82 GANGES VALLEY. Chap. III. 



transition from parching like this to the three months' floods 

 at midsummer, when the country is for miles under water. 



March 23. — Passed the mouth of the Soane, a vast 

 expanse of sand dotted with droves of camels ; and soon 

 after, the wide-spread spits of sand along the north bank 

 announced the mouth of the Gogra, one of the vastest 

 of the many Himalayan affluents of the Ganges. 



On the 25th of March I reached Dinapore, a large 

 military station, sufficiently insalubrious, particularly for 

 European troops, the barracks being so misplaced that the 

 inmates are suffocated : the buildings run east and west 

 instead of north and south, and therefore lose all the 

 breeze in the hottest weather. From this place I sent the 

 boat down to Patna, and proceeded thither by land to 

 the house of Dr. Irvine, an old acquaintance and botanist, 

 from whom I received a most kind welcome. On the 

 road, Bengal forms of vegetation, to which I had been for 

 three months a stranger, reappeared ; likewise groves of 

 fan and toddy palms, which are both very rare higher up 

 the river ; clumps of large bamboo, orange, Acacia Sissoo, 

 Melia, Giiatteria longifolia, Spondias mangifera, Odina, 

 Euphorbia pentagona, neriifolia and trigona, were common 

 road-side plants. In the gardens, Papaw, Crofon, Jatropha, 

 Buddleia, Cookia, Loquat, Litchi, Longan, all kinds of the 

 orange tribe, and the cocoa-nut, some from their presence, 

 and many from their profusion, indicated a decided change 

 of climate, a receding from the desert north-west of India, 

 and its dry winds, and an approach to the damper regions 

 of the many-mouthed Ganges. 



My main object at Patna being to see the opium Godowns 

 (stores), I waited on Dr. Corbett, the Assistant-Agent, who 

 kindly explained everything to me, and to whose obliging 

 attentions I am much indebted. 



