 manner of copulation is there afcertained to be exadtly in the 

 manner of a horfe ; and the manner of the fucking of the 

 young, is alfo fhown to be with the mouth, not the trunk, as is 

 afferted by the Comte de Buffon. 



'Silbet is a very mountanous region. I know of no hiftorian 

 who fpeaks of it but Abulfazel (ii. 15); he fays it furniflies 



abundance 



PHANTS. 



