Sundarbans

Sundarbans, or SUNDERBUNDS, the lower portion of the delta of the Ganges in British India, extending from the mouth of the Húglí on the west to the mouth of the Meghna on the east, a distance of 165 miles, and stretching inland for half that distance. The total area is estimated at 7550 sq. m. The region is entirely alluvial, is intersected by a network of anastomosing streams, and contains a vast number of swamps and morasses. Next the sea is a wide belt of dense jungle and underwood, the haunt of the tiger, leopard, rhinoceros, buffalo, wild hog, deer, monkeys, python, cobra, and numerous sea-birds and birds of prey. Behind this belt the land is cultivated, the fields being enclosed with embankments. Rice is the staple crop, though the people also grow pulses, vegetables, jute, and sugar-cane. Besides rice the principal products of the region are timber and fish. There are no villages, the population being thin and scattered. The population are counted in the adjoining districts of Bengal, and there is no separate return for the Sundarbans as a whole. Of course the chief highways are the innumerable watercourses, shown in the map at the article CALCUTTA. See Petermann's Mitteilungen, Ergänzungsheft (1891).