Journal of a Cavalry Officer; Including the Memorable Sikh Campaign of 1845-1846Humbley, W. W. W. (William Wellington Waterloo)
History
Journal of a Cavalry Officer; Including the Memorable Sikh Campaign of 1845-1846
Humbley, W. W. W. (William Wellington Waterloo)
India -- Description and travel; Sikh War, 1845-1846
Thus Mr. Cleveland's laudable efforts have been more successful than
might have been expected, and the people in the neighbourhood of
Bhaugulpore, instead of being in a state of continual strife, are
now living very peaceably. Mr. Cleveland's former residence, a large
handsome building, is situated immediately on the banks of the Ganges,
and a monument to his memory has been erected in the burial-ground.
There are several other very good houses, this being a civil station.
A Branch of the Agricultural and Horticultural Society has been
flourishing for the last ten years, and the Botanical Gardens are
worth visiting. There is a resident chaplain who divides his duties
between this place and Monghyr. I may remark, by the way, that all the
chaplains are military; and, as in the Navy, are entitled to prize
money in war time.
The late Colonel Francklin endeavoured to make Bhaugulpore the site
of the ancient Palibothra, because he supposed the Chundun to be the
Erannoboas of the Greeks. This subject has, however, been so fully
discussed, that it is to be hoped that the mind of the reader has been
duly impressed with the conviction that Allahabad is the veritable
site, as being the spot where the junction of those two mighty rivers,
the Ganges and the Jumna, occurs.
Bhaugulpore is noted for its silk manufacture, particularly for a
very light material much used in dishabille, as well as for screens,
punkahs, etc. The trade has latterly been much promoted by the facility
of exportation by the Calcutta steamers, for this is one of the
Company's stations.
On the 1st of June, we started at daybreak, and arrived at Colgong at
half-past-seven A.M., having passed three singular and romantic looking
rocks, rising to a height of about sixty feet from the bed of the
river, and covered with verdure, among which some fanatics have built a
few sheds.
We left Colgong at eight, A.M. on the same day. Seven miles below
Colgong, the river takes a singular turn, round a hill covered with
wood, and where some rocks, with carvings of Hindoo deities, jut out
boldly into the stream. These rocks are very dangerous, because in
descending the river, you must hug the right bank, so as to keep them
on your left hand, for just below the rocks, which rise in the middle
of the river, there is a strong back-water. The captain's object
is to prevent his boat from getting into this back-water, and thus
being carried and lost upon, these rocks. There is moreover a kind
of whirlpool near the spot, so that we may call it the "Scylla and
Charybdis" of the Ganges. Boats ascending the river keep to the left,
where the stream is not rapid; but in descending, the boatmen, in order
to meet and overcome this back-water, must pull very hard, and for a
sixteen-oared boat at least twelve or fourteen of the crew must row.
The back-water is probably caused by the tendency of the water to run
to the rocks, in consequence of the turn in the river to the right, the
rocks being on the left.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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