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, which were covered with a climbing fern (_Acrosticum scandens_), so that we easily doubled our flora of the river banks before arriving at Maldah. This once populous town is, like Berhampore, now quite decayed, since the decline of its silk and indigo trades: the staple product, called "Maldy," a mixture of silk and cotton, very durable, and which washes well, now forms its only trade, and is exported through Sikkim to the north-west provinces and Tibet. It is still famous for the size and excellence of its mangos, which ripen late in May; but this year the crop had been destroyed by the damp heats of spring, the usual north-west dry winds not having prevailed. The ruins of the once famous city of Gour, a few miles distant, are now covered with jungle, and the buildings are fast disappearing, owing to the bricks being carried away to be used elsewhere. Below Maldah the river gets broader, and willow becomes common. We found specimens of a _Planorbis_ in the mud of the stream, and saw apparently a boring shell in the alluvium, but could not land to examine it. Chalky masses of alligators' droppings, like coprolites, are very common, buried in the banks, which become twenty feet high at the junction with the Ganges, where we arrived on the 14th. The waters of this great river were nearly two degrees cooler than those of the Mahanuddy.