TABLE OF ALLOWANCE FOR BUDJROWS AND BOATS.
To a Lieutenant-Colonel, Physician, General, or 630 Chief Surgeon
To a Captain, Pay-Master, Deputy Pay-Master, and 180 Regimental Surgeon
To a Subaltern, Hospital, or Regimental Mate 100
Officers are entitled to the allowance for _budjrows_ and boats only in the following instances: viz.
When posted to corps on their first joining the army.
When ordered to proceed, by water, upon any duty.
When removed, _without their own application_, to supply vacancies in the corps to which they are removed.
When water conveyance is not practicable, the difference of _batta_ is to be drawn, calculating from the day of appointment, and allowing ten miles for daily progress.
Where no ascertained rate is given, officers are to draw at the rate of ten miles against, and fourteen with, the current, for each day’s progress. The following may be considered the general standard; by which extraordinary cases are likewise governed.
From Calcutta to Berhampore is allowed for 1 as
It is proper to remark in this place, that a boat may, at most seasons of the year, proceed to Berhampore, (provided the river be open,) in about seven or eight days. The distance by water is nearly double that by land, owing to the winding course of the river, which formerly could competite with that passing under Lucknow; which, owing to the mazes of its course, received the name of ‘_Goomty_,’ or winding.
Within the last twelve or fifteen years, many of the narrow isthmuses have been cut through, whereby the distance from Moorshadabad to Calcutta has been reduced full twenty miles; some yet require the aid of art, to perfect what the hand of time seems preparing for the still further abbreviating the passage by water: probably, in the course of twenty years, the river may be brought into a tolerable line; but, how long it will remain so, is another consideration; as the soil is every where, except about Rangamatty, (_i.e._ the red soil,) a few miles below Berhampore, so loose as to be totally unqualified to restrain the violent current which prevails in every part during four months in the year.
The passage to Chittagong can rarely be performed in a common _budjrow_, a great part of it being across the mouth of the Megna, indeed, in an open sea, subject, at least, to very heavy swells, if not to squalls, such as give much trouble even to those who are on board substantial sloops, and other vessels coming under the description of _sea-boats_. However, during the cold months, an adventurous _manjy_ will sometimes make the trip with his _budjrow_, provided a handsome gratuity be offered on such a hazardous occasion.