Title
A Voyage to the East Indies: Page 87
Description
We sail’d from Madras Roads on the 18th of September, & got a Pilot on board in Balasore Roads on the 6th Day after, who carried us up the River of Bengal as far as Kedgeree & brought us to an anchor. At Kedgeree were lying the Walpole, Fox, True Briton, Duke of Portland & Duke of Kingston Indiamen, with several Dutchmen and country vessels. This River which is an Union of the Ganges & Ugli is at this Place very broad but full of Sands, which frequently shift and change with the Rapidity of the Tides. By the same Cause the Mouth of the River, where it empties itself into the sea, is almost obstructed with Sands and Banks. The two Rivers run in Consort about fifty Miles, to which the Ganges comes from a most distant source, and the Ugli, tho it receives its Name from a Town so call’d about one hundred Miles up the Country thro’ which it flows, comes from near the Kingdom of Thibet. To the Ganges, all the Gentoo Inhabitants of India, pay the greatest adoration. They consider its waters sacred & possess’d of numberless virtues. To it they commit the Bodies of their dying Relations, even before their Senses leave them, laying them on the Beach at the Time of low Water, and when the rises it carries them away. Its Banks are incredibly crouded, for by washing therein, they are absolv’d from their sins recover their Cast if lost & happy are those who die in its Waters [end page 87]
