March, 1848. GANGES AT BENARES. 71 



fitted as a bed, with mosquito curtains ; a chair and table. 

 On one side were placed all my papers and plants, under 

 arrangement to go home ; on the other, my provisions, 

 rice, sugar, curry-powder, a preserved ham, and cheese, &c. 

 Around hung telescope, botanical box, dark lantern, 

 barometer, and thermometer, &c, &c. Our position was 

 often ashore, and, Hindoo-like, on the lee-shore, going 

 bump, bump, bump, so that I could hardly write. I 

 considered myself fortunate in having to take this slow 

 conveyance clown, it enabling me to write and arrange all 

 day long. 



I left on the 1 5th of March, and in the afternoon of the 

 same day passed Chunar.* This is. a tabular mass of 

 sandstone, projecting into the river, and the eastern ter- 

 mination of the Kymore range. There is not a rock 

 between this and the Himalaya, and barely a stone all the 

 way down the Ganges, till the granite and gneiss rocks of 

 the Behar range are again met with. The current of the 

 Ganges is here very strong, and its breadth much lessened : 

 the river runs between high banks of alluvium, containing 

 much kunker. At Benares it expands into a broad stream, 

 with a current which during the rains is said to flow 

 eight miles an hour, when the waters rise 43 feet. The 

 fall hence is 300 feet to its junction with the Hooghly, 

 viz., one foot to every mile. My observations made that 

 from Mirzapore to Benares considerably greater. 



Benares is the Athens of India. The variety of buildings 

 along the bank is incredible. There are temples of every 

 shape in all stages of completion and dilapidation, and at 

 all angles of inclination ; for the banks give way so much 

 that many of these edifices are fearfully out of the perpen- 

 dicular. 



* The first station at which Henry Martyn laboured in India. 



