GANGES, the great river of Northern India, is formed by the drainage of the southern ranges of the Himalaya. It rises in the Garhwal state, in lat. 30° 56' 4" N., and long. 79° 6' 40° E., and falls into tho Bay of Bengal after a course of 1557 miles. It has been known to Europe from very early times. Tho fleets of tho Egyptian kings sailed to it round the Peninsula of India and Ceylon. Seleucus Nicator is said to have penetrated to the mouth of the Ganges, and it had been sailed up by the Romans as far as Palibrotha before the time of Strabo. Its valley seems to have been peopled by several mces long before the Aryan Hindus arrived there, and many of the conquerors who have entered India from the north-west have striven to occupy the fertile valley of this great river. Hindu poets have celebrated its praises in a inultitudo of songs. Tho nver is fabled in their mythology to be the god dess Gangs ; they long to see it, to bathe in ita waters and be purified from their sins, aud at last to die on its banks, or to have their bones con veyed to it from tho most remote parta of India. No Hindu raises such a question as in 2 Kings v. 12, for the Ganges is recognised as the moat efficacious of all the Hindu sacred rivers. On its banks have dwelt tho chief of the religious re formers whom India has seen. Its valley was the cradle of Buddhism, which, from its rise in the sixth century before Christ, gradually spread over tbe whole of India, was extended by Asoka to Kashmir and Kabul, shortly after Alexander's invasion, and now prevails amongst 222 millions of men. Numerous dynasties have ruled there. The Andra race was in power in tho Gangetic province of India about the beginning of the Christian era, but the most endtuing was the great Kshatriya family that long ruled at Indraprestha, and ter minated with Prithi-raj in A.D. 1200.
The whole valley is now part of British India. Tho river issues from the mountains at Gangotri, at an elevation of 13,800 feet, and is there known as the Bhagimthi. It issues from beneath a great glacier, thickly studded with enonnousloose rocks and earth. The glacier is about a mile in width, and extends upwards of many miles, towards an immense mountain covered down to its base with perpetual snow, its glittering summit piercing the very skies, rising 21,000 feet above the level of the sea. The chasm in the glacier, throngh which the sacred stream rushes forth into the light of day, is named Gangotri and Gaomukbi, the Cow's Mouth, and is held in the deepest reverence by all Hindus ; and the regions of eternal frost in its vicinity are the scenes of many of their most sacred mysteries. The Ganges enters the world
no puny stream, but bursts forth from its icy womb a river thirty or forty yards in breadth, of great depth, and very rapid. From the source at Gangotri it runs in a generally south - easterly direction to Allahabad, to Sikrigalli, and into the Bay of Bengal, by numerous months, having given off some of its waters to form the lloogly, and it also anastomoses with the Megna. In its course it receives the Jumna, 860 ; Gogm, 606 ; Gandak, 450 ; Gumti, 482; Sone, 465 ; Kos.), 325 ; Ram ganga, 373 ; Mahanadi, 240 ; Karumnassa, 140; Konkte or Jamuna, 130 ; Alaknanda, 80; Bhillung, 50 miles. 39,000 square miles are drained, exclu sive of Hoogly. The Ganges is navigable for river craft as far a.s Hardwar, 1100 miles; steamers ply as far as Gurmukteesnr, 393 miles above Allahabad, distant from Calcutta tin Dehli 930 miles; at Cawnpur, 140 miles above Allahabad, the navigation is plied with great activity. It falls rapidly to Hardwar, which is 1300 miles from the mouth. At Allahabad, 840 miles from the sea, it receives the river Juinna, which rises at the south-western base of the Jumnotri peaks. .A.t about 240 miles from the coast it begins to divide into branches. The two on the west, called the Bhagirathi and Jalingi, unite to form the river Hoogly ; the other stream passes to the Brahma putraorith which the waters mingle, and aro known a.s the Kartinassa river. The Ganges receives from tho left bank the Ramganga, Gumti, Gogm, Ganda.k, Kosi, and Mahanadi ; and from the right bank, the Kali, the Kali Naddi, Jumna, and Sone. Some of these are equal to the Rhine, and none smaller than the Thames, besides many others of lesser note. It is owing to this vast influx of streams that the Ganges exceeds the Nile so greatly in point of magnitude, while the latter exceeds it in length of course by one-third. In the plain of the Ganges are the provinces of Bengal, Behar, the Doab or Mesopotamia of the Jumna and Ganges, Oudh, and Rohilkhand. It is of exuberant fertility. The population of the Gangetic Doab is 800 to the square mile. The chief towns on the banks of the Ganges are Hardwar, Bijnour, Farrakhabad, Cawnpur, Mirzapur, Benares, Ghazipur, Patna, Monghir, Bhagulpur, Rajmahal, Rampur, Pubna. Calcutta is below the sea level ; Benares 265 feet above it ; Allahabad 305 feet, and Agra 670 feet. The pre-eminently sacred spots on its banks are Gangotri, Hardwar, Allahabad, Benares, and Saugor Island, which are frequented by thousands of pilgrims from every province of the Peninsula.