feet below the surface, and may be supplied by underground streams
from the Himalaya, distant forty-five miles. The river, which at this
season is low, may be navigated up to Titalya during the rains; its
bed averages 60 yards in width, and is extremely tortuous; the
current is slight, and, though shallow, the water is opaque.
We slowly descended to Maldah, where we arrived on the 11th: the
temperature both of the water and of the air increased rapidly to
upwards of 90 degrees; the former was always a few degrees cooler
than the air by day, and warmer by night. The atmosphere became drier
as we receded from the mountains.

The boatmen always brought up by the shore at night; and our progress
was so slow, that we could keep up with the boat when walking along
the bank. So long as the soil and river-bed continued sandy, few
bushes or herbs were to be found, and it was difficult to collect a
hundred kinds of plants in a day: gradually, however, clumps of trees
appeared, with jujube bushes, _Trophis, Acacia,_ and _Buddleia,_ a
few fan-palms, bamboos, and Jack-trees. A shell (_Anodon_) was the
only one seen in the river, which harboured few water-plants or
birds, and neither alligators nor porpoises ascend so high.

On the 7th of May, about eighty miles in a straight line from the
foot of the Himalaya, we found the stratified sandy banks, which had
gradually risen to a height of thirteen feet, replaced by the hard
alluvial clay of the Gangetic valley, which underlies the sand: the
stream contracted, and the features of its banks were materially
improved by a jungle of tamarisk, wormwood (_Artemisia_), and white
rose-bushes (_Rosa involucrata_), whilst mango trees became common,
with tamarinds, banyan, and figs. Date and _Caryota_ palms, and
rattan canes, grew in the woods, and parasitic Orchids on the trees,