706 KANSAS CITY REVIEW OF SCIENCE. 
A LOST CITY. 
GOUR, THE RUINED AND FORGOTTEN CAPITAL OF BENGAL. 
Among the marked peculiarities of Anglo-Indians is one which we have 
never heard fully explained. Asarule, they know nothing about India. They 
are not interested in it, and do not study it, do not take even the trouble to see 
the wonderful things of which the countuy is full. We should like to know how 
many Anglo-Bengalees know anything of the marvelous city of which the name 
stands at the head of this article; Gour, the ruined capital of Bengal, the Ganga 
Regia of Ptolemy, where Hindoo kings are believed to have reigned 2,000 years 
ago, where semi-dependent Mussulman rulers undoubtedly governed Bengal 
before Richard Coeur de Lion died, and where Kai Kaus Shah, 1291, founded a 
sovereignty, which, under the different dynasties, one of them Abyssian, endured 
to 1537. These kings made Gour, by degrees, one of the greatest cities in the 
world—greater, as far as mere size is concerned, than Babylon or London. . Mr. 
Ravenshaw, a civilian, who took photographs of every building he could reach, 
photographs published since his death, believes the ruins to cover a space from 
fifteen to twenty miles along the old bed of the river, by three miles in depth, 
a space, which, after allowing for the rich native method of life, with its endless 
gardens and necessity for trees, must have sheltered a population of at least 
2,000,000. These kings must have been among the richest monarchs of their 
time, for they ruled the rice garden of the world, Eastern Bengal, where rice 
yields to the cultivator 160 per cent; they controlled the navigation of the 
Ganges, and their dominion stretched down to the Orissa, where the native 
princes—how strange it sounds now, when Orissa is a province forgotten, except 
for an awful famine!—were always defeating their troops. They spent their 
wealth necessarily mainly on a mercenary army, often in revolt, for their Ben- 
galees could not fight the stalwart peasants who entered the army of the Kings 
of Behar, and their fleet could not always protect the weak side of the capital ; 
but they covered the city with great structures, opened ‘‘ broad, straight streets, 
lined with trees,” and built inner and outer embankments of this kind: 
‘¢The boundary embankments still exist; they were works of vast labor, 
and were, on the average, about 4o feet in height, being from 180 to 200 feet 
thick at the base. The facing throughout was of masonry, and numerous build- 
ings and edifices appear to have crowned their summits; but the whole of the 
masonry has now disappeared, and the embankments are overgrown with a dense 
jungle, impenetrable to man, and affording a safe retreat for various beasts of prey. 
The eastern embankment was double, a deep moat, about 150 yards wide, sepa- 
rating the two lines. A main road ran north and south through the city, its 
course being still traceable by the remains of bridges and viaducts. The western 
face of the city is now open, and probably always was so, having been well pro- 
tected by the Ganges, which, as has already been observed, ran under its walls. 
In the center of the north and south embankments are openings, showing that 
