The soil, which is sandy along the Burrampooter, is more muddy and clayey in the centre of the Jheels, with immense spongy accumulations of vegetable matter in the marshes, through which we poked the boat-staves without finding bottom: they were for the most part formed of decomposed grass roots, with occasionally leaves, but no quantity of moss or woody plants. Along the courses of the greater streams drift timber and various organic fragments are no doubt imbedded, but as there is no current over the greater part of the flooded surface, there can be little or no accumulation, except perhaps of old canoes, or of such vegetables as grow on the spot. The waters are dark-coloured, but clear and lucid, even at their height. We proceeded up the Burrampooter, crossing it obliquely; its banks were on the average five miles apart, and formed of sand, without clay, and very little silt or mud: the water was clear and brown, like that of the Jheels, and very different from that of the Jummul. We thence turned eastwards into the delta of the Soormah, which we traversed in a north-easterly direction to the stream itself. We often passed through very narrow channels, where the grasses towered over the boats: the boatmen steered in and out of them as they pleased, and we were utterly at a loss to know how they guided themselves, as they had neither compass nor map, and there were few villages or landmarks; and on climbing the mast we saw multitudes of other masts and sails peeing over the grassy marshes, doing just the same as we did. All that go up have the south-west wind in their favour, and this helps them to their course, but beyond this they have no other guide but that instinct which habit begets. Often we had to retreat from channels that promised to prove short cuts, but which turned out to be blind alleys. Sometimes we sailed up broader streams of chesnut-brown water, accompanied by fleets of boats repairing to the populous districts at the foot of the Khasia, for rice, timber, lime, coal, bamboos, and long reeds for thatching, all of which employ an inland navy throughout the year in their transport to Calcutta. Leeches and mosquitos were very troublesome, the latter appearing in clouds at night; during the day they were rarer, but the species was the same. A large cray-fish was common, but there were few birds and no animals to be seen.