MEGNA, a river running through the eastern part of the province of Bengal. It is formed by the junction of the Surma and the Barak, which have their sources in the mountains running along the N. and E. frontiers of the Sylhet district. The united stream, after a course of about 30 miles, joins the Brahmaputra, in lat. 24° 9' N., and the Brahmaputra thence takes the name of the latter. Thus augmented, the Megna swells into an expanse resembling an inland sea, studded with islands. About 10 miles further down it receives another branch of the Ganges, and iu the remainder of its course is separated from the latter river only by a narrow strip of land. In lat. 23° N. it takes a S. direction, and, after a general southerly course of 120 miles, discharges itself by a wide embouchure into the Bay of Bengal, and closely adjacent to the delta of the Ganges, with which it forms numerous interlacements. The muddy waters of these great rivers form numerous banks and islands, the principal of which are Dekhan Shahbazpur, Hattia, and Sandwip, and between these the tides run with great rapidity.
The regular rise of the tide is from 10 to 18 feet, and at every full and new moon the sea rushes up in a single wave, known as the bore.' The bore is heavier at the time of the biennial equinoxes, when navigation is sometimes impeded for days together, especially when the wind blows from the south. Before anything can be seen, a noise • like thunder is heard in the far distance seawards. Then the tidal wave is suddenly beheld, advancing like a wall topped with foam, of the height of nearly 20 feet, and moving at the rate of 15 miles an hour. In a few minutes the wall rushes by, and the brimming river has at once changed from ebb to flood tide. A greater danger than the bore are the cyclone storm waves, which occasionally sweep up the Megna. These are most liable to recur at the break of the monsoons in May and October. In the cyclone of May 1867, the island of Hattia was entirely submerged by a wave, which is estimated, to have reached a height of 40 feet. Again, towards evening of 31st October 1876, the wind had gradually risen till it blew a gale. Suddenly at about mid night in some places, and nearer dawn in others, the roar of the wave was heard, drowning the noises. of the storm. Two or three waves came on in succession, flooding in one moment the entire country, and sweeping before them every living thing. The destruction of human life on that night is estimated at 100,000 souls in the mainland portion of Noakhali district, and the two islands of Sandwip and Hattia, or about 19 per cent. of the total population. The mortality subsequently caused by cholera, and a train of dependent diseases, equalled that due directly to drowning.
Over all these islands, flat as a table, and with out any shelter, the hurricane blew ; while the wretched people cowered behind their crashing huts and falling groves ; but the first blast was only the eastern periphery of the circular storm, which thus swept up the Megna, meeting the current, and partly conquered by it. The boat men of the Sunderbans do not so much fear the cyclone upon the water when it thus fights the tide. But on this occasion the islands of the
Megna and its broad channel seem to have been the very centre of the circular storm, which accordingly, after thus with its upward sweep scourging the land and piling up the water, turned almost like a wheel over Lakhipur, and, whirling downward again, drove with its western segment the heaped-up waters of the two great rivers in a wall of death thrice as high as the bore,' washing clean over the rich and populous islands. They stand some 20 feet above mid tide, yet this wave of the cyclone ran at least another 20 feet high over the dry land, submerg ing every hamlet and cattle-shed, drowning men, women, and children in their sleep, bursting over tank, garden, and temple. From the Moment when the first howl of the cyclone was heard tearing upward from the ocean, to the awful return-stroke of the tempest, herding before it the dark waves of water, hardly thirty minutes had elapsed. Tens of thousands of. human beings were by that time caught up and washed like drift - wood into the boiling bay ; tens of thousands more were choked in their beds by whelming waves and ruined buildings ; and all the works of their hands, all their possessions, all their cattle, were similarly seized in the black flood and destroyed. A few escaped, for these poor natives are the most dexterous climbers. Thanks to this habitude, some, on being dashed against the trunks of the palms and areca trees, managed to climb out of the flood, and cling upon the bending stems until the waters subsided ; others, clambering on the chupper-roofs of their huts, were washed out to sea, and driven upon the opposite bank of the Megna. By noon next day these miserable survivors saw the dry land again, and were saved ; but 100,000 had perished out. of an island and shore population of about a million, and some villages lost as many as 70 per cent. of their inhabitants. Sir Richard Temple visited the sub merged district, and reported 3000 square miles desolated, and the whole area of islands and shores lying like the corpse of a province,— drowned, bare, and ghastly. One of the certain effects of this cyclone-wave was that the animals of the jungle were all drowned; the carrion-eating creatures, the snakes, the insects, the rats, all had shared the common fate. Even the birds were surprised by the deluge, and died in vast numbers. There had been nothing so awful since the similar catastrophe in 1822 in the same dis trict, when 100,000 people are said to have perished. On that occasion no fewer than 40 children were brought to birth by the frightened mothers while taking refuge in the tree-tops, a circumstance which sufficiently depicts the terror and helplessness of such a visitation. It may be possible in future to protect the Megna villages against Such calamities, by the old Assyrian device of erecting nigh at band a spacious and lofty mound of clay. Such artificial eminences would have saved 100,000 lives on that frightful last night of October, when the pent-up tide of two enormous rivers rolled over every home and every refuge.