216 
DINAPORE 
unfrequent on the Ganges. We proceeded in the evening one coss 
further, having made only twelve in the day. 
September 16. — We departed at six with a pleasant breeze from 
the westward. The river improves, being wider, and having fewer 
sand banks, with reaches sometimes so long, that we could not 
distinguish the termination. Opposite to Seerpore it has cut off an 
angle, and made itself a new and straighter course. We met many 
boats tracking up ; four were drawn by fifty-six people, and they 
got on with much labour. The native merchant boats are covered 
with a pent-house of thatch; most of them made of several 
pieces bound together, and the whole apparently not of sufficient 
strength to resist so mighty a stream. The cotton boats and Euro- 
pean merchant boats are better. Those of the villagers, which are 
employed for fishing, are formed like the canoes of the savages of 
America, out of a single tree. They are about twenty feet long, 
and three wide. We anchored at seven about two coss above the 
junction of the Gogra, on the right hand side ; having made twenty- 
five coss, 
September 17. — We set off at five, and passed the Gogra by eight 
o'clock. It is a very large stream, but excites no disturbance in the 
Ganges. The wind was due east ; but we ought to be satisfied with 
the singular good fortune of having had a westerly wind for these 
ten days, a circumstance unprecedented at this season. The naviga- 
tion is vastly more circuitous than the river, owing to the spits of 
sand which oblige us to pass frequently from one side to the other; 
and this, in a river that is a mile wide, makes at least a difference 
of one coss in four. We passed the Soane at three o'clock : at 
some distance beyond, the river expanded into a magnificent reach, 
