Page:McCosh, John - Advice to Officers in India (1856).djvu/120

 stream, is now very rarely practised; and I shall introduce the stranger to the river steamers.

3. RIVER STEAMERS.—There are many steamers regularly running up the Ganges from Calcutta to Allahabad, but neither the Jumna nor the Ganges admits of their going beyond it. Government first took the lead in internal steam navigation, but now the greater number of their vessels have been withdrawn to Pegu, and the river is in a great measure left open to private speculation. The voyage from Calcutta to Adahabad is made in from fifteen to twenty days, and no better opportunity can be found of seeing Indian life and scenery than in such a trip. The stranger not pressed for time, cannot do better than engage a passage in one of the steamers. He will have a comfortable cabin to himself, as much tonnage as he requires, he will have a good table, plenty of society, a spacious deck to exercise upon: every evening the steamers anchor; and at most stations they halt a few hours, admitting of a run on shore, and an inspection of what is best worth seeing in the neighbourhood.

4. DAWKING.—There are no mail coaches in Bengal, but there are several transit companies, where one can take his passage along the grand trunk road almost to the banks of the Sutlej. The carriages are compact oblong ones, made to carry