18(33.] FEBGUSSON DELTA OF THE GANGES. 349 



Gangetic plain ; these were superseded about three centuries later, or 

 in Alexander's time, by Palibothra, or Patna, which was the most 

 important city of India at the time of Alexander's conquests*. 

 On the north of the valley we first find Janakpore, in the Terai, 

 between the Boginutty and the Coosy, figuring as the capital of 

 Bengal at the time when Ayodya was practically the capital of 

 India ; then Sravasti, Kapilavasti, and Kucinagara, all nestling under 

 the hills close to the Terai, and the remains of ruined cities of this 

 epoch within its now pestiferous limits, — showing that from the 

 greater steepness of the slope, or some such local cause, this was then 

 the most habitable part of the valley of the lower Ganges. 



It is not till six or ten centuries after our era that we find any 

 more important cities eastward of Patna ; but, about the last-named 

 period, Gour, opposite Kajmahal, became the capital of Bengal, to be 

 superseded by Dacca, founded in 1604, and Moorshedabad, which 

 only rose into importance in 1704. 



For a century after 1634, when our ships were permitted to enter 

 the Ganges, Satgong or Hoogly was the port of Bengal, and continued 

 to be so till superseded by Calcutta. 



The ships of those earliest days were no doubt much smaller than 

 those afterwards introduced ; but no sea-going vessel could well now 

 get so far up the river. And it may also be remarked that when 

 Admiral Watson attacked Chandernagore in 1757, he took up to 

 that city what were then called line-of-battle ships, vessels of 

 60 and 64 guns, which, whatever their tonnage may have been, 

 would with difficulty reach Calcutta now without the aid of steam. 



It would be tedious, as it would be out of place here, to attempt to 

 explain the data on which these historical conclusions rest, and 

 pedantic to assert that they are more than approximate inductions 

 from imperfect data. But I may state, generally, that long local 

 study has left the conviction strongly impressed on my mind, that 

 3000 years b.c. the only practically habitable part of the alluvial 

 plains of the province of Bengal was the portion between the 

 Sutledge and the Jumna; that even 1000 years later it was only 

 here and there, on the banks of some minor streams, that the country 

 was in a state to support a large population, and to possess con- 

 siderable cities ; that nearly up to the Christian era it was only on 

 the southern hills, or at the foot of the Himalayas (what is now the 

 Terai), that cities could be placed, because the central parts of the 

 plain eastward of the Gogra were still unfit for human habitation ; 

 that it was not till 1000 years afterwards that the plain of the 

 Ganges was sufficiently desiccated to admit of such a city as Gour 

 rising to importance, so far from the hills ; and not till the Maho- 

 metan conquest in the 14th century that the Delta, properly so 

 called, became fit for extensive occupation. 



So far as can be judged from the rapid rate at which changes have 

 taken place, and the immense quantity of land which has been 



* The circumstance of four of the largest rivers in India — the Gogra, the Gun- 

 duck, the Soane, and the Ganges — meeting at one spot has so raised the country 

 in the neighbourhood of Patna, that it must earlv have been a habitable tract. ' 



