But I know no ground to expect that the reverence[9] paid to the Ganges will diminish, unless education and the concentration of capital in manufactures should work an important change in the religious feelings and opinions of the people along the course of that river; although this, it must be admitted, is a consummation which may be looked for more speedily on the banks of the Ganges than on those of a stream like the Nerbudda, which is neither navigable at present nor, in my opinion, capable of being rendered so.

Commerce and manufactures, and the concentration of capital in the maintenance of the new communities employed in them, will, I think, be the great media through which this change will be chiefly effected; and they are always more likely to follow the course of rivers that are navigable than that of rivers which are not.[10] Notes: 1.

Amarkantak, formerly in the Sohagpur pargana of the Bilaspur District of the Central Provinces, is situated on a high tableland, and is a famous place of pilgrimage.

The temples are described by Beglar in _A.S.R._, vol.vii, pp.

227-34, pl.xx, xxi.