The spot Where the Ganges enters the plains, after forc ing its way through an extensive tract of mountainous country,is called Haim ca Pahl, situated at the extremity of the town of Hurdwar, and is regarded with peculiar ve neration by the llindoos. Hither an annual pilgrimage is made by people from all parts of Hindostan and the Dec can, for the purpose of ablution in the sacred stream. The bathing commences on the loth of April. Every twelfth year is celebrated with greater rejoicings, and is called Cumbla Meba, from the planet Jupiter being then in the sign Aquarius. A fair is held here, and numbers repair to it merely from commercial motives. Merchants from the Penjab, Cahn!, Cashmere, and other places, furnish mer chandise, and from this mart the principal cities in the Duab, Delhi, and Lucknow, are supplied. At this season, sometimes two millions of people are collected. The tem ple containing the. idol rises from the bed of the river. it is a plain building, surmounted by two cupolas. No par ticular ceremony is observed at the bathing, which consists of simple immersion. Those who are rigidly devout, or who have any apprehension about going into the water, are assisted by a couple of Brahmins, who having dipped the penitent in the holy stream, reconduct him ashore. Few, however, require this assistance ; and as the water is not above four feet deep, the women plunge in without hesita tion, and both sexes mix indiscriminately. After ablution is peat:limed, the men whose fathers are dead, and widows, undergo tonsure, and the hair is generally strewed in some frequented path, with the superstitious idea, that good or bad for tune is indicated by the pet-son or animal that first chances to tread on it. An elephant is consider ed peculiarly fortunate.
Although the water of the Ganges, from Gangoutri to Sagor, is esteemed sacred, yet there are certain places, the resort of pilgrims from a distance, more eminently so than the rest. These are chiefly the five Pruyags, or sacred junctions of rivers, of which the principal is Allahabad, called Pruyag by way of distinction. The others are situated in the province of Sirinagur, at the confluence of the Alacananda with small rivers, and are named Deva prayaga, Budraprayaga, Car naprayaga, and Nandaprayaga. Besides its sanctity, the Ganges is much esteemed for its medicinal properties, and drank on this account by Maho medans.
The Ganges and Bralimapootra rivers, with their nu merous branches and tributaries, intersect the country of Bengal in such a variety of directions, as to form the most complete and easy inland navigation imaginable. So equal ly and admirably diffused are those natural canals, over a country approaching ton perfect plain, that 4-5ths of Ben gal may be safely said to be so well watered, as to mand sonic navigable stream, even in the dry season, with in a distance of twenty-live miles. This inland navigation employs upwards of 30,000 boatmen. And when it is con sidered that all the salt, and most of the food consumed by so large a population, is transported by water within Ben gal and its dependencies, and at the same time that the commercial exports and imports, the interchange of manu factures and products throughout the country, the fisheries, and travelling, are all carried on by this means, it becomes less a matter of surprize that the inland navigation should employ such a number of hands.
The Ganges, on escaping from the mountains, flows with a smooth navigable stream, through delightful plains, dur ing its course to the sea, diffusing plenty over the adjacent lands, and affording every facility for the transport of the productions of its borders. Nor is it unimportant in a mi litary point of view ; opening a communication bem cen the different posts, it serves as a military way through the country, and renders unnecessary the formation of ma gazines.
After the Ganges issues from the mountains near IIurd war, to the conflux with the Jumna at Allababad, (the first large river that it meets), its bed varies from a mile to one mile and a quarter in breadth. From thence its course be comes more circuitous, and its channel wider, till having received successively the Goggrah, the Soanc, and the Gunduck, besides many smaller streams, its channel attains its full width ; and though afterwards in some places it nar rows to half a mile, yet where DO islands intervene, it ex tends to a breadth of three miles. When at its lowest, the principal channel varies from 400 yards to 1-1th mile wide, and commonly is about 4ths of a mile in breadth. The Ganges is fordable at some places above its conflux with the Jumna, but the navigation is never interrupted. At 500 miles from the sea, the channel is 30 feet deep when the river is lowest ; and this depth continues to the sea, where the sudden expansion of the stream deprives it of force sufficient to sweep away the bars of sand and mud thrown across it by the strong southerly winds, so that the prin cipal branch of the Ganges cannot be entered by large vessels.
In its course through the plains, the Gans receives 11 rivers, some which are equal in size to the Rhine, and none smaller than the Thames, besides as many more of lesser note. To this vast influx of water, it is owing that the Ganges exceeds the Nile so much in point of magni tude, while the latter exceeds it by one third in length of course.
The general descent of the Ganges does not exceed four inches per mile ; and the mean rate of motion, in the dry season, is less than three miles an hour. In the wet season, whilst the waters are running off from the inundated lands, the current flows from five to six miles an hour, and in par ticular circumstances and situations, seren or eight miles. An instance is mentioned by Rennell, in which a boat was carried, against a strong wind, 56 miles in eight hours. Considering that the velocity of the stream is three miles in one season, and five or more in the other, or the same descent of four inches per mile, and that the motion of the inundation is only half a mile per hour, on a much greater descent, no further proof is required, how small the pro portion of velocity is, which is communicated by the de scent. It is then to the impetus originating at the spring head, or at the place where adventitious waters are poured in, and successively communicated to every part of the stream, that we are to attribute the velocity, which is go verned by the greater or less accession of water.