Dec. 1850. NAVIGATION. TIDAL BOKE. 343 



We left Noacolly on the 19th for Chittagong ; the state 

 of the tide obliging us to go on board in the night. The 

 distance is only 100 miles, but the passage is considered 

 dangerous at this time (during the spring- tides) and we were 

 therefore provided with a large vessel and an experienced 

 crew. The great object in this navigation is to keep afloat 

 and to make progress towards the top of the tide and during 

 its flood, and to ground during the ebb in creeks where the 

 bore (tidal wave) is not violent ; for where the channels are 

 broad and open, the height and force of this wave rolls 

 the largest coasting craft over and swamps them. 



Our boatmen pushed out at 3 in the morning, and 

 brought up at 5, in a narrow muddy creek on the island of 

 Sidhee. The waters retired along channels scooped several 

 fathoms deep in black mud, leaving our vessel aground six 

 or seven feet below the top of the bank, and soon after- 

 wards there was no water to be seen ; as far as the eye 

 could reach, all was a glistening oozy mud, except the 

 bleak level surfaces of the islands, on which neither 

 shrub nor tree grew. Soon after 2 p.m. a white line 

 was seen on the low black horizon, which was the tide- 

 wave, advancing at the rate of five miles an hour, with 

 a hollow roar ; it bore back the mud that was gradually 

 slipping along the gentie slope, and we were afloat an 

 hour after : at night we grounded again, opposite the 

 mouth of the Fenny. 



By moonlight the scene was oppressively solemn : on all 

 sides the gurgling waters kept up a peculiar sound that 

 filled the air with sullen murmurs ; the moonbeams slept 



rains cease in the end of October (on the 8th of November in 1849, and 12th of 

 November in 1850, the latest epoch ever remembered) : there is no land or sea 

 breeze along any part of the coast. During our stay we found the mean tempe- 

 rature for twelve observations to be precisely that of Calcutta, but the humidity 

 was more, and the pressure 0'040 lower. 



