Publisher's Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1906 edition. Excerpt: ... the romance of an eastern capital chapter I A land of riveb and plain Flat like a map, Eastern Bengal lies spread out vast and limitless, a land of river and plain. The plough of the gods, runs the legend, wielded in swift anger, had in days gone by torn down this way from the Himalayas to the sea, furrowing hill and valley, mountain and plain, to one immense dead level. From the foot of the rocky tree-clad Eajmahal Hills on the west to the banks of the mighty Brahmaputra on the east, from the snow-clad ranges of Sikhim and Nepal on the north to the shores of the Bay of Bengal on the south, it is one great wide-sweeping plain, lowlying and fertile, drained by some of the mightiest rivers of the East as they forge their impetuous way through many and ever-changing channels B to the sea. Watered abundantly by nature in generous mood, the trim rice-fields stretch mile on mile, locked close in the embrace of countless streams and rivulets, luxuriant in every exquisite shade of green, like emeralds set in a silver sheen. In the very heart of this land of river and plain the successive races that have dominated it have built their capital. Time and again, as empires rose and fell, its site has changed. At the whim of kings and conquerors, eager to perpetuate their fame, new cities have arisen with startling rapidity, often but to be deserted in their turn well nigh before the last stones have crowned the minarets and pinnacles of their mosques and palaces. Yet, variable as its site has been, the chief city of Eastern Bengal for over two thousand years has never been far removed from the junction of the great rivers where Megna and Ganges, Brahmaputra and Ishamutti