WORK DONE BY THE GANGES.

5 *

purifying waters, and so forming the delta of Bengal . The sixyears’ pilgrimage from her source to her mouth and back again,known as pradak-shina , is still performed by many ; and a fewdevotees may yet be seen wearily accomplishing the meritoriouspenance of ‘ measuring their length ’ along certain parts of theroute. To bathe in the Ganges at the stated festivals washesaway guilt, and those who have thus purified themselves carryback bottles of her water to their kindred in far-off provinces.

To die and to be cremated on the river bank, and to havetheir ashes borne seaward by her stream, is the last wish ofmillions of Hindus. Even to ejaculate ‘ Ganga , Ganga, ’ atthe distance of 100 leagues from the river, said her moreenthusiastic devotees, might atone for the sins committedduring three previous lives.

The Ganges has earned the reverence of the people by Workcenturies of unfailing work done for them. She and her c1 ° ne b ytributaries are the unwearied water-carriers for the densely- Ganges ;peopled Provinces of Northern India , and the peasantryreverence the bountiful stream which fertilizes their fields anddistributes their produce. None of the other rivers of India comes near to the Ganges in works of beneficence. TheBrahmaputra and the Indus have longer streams, as measuredby the geographer, but their upper courses lie beyond thegreat mountain wall in the unknown recesses of the Himalayas .

Not one of the rivers of Southern India is navigable in The water-the proper sense. But in the North, the Ganges begins to fgrtiHzer nd■distribute fertility by irrigation as soon as she reaches the of Bengal ,plains, within 200 miles of her source, and at the same timeher channel becomes in some sort navigable. Thenceforwardshe rolls majestically down to the sea in a bountiful stream,which never becomes a merely destructive torrent in therains, and never dwindles away in the hottest summer.

Tapped by canals, she distributes millions of cubic feet ofwater every hour in irrigation; but her diminished volume ispromptly recruited by great tributaries, and the wide area ofher catchment basin renders her stream inexhaustible in theservice of man. Embankments are in but few places requiredto restrain her inundations, for the alluvial silt which she spillsover her banks affords in most parts a top-dressing of inex-haustible fertility. If one crop be drowned by the flood, thepeasant comforts himself with the thought that the next cropfrom his silt-manured fields will abundantly requite him. Thefunction of the Ganges as a land-maker on a great scale willbe explained hereafter.