A Hindu village in a clearing, the Sundarbans. 1843. Sketch by Frederic Peter Layard (1818-1891). Worked up from an earlier sketch of January 1839.
Tilman Henckell [Judge and Magistrate of Jessore] at an early period of his magistracy, turned his attention to the Sundarbans, and he was the founder of the system of reclamation which is now converting these great forests into immense rice tracts. The route from the eastern districts to Calcutta passed at that time by nearly the same river-courses which it follows now by Kochua, Khulna, Chandkhali, and by the river leading past Kaliganj. But this route was then south of the cultivated tracts, and for the most part lay through forest, no habitations being on either side. Cultivation had in some places been carried farther south for example, in the pergunnahs of Hogla and Chirulia; but the above description for the most part held good.