Bay of Bengal

“ At this season of the year the north-east monsoon has entirely ceased in the centre of the Bay of Bengal; so that a ship which steers well out between the Nicobars and Andamans need not apprehend northerly winds; whereas in the north-eastern parts of the bay, the monsoon still blows faintly, with long intervals of calm. A merchant brig, reputed a good sailer, left Prince of Wales's Island 6 days before us, and followed the inner route, while we went outside, and arrived 10 days before her at Calcutta. ”

“ It has the Bay of Bengal on the west, Siam on the east, Malacca on the south, and Aracan on the north. This kingdom is almost 100 leagues in length, and in some places of the same breadth, not including the conquered provinces. The land is plain, well watered, and very fertile, producing abundance of provisions of all kinds, particularly cattle and grain. It has many temples with a prodigious multitude of images, and a vast number of ceremonies. The people believe themselves to have descended from a Chinese dog and a woman, who alone escaped from shipwreck on that coast and left a progeny ”

“ And as the region comes within the sweep of the monsoon from the Bay of Bengal, there is not only great heat in the plains and lower valleys, but great moisture as well. The mountain-sides are in consequence clothed with a luxuriant vegetation.
To enter this wonderful region the traveller has first to cross the Ganges—the sacred river of the Hindus. Great rivers have about them a fascination all their own. They produce in us a sense of everlastingness and irresistibility. ”

“ The officers, on the other hand, who did their part well under these trying circumstances, were treated by every one with that deference which was their right, and consequently the work of the ship went on in seamanlike fashion. We were fortunate, too, in getting out of the Bay of Bengal before the setting in of the south-west monsoon, when the weather is unspeakably vile. Steaming weather, variable winds, and frequent deluges of rain make life at sea in the Bay then a burden almost too grievous to be borne. ”

“ On the other side of the Bay of Bengal is a country, which, though called India, and under the East Indian Government, is not India. The very face of nature is different. It is a country not of vast plains, but of mountains and valleys, and springs that run among the hills; a country with another people than India, another language, and another religion. Looking upon the map of Asia, one sees at its southeastern extremity a long peninsula, reaching almost to the equator, with a central range of mountains, an Alpine chain, which runs through its whole length, as the Apennines run through Italy. ”

“ Physical Geography.—Three sub-provinces of the present lieutenant-governorship of Bengal—namely, Bengal proper, Behar and Orissa—consist of great river valleys; the fourth, Chota Nagpur, is a mountainous region which separates them from the central India plateau. Orissa embraces the rich deltas of the Mahanadi and the neighbouring rivers, bounded by the Bay of Bengal on the S.E., and walled in on the N.W. by tributary hill states. Proceeding west, the sub-province of Bengal proper stretches to the banks of the Ganges and inland from the sea-board to the Himalayas. ”

“ In the extreme north a remarkable mass of hills, called the Nimgiris, rise to a height of 5000 ft. The plain along the Bay of Bengal is a vast sheet of cultivation, green with rice fields and gardens of sugar-cane and tobacco. There are great varieties of climate in the district. Along the coast the air is soft and relaxing, the prevailing winds being south-easterly. ”

“ In the Bay of Bengal, about six hundred miles from the Hoogly mouth of the Ganges, lie the Andaman Islands. The savages inhabiting these islands have the unenviable reputation of being, in common with several other tribes, the nearest approach to primeval man in existence. ”

“ We stood over from Ceylon east-south-east cross the great Bay of Bengal, leaving all the coast of Coromandel, and standing directly for Achen, on the north point of the great island of Sumatra, and in the latitude of 6° 81' north.
Here we spread our French colours, and, coming to an anchor, suffered none of our men to go on shore but Captain Merlotte and his Frenchmen; and, having nothing to do there, or anywhere else in the Indian seas, but to take in provisions and fresh water, we stayed but five days; in which time we supplied ourselves with what the place would afford ”

“ The great plain extends, with an almost unbroken surface, from the most western to the most eastern extremity of British India, and is composed of deposits so finely comminuted, that it is no exaggeration to say that it is possible to go from the Bay of Bengal up the Ganges, through the Punjab, and down the Indus again to the sea, over a distance of 2000 m. ”

“ Groups [Pg 217] of coolies were toiling up with palms from the hot low country, a dozen paharis were seeking orchids among the hills, there would be game from the Terai, pâtés and French sweets from the city of palaces, and fish that had executed their last splash in the Bay of Bengal. ”

“ In many parts boats can approach by means of lakes, rivulets and water-courses to the door of almost every cottage. The lower region of the Ganges is the richest and most productive portion of Bengal, abounding in valuable produce. The other principal rivers in Bengal are the Sone, Gogra, Gandak, Kusi, Tista; the Hugli, formed by the junction of the Bhagirathi and Jalangi, and farther to the west, the Damodar and Rupnarayan; and in the south-west, the Mahanadi or great river of Orissa. ”

“ As we shot along the creek for a few miles, each turn gave us peeps of the rich and luxuriant scenery of this part of Bengal. Gardens of plantain, mango, and jack-trees lined the banks, intermixed with clumps of the tapering bamboo; clusters of neat huts, with arched roofs, appeared half-buried beneath their umbrageous foliage, through openings of which, in the dim, chequered light, village girls, with water-pots on their heads, might be seen gliding along, and imparting to the whole scene an air of primeval and truly Eastern simplicity. ”

“ The river winds in and out, an unknown little stream in the inmost zenana of Bengal, neither lazy nor fussy; lavishing the wealth of her affection on both sides, she prattles about common joys and sorrows and the household news of the village girls, who come for water, and sit by her side, assiduously rubbing their bodies to a glowing freshness with their moistened towels.
This evening we have moored our boat in a lonely bend. The sky is clear. The moon is at its full. Not another boat is to be seen. The moonlight glimmers on the ripples. Solitude reigns on the banks. ”

“ There was a third mode of proceeding to the north-west. A few years previously a River Steam Company had been formed for the transmission of passengers and goods. Passengers were accommodated in flats drawn by steamers. As the Ganges enters Bengal it breaks into a number of streams, by which it makes its way to the ocean. The Hoogly, on which Calcutta stands, is one of these streams. ”

“ The Bengal fortunately encountered none but the most favorable winds and tides for many a long and to those on board somewhat monotonous days, and the sun rose out of the sea clear and bright, and sunk again beneath its surface in gorgeous splendor with every diurnal rotation, until at length the ship touched at the Cape of Good Hope, where, having taken fresh water and provisions on board, she cleared direct for Liverpool. Every hour now seemed more especially to draw the ship nearer her port of destination, and a fresh spirit was infused among passengers and crew, in cabin and forecastle ”

“ About Bengal, especially in the Sunderbund-passages, 396decoits, or water-robbers, are sometimes numerous. These often assemble in fleets, composed of long narrow boats, rowing from twelve to thirty oars, or paddles, at pleasure, and carrying from thirty to sixty, or seventy, men. Sometimes their fleets have been so formidable, and have so effectually put a stop to all commerce, as to call the attention of government, and to demand the presence of a strong establishment, backed by liberal offers of rewards, before the rivers could be resorted to in safety. ”

“ Nobo Kumar had provided a grand entertainment in the afternoon for the thousands of villagers who had assembled. At the close of the rains, when the streams and rivers of Bengal are full, the cultivators amuse themselves by boat races, in which they are experts. Long narrow boats, constructed for speed and manned by sixteen or twenty rowers, skim over the water with almost incredible speed ”

“ Until, in 1852 and the ten years following, Lord Dalhousie’s railway up the Ganges valley was completed to Allahabad, the usual mode of proceeding up-country from Calcutta was by the house-boat known as the budgerow, which is still common on the many rivers of Bengal where English planters and officials are found. At the rate of twenty-five miles a day the traveller is towed up against stream by the boatmen. ”

“ It is not justified by history, which teaches us that civilisation is the result of the mutual action of Europe and Asia; and that the advanced races of India are our own kinsfolk.
The scene of Mr. Banerjea's tales has been won from the sea by alluvial action. Its soil, enriched by yearly deposits of silt, yields abundantly without the aid of manure. A hothouse climate and regular rainfall made Bengal the predestined breeding-ground of mankind; the seat of an ancient and complex civilisation. But subsistence is too easily secured in those fertile plains. ”

“ The inundation which overflows Bengal, especially in the districts of Nattore, Dacca, Jessore, the southern parts of Rungpore, and a part of Mahomed-Shi, is, perhaps, one of the most curious of nature’s phenomena! The wisdom of our Creator is most conspicuously shewn in the appropriation of sustenance, both for the human and for the brute species, suited to meet this annual visitation of the waters. ”

“ This river discharges a prodigious quantity of water, and is esteemed holy by the neighbouring nations, who believe that its water conduces to their salvation when at the point of death, and are carried therefore that they may die with their feet in its water, by which means the king of Bengal derives a considerable revenue, no one being allowed to bathe in that river without paying a certain tax. ”

“ In Bihār, travelling eastwards, medium heads are most common. In the damp and steamy delta of Bengal, inhabited by over forty millions of rather dusky rice-eating people, there is a marked tendency towards the Mongolian brachy-cephaly of Tibeto-Burman races. ”

“ Through the stark, swollen, heat-scorched yellowness of Bengal, with fleeting glimpses of blue-garbed natives tilling the fields and patient buffaloes turning the water wheels and once in a while a squat, shimmering city seen vaguely through the delicate tracery of the trees! ”

“ From the great centres of population of Upper India went to and from the coast an unceasing stream of traffic, creating at a hundred points along the river's course important marts to which merchants from near and far resorted. In Bengal itself was the seat of many industries and the home of a numerous population whose exploitation offered openings of a promising kind to a great commercial organization of the character of the East India Company. To such a quarter it was inevitable that the English should sooner or later turn their serious attention. ”

“ The great stream which fertilises the soil is, at the same time, the chief highway of Eastern commerce. On its banks, and on those of its tributary waters, are the wealthiest marts, the most splendid capitals, and the most sacred shrines of India. The tyranny of man had for ages struggled in vain against the overflowing bounty of nature. In spite of the Mussulman despot and of the Mahratta freebooter, Bengal was known through the East as the garden of Eden, as the rich kingdom. Its population multiplied exceedingly. ”

“ Those of the interior are inhabited by Gentiles, subject to the King of Bengal, who is a Moor; and the seaports are inhabited by Moors and Gentiles, amongst whom there is much trade in goods and much shipping to many parts, because this sea is a gulf which enters towards the north, and at its inner extremity there is a very great city inhabited by Moors which is called Bengala, [285] with a very [179] good harbour. Its inhabitants are white men and well formed. ”

“ There is very little chance of anything getting off again when once she touches in the furious Hugli current, loaded with all the fat silt of the fields of Bengal, where the soundings change two feet between tides, and new channels make and unmake themselves in one rainy season. Men have fought the Hugli for two hundred years, till now the river owns a huge building, with drawing, survey, and telegraph departments, devoted to its private service, as well as a body of wardens, who are called the Port Commissioners. ”

“ THE scope of our narrative now calls us from the coast of Coromandel to relate the calamities which at this time befel the English settlements in Bengal; previous to which it is requisite to investigate the rise and progress of the English commerce in the province, and to give some portion of the history of the Mahomedan government.
Bengal is the easternmost of the provinces which compose the empire of the Great Mogul. It lies between the degrees 26. 30. and 21. 30. of north latitude, and extends from the 86th to the 97th degree of longitude, computing from the meridian of London. ”