II.THE GANGES.
Illustrated letter
STEAMING up the Hooghly—perhaps the most intricate of all navigations—the ship is handed over to a pilot—not such as one is used to in other places. The pilots of the Hooghly are “swell” officers, highly salaried, clad in gorgeous naval uniforms. They come on board with bag and baggage, a retinue of black servants, and while on board—more like admiral than pilot—take full command of the ship.
The intricacies of this navigation may be readily gathered from the fact that the channels of the river change almost daily—the process of silting, due to the amount of soil carried by this enormous volume of water, is constant, but erratic. It is only by the constant use of the lead that the pilot can steer a safe course.
Accurate calculations have proved that the silt carried by the Hooghly amounts to 40,000 millions of cubic feet of solid earth per annum. Not only have the channels been altered from time to time, but within the memory of British settlers in India the entire beds of some of these mighty rivers have been completely displaced.
For instance, the city of Rajmahal—once the Mahomedan capital of Bengal—was not many years back selected to be the spot where the railways should tap the river system. Theriver has now turned away in a different direction, and left that town high and dry seven miles from its bank. This is one instance only amongst scores of similar vagaries of this great stream.
The sanctity of the Ganges is another item of great interest. From its source in the Himalayas to the mouths in the Bay of Bengal, its banks are holy ground. Each point of junction of the main stream with a tributary has special claims to sanctity; but the tongue of land where the Ganges and the Jumna unite is the true “Praág”—the place of pilgrimage—to which hundreds of thousands of devout Hindus repair to wash away their sins in the sanctifying waters.
To die and be buried on the river bank is the last wish of millions of natives. Even to exclaim “Gangá, Gangá!” on his death-bed, at a distance of hundreds of miles from that river may—in the opinion of Hindu devotees—atone for the sins of a whole life.
Whilst steaming towards the great City of Palaces one has ample time to read up the history of the noble river—to learn of its birth in a Himalaya snow-bed 13,800 feet above the level of the sea, where it first assumes its course, barely 29 feet wide, andfifteen inchesdeep. During the first 180 miles of its course it drops to an elevation of 7,024 feet. At this point (Hardwar) it has already gained a discharge of 7000 cubic feetper second!During the next 1000 miles of its journey seawards, the Ganges collects the drainage of its catchment basin, and reaches Rajmahal, 1170 miles from its source. It has here a high flood discharge of 1,800,000cubic feet of water per second, and an ordinary discharge of 207,000 cubic feet—the longest duration of flood being about forty days.
The maximum discharge of the Mississippi is 1,200,000, that of the Nile only 362,000, and that of the Thames 6600 cubic feet of water per second. I take these figures from L. D. A. Jackson’s “Hydraulic Manual,” as illustrating the great supremacy of the Ganges. The mouth we are now steaming up is 20 miles broad, with a minimum depth in the driest season of 30 feet, yet it is but one of the many openings which spread over 200 miles on the sea coast of Bengal. In endeavouring to convey an idea of the Ganges, we must dismiss from our minds any lurking comparison of its gigantic stream with other rivers we might be familiar with in any other part of the world.
A single one of its many tributaries—the Jumna—has an independent existence of 860 miles, with a catchment basin of 118,000 square miles, and starts from an elevation at its source of 10,849 feet above sea-level.
As a factor in the commercial welfare of India the Ganges plays an important part. Until the opening of the railways its waters formed the almost sole channel of traffic between Upper India and the sea-board. The products not only of the river plains, but even those of the central provinces, were all brought by this route into Calcutta.
Notwithstanding the revolution caused by the railways, the heavier and more bulky staples of the country are still carried by water, and the Ganges still ranks as one of the great waterwaysin the world. Many millions of people live by the river traffic along its margin.
Besides this, the Ganges is a river of great historic cities. Calcutta, Patna, and Benares are built on its banks; Agra and Delhi on those of its tributary, the Jumna; and Allahabad on the tongue of land where the two streams meet.