Hooghly River
This article has been extracted from THE IMPERIAL GAZETTEER OF INDIA , 1908. OXFORD, AT THE CLARENDON PRESS. |
Note: National, provincial and district boundaries have changed considerably since 1908. Typically, old states, ‘divisions’ and districts have been broken into smaller units, and many tahsils upgraded to districts. Some units have since been renamed. Therefore, this article is being posted mainly for its historical value.
Hooghly River
The most westerly, and for commercial purposes the mcjst important, channel by which the waters of the CjANGES enter the Bay of Bengal, being formed by the confluence of the three western distributaries of the great stream — the BhagIrathi, JalangI, and Matabhanga — which are conjointly known as the Nadia Rivers. The BhagIrathi receives also an independent supply of water from the eastern watershed of the Chota Nagpur plateau, where its tributaries drain an area of about 8,700 square miles. The Bhagirathi joins the Jalangi at Nadia town, in 23° 25 N. and 88° 24' E.,and the distinctive name of the Hooghly is by some assigned to the united rivers from this point ; according to others the river does not take this name till just above Santipur, 24 miles farther down the stream. The united stream is joined by the Matabhanga 15 miles below Santipur, and it thence proceeds almost due south to Calcutta ; it next twists to the south-west, and finally turns south, entering the Bay of Bengal in 22° 13' N. and 88" 4' E. After receiving the liagher Khal on tiie left bank, it marks the boundary between the Twenty-four Parganas on the east and the Districts of Hooghly, Howrah, and Midnapore successively on the west, thus separating the Presidency and Burdwan Divisions.
The head-waters of the Hooghly are important as great highways for inland trafific. Like other deltaic distributaries, they are subject to sudden changes in their channels and to constant silting up ; each of them is frequently closed during the dry season, while in most years the depth then maintained does not exceed 2 feet at the shallower places. During these dry months the waters of the Hooghly are largely supplied by underground infiltration of water into the deep trough which the river has scooped out for itself; and the depth of the channel is maintained by the scouring of the current during the rainy season, when the spill streams from the Ganges and the Chota Nagpur tributaries of the Bhagirathi pour down enormous masses of water. The fresh-water supply of the upper reaches of the river is therefore derived partly from the Ganges, partly from the Chota Nagpur plateau, and partly by infiltration ; and it is estimated that these three sources provide, respectively, 48, 31, and 21 per cent, of the total supply. The strong freshes in the Hooghly have a most beneficial effect in scouring the channels, and it is noteworthy that the ratio of maximum to minimum fresh-water discharge is as high as 13 to 1. The Hooghly receives four tributaries on the right bank. The Damodar flows into it opposite Falta, 35 miles below Calcutta, and 6 miles farther down it is joined by the Rupnarayan ; the Haldi and Rasulpur flow into the estuary of the river. All these tributaries drain the eastern flank of the Chota Nagpur plateau.
The influence of the tides is felt strongly as high up as Nadia, especially during the dry season ; and it is estimated that the tidal inflow during the four months of the hot season is more than double the total fresh-water discharge of the year. The tides operate usefully in dispersing the alluvium brought down from above, as well as in pro- viding water for navigation over the shoals at high tide. The difference between the lowest depth of water in the dry season and the highest in the rains is no less than 20 feet 10 inches. The greatest mean rise of tide, about 16 feet, takes place in March, April, and May, with a declining range during the rainy season to a mean of 10 feet, and a minimum during freshes of 3 feet 6 inches.
The tide runs rapidly in the Hooghly, and produces a remarkable example of the fluvial phenomenon known as a ' bore.' This consists of the headwave of the advancing tide, hemmed in where the estuary narrows suddenly and often exceeding 7 feet in height. It is felt as high up as Calcutta, and frequently sinks small boats or dashes them to pieces on the bank.
the historic times great changes have taken place in the course of the Hooghly. There is good reason to beheve that the BhagIrathi represents the old course of the main stream of the Ganges. It is still called the Ganges by the people along its banks and is held sacred. At Tribeni, on the right bank of the Hooghly, 36 miles above Calcutta, is the closed mouth of the old SaraswatI river, which formerly carried the main stream of the Ganges by a channel west of the modern Hooghly, which joined the present river at Sankrail, 6 miles below Howrah. The course of this dead stream can still be traced by pools and marshes, and it was an important river as late as the fifteenth century. Satgaon, the Muhammadan royal port of Bengal, lay upon its bank a short distance inland from Tribeni, and was the traditional mercantile capital of Bengal from the Puranic age to the beginning of the sixteenth century, when the mouth of the SaraswatI had so far silted up that the Portuguese ships could no longer make use of it.
Another important change has taken place below Calcutta. At one time the Hooghly, instead of turning south-west at Calcutta, swung to the south-east near the exit of the present Tolly's Nullah, and found its way into the Bay of Bengal near Sagar Island. The old course can be traced in a series of pools and dips across the Twenty-four Parganas, which are still known as the Adi (or ' original ') Ganges. The pre- historic shrine of Kali Ghat and other sacred places of Hinduism mark its course, and its banks still supply holy spots for the burning of the dead. In fact, it is not until the course of the Adi Ganga rejoins the present Hooghly that this river is again recognized as Mother Ganges and resumes its sanctity ; and Hindus who die below the point where the Adi Ganga left the Hooghly have for many generations been carried to the Hooghly above that point, or to the old banks of the Adi Ganga itself, for cremation.
The river may be divided into two sections : the first of 64 miles from Santipur to Calcutta, and the second of 80 miles from Calcutta to Sagar Island, where it becomes an estuary.
A serious deterioration in the upper reaches of the Hooghly occurred during the eighteenth century, owing to an alteration in the course of the Damodar. This river originally joined the Hooghly at Naya Sarai, 39 miles above Calcutta, and it brought down a great volume of water to assist in scouring the channel. Gradually, however, its floods worked a larger passage for themselves to the southward, and by 1770 it had forced an exit at its present moutli, 35 miles south of Calcutta. The result was that, during the eighteenth century, the Hooghly above Calcutta deteriorated, and shoals formed which rendered the ancient trading settlements no longer accessible to sea-going ships.
The section of The Hooghly above Calcutta has been famous for 600 years for its entrepots for sea-going trade. Hooghly Town was founded by the Portuguese in 1537, after the SaraswatI river silted up and prevented access to Satgaon. The Portuguese were followed by the Dutch, who established their factory and port at Chinsura, a mile lower down, in the seventeenth century. vStill later in the middle of the eighteenth century, Chandernagore, 2 miles below Chinsura, ■which had been founded in 1673 as a small French settlement, rose to mercantile importance under Dupleix. The Ostend Company about 1723 fixed their Bengal port at Banklbazar, 5 miles below Chander- nagore, but on the left bank of the river. The Danes in about 1676 had selected as their port Serampore, 8 miles below Chandernagore, on the right bank of the river. All these ports and settlements lie at a distance of from 16 to 36 miles above Calcutta, and are now without exception inaccessible to sea-going ships, even of small tonnage.
The process of silting up was accelerated by the change in the Damodar channel above referred to. In 1757 Admiral Watson took his fleet, with his flagship of 64 guns, as high as Chandernagore for the bombardment of that town, and as late as 182 1 the English pilots steered Danish ships of 700 to 800 tons up to Serampore. After 1825, however, this section of the river seems to have rapidly deteriorated, and the Dutch and Danish ships could go no higher than Cossipore, just above Calcutta, and were there unladen into cargo boats. Alluvial formations are still going on in the river-bed from Serampore upwards. These formations are in many stages of growth, from the well-raised island with trees, down through successive phases of crop cultivation and reedy marshes, to shoals and little dots of dry land which only emerge above the water at certain seasons of the year. Below Calcutta changes in the channel are frequent and the rapid tides make navigation difficult. Lower down the estuary is notorious for its dangerous sand- banks, of which the best known are the Gasper and the Sagar sands. These, however, as also the entrance channels, are continually changing, and a minute description of them would serve no useful purpose.
From time to time fears have been entertained with regard to the Hooghly approach to Calcutta; and in 1862 it was proposed to found a new port at Port Canning, 28 miles to the south-east, on the Matla river, to anticipate the silting up of the Hooghly channels. Trade, however, has clung to the Hooghly. Port Canning proved a failure and has long been deserted ; and a later proposal to build docks at Diamond Harbour as an auxiliary port for Calcutta was negatived, and there is no reason to believe that the navigable channels are at present deteriorating. The chief perils to navigation are the James and Mary Sands and the Mayapur bar. The dangerous shoal known as the James and Mary lies between the entrance of the Damodar and the Rupnarayan, and was early recognized as a danger to navigation. On September 24, 1694, the Royal James and Mary was lost on this shoal, to which she gave her name. Banks and shifting quicksands are rapidly formed and the channels have to be continually watched and sounded, for if a vessel touches the sand, she is pushed over by the current ; and cases are known in which only the yards of a great three-masted ship have remained above water within half an hour after the accident.
Direct efforts to control the channels across these shoals have not yielded favourable results. In 186S experiments were conducted on the Mayapur bar, and spurs were run out some distance below high water-line from both banks of the river ; but they were found inade- quate to guide the flood and ebb tide into one channel, and no improvement resulted. In 1896 an engineering expert, brought out to consider the feasibility of improving the river, suggested that training walls should be built to regulate the channels across the James and Mary and Mayapur bars ; but his recommendations were not con- sidered practicable. A great deal has, however, been done of late years by the Port Commissioners to reduce the dangers of navigation, A scientific survey staff is employed, and the charts which they issue form a lasting and valuable record of the changes that take place.
The Mayapur and the James and Mary bars are sounded daily, the result being telegraphed to both Calcutta and Diamond Harbour for the information of inward or outward-bound pilots ; and the height of the water on the bars is signalled from the bank, from the time vessels enter the river until they pass the last dangerous bar at Maya- pur, Much of the credit of maintaining and improving the Hooghly as a great waterway is due to the Calcutta pilots, one of the most highly skilled and best-paid pilot services in the world. Every incoming vessel is boarded from a pilot brig off the Sandheads at the mouth of the Hooghly, and remains in charge of the pilot till he makes over the ship to the harbour-master at Garden Reach on the southern limit of the Port of Calcutta.
The result is that whereas, in the eighteenth century, ships of even 700 tons usually discharged their cargoes at Diamond Harbour, vessels drawing 28 feet are now piloted in safety up to Calcutta at favourable states of the tide. Great improvements have also been effected in the Port {see Calcutta). The Port Com- missioners maintain a series of shelters or refuges along the east face of the Hooghly estuary and the adjoining Sundarbans, which are supplied with provisions and a few necessary tools for the use of ship- wrecked mariners and are regularly inspected. The entrance of the river is protected against attack by forts at Calcutta, Falta, and Chingri Khal, which mount heavy guns.
The Hooghly is spanned at Naihati by a fine cantilever bridge, con- sisting of two spans of 420 feet projecting from the banks, and a central span of 360 feet resting on piers of great strength in the middle of the river. The bridge links up the East Indian Railway system with the Eastern Bengal State Railway and with the docks at Calcutta. Lower down Howrah is connected with Calcutta by a pontoon bridge, which was opened for traffic in 1874.
The railways have robbed the upper reaches of the Hooghly of much of their boat traffic, but quantities of straw and jute find their way by them to Calcutta. The river is, moreover, connected on its left or eastern bank by various tidal channels and creeks, known as the Calcutta and Eastern Canals, with the eastern Districts, and thus forms the great waterway for boat and steamer traffic from Cal- cutta, through the Twenty-four Parganas and the Sundarbans, to Eastern Bengal and Assam. On the left bank lie Calcutta with its suburbs of Garden Reach and Cossipore-Chitpur, and Barrackpore, Naihati, S.^ntipur, and Nadia farther up the river. On the right bank Howrah is the most important town, followed by Hooghly, Chinsura, Serampore, and the French settlement of Chander- nagore.
The scenery on the banks of the Hooghly varies greatly. The sea approach is disappointing, and for many miles nothing can be seen but sandbanks, succeeded by mean-looking mud formations covered with coarse grass and raised only a few inches above high tide. As the river narrows above the James and Mary Sands, however, the country is not so low, and grows richer. Trees and rice-fields and villages become common, and at length a section is reached where the banks are high, and lined with hamlets buried under evergreen groves. The palm foliage and feathery bamboos now begin to assert themselves more and more strongly, and give a luxuriant tropical type to the landscape. When at length the Port of Calcutta is reached, a scene of unexpected magnificence, unrivalled in its kind, bursts upon the eye. The dense foliage of the Botanical Gardens, the long tiers of shipping, with the old houses of Garden Reach on the margin in the foreground, the Fort rising from the finely timbered plain on the bank higher up, and the domes, steeples, and noble public buildings of Calcutta beyond gradu- ally unfold their beauties in a long panorama. The traveller really feels that he is approaching a City of Palaces.
Hooghly Town
Head-quarters of Hooghly District, Bengal, situated in 22° 55' N. and 88° 24' E., on the right bank of the Hooghly river and on the East Indian Railway. Hooghly was founded by the Portuguese in 1537 on the decay of the royal port of Satgaon. At Gholghat, close to the present Hooghly jail, the ruins are still visible of a fortress which formed the nucleus of the town and port of Hooghly. Exasperated by the havoc wrought by the Portuguese pirates at Chitta- gong, and in order to revenge himself for the Hooghly governor's refusal to assist him when he was in revolt against his father eight years previously, the emperor Shah Jahan sent a Mughal force against the town in 1632, which carried it by storm after a three and a half months' siege. Over 1,000 Portuguese were slaughtered, and more than 4,000 men, women, and children were made prisoners, and the place was then established as the royal port in lieu of Satgaon.
The Portuguese were allowed to return to Hooghly in 1633, the emperor making them a grant of 777 bi^has of land at Bandel. The English factory at Hooghly dates from 165 1, having been established under a fartnan granted by the emperor to Dr. Boughton, a surgeon in the East India Company's service, who had cured his favourite daughter of a dangerous illness. In 1686 a dispute took place between the English factors at Hooghly and the Nawab of Bengal, and a military force was dispatched from England to strengthen and protect the Company's factories there. An accident precipitated the rupture. In October, 1686, three English soldiers were set upon and beaten in the Hooghly bazar and taken to the governor's house. After some street fighting the battery and the governor's house were captured by the English, who subsequently withdrew under an armistice to Calcutta, or Sutanuti as it was then called. This was the first collision between the English and the Muhammadan government in Bengal.
Hooghly was the head-quarters of the Burdwan Division from 1871 to 1875, ^'"id from 1879 ^o 1884 they were at its suburb, Chinsura ; they were then moved to Burdwan, but were transferred to Chinsura in 1896. The place is now decadent and its population with that of Chinsura, with which it is incorporated as a municipality, has declined from 34,761 in 1872 to 29,383 in 1901. Hindus constitute 82-8 per cent, and Musalmans i6-6 per cent, of the total. The municipality was created in 1865. The income during the decade ending 1901-2 averaged Rs. 50,000, and the expenditure Rs. 47,000. In 1903-4 the total income was Rs. 60,000, including Rs. 28,000 derived from a tax on houses and lands, Rs. 18,000 from a conservancy rate, Rs. 5,000 from a tax on vehicles, and Rs. 3,000 from tolls.
The incidence of taxation was Rs. 1-13-10 per head of the i)opulation. In the same year the expenditure was Rs. 53,000, of which Rs. 4,000 was spent on lighting, Rs. 3,000 on drainage, Rs. 28,000 on conservancy, Rs. 5,000 on roads, and Rs. 900 on education. The municipality maintains 51 miles of metalled and 76 miles of unmetalled roads. The grand trunk road, which passes through the town, and a few short lengths of road in the old cantonment are kept up by Government. The Imambara is a Shiah mosque, which was completed in 1861 at a cost of 2-2 lakhs from funds beciueathed by a wealthy Shiah nobleman, Muhammad Mohsin. The other principal buildings are the municipal office and jail ; the latter has accommodation for 437 prisoners, who are chiefly employed on bag-sewing for the neighbouring jute-mills and oil-pressing. The chief educational institutions are the Hooghly College at Chinsura, possessing a branch in Hooghly itself, a training college for school- masters, and the Madrasa.
