The establishment of _dawk-bangies_ for the conveyance of parcels, at rates in proportion to their weights respectively, has produced considerable convenience to those who reside at a distance from the Presidency. Until this plan was adopted, few could send small articles, such as trinkets, &c., to the Presidency, but under favor of some individual who might perchance be travelling thither, and who might possibly be some months on the way: the same inconvenience attended the return; so that it was not uncommon for a gentleman whose watch required inspection, to be four or five months deprived of its use. This is now done away, and a watch, &c. may be sent from Cawnpore to Calcutta, there undergo repair, and be returned with ease, in the course of a month, or less.
The same kind of convenience is, of course, afforded regarding books, and all other articles too bulky, or too heavy, to proceed by the _dawk_, but not of sufficient importance to induce the employment of a boat, or of a _bangy_, to convey them: nor, indeed, could a single bearer travel with a _bangy_ more than twenty miles within the twenty-four hours; so that he would be full a month in going from Calcutta to Cawnpore; whereas, the _dawk-bangies_ travel by relays of bearers, therefore can almost keep up with the _dawk-hirkarahs_, who carry the mail-bags suspended at the end of a stick over their shoulders.
The communication by water between Calcutta and the several subordinate stations, whether civil or military, is much resorted to; during the rainy season in particular. At that time, few are inaccessible to craft of some description, though but for a while: those immense falls of rain which cause the ravines to fill, and every little creek to become navigable for boats of ten or fifteen tons, swell the Ganges, and the other great rivers, to an astonishing height; causing them to run with awful velocity. The rivers generally rise in May, but a few inches only, in June, they often approach the summits of their banks, between which they fluctuate, rising and falling until the great swell, which takes place in August. Sometimes the river rises twice, sometimes thrice, or, even four times, during the season; but, in general, one ample inundation serves all the purposes of agriculture, provided the rains do not afterwards abate too suddenly in September, before the rice is cut. When such an untimely cessation takes place, it is attended with great mortality: the immense expanse of slime, suddenly exposed to the influence of the sun, then on the equinoctial, throws forth the most destructive miasma, whereby epidemics, of the most dangerous description, are propagated.