The Mugger must have been grateful for the interruption , because he went on , with a rush : `` By the Right and Left of Gunga ! when I came there never did I see such waters ! '' `` Were they better , then , than the big flood of last season ? '' said the Jackal . `` Better ! That flood was no more than comes every five years -- a handful of drowned strangers , some chickens , and a dead bullock in muddy water with cross-currents . But the season I think of , the river was low , smooth , and even , and , as the Gavial had warned me , the dead English came down , touching each other . I got my girth in that season -- my girth and my depth . From Agra , by Etawah and the broad waters by Allahabad -- '' `` Oh , the eddy that set under the walls of the fort at Allahabad ! '' said the Adjutant . `` They came in there like widgeon to the reeds , and round and round they swung -- thus ! '' He went off into his horrible dance again , while the Jackal looked on enviously . He naturally could not remember the terrible year of the Mutiny they were talking about . The Mugger continued : `` Yes , by Allahabad one lay still in the slack-water and let twenty go by to pick one ; and , above all , the English were not cumbered with jewellery and nose-rings and anklets as my women are nowadays . To delight in ornaments is to end with a rope for a necklace , as the saying is . All the muggers of all the rivers grew fat then , but it was my Fate to be fatter than them all . The news was that the English were being hunted into the rivers , and by the Right and Left of Gunga ! we believed it was true . So far as I went south I believed it to be true ; and I went down-stream beyond Monghyr and the tombs that look over the river . '' `` I know that place , '' said the Adjutant .
`` Since those days XXXXX is a lost city .
Allahabad Monghyr Right cross-currents drowned flood nose-rings reeds widgeon years