34 
THE ORIENTAL ANNUAL. 
of remote ages show us that, centuries since, our 
forefathers were acquainted with the streams of our 
land, wearing very much the same aspect, and, at least, 
flowing within the same banks as in our own days. 
But it is otherwise with the rivers of India. These 
vagrant waters, from the mighty Ganges to the 
meanest tributary, are constantly seeking new chan- 
nels, shifting over the plain from city to city, persever- 
ingly undermining all barriers whether natural or 
artificial, and compelling the husbandmen and the 
villagers to retreat before their irresistible invasions. 
In many parts, the Ganges may be traced to have had 
its course, hut a few years since, distant full twenty 
miles from its present channel : I have known it 
make a digression of three or four miles in a single 
season. This is chiefly attributable to the soft and 
sandy nature of the soil, the peculiarly abrupt and 
tortuous windings of the stream, and the very sudden 
accumulation of the waters at the commencement of 
the monsoon, suddenly converting the smooth and 
silent river into a turbulent flood which rolls down 
from the highlands with terrific force, saps or over- 
leaps all opposition, and fills its former bed, while it 
devastates the adjacent country and carves out for 
itself a new channel, or usurps that of some other 
stream. 
It is not many years since the river Sone — so called 
from the word sona, gold — used to pour its broad 
