33 ANCIENT CAPITAL OF THE PRASII. 
quality, and perhaps the best suited for grain-crops of any 
in India. The district in which it abounds well merits the 
poet's appellation of " Icetus ager^"" and is certainly not 
inferior to his boasted " Gar gar a^'' in the ease with which 
it is cultivated, apd the ample products it yields the hus^ 
bandman in return. 
From the appearance of the soil between Callinger and 
Allahabad, as I observed it in passing along, I could not 
jielp drawing an inference, which, if correct, may throw 
some light on the situation of the ancient capital of the 
Prasii. The city of Palibothra, we are told, was situated 
near to the hills, and at the conflux of the Ganges with an^ 
other large river ; and it is the difficulty of reconciling these 
two circumstances with any modern locaHty, which has 
given rise to so much discussion and disagreement among 
the learned. Indeed, no spot that I am aware of, in Hin- 
dostan, includes them both ; for Allahabad and Patna want 
the former, and the neighbourhood of Bhungulpore, which 
Colonel Franklin endeavours to identify with the ancient 
city, is defective in the latter. We are therefore compelled 
to believe, that some change must have taken place in re- 
gard to the one or the other ; and, as alterations in the 
course of the river are of daily occurrence, while the re- 
ynoval of mountains can only be effected by a great physical 
convulsion, or the agency of supernatural power, it is most 
reasonable to infer, that the junction of the rivers had oc- 
curred nearer to the hills, at ^ fprmer period, than at pre- 
sent. 
What is thus assumed, from a general view of the ques- 
tion, made with reference to the Jumna and Guna, appears 
to me to be confirmed by facts ; and I think it exceedingly 
probable, that the latter river has at a former period flowed 
close to the front range of hills in the north-east extremity 
pf Bundlecund, and that it has gradually forsaken th^t 
