Page:Report of a Tour Through the Bengal Provinces of Patna, Gaya, Mongir and Bhagalpur; The Santal Parganas, Manbhum, Singhbhum and Birbhum; Bankura, Raniganj, Bardwan and Hughli in 1872-73.djvu/32

8 applied to the Son from the circumstance that at some parts of its course the waters of the Son appear to be tinged red. This is the popular belief at this day, and the correctness of this belief has been vouched for by native pilgrim travellers, and has been doubtless handed down by tradition from the earliest times, for we have in the Râtmfâyana (Griffith’s Translation, Vol. IV, Book IV, Canto XL, page 197):—

Since writing this, I have had an opportunity of testing the correctness of the native tradition. The Son rises in the highlands of Amarkantak, and flows through a country possessing a reddish gravelly soil. In the floods the river necessarily brings down large volumes of the red dust and sand, which it deposits in the deeper pools. In the cold season this deposit, seen through the clear waters, gives a distinct tinge of red to the water—see my report for 1873-74.

From Son-Bhadr, the Son in olden times appears to have flowed in what is now the bed of the Punpun as far as Sigori, a small village close to the Punpun near Chandhos Buzurg, where an annual fair is held and offerings to the pitris made by numerous pilgrims as at Son-Bhadr and Gaya. Prom here it, or at least a branch, appears to have taken a course due east, crossing over from the bed of the present Punpun river to the bed of the present Murhar river. The country at and for several miles about this place, and between these two rivers, shows the unmistakeable traces of having once been the bed of a mighty river, much mightier than the Punpun; from here it flowed in the bed of the present Murhar river till it finally joined the Ganges at Fatuha.

In parts of the bed of the Murhar river, and on its banks for some distance inland, are found rounded pebbles, precisely similar to the well-known pebbles of the Son. So close is the resemblance, that it has struck every one who has given any thought to it. Native tradition, unable to account for the appearance of these remarkable pebbles in the Murhar, has placed faith in a silly story, which relates that on a certain occasion, when the marriage procession of a baniya was passing, there were many guests and much pomp, and food consisting of unbaked dough ready rolled into balls and flattish cakes was abundantly provided for the guests, to be baked and distributed at their halting place. A fakir went up and begged as alms a share of it; in reply