At Rampore I found the temperature of the ground, at three feet depth, varied from 87.8 degrees to 89.8 degrees, being considerably lower than that of the air (94.2 degrees), whilst that of a fine ripening shaddock, into which I plunged a thermometer bulb, varied little from 81 degrees, whether the sun shone on it or not. From this place we made very slow progress south-eastwards, with a gentle current, but against constant easterly winds, and often violent gales and thunder-storms, which obliged us to bring up under shelter of banks and islands of sand. Sometimes we sailed along the broad river, whose opposite shores were rarely both visible at once, and at others tracked the boat through narrow creeks that unite the many Himalayan streams, and form a network soon after leaving their mountain valleys. A few miles beyond Pubna we passed from a narrow canal at once into the main stream of the Burrampooter at Jaffergunj: our maps had led us to expect that it flowed fully seventy miles to the eastward in this latitude; and we were surprised to hear that within the last twenty years the main body of that river had shifted its course thus far to the westward. This alteration was not effected by the gradual working westwards of the main stream, but by the old eastern channel so rapidly silting up as to be now unnavigable; while the Jummul, which receives the Teesta, and which is laterally connected by branches with the Burrampooter, became consequently wider and deeper, and eventually the principal stream. Nothing can be more dreary and uninteresting than the scenery of this part of the delta. The water is clay-coloured and turbid, always cooler than the air, which again was 4 degrees or 5 degrees below that of Calcutta, with a damper atmosphere. The banks are of stratified sand and mud, hardly raised above the mean level of the country, and consequently unlike those bordering most annually flooded rivers; for here the material is so unstable, that the current yearly changes its course. A wiry grass sometimes feebly binds the loose soil, on which there are neither houses nor cultivation. Ascending the Jummul (now the main channel of the Burrampooter) for a few miles, we turned off into a narrower channel, sixty miles long, which passes by Dacca, where we arrived on the 28th, and where we were again detained for boats, the demand for which is rapidly increasing with the extended cultivation of the Sunderbunds and Delta. We stayed with Mr. Atherton, and botanised in the neighbourhood of the town, which was once very extensive, and is still large, though not flourishing. The population is mostly Mahometan; the site, though beautiful and varied, is unhealthy for Europeans. Ruins of great Moorish brick buildings still remain, and a Greek style of ornamenting the houses prevails to a remarkable degree.