﻿l5 OSf THE COURSt OF THE GANGES 



bank at that time, it would have met with inevitable 

 deftrudioii.* 



The encroachment of the river in this part of its 

 courfe has deftroyed a confiderable portion of arable 

 land, and has been the caufe, likewife, of the removal 

 or deflrutlion of the villages o^ Banchdaw, Continagur, 

 Chandabad, Kijinagur, and probably of many others 

 which were not inferted in the old maps. The village 

 of Sangarpour^ formerly 2j miles from the neareft 

 reach of the Ganges, is now clofe to its bank ; and 

 here the river appears to occupy a part of the track 

 which Major Rennell calls the " Old Courfe of the 

 Ganges." 



From hence the flream runs E. N. E. as far as 

 Allypour^ at which place, I was informed by the Ze- 

 meendar, ihat in his remembrance, upwards of twenty 

 villages had been deftroyed by the river, and that the 

 people had moflly fettled on the new iflands which 

 within thefe few years had been forming oppofite to 

 his village. Indeed, the gathering of iflands, which I 

 had obferved from Burgoichy down to this place, ap- 

 peared prodigious; yet not a fingle tree was to be feen 

 on any of them ; and from the colour of the thatched 

 huts, it appeared plainly that fome of the villages^had 

 been recently ellabliflied. 



The inlet to the Culcully river, which had formerly 

 been at Bogwangola, is now removed feveral miles 

 lower down. This has been a neceffary confequence 

 of the Ganges fweeping away all the land on eaclvfide 



of 



* Since my return from the furvcy, I have been informed of the lofs of 

 feveral boats under this bank ; which accidents have been owing probably 

 to the imprudence of the boat-mcH, in not tracking on the flielving fide. 

 This, however, when there is not a clean (helving fand, is attended with 

 difficulty, and in general with delay, which induces the boat-men fome- 

 timcs to prefer the fleep fide, although at the rifle of being overwhelmedj 

 and cruihed by the falling bank. 



