INLAND NAVIGATION.

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mittcd os its being successfully put into execution, be one of the greatestundertakings of the kind that ever was projected, that of cutting throughthe isthmus of Suez only excepted. We should then have seen twacapital rivers, which traverse a large part of the continent of Asia, whichenter the sea at one thousand five hundred miles asunder, and whichstretch out their arms, as it were, to meet each other, united by art(canals), so as to form an uninterrupted inland navigation from Cabul toAssam. I take it for granted that this canal was never completed, other-wise we should have heard more of it, as we have of the canals beforedescribed, leading from the river Jumma. The distance between thenavigable parts of the Jumma and the Setlege, is not above one hundredand twenty miles direct.

“ The Ganges and Burrampooter rivers, together with their numerousbranches, intersect the country of Bengal (which, independent of Baharand Orissa, is larger than Great Britain) in such a variety of directions, asto form the most complete and easy inland navigation that can be con-ceived. So equally and admirably diffused are those natural canals,that little is left for art to perform in a country that approachesso nearly to a perfect plane, that, after excepting the lands contiguousto Burdwan, Birboom, &c. &c. which may be reckoned about a sixthpart of Bengal, we may safely affirm that every other part of thecountry has, even in the dry season, some navigable stream withintwenty-sive miles at farthest, and more commonly within a third partof that distance.

“ It is supposed that this inland navigation gives constant employment tothirty thousand boatmen; nor will this excite our surprise, when it isknown that all the salt, and a large proportion of the food, consumed byten millions of people, are conveyed by water within the kingdom ofBengal and its dependencies. To these must be added, the transport of thecommercial exports and imports, probably to the amount of two millionssterling per annum; the interchange of manufactures and products

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