Himalayan Journals — Complete: Or, Notes of a Naturalist in Bengal, the Sikkim and Nepal Himalayas, the Khasia Mountains, etc.Hooker, Joseph Dalton
History
Himalayan Journals — Complete: Or, Notes of a Naturalist in Bengal, the Sikkim and Nepal Himalayas, the Khasia Mountains, etc.
Hooker, Joseph Dalton
Himalaya Mountains -- Description and travel; Natural history -- Himalaya Mountains
Unlike the Soorujkoond hot-springs, those of Seetakoond rise in a
plain, and were once covered by a handsome temple. All the water is
collected in a tank, some yards square, with steps leading down to it.
The water, which is clear and tasteless (temp. 104°), is so pure as to
be exported copiously, and the Monghyr manufactory of soda-water
presents the anomaly of owing its purity to Seeta’s ablutions.
On my passage down the river I passed the picturesque rocks of
Sultangunj; they are similar to those of Monghyr, but very much larger
and loftier. One, a round-headed mass, stands on the bank, capped with
a triple-domed Mahommedan tomb, palms, and figs. The other, which is
far more striking, rises isolated in the bed of the river, and is
crowned with a Hindoo temple, its pyramidal cone surmounted with a
curious pile of weathercocks, and two little banners. The current of
the Ganges is here very strong, and runs in deep black eddies between
the rocks.
Though now perhaps eighty or a hundred yards from the shore, the islet
must have been recently a peninsula, for it retains a portion of the
once connecting bank of alluvium, in the form of a short flat-topped
cliff, about thirty feet above the water. Some curious looking
sculptures on the rocks are said to represent Naragur (or Vishnu),
Suree and Sirooj; but to me they were quite unintelligible. The temple
is dedicated to Naragur, and inhabited by Fakirs; it is the most holy
on the Ganges.
_April 5._—I arrived at Bhagulpore, and took up my quarters with my
friend Dr. Grant, till he should arrange my dawk for Sikkim.
The town has been supposed to be the much-sought Palibothra, and a
dirty stream hard by (the Chundum), the Eranoboas; but Mr. Ravenshaw
has now brought all existing proofs to bear on Patna and the Soane. It
is, like most hilly places in India, S. of the Himalaya, the seat of
much Jain worship; and the temples on Mount Manden,[29] a few miles
off, are said to have been 540 in number. At the assumed summer-palaces
of the kings of Palibothra the ground is covered with agates, brought
from the neighbouring hills, which were, in a rough state, let into the
walls of the buildings. These agates perfectly resemble the Soane
pebbles, and they assist in the identification of these flanking hills
with those of the latter river.
[29] For the following information about Bhagulpore and its
neighbourhood, I am indebted chiefly to Col. Francklin’s essay in the
Asiatic Researches; and the late Major Napleton and Mr. Pontet.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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