NATURALIST IN INDIA. 121 



six miles distant from where tlie rivers now flow.* That their 

 channels must be constantly changing, we have only to look 

 at their excessively impregnated waters, almost like pea- 

 soup, boiling and eddying along their muddy banks and 

 shoals, which render the navigation so uncertain and difficult. 

 Thus, like the NUe, they are constantly changing their chan- 

 nels, taking up what they had deposited long since, and form- 

 ing fresh channels where the river had run ages before. I 

 was forcibly impressed with the truth of this in having been 

 shown a village on a bank of ancient river alluvium, near the 

 field of AUwal, that six years before was upwards of a quarter 

 of a mile inland, whilst at the time of our visit the greater 

 portion had been washed away, and the remainder of the 

 houses abandoned by the inhabitants. 



The country between Ferozepoor and Lahore is for the 

 most part cultivated, and covered with fields of wheat and 

 groves of date, mango, acacia, peepul, etc. The famous old 

 Mussulman city of Kussor is worth a visit, were it only to 

 examine its fallen grandeur. Among its old temples, ruined- 

 walls, and broken aqueduct, are to be traced the remains of 

 a once important town, which the great Eunjeet Singh levelled 

 with the ground when employed in consolidating the Kalsa 

 dynasty. The Chenab river at Wezeerabad has little of the 

 majesty and appearance observed in its course through the 

 Himalayas ; the roaring mountain torrent is transfoimed 

 into a muddy river, whose banks are often almost level with 

 the plain, especially in the neighbourhood of the city above 

 mentioned, where annual inundations leave great swamps in 

 which wild-fowl congregate during winter. There, wading in 

 shallows I observed the great white heron {Egretta alba), a 



* See an interesting paper on the ancient and present channels of the 

 Ganges by Mr. Ferguson in Quai-terly Journal Geol. Sodeiyfor 1863. 



