16 
F. A. Shillingford —On the Kusl River. 
[No. 1, 
revenue were suspended for a period of two months, and provision was 
made for feeding the starving poor who were daily flocking into the 
town. “ Upwards of 6,000 poor were, at this time, in receipt of daily 
rations of rice at the Civil Station *** It was estimated that in the 
course of this disastrous year, Rangpur District lost one-sixth of its 
inhabitants. In pargana Panga, half the population were gone.” 
Fergusson, alluding to this new course adopted by the Tista, says, 
“ The curious part of the matter is that looking into RenneTs original 
M. S. Surveys, a chain of ponds is marked in this direction as the old 
bed of the Tista,” too insignificant to be marked in his Atlas, but at 
their junction with the Brahmaputra he does mark ‘ Teesta Creek.’ To 
those who know how permanent the names of rivers are, this is proof 
positive that the river once before flowed in this direction, but unfor¬ 
tunately we have no knowledge when it deserted this bed and became a 
confluent of the Atrai.” 
Thus a comparatively small river, whose mountain drainage is con¬ 
fined to a portion of Sikhim, has proved capable 
Changes in the of dealing destruction over a large tract of 
Course of the Huang- country in its eastward return ; and the Tista 
is not singular in this respect, there being 
rivers in other countries which are reported to carry destruction with 
their movements. Thus Mr. Woodville Rockliiil, the American Central 
Asian traveller, writing in the Century Magazine says, “ On the banks 
of the Huang-ho, a little to the west of where I crossed it, comes yearly 
an official to sacrifice in the name of the Emperor to the river god, that 
he may spare the country through which it flows and not visit it 
with death-dealing floods * * * Evidently little faith is placed 
in this mode of restraining the fury and vagaries of the great river 
which within the historical period has four times changed its lower 
course and yearly breaks through the immense levees along its banks. 
The most recent change was in 1887, when it swept over more than a 
hundred thousand square miles of country in the Provinces of Honan 
and An-hui, obliterating innumerable towns and villages, and dealing 
death to hundreds of thousands (report says millions) of people.” 
Now if we return to the Kusi and examine all its abandoned channels 
Channels inade¬ 
quate for carrying 
main Kusi waters. 
lying to the east of its present course, we 
can see that not one of them, except perhaps 
the one last deserted, is capable of containing 
a fraction of the waters brought down by the main river, and extensive 
and severe floods are sure to occur along whichever‘channel it adopts in 
its retreat back towards the sea. With an eastward direction of flow, 
as indicated by Drs. Hamilton and Hunter, it would intercept and absorb 
