UPPER INDIA. 49 



and disease in Bengal. Every place drained will add its mite 

 at the rate of one hundred tons of water for every inch of rain- 

 fall conducted to the Ganges from every acre of land whose 

 surface-drainage is thus improved. 



The evils in the case of Bengal are not only more extended 

 and affect a greater population, but are more virulent, and 

 should the fevers which have been" ravaging the country for 

 the last few years continue, large districts will be depopulated. 

 Cholera is hardly ever absent from some parts of Lower Bengal 

 which are liable to inundation. It often also originates at 

 fairs held on the banks of rivers on lands subject to floods, 

 and seems in many cases to spread up or down the courses 

 of rivers. It appears to be a disease induced by filth and a 

 saturated surface-soil, and it might well be that this disease 

 would diminish were the low lands not so liable to inundation. 



The drainage of Bengal has been proposed as a remedy. 

 The operation would be a difficult and expensive one, as the 

 country is almost a dead level ; but supposing it done, how it 

 would prevent floods the causes of which are some hundreds 

 of miles away, does not appear ; and how rice, the ordinary 

 staple food-grain of Lower Bengal, and which requires water to 

 grow in, is to be grown when the country is drained, is a mystery 

 to me. The drainage of Bengal, however, is not required for 

 the purpose of getting rid of the rain falling on Bengal itself, 

 which is not in excess of its requirements, but to convey away 

 the water of the floods which originated in Upper India and 

 have been caused by improved surface - drainage there. 

 Upper India, or at least that part of it included in the drainage 

 basin of the Ganges, is being desiccated to swamp Bengal. 



One cause of the greatly increased amount of fevers and 

 unhealthiness of Bengal, in addition to the more rapid sur- 

 face-drainage of the basin of the Ganges generally, which 

 alone would cause higher floods, is the improved surface - 



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