Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume I Part 2.djvu/232

 GANGES Iteopraphen haviag conjectured thtt, like the Indus, it aiwe on the northern side of the chain of the Himi- laya mounUuns, in the direction of Thibet. It is now ascertained that the true river ia made up of three separate straams, which bear the respective names of the G&knamy Bhagirathi, and Alakdtumda, The second is held to be the most hallowed, and is tlie one to which the largest concourse of pilgrims re- sorts. The spot where it burets forth from the glaciers is called Chmg6tri {Gangavdtan), and is situated in lat SO^ 59' SC' N., long. 96^ 44' W., at an altitude of nearly 10.000 feet above the sea. Above it is the summit of Pankaparvaia^ which rises to the height of about 21,000 feet. (Schlegel, Ind, BibL vol. L p. 387 ; Ritter, vol. iL pp. 947— 952; I^assen, IntLAlL vol L p. 49.) From its sources it flowd nearly S.ti]l it reaches Hdtiinapwra ; thence, with an easterly inclination, as fiir as Alld- habddf where it receives the Jumna; and thence nearly SE. till it readies the bay of Bengal, into which it falls, after a conne of about 1150 miles, by numerous mouths. On its way it receives a great number of affluents, of which we shall speak here- after, — one of which, the Jumnay considerably sur- itself in length. The ancients held different opinions as to the Bonnxs of thb celebrated river. Strabo, on the au- thority of Eratosthenes, made it rise in the Indian Caucasus (the Paropamisus, or Hindu-Ku»h and, ffter flowing for some distance, take an eastern di- rection on reaching the plains, and, after passing the great city of Palibothra, enter the Indian ocean (or bay of Bengal) by a single mouth (zv. pi 690). In another place (zv. p. 719) he quotes Artemidoms, who stated that the Ganges had its source in the Montes Emodi (Imans or Himdlaya M*.)y and that it flowed southwards till it reached the city Gauge, when it turned off to the E. and passed Palibothra. The same >iew is implied in Dionysius Periegetes (v. 1 146) and in Mela (iii. 7). Pliny seems to have been unable to make up his mind, but states generally that some gave to the Ganges an uncertain source, like that of the Nile, while others placed it in the Scytliian mountains (vL 18. s. 22; see also Solin. c. 52; Mart. c. 6). Orottius placed its source in an unknown mountain, which he calls Osrobares. There is a more general consent as to its magnitude; most authors agreeing that it is a great stream even from its first com- mencement. Thus Arrian asserts, on the authority of Megasthenes, that where it is smallest it is at least 100 stadia broad, that it is fsr greater than the Indus, and that it receives no rivera which are not themselves as large and as navigable as the Maeander. (^IneUe, c 4.) In another place he states that if all the Asiatic rivers which flow into the Mediterranean were joined together, they would not make one Ganges in body of water; while it is equally superior to the European Ister, and the Egyptian Kile. {Anab. v. 6.) Strabo oonsidered it the greatest river in the three continents of which he had any knowledge; that the Indus, the Ister, and the Nile, ranked nezt in order afker it (zv. p. 702); and tiiat its average breadth, in the opinion of Megasthenes, was about 100 stadia, and its depth 20 fathoms. The historians of Alezander's invasion agree gene- rally in its size, making it 32 stadia broad, by 100 fathoms deep. (Died. zvii. 93; Plut Akx. c. 62.) ILAter writers, like Pliny and Aelian, give to the river a fabulous size ; the former asserting that at the narrowest pUve it was 8 miles broad, and nowhere GANGES. 973 less than twenty paces deep (vi. 18. s. 22) ; the latter, that from its first origin it was 80 stadia broad and 20 fathoms deep, — and that, after it had received several tributaries, it acquired a breadtli of 400 stadia, and contained many islands as large as Lesbos and Corsica, with a depth of 60 fathoms {Hut.Anim. xii. 41). Aelian is most likely here confounding the natural stream with its breadth during great floods. The ancients had simikr dif- ferences of opinion with regard to the number of mouths by which it entered the ocean. Strabo as- serted that it had but one (zv. p^ 690), in which view PUny agrees (ii. 108); Ptolemy (vii. 1. § 18) and Marcian (ap. Huds. Geoffr, Gr, Mm.), five; Mela (iii. 7), Virgil {Aen. ix. v. 30), Propertius (iii. 22. 16), and other authors, seven. The fact is, like all rivers flowing with a vast body of water through an alluvial plain, and bringing down an immense annual deposit, its mouths were perpetually changing; and old ones were filled up, wliile new ones were conti- nually made. The names of some of the ancient mouths have been preserved, and can even now be identified. Their names are given by Ptolemy, in order from W. to E., and are : (1) KdttiSovffoif ardfAaj now the river ffoogly, on which Calcutta stands; (2) T^ /K<7a cr6fia, now the river Roymongtd; (3) KafiSi^pixov ardfiei, now the Marjatta; (4) th ^fv96arofJUH' <rr6iAay now the ffurit^tta; (5) 'Ay- ri€o^ (rr6fMay the one nearest the Brahmaputnij and for which there does not seem to be any well- ascertained name. The Ganges, on its course to the sea, is fed by several Urge rivers, some of which were known to the ancients, and liave been satisfactorily identified with their original Sanscrit names. The fullest account of them is in Arrian (^Ind* 4), and from him or from the journals which he copied most of the other writers who allude to them have probably themselves copied. The following are the seventeen which this author mentions, to which we have added (in parentheses) those Sanscrit names that are probably well ascertained : — the Jobares, no doubt the same iis the Jomanes {Jamund or Jumnd) Cainas, Erannoboas {Hiranjavahu), Coesoanus (CosamiAd), Sonus {fond), Sittocatis (C<tit/d), Solomatis {Saravati), Condochates (Gandaki), Sam- bus, Magon, Aguranis, Omalis ( VimaM), Commena- ses {Carmana^'), Cacultris, Andomatis {Andhd- nuUi or Tamasd), Amystis, Ozumagis (^IxmtuUi^ Erennesis ( VaranatC). Pliny speaks of the Jomanes, Prinas, and Cainas, which he calls tributaries of the Ganges (vi. 1 7. s. 2 1 ) ; and adds that there were in all nineteen such affluents, of which he notices (appa^ rently for their superiority) the Condochates, Eran- noboas, Cosoagus or Cossoanus, and Sonus (vi. 18. s. 22). CurUus speaks of three tributaries of the Ganges, the Acesines, Dyardenes, and Erymanthus (viii. 9); but he has clearly here made some con- fusion with the accounts of the Indus, or there is a defect in our MSS. of his work. The Acesines (now Chendb") is one of the principal rivers of the Panjdb; the Dyardenes is not improbably the same as the Oedanes (O/ScU^s) of Strabo (zv. p. 719), and most likely to be identified with the BrahmapiUra; while the Erymanthus belongs to neither Indus nor Ganges, but may be the same as Etymandrus (now Htlmfnd)^ the principal river of Aiachosia and Drangiana. The Ganges was evidently considered by the ancients as a very wonderful river. Pliny speaks of snakes thirty feet long which live in its waters (iz. 3. s. 2), which, like Pactolus, brought down gold also (zziii.