Thomas Hungerford Holdich

“ At Allahabad, however, it receives the Jumna, a mighty sister stream, which takes its rise also in the Himalayas to the west of the sources of the Ganges. The combined river winds eastwards by south-east through the United Provinces, receiving the Gumti and the Gogra. The point of junction with both the Gumti and the Gogra has more or less pretension to sanctity. But the tongue of land at Allahabad, where the Jumna and the Ganges join, is the true Prayag, the place of pilgrimage, to which hundreds of thousands of devout Hindus repair to wash away their sins in the sacred river. ”

“ The Ganges is essentially a river of great cities: Calcutta, Monghyr, Patna, Benares and Allahabad all lie on its course below its junction with the Jumna; and the ancient capitals, Agra and Delhi, are on the Jumna, higher up. ”

“ Such changes are so rapid and on so vast a scale, and the corroding power of the current on the bank so irresistible, that in Lower Bengal it is considered perilous to build any structure of a large or permanent character on its margin. Many decayed or ruined cities attest the changes in the river-bed in ancient times; and within our own times the main channel which formerly passed Rajmahal has turned away from it, and left the town high and dry, 7 m. ”