The killaah was originally a fortified castle, and is situated near the river Kaullee Nuddie,[4] a branch or arm of the Ganges, the main stream of which flows about two miles distant. During the periodical rains, the Ganges overflows its banks, and inundates the whole tract of land intervening between the two rivers, forming an extent of water more resembling a sea than a river. At the time we occupied the old castle, scarcely one room could be called habitable; and I learned with regret after the rains of 1826 and 1827, which were unusually heavy, that the apartments occupied since the Honourable East India Company's rule by their taasseel-dhaars,[5] (sub-collectors of the revenue), were rendered entirely useless as a residence. The comfortless interior of that well-remembered place was more than compensated by the situation. Many of my English acquaintance, who honoured me by visits at Kannoge, will, I think, agree with me, that the prospect from the killaah was indescribably grand. The Ganges and the Kaullee Nuddee were presented at one view; and at certain seasons of the year, as far as the eye could reach, their banks, and well-cultivated fields, clothed in a variety of green, seemed to recall the mind to the rivers of England, and their precious borders of grateful herbage. Turning in another direction, the eye was met by an impenetrable boundary of forest trees, magnificent in growth, and rich in foliage; at another glance, ruins of antiquity, or the still remaining tributes to saints; the detached villages; the sugar plantations; the agriculturists at their labour; the happy peasantry laden with their purchases from the bazaars; the Hindoo women and children, bearing their earthen-vessels to and from the river for supplies of water:--each in their turn formed objects of attraction from without, that more than repaid the absence of ordinary comforts in the apartment from which they were viewed. The quiet calm of this habitation, unbroken by the tumultuous sounds of a city, was so congenial to my taste, that when obliged to quit it, I felt almost as much regret as when I heard that the rains had destroyed the place which had been to me a home of peaceful enjoyment. The city of Kannoge has evidently suffered the severities of a shock from an earthquake: the present inhabitants cannot tell at what period this occurred, but it must have been some centuries since, for the earth is grown over immense ruins, in an extensive circuit, forming a strong but coarse carpet of grass on the uneven mounds containing the long-buried mansions of the great. The rapid streams from the periodical rains forcing passages between the ruins, has in many places formed deep and frightful ravines, as well as rugged roads and pathways for the cattle and the traveller.