302 THE BEAUTIES OF NATURE chap. 



snow, SO that, arriving later at the scene of 

 the struggle, it finds the country already 

 occupied by the Megna to such an extent that 

 it has been driven nearly 70 miles northwards, 

 and forced to find a new channel. 



Under these circumstances it has attacked 

 the territory of the Ganges, and being in 

 flood earlier than that river, though later 

 than the Megna, it has in its turn a great 

 advantage. 



Whatever the ultimate result may be the 

 struggle continues vigorously. At Sooksaghur, 

 says Fergusson, " there was a noble country 

 house, built by Warren Hastings, about a mile 

 from the banks of the Hoogly. When I first 

 knew it in. 1830 half the avenue of noble trees, 

 which led from the river to the house, was 

 gone ; when I last saw it, some eight years 

 afterwards, the river was close at hand. Since 

 then house, stables, garden, and village are all 

 gone, and the river was on the point of break- 

 ing through the narrow neck of high land 

 that remained, and pouring itself into some 

 weak-banded nullahs in the lowlands beyond : 

 and if it had succeeded, the Hoogly would 



