86 
MONGHYR. 
there were none placed as a relay. The old ones very good humour- 
edly undertook to carry me on, which they did extremely well, 
though twenty miles, with my weight, and a loaded palanquin, was 
no trifle. The race of men has visibly improved since I left Bengal ; 
they are taller and stouter, but have still the fault of ill made knees, 
and little or no calf to their legs. This is probably owing to their 
method of crouching, begun when infants, while the limbs are 
pliable. At Sophiabad there were only eight bearers for the two 
palanquins ; but being only two miles and a half from Monghyr, 
they contrived to take me on, and I arrived by seven in the 
morning at the house of Captain D'Auvergne, where I experienced 
a very hospitable reception. 
February ^8.— Monghyr is a large fort surrounded by a wall and 
deep ditch, and is a place of very considerable antiquity. A grant 
of land dated from this place was found in clearing a well, and 
is described in the first volume of the Asiatic Researches. The year 
in which it was executed is not clearly ascertained, but by all it is 
admitted to be nearly coeval with the Christian aera. It is most 
beautifully situated on a bend of the Ganges, which, in the rainy 
season, forms here a prodigious sea of fresh water, bounded by the 
Carrackpore mountains. It was the chief residence of Sultan Suja, 
during his government of the province of Bengal. At the time 
that he, as well as his brothers Aurungzebe and MoradBuksh, were 
in rebellion against their father Shaw Jehan, he fortified it as well 
as he could. It however soon fell into the hands of his enemies, 
and he was driven into Aracan, there to experience a series of mis- 
fortunes, which the history of other branches of his own family 
alone can equal. It w^as afterwards the residence of Cossim Ali 
