_March_ 21.--I left Ghazepore and dropped down the Ganges; the general features of which are soon described. A strong current four or five miles broad, of muddy water, flows between a precipitous bank of alluvium or sand on one side, and a flat shelving one of sand or more rarely mud, on the other. Sand-banks are frequent in the river, especially where the great affluents debouche; and there generally are formed vast expanses of sand, small "Saharas," studded with stalking pillars of sand, raised seventy or eighty feet high by gusts of wind, erect, stately, grave-looking columns, all shaft, with neither basement nor capital, the genii of the "Arabian Nights." The river is always dotted with boats of all shapes, mine being perhaps of the most common description; the great square, Yankee-like steamers, towing their accommodation-boats (as the passengers' floating hotels are called), are the rarest. Trees are few on the banks, except near villages, and there is hardly a palm to be seen above Patna. Towns are unfrequent, such as there are being mere collections of huts, with the ghat and boats at the bottom of the bank; and at a respectful distance from the bazaar, stand the neat bungalows of the European residents, with their smiling gardens, hedgings and fencings, and loitering servants at the door. A rotting charpoy (or bedstead) on the banks is a common sight, the "_sola reliquia_" of some poor Hindoo, who departs this life by the side of the stream, to which his body is afterwards committed.