1892.] C. R. Wilson— Topography of the Huglt in the 1 6th century. 113 
I have just quoted, reproduces it in the following fashion :—“ The Ganges 
falls into the sea between the cities of Arigola and Pisalta in about lati¬ 
tude 22°.” In the same way, an inferior hand seems to have been em¬ 
ployed in the preparation of the Descripcao do Beino de Bengalla , for 
which De Barros had probably left only rough drawings. It was not 
De Barros, I imagine, who put Baranagar on the wrong side of the river, 
or mis-spelt Picholda, or left out the name of Hijili altogether; it was 
not De Barros who inserted the existing erroneous degrees of latitude 
and fallacious scale of leagues; it was not De Barros who congregated 
together in one map a number of heterogeneous plans of Bengal without 
any attempt to make their measurements uniform. For, if we take the 
trouble to make a slight calculation, we shall find that the ostensible 
scale of the map is certainly not the scale of that portion which repre¬ 
sents the course of the river from Betor to the sea, the portion which 
must have been best known to De Barros. The distance between the 
22nd and 23rd degrees of latitude as given in the plan is in. Hence 
68 miles = -§• in , or 1 in. = 58-f- miles ; and this is no doubt the mea¬ 
sure indicated by the accompanying scale of leagues, each of these 
leagues being equal, it would seem, to 3'814 English miles. Roughly 
speaking, then, we may say that the ostensible scale of the map is 
1 in. = 60 miles. How, if this were the actual scale of the plan 
of the river from Betor to the sea, the direct distance between Be¬ 
tor and Picholda would be 56 miles, and the direct distance between 
Picholda and Sagar would be 68 miles, whereas the true distances are 
28 and 40 miles respectively. And again, if 1 in. = 60 miles were the 
actual scale, and if the 22nd degree of latitude be approximately correct, 
then the 23rd degree of latitude will pass south of Betor, which is really 
only three or four miles north of latitude 22° 30'. The preparer of the 
map has not shrunk from this last absurdity, and accordingly has mark¬ 
ed latitude 23° at what is approximately latitude 22° 30 / . From these 
three instances it is obvious that the true scale of the map of the river 
from Betor to the sea is 1 in. = 30 miles. This gives Betor the correct 
latitude 22° 30' + j makes the direct distance between Betor and Pi¬ 
cholda exactly right, viz., 28 miles ; and makes the direct distance between 
Picholda and Sagar 34 miles, i. e., 6 miles too little. This scale, how¬ 
ever, will not do for the river above Betor, and in fact no hypothesis 
will help the plan here, or explain how Agarpara should be at least ten 
times nearer to Satgaon than it is to Betor, or how Baranagar comes to 
be on the wrong side of the river. These mistakes seem to show that 
De Barros was not so well acquainted with the river above Betor, or, 
more probably, that the maker of the map was not sufficiently well in¬ 
formed to be able to properly piece together his materials. 
