in every season; that the waters begin to rise when the Himalayan snows begin to melt, and that the rise is greatest after the summer rains in June and July, when the height of the inundation, above the level in the dry season, exceeds, in most places, thirty feet. The lower provinces are then generally covered with a flood more than a hundred miles broad. In July and August, the inundation begins to subside; and the country is generally uncovered, and fit for the purposes of agriculture, in October and November. In January and February it is dry and dusty; in April and May it is burnt up with heat and drought. In most of its circumstances, the Ganges resembles the river Nile: but it may be said to surpass that river in magnitude and importance, as much as the Egyptian river surpasses most of the rivers in Europe. Gour. “The kingdom of Gour, or Gowr, anciently included all the countries which now form the kingdom of Bengál, on this side the Brahmá Pútra, except Mongir." (Maurice An. Hist. Hind. B. 3. ch. 6.)

Goverdhen.

A mountain in Mathura. It is the Parnassus,

or poetic mount, of the Hindús, and is fabled to have been

raised by a single effort of Crishna's little finger. (Bha

Heri. Under this name, the divine Crishna, an avatára or incarnation of Vishnú, is celebrated by the poet Jayadéva in the Gitagovinda, a poem translated from the Sanscrit by Sir William Jones. (As. Res. Radha is described as the beautiful mistress of Heri, and their loves are painted with the liveliest colouring; in some parts, says the translator, too warmly for an European eye; and those parts, he has therefore, from motives of delicacy, forborne to commit to English. Notwithstanding this circumstance, the poem is esteemed by the Hindús as devoutly religious, and is consequently very far from exciting in them any loose ideas. The same may almost be said of the Song of Solomon in our sacred scriptures; which, though abounding with images which the Jews considered as improper to be offered to very youthful readers, has yet been supposed, and seemingly with great propriety, to be prophetically allusive to the Christian church. The dissertation of the learned Jones, on the mystical poetry of the Hindú, shows, most clearly, that a kind of allegory, which conveys under a garb even licentious, the most sacred meanings, is, and long has been, very familiar to the Asiatics. Agreeably to this system, the loves of Heri and Rádha may (since Crishna is confessedly a personification of the sun, or rather vital

heat) be considered as signifying the effects produced by the principle of life acting upon productive nature; or, as other more profound and mystic Asiatic interpreters would perhaps explain it, the operation of the divine spirit upon

the minds of devout persons.

Himola, Himalaya, are the names by which that part of

the Tauric range of mountains, which forms the most impassable barrier to the north of Hindúst'hán, is distinguished in Sanscrit writings. These names are derived from the words Malaya, which signifies a hilly district, and haimas, meaning snowy, (Vide Jones's Preface to hymn to Pracriti) an epithet highly proper: for although they reach so low as thirty degrees of latitude, they are never wholly free from snow: a circumstance which renders the idea of snow familiar to the Hindús. The author of the Indian Recreations gives the following interesting account of them, as seen from Anopshir, a military station of the Company's troops in the province of Delhi. "After about ten days rainy weather, we have a return of the north-wind, with a clear sky. The mountains to the north-east appear unusually plain. Their distance is called two hundred miles, and the nearer ridge are here entirely unseen. Their appearance is exactly that of snowy clouds towering to an immense height in the

skies. It would seem, that Europeans had not sufficiently ascertained the height of the Thibetian mountains. They are situated in the centre of the largest continent in the world, and are probably the highest mountains upon its surface. Teneriffe, which I have seen, and which has the reputation of being the highest land in the old continent, would not be at all visible at the distance of these mountains, which even here seem to soar above the clouds. They are eternally covered with snow; and when the wind blows from their direction, the weather, to our feelings, is much colder than in Britain." (Ind. Rec. Vol. ii. sect. 43.) The Brahménical mythology represents, with peculiar propriety, Bhavání as the daughter of these mountains; since the greater part of the waters, which render Nature effectively productive in Hindúst'hán, issue from among them.

Indras and Dewtahs. According to the doctrines taught by the Brahméns, every created object, whether animate or inanimate, or rather, as they make the distinction, every thing, whether it does or does not possess the power of motion, is governed, or rather owes its existence to the agency of a ruling or animating spirit. They consequently maintain, there are at least as many divine or super-hu man personages, as there are distinct or individual objects;

and consequently, their number is almost infinite. An enumeration of the different kinds or orders of these beings, may be seen in the tenth Lecture of the Gita. Although the characters of these beings partake of all the shades of variety, from the excellence of the Great Supreme God, to the utmost malevolence and depravity of the demons of Naráca, or hell; yet, they are generally distinguished into good and evil spirits, denominated Súras, or Assúras; Adityas, or Dityas; Yaeshas and Racshas, or Racshasas, according to particular circumstances, which it is difficult, and perhaps not necessary in a general account of them, to learn or recite. Among these spirits, or super-human beings, for they are not wholly immaterial, the Indras, as their name implies, are such as are under the government or command of Indra, and may be termed Genii of the air. The Dewtahs, or Dévatahs, are of an order inferior to the Dévas, pronounced also in the various dialects of India, Déba, Deb, and Deo, which is a specific name, says the translator of the Gita, comprising many of the higher orders of divine beings. The mythological system of the Brahméns is purely allegorical; it is therefore with peculiar propriety, the Genii of the air and earth are said to owe their ori 'gin to Bhavání, the Goddess of Nature.