his prayers Brahmá allowed Gangá to visit the earth. Bhagirath led the way as far as Háthiágarh, in the 24 Parganás, near the sea, and then declared that he could not show the rest of the way. Whereupon Gangá, in order to make sure of reaching the spot, divided herself into a hundred mouths, thus forming the Delta of the Ganges. One of these mouths reached the cell, and, by washing the ashes, completed the atonement for the offence of the sons of King Ságar, whose souls were thereupon admitted into heaven. Gangá thus became the sacred stream of the hundred mouths. The people say that the sea took its name of Ságar from this legend; and the point of junction of the river and the sea at Ságar Island still continues a celebrated seat of Hindu pilgrimage. To this place hundreds of thousands of devout pilgrims repair every year, on the day of the Great Bathing Festival, to wash away their sins in its holy waters.
Changes in the Courses of the Rivers.—No alterations have taken place in the courses of the different rivers of late years, but the Húgí now follows a very different channel to what it did in olden times. The original course was identical with the present Tolly’s Canal as far as Gariá, about eight miles south of Calcutta, from which point it ran to the sea in a south-easterly direction. The old channel is still traceable as far as Háthiágarh Fiscal Division, where it loses itself. This channel long ago dried up, and the bed now consists of a series of tanks. Many large Hindu villages are situated on the banks of the old stream, which is called the Adi, or original Gangá. The Hindus still consider the route of the channel sacred, and burn their dead on the sides of the tanks dug in its bed. A further description of changes in the course of the Húglí will be found in my Statistical Accounts of Húglí and Midnapur Districts. The existence of semicircular or serpentine lakes in the neighbourhood of the rivers points to former changes in their courses. They once formed part of tortuous streams; but the ends of the semicircular arc having silted up, the rivers opened out a shorter passage for themselves along the chord of the arc. These small narrow lakes are particularly numerous on both sides of the Jamuná in Basurhát. That river also exhibits a peculiar feature of deltaic streams, noticed in the Account of Jessor, viz. that offshoots of the main stream in course of time silt up at the head, and their beds become channels for the surface drainage of the District.
The Banks of the rivers are generally abrupt on the side
