A History of Assam c21.38

c21.38

Something had already been done to improve communications, but they were still very bad. The Calcutta post was carried to Goālpāra overland, *viâ* Murshidabad, Malda, Dinājpur and Rangpur. This route was almost impassable in the rains, and ordinary travellers at all seasons went by water. The journey down stream from Goālpāra to Calcutta occupied from twenty-five to thirty days, and that in the opposite direction about eight days more. The upward journey was even more tedious in the case of large craft. Captain Wilcox in the Appendix to his Memoir in the 17th volume of the *Asiatic Researches*, says:—"When coming down the river in the latter end of October 1825, I saw a fleet of commissariat boats (at that time very much required with their supplies for the army) which had been twenty-five days between Goālpāra and Nāgarbera hill a distance of thirty miles, and there was no remarkable wind to impede their progress."