HISTORY AND COUNTRY 7 



down to the ocean, the Ganges has in its various 

 migrations hollowed out a bed which is some twenty 

 or thirty feet below the level of the surrounding 

 country, and which, in our lands, varies in width 

 on an average from three to eight miles across. 



The right edge of this bed consists of steep, scrub- 

 covered hills, while the left edge rises in low dunes 

 and gently rising sandy downs called bourrh 

 lands, which, as well as all the Kadir, when left 

 undisturbed with their natural vegetation are a 

 certain home of pig. 



Standing on the low hills and looking over the 

 Kadir, one's eye receives the impression of a vast 

 sea of grass with a faint white streak of sand, 

 betokening the river, running through it. The green 

 clearings of fields with the dim smoke rising from 

 the little villages they support are the only signs 

 of human life. Studded at intervals are groves 

 of stately trees, mangoes for the most part, owing 

 their existence to the piety of some long- dead yet 

 still-blessed Hindu, and forming the most perfect 

 of camping -grounds. Here and there a lordly 

 banyan raises its conspicuous head, and in all 

 directions the graceful palmyra palm lends a truly 

 Eastern aspect to the scene. The lines of white- 

 topped grass show the j heels and swamps, and the 

 darker shades betray the presence of great strips 

 of heavy jhow or impenetrable dak jungle. 



This land of far horizons bounding the sea of 

 grass and swamp, where owing to the absence of 

 dust every blade and distant tree stands out as 

 cut with steel, is as fresh and as free as the ocean. 

 It casts a charm, which I cannot describe and 

 which I have never known to fail, on every man 

 and woman who beholds it. 



