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Thirty-six miles from Purnea brought me to Kishengunj, when I found that no arrangements whatever had been made for my dawk, and I was fairly stranded. Luckily a thoughtful friend had provided me with letters to the scattered residents along the road, and I proceeded with one to Mr.

The country around Kishengunj is flat and very barren; it is composed of a deep sandy soil, covered with a short turf, now swarming with cockchafers. Water is found ten or twelve feet below the surface, and may be supplied by underground streams from the Himalaya, distant forty-five miles.

The elevation of the station is 130 feet above the sea, that of Kishengunj I made 131; so that the Gangetic valley is nearly a dead level for fully a hundred miles north, beyond which it rises; Titalya, 150 miles to the north, being 360 feet, and Siligoree, at the margin of the Terai, rather higher.

The river again falls more considerably than the land; the Mahanuddy, at Kishengunj, being about twenty feet below the level of the plains, or 110 above the sea; whereas the Ganges, at Rampore, is probably not more than eighty feet, even when the water is highest.

We arrived at Kishengunj, on the Mahanuddy, on the 3rd of May, and were delayed two days for our boat, which should have been waiting here to take us to Berhampore on the Ganges: we were, however, hospitably received by Mr. Perry's family. The approach of the rains was indicated by violent easterly storms of thunder, lightning, and rain; the thermometer ranging from 70 degrees to 85 degrees.

At night the storm lulled a little, and I proceeded to Caragola Ghat and took up my dawk, which had been twenty-eight hours expecting me, and was waiting, in despair of my arrival, for another traveller on the opposite bank, who however could not cross the river. Having accomplished thirty miles, I halted at 9 a..m. on the following morning at Purnea, quitting it at noon for Kishengunj.