1889.] Report on Barisdl Guns. 207 



sounds, but always had the impression they -were from the south — but 

 once I distinctly made out such sounds coming from the falling of the 

 banks. This was on the second occasion above mentioned. I was rowing 

 down with the ebb, I think it was afternoon but the exact place I can- 

 not say ; hearing such a sound I went out of the cabin and sat on the 

 roof of the boat with my binoculars watching. I heard the sounds 

 pretty often and found they always followed any considerable fall of the 

 bank when that took place a mile or so from the boat : the bank must 

 have been 20 feet high and many falls were taking place, as usually 

 happens when the ebb is running out. One very large piece fell within 

 a few hundred yards of the boat, and there was no sound but the 

 splash in the water ; but at a long distance whenever I could see the 

 splash with my glasses I could make certain of hearing the roar some 

 minutes after. I was chiefly looking ahead, i. e., southwards, but my 

 impression is that I saw some and heard the same echo from upstream 

 too. Echo probably has a great deal to do with it, and very likely bombs 

 fired near the river may echo with a similar reverberation. Once 28th 

 to 31st January 1879 I was out camping by Chur Hime on the east side 

 of the Meghna at the boundary between Tipara and ISToakhali districts. 

 About sunset, ebb-tide 1 think, Mr. F. Jones the Collector of Tipera 

 and I were walking back to our boats along the water's edge, it is a low 

 shelving shore, and the high bank would be on the western side of the 

 stream but at least six miles off. I fired off my gun and we were both 

 startled nearly two minutes after to hear aloud echo come from the other 

 side across the water, i. e., from S. W., after an interval it sounded again 

 and again, as if it were echoing backwards and forwards from one side 

 of the river to the other. We fired a number of times to try it, and 

 always with the same result, after waiting If to 2 minutes the echo 

 came and repeated itself in the same way. When a 12-gauge shot gun 

 with 3j drachrns powder can wake up an echo like that, it is not un- 

 reasonable to suppose that any larger sound may echo even scores of 

 miles. The Meghna is such a huge desert of water there is room for 

 any sound to develope itself — it flows cutting out huge curves alternately 

 on the two banks, and the islands, or churs, which form upon the shallow 

 sides are cut out by intersecting channels on the same pattern but on a 

 smaller scale : and the echoes probably travel along the hollow curve 

 where the high bank is. That sounds may travel a great way I know 

 well. Once in the cold weather I was out in camp in the low hills at a 

 place called Darooteng in Poori district, about ten miles south of Cuttack 

 town — it was about sunrise, clear and cold — I heard sounds like a 

 hundred paviours at work with heavy rammers somewhere near, as it 

 seemed ; but my shikari said it was the Regiment in Cuttack fort, and I 



