Page:Ancient India as described by Megasthenês and Arrian.djvu/83

 64 sides tho^e already mentioned, the Condochates,1[ Erannoboas, Oosoagus, and Sonus are navigable. According to other accounts, it bursts at once with thundering roar from its fountain, and tumbling down a steep and rocky channel lodges in a lake as soon as it reaches the level plain, whence it issues forth with a gentle current, being nowhere less than eight miles broad, while its mean breadth is a hundred stadia, and its least depth twenty fathoms.* Solin. 52. 6-7. In India the largest rivers are the Ganges and the I n d u s, — the Ganges, as some maintain, rising from uncertain sources, and, like the Nile, ^ y. LL. Ganncam, Yamam. tme Ganges) firat comes to light near Gangotrl, in the terri- tory of Garhw&l, m lat. 30° 54', long. 79° 7", issuing from under a very low arch, at the base of a great snow-bed, estimated to be 300 feet thick, which lies between the lofty mountains termed St. Patrick, St. George, and the Pyramid, the two higher havinjp; elevations above the sea, respectively, of 22,798 and 22,654 feet, and the other, on the opposite side, having an elevation of 21,379. From the brow of this curious wall of snow, and immediately above the outlet of the stream, large and hoary icicles depend. They are formed by the freezing of the melted snow-water at me top of the bed ; for in the middle of the day the sun is powerful, and the vTater produced by its action fallB over this place in cascade, but is frozen at night .... At Stikbi the river m&y be said to break though the ' Him&laya Proper,' and the elevation of the waterway is here 7)606 feet. At DevprAg it is joined on the left side by tiie Alaknanda. . . From Devpr&g the united stream is now called the Ganges Its descent by the Dehra Dtaa. is rather rapid to Ha^dwftr .... sometimes called Gangddwftra, or right bank at the southern base of the Siv&lik range, here intersected by a ravine or gorge by which the river, finally leavinif the mountainous region, conmiences its course over the plains of Hindustftn. The breadth of the river in the rainy season. . is represented to be a full xxuleJ* '^Thornton, Digitized by Google
 * " The Bh&girat! (which we shall here regard as the
 * t^e gate of the Ganges,' being situate on its western or