﻿2 ON THE COURSE OF THE GANGES 



of more than twenty-five feet* in the perpendicular 

 height of the waters, at this feafon, while at the out- 

 lets of the rivers (excepting the efFeft of the tides) 

 they preferve nearly the fame level at ail feafons, 

 fome idea may be formed of the increafed velocity 

 with which the water will run off, and of the havoc 

 which it will make on the banks. Accordingly, it 

 is not unufual to find, when the rainy feafon is over, 

 large portions of the bank funk into the channel; nay, 

 even whole fields and plantations have been fometimes 

 deftroyed; and trees, which, with the growth of a 

 century, had acquired ftrength to refift the mofl: vio- 

 lent ftorms, have been fuddcnly undermined, and 

 hurled into the ftream. 



The encroachments, however, are as often carried 

 on gradually, and that partly in the dry feafon ; at 

 which time the natives have leifure to remove their 

 effecb, and change the fites of their dwellings, if too 

 near the fteep and crumbling banks. I have feen 

 whole villages thus deferted, the inhabitants of which 

 had rebuilt their huts on fafer fpots inland, or had 

 removed entirely to fome neigbouring village or 

 town.t Along the banks of the Ganges, where the 

 depredations of the ftream are greateft, the people are 

 fo accuftomed to fuch removals, that they build their 

 huts with fuch light materials only, as they can, upon 

 emergency, carry off with eafe ; and a brick or mud 

 wall is fcarcely ever to be met with in fuch fituations. 



The 



* Tliis fubjecl has already employed the pen of Major Rennell : See 

 his Account of the Ganges and Barrampooter Rivers, in the Philofophical 

 Tranfaftions for 1781 ; alfo republiflied in his Memoir of a Map of 

 Hindoftan ; birt it is prefumed, neverihelefs, that any additional remarks, 

 or detail of fafts, relating to fo curious a fubjeft, will not be thought 

 fuperfluo'js nor uninterefting. 



t The Topography, I might almoft fay the Geography, of a large 

 portion of the country, will be liable to perpetual fluctuation from this 

 caufe ; as the face of the country is not only altered by the rivers, but the 

 villages are fometimes removed from one fide to the other ; fome are com- 

 pletely dellroyedj and new tillages are continually rifing up in other 

 ipots. 



