Himalayan Journals Part 41

The ascent to the village from the river is by steps cut in a narrow cleft of the schist rocks, to a flat, elevated 4,178 feet above the sea: we here procured a cottage, and found the people remarkably civil. The general appearance is the same as at Joowye, but there are here extensive and very unhealthy marshes, whose evil effects we experienced, in having the misfortune to lose one of our servants by fever. Except pines, there are few large trees; but the quant.i.ty of species of perennial woody plants contributing to form the jungles is quite extraordinary: I enumerated 140, of which 60 were trees or large shrubs above twenty feet high. One of these was the _Hamamelis chinensis,_ a plant hitherto only known as a native of China.

This, the _Bowringia,_ and the little _Nymphaea,_ are three out of many remarkable instances of our approach to the eastern Asiatic flora.

From Nurtiung we walked to the Bor-panee river, sixteen or twenty miles to the north-east (not the river of that name below Nunklow), returning the same night; a most fatiguing journey in so hot and damp a climate. The path lay for the greatest part of the way over gra.s.sy hills of mica-schist, with boulders of granite, and afterwards of syenite, like those of Nunklow. The descent to the river is through n.o.ble woods of spreading oaks,* [We collected upwards of fifteen kinds of oak and chesnut in these and the Khasia mountains; many are magnificent trees, with excellent wood, while others are inferior as timber.] chesnuts, magnolias, and tall pines: the vegetation is very tropical, and with the exception of there being no sal, it resembles that of the dry hills of the Sikkim Terai. The Bor-panee is forty yards broad, and turbid; its bed, which is of basalt, is 2,454 feet above the sea: it is crossed by a raft pulled to and fro by canes.

Nurtiung contains a most remarkable collection of those sepulchral and other monuments, which form so curious a feature in the scenery of these mountains and in the habits of their savage population.

They are all placed in a fine grove of trees, occupying a hollow; where several acres are covered with gigantic, generally circular, slabs of stone, from ten to twenty-five feet broad, supported five feet above the ground upon other blocks. For the most part they are buried in brushwood of nettles and shrubs, but in one place there is an open area of fifty yards encircled by them, each with a gigantic headstone behind it. Of the latter the tallest was nearly thirty feet high, six broad, and two feet eight inches in thickness, and must have been sunk at least five feet, and perhaps much more, in the ground. The flat slabs were generally of slate or hornstone; but many of them, and all the larger ones, were of syenitic granite, split by heat and cold water with great art. They are erected by dint of sheer brute strength, the lever being the only aid. Large blocks of syenite were scattered amongst these wonderful erections.

Splendid trees of _Bombax,_ fig and banyan, overshadowed them: the largest banyan had a trunk five feet in diameter, clear of the b.u.t.tresses, and numerous small trees of _Celtic_ grew out of it, and an immense flowering tuft of _Vanda caerulea_ (the rarest and most beautiful of Indian orchids) flourished on one of its limbs. A small plantain with austere woolly scarlet fruit, bearing ripe seeds, was planted in this sacred grove, where trees of the most tropical genera grew mixed with the pine, birch, _Myrica,_ and _Viburnum._

The Nurtiung Stonehenge is no doubt in part religious, as the grove suggests, and also designed for cremation, the bodies being burnt on the altars. In the Khasia these upright stones are generally raised simply as memorials of great events, or of men whose ashes are not necessarily, though frequently, buried or deposited in hollow stone sarcophagi near them, and sometimes in an urn placed inside a sarcophagus, or under horizontal slabs.

Ill.u.s.tration--STONES AT NURTIUNG.

The usual arrangement is a row of five, seven, or more erect oblong blocks with round heads (the highest being placed in the middle), on which are often wooden discs and cones: more rarely pyramids are built. Broad slabs for seats are also common by the wayside.

Mr. Yule, who first drew attention to these monuments, mentions one thirty-two feet by fifteen, and two in thickness; and states that the sarcophagi (which, however, are rare) formed of four slabs, resemble a drawing in Bell's Circa.s.sia, and descriptions in Irby and Mangles'

Travels in Syria. He adds that many villages derive their names from these stones, "mau" signifying "stone:" thus "Mausmai" is "the stone of oath," because, as his native informant said, "there was war between Churra and Mausmai, and when they made peace, they swore to it, and placed a stone as a witness;" forcibly recalling the stone Jacob set up for a pillar, and other pa.s.sages in the old Testament: "Mamloo" is "the stone of salt," eating salt from a sword's point being the Khasia form of oath: "Mauflong" is "the gra.s.sy stone,"

etc.* [Notes on the Khasia mountains and people; by Lieutenant H.

Yule, Bengal Engineers. a.n.a.logous combinations occur in the south of England and in Brittany, etc., where similar structures are found.

Thus _maen, man,_ or _men_ is the so-called Druidical name for a stony, whence _Pen-maen-mawr,_ for "the hill of the big stone,"

_Maen-hayr,_ for the standing stones of Brittany, and _Dol-men,_ the table-stone," for a cromlech.] Returning from this grove, we crossed a stream by a single squared block, twenty-eight feet long, five broad, and two thick, of gray syenitic granite with large crystals of felspar.

We left Nurtiung on the 4th of October, and walked to Pomrang, a very long and fatiguing day's work. The route descends north-west of the village, and turns due east along bare gra.s.sy hills of mica-schist and slate (strike east and west, and dip north). Near the village of Lernai oak woods are pa.s.sed, in which _Vanda coerulea_ grows in profusion, waving its panicles of azure flowers in the wind. As this beautiful orchid is at present attracting great attention, from its high price, beauty, and difficulty of culture, I shall point out how totally at variance with its native habits, is the cultivation thought necessary for it in England.* [We collected seven men's loads of this superb plant for the Royal Gardens at Kew; but owing to unavoidable accidents and difficulties, few specimens reached England alive. A gentleman who sent his gardener with us to be shown the locality, was more successful: he sent one man's load to England on commission, and though it arrived in a very poor state, it sold for 300 pounds, the individual plants fetching prices varying from 3 pounds to 10 pounds. Had all arrived alive, they would have cleared 1000 pounds. An active collector, with the facilities I possessed, might easily clear from 2000 pounds to 3000 pounds, in one season, by the sale of Khasia orchids.] The dry gra.s.sy hills which it inhabits are elevated 3000 to 4000 feet: the trees are small, gnarled, and very sparingly leafy, so that the Vanda which grows on their limbs is fully exposed to sun, rain, and wind. There is no moss or lichen on the branches with the Vanda, whose roots sprawl over the dry rough bark. The atmosphere is on the whole humid, and extremely so during the rains; but there is no damp heat, or stagnation of the air, and at the flowering season the temperature ranges between 60 degrees and 80 degrees, there is much sunshine, and both air and bark are dry during the day: in July and August, during the rains, the temperature is a little higher than above, but in winter it falls much lower, and h.o.a.r-frost forms on the ground. Now this winter's cold, summer's heat, and autumn's drought, and above all, this constant free exposure to fresh air and the winds of heaven, are what of all things we avoid exposing our orchids to in England. It is under these conditions, however, that all the finer Indian _Orchideae,_ grow, of which we found _Dendrobium Farmeri, Dalhousianum, Devonianum,_ etc., with _Vanda coerulea_; whilst the most beautiful species of _Coelogyne, Cymbidium, Bolbophyllum,_ and _Cypripedium,_ inhabit cool climates at elevations above 4000 feet in Khasia, and as high as 6000 to 7000 in Sikkim.

On the following day we turned out our Vanda to dress the specimens for travelling, and preserve the flowers for botanical purposes.

Of the latter we had 360 panicles, each composed of from six to twenty-one broad pale-blue tesselated flowers, three and a half to four inches across and they formed three piles on the floor of the verandah, each a yard high: what would we not have given to have been able to transport a single panicle to a Chiswick fete!

On the 10th of October we sent twenty-four strong mountaineers to Churra, laden with the collections of the previous month; whilst we returned to Nonkreem, and crossing the shoulder of Chillong, pa.s.sed through the village of Moleem in a north-west direction to the Syong bungalow. From this we again crossed the range to Nunklow and the Bor-panee, and returned by Moflong and the Kala-panee to Churra during the latter part of the month.

In November the vegetation above 4000 feet turns wintry and brown, the weather becomes chilly, and though the cold is never great, h.o.a.r-frost forms at Churra, and water freezes at Moflong. We prepared to leave as these signs of winter advanced: we had collected upwards of 2,500 species, and for the last few weeks all our diligence, and that of our collectors, had failed to be rewarded by a single novelty. We however procured many species in fruit, and made a collection of upwards of 300 kinds of woods, many of very curious structure. As, however, we projected a trip to Cachar before quitting the neighbourhood, we retained our collectors, giving orders for them to meet us at Chattuc, on our way down the Soormah in December, with their collections, which amounted to 200 men's loads, and for the conveyance of which to Calcutta, Mr. Inglis procured us boats.

Before dismissing the subject of the Khasia mountains, it will be well to give a slight sketch of their prominent geographical features, in connection with their geology. The general geological characters of the chain may be summed up in a few words. The nucleus or axis is of highly inclined stratified metamorphic rocks, through which the granite has been protruded, and the basalt and syenite afterwards injected. After extensive denudations of these, the sandstone, coal, and limestone were successively deposited. These are altered and displaced along the southern edge of the range, by black amygdaloidal trap, and have in their turn been extensively denuded; and it is this last operation that has sculptured the range, and given the mountains their present aspect; for the same gneisses, slates, and basalts in other countries, present rugged peaks, domes, or cones, and there is nothing in their composition or arrangement here that explains the tabular or rounded outline they a.s.sume, or the uniform level of the spurs into which they rise, or the curious steep sides and flat floors of the valleys which drain them.

All these peculiarities of outline are the result of denudation, of the specific action of which agent we are very ignorant.

The remarkable difference between the steep cliffs on the south face of the range, and the rounded outline of the hills on the northern slopes, may be explained on the supposition that when the Khasia was partially submerged, the a.s.sam valley was a broad bay or gulf; and that while the Churra cliffs were exposed to the full sweep of the ocean, the Nunklow sh.o.r.e was washed by a more tranquil sea.

The broad flat marshy heads of all the streams in the central and northern parts of the chain, and the rounded hills that separate them, indicate the levelling action of a tidal sea, acting on a low flat sh.o.r.e;* [Since our return to England, we have been much struck with the similarity in contour of the Ess.e.x and Suffolk coasts, and with the fact that the tidal coast sculpturing of this surface is preserved in the very centre of High Suffolk, twenty to thirty miles distant from the sea, in rounded outlines and broad flat marshy valleys.]whilst the steep flat-floored valleys of the southern watershed may be attributed to the scouring action of higher tides on a boisterous rocky coast. These views are confirmed by an examination of the east sh.o.r.es of the Bay of Bengal, and particularly by a comparison of the features of the country about Silhet, now nearly 280 miles distant from the sea, with those of the Chittagong coast, with which they are identical.

The geological features of the Khasia are in many respects so similar to those of the Vindhya, Kymore, Behar, and Rajmahal mountains, that they have been considered by some observers as an eastern prolongation of that great chain, from which they are geographically separated by the delta of the Ganges and Burrampooter. The general contour of the mountains, and of their sandstone cliffs, is the same, and the a.s.sociation of this rock with coal and lime is a marked point of similarity; there is, however, this difference between them, that the coal-shales of Khasia and limestone of Behar are non-fossiliferous, while the lime of Khasia and the coal-shales of Behar contain fossils.

The prevalent north-east strike of the gneiss is the same in both, differing from the Himalaya, where the stratified rocks generally strike north-west. The nummulites of the limestone are the only known means we have of forming an approximate estimate of the age of the Khasia coal, which is the most interesting feature in the geology of the range: these fossils have been examined by MM. Archiac and Jules Haines,* ["Description des Animaux Fossiles des Indes Orientales;"

p. 178. These species are _Nummulites scabra,_ Lamarck, _N. obtusa,_ Sowerby, _N. Lucasana,_ Deshayes, and _N. Beaumonti,_ d'Arch. and Haines.] who have p.r.o.nounced the species collected by Dr. Thomson and myself to be the same as those found in the nummulite rocks of north-west India, Scinde, and Arabia.

CHAPTER x.x.x.

Boat voyage to Silhet--River--Palms--Teelas--Botany--Fish weirs--Forests of Cachar--Sandal-wood, etc.--Porpoises-- Alligators--Silchar--Tigers--Rice crops--Cookies-- Munniporees--Hockey--Varnish--Dance--Nagas--Excursion to Munnipore frontier--Elephant bogged--Bamboos--_Cardiopteris_-- Climate, etc., of Cachar--Mosquitos--Fall of banks--Silhet-- Oaks--_Stylidium_--Tree-ferns--Chattuc--Megna--Meteorology --Palms--Noacolly--Salt-smuggling--Delta of Ganges and Megna --Westward progress of Megna--Peat--Tide--Waves--Earthquakes --Dangerous navigation--Moonlight scenes--Mud island-- Chittagong--Mug tribes--Views--Trees--Churs--Flagstaff hill--Coffee--Pepper--Tea, etc.--Excursions from Chittagong --_Dipterocarpi_ or Gurjun oil trees--Earthquake--Birds--Papaw --Bleeding of stems--Poppy and Sun fields--Seetakoond-- Bungalow and hill--Perpetual flame--_Falconeria--Cycas_-- Climate--Leave for Calcutta--Hattiah island--Plants-- Sunderbunds--Steamer--Tides--_Nipa fruticans_--Fishing-- Otters--Crocodiles--_Phoenix paludosa_--Departure from India.

We left Churra on the 17th of November, and taking boats at Pundua, crossed the Jheels to the Soormah, which we ascended to Silhet.

Thence we continued our voyage 120 miles up the river in canoes, to Silchar, the capital of the district of Cachar: the boats were such as I described at Chattuc, and though it was impossible to sit upright in them, they were paddled with great swiftness. The river at Silhet is 200 yards broad; it is muddy, and flows with a gentle current of two to three miles an hour, between banks six to twelve feet high. As we glided up its stream, villages became rarer, and eminences more frequent in the Jheels. The people are a tall, bold, athletic Mahometan race, who live much on the water, and cultivate rice, sesamum, and radishes, with betel-pepper in thatched enclosures as in Sikkim: maize and sugar are rarer, bamboos abound, and four palms (_Bora.s.sus, Areca,_ cocoa-nut, and _Caryota_) are planted, but there are no date-palms.

The Teelas (or hillocks) are the haunts of wild boars, tigers, and elephants, but not of the rhinoceros; they are 80 to 200 feet high, of horizontally stratified gravel and sand, slates, and clay conglomerates, with a slag-like honey-combed sandstone; they are covered with oaks, figs, _Heretiera,_ and bamboos, and besides a mult.i.tude of common Bengal plants, there are some which, though generally considered mountain or cold country genera, here descend to the level of the sea; such are _Kadsura, Rubus, Camellia,_ and _Sabia_; _Aerides_ and _Saccol.a.b.i.a_ are the common orchids, and rattan-canes and _Pandani_ render the jungles impenetrable.

A very long sedge (_Scleria_) grows by the water, and is used for thatching: boatloads of it are collected for the Calcutta market, for which also were destined many immense rafts of bamboo, 100 feet long.

The people fish much, using square and triangular drop-nets stretched upon bamboos, and rude basket-work weirs, that retain the fish as the river falls. Near the villages we saw fragments of pottery three feet below the surface of the ground, shewing that the bank, which is higher than the surrounding country, increases from the annual overflow.

About seventy miles up the river, the mountains on the north, which are east of Jyntea, rise 4000 feet high in forest-clad ranges like those of Sikkim. Swamps extend from the river to their base, and penetrate their valleys, which are extremely malarious: these forests are frequented by timber-cutters, who fell jarool (_Lagerstroemia Reginae_), a magnificent tree with red wood, which, though soft, is durable under water, and therefore in universal use for boat-building. The toon is also cut, with red sandal-wood (_Adenanthera pavonina_); also Nageesa,* [There is much dispute amongst oriental scholars about the word Nageesa; the Bombay philologists refer it to a species of _Garcinia,_ whilst the pundits on the Calcutta side of India consider it to be _Mesua ferrea._ Throughout our travels in India, we were struck with the undue reliance placed on native names of plants, and information of all kinds; and the pertinacity with which each linguist adhered to his own crotchet as to the application of terms to natural objects, and their p.r.o.nunciation. It is a very prevalent, but erroneous, impression, that savage and half-civilised people have an accurate knowledge of objects of natural history, and a uniform nomenclature for them.] _Mesua ferrea,_ which is highly valued for its weight, strength, and durability: _Aquilaria agallocha,_ the eagle-wood, a tree yielding uggur oil, is also much sought for its fragrant wood, which is carried to Silhet and Azmerigunj, where it is broken up and distilled. Neither teak, sissoo, sal, nor other _Dipterocarpi,_ are found in these forests.

Porpoises, and both the long and the short-nosed alligator, ascend the Soormah for 120 miles, being found beyond Silchar, which place we reached on the 22nd, and were most hospitably received by Colonel Lister, the political agent commanding the Silhet Light Infantry, who was inspecting the Cookie levy, a corps of hill-natives which had lately been enrolled.

The station is a small one, and stands about forty feet above the river, which however rises half that height in the rains. Long low spurs of tertiary rocks stretch from the Tipperah hills for many miles north, through the swampy Jheels to the river; and there are also hills on the opposite or north side, but detached from the Cookie hills, as the lofty blue range twelve miles north of the Soormah is called. All these mountains swarm with tigers, wild buffalos, and boars, which also infest the long gra.s.s of the Jheels.

The elevation of the house we occupied at Silchar was 116 feet above the sea. The bank it stood on was of clay, with soft rocks of conglomerate, which often a.s.sume the appearance of a brown sandy slag.

During the first Birmese war, Colonel Lister was sent with a force up to this remote corner of Bengal, when the country was an uninhabited jungle, so full of tigers that not a day pa.s.sed without one or more of his gra.s.s or wood-cutters being carried off. Now, thousands of acres are cultivated with rice, and during our stay we did not see a tiger. The quant.i.ty of land brought into cultivation in this part of Bengal, and indeed throughout the Gangetic delta, has probably been doubled during the last twenty years, and speaks volumes for the state of the peasant under the Indian Company's sway, as compared with his former condition. The Silchar rice is of admirable quality, and much is imported to Silhet, the Jheels not producing grain enough for the consumption of the people. Though Silchar grows enough for ten times its population, there was actually a famine six weeks before our arrival, the demand from Silhet being so great.

The villages of Cachar are peopled by Mahometans, Munniporees, Nagas, and Cookies; the Cacharies themselves being a poor and peaceful jungle tribe, confined to the mountains north of the Soormah.

The Munniporees* [The Munnipore valley has never been explored by any naturalist, its mountains are said to be pine-clad, and to rise 8000 feet above the level of the sea. The Rajah is much hara.s.sed by the Birmese, and is a dependant of the British, who are in the very frequent dilemma of supporting on the throne a sovereign opposed by a strong faction of his countrymen, and who has very dubious claims to his position. During our stay at Silchar, the supposed rightful Rajah was prevailing over the usurper; a battle had been fought on the hills on the frontier, and two bodies floated past our bungalow, pierced with arrows.] are emigrants from the kingdom of that name, which lies beyond the British possessions, and borders on a.s.sam and Birmah. Low ranges of forest-clad mountains at the head of the Soormah, separate it from Silchar, with which it is coterminous; the two chief towns being seven marches apart. To the south-east of Silchar are interminable jungles, peopled by the Cookies, a wild Indo-Chinese tribe, who live in a state of constant warfare, and possess the whole hill-country from this, southward to beyond Chittagong. Two years ago they invaded and ravaged Cachar, carrying many of the inhabitants into slavery, and so frightening the people, that land previously worth six rupees a biggah, is now reduced to one and a half. Colonel Lister was sent with a strong party to rescue the captives, and marched for many days through their country without disturbing man or beast; penetrating deep forests of gigantic trees and tall bamboos, never seeing the sun above, or aught to the right and left, save an occasional clearance and a deserted village.

The incursion, however, had its effects, and the better inclined near the frontier have since come forward, and been enrolled as the Cookie levy.

The Munnipore emigrants are industrious settlers for a time, but never remain long in one place: their religion is Hindoo, and they keep up a considerable trade with their own country, whence they import a large breed of buffalos, ponies, silks, and cotton cloths dyed with arnotto (_Bixa_), and universally used for turbans.

They use bamboo blowing-tubes and arrows for shooting birds, make excellent shields of rhinoceros hide (imported from a.s.sam), and play at hockey on horseback like the Western Tibetans. A fine black varnish from the fruit of _Holigarna longifolia,_ is imported from Munnipore, as is another made from _Sesuvium Anacardium_ (marking-nut), and a remarkable black pigment resembling that from _Melanorhoea usitatissima,_ which is white when fresh, and requires to be kept under water.* [This turns of a beautiful black colour when applied to a surface, owing, according to Sir D. Brewster, to the fresh varnish consisting of a congeries of minute organised particles, which disperse the rays of light in all directions; the organic structure is destroyed when the varnish dries and the rays of light are consequently transmitted.]

One fine moonlight night we went to see a Munnipore dance. A large circular area was thatched with plantain leaves, growing on their trunks, which were stuck in the ground; and round the enclosure was a border neatly cut from the white leaf-sheaths of the same tree.

A double enclosure of bamboo, similarly ornamented, left an inner circle for the performers, and an outer for the spectators: the whole was lighted with oil lamps and Chinese paper lanterns. The musicians sat on one side, with cymbals, tomtoms, and flutes, and sang choruses.

The performances began by a copper-coloured Cupid entering and calling the virgins with a flute; these appeared from a green-room, to the number of thirty or forty, of all ages and sizes. Each had her hair dressed in a topknot, and her head covered with a veil; a scarlet petticoat loaded with tinsel concealed her naked feet, and over this was a short red kirtle, and an enormous white shawl was swathed round the body from the armpits to the waist. A broad belt pa.s.sed over the right shoulder and under the left arm, to which hung gold and silver chains, corals, etc., with tinsel and small mirrors sewed on everywhere: the arms and hands were bare, and decorated with bangles and rings.

Many of the women were extremely tall, great stature being common amongst the Munniporees. They commenced with a prostration to Cupid, around whom they danced very slowly, with the arms stretched out, and the hands in motion; at each step the free foot was swung backwards and forwards. Cupid then chose a partner, and standing in the middle went through the same motions, a compliment the women acknowledged by curtseying and whirling round, making a sort of cheese with their petticoats, which, however, were too heavy to inflate properly.

The Nagas are another people found on this frontier, chiefly on the hills to the north: they are a wild, copper-coloured, uncouth jungle tribe, who have proved troublesome on the a.s.sam frontier.

Their features are more Tartar than those of the Munniporees, especially amongst the old men. They bury their dead under the threshold of their cottages. The men are all but naked, and stick plumes of hornbills' feathers in their hair, which is bound with strips of bamboo: tufts of small feathers are pa.s.sed through their ears, and worn as shoulder lappets. A short blue cotton cloth, with a fringe of tinsel and tufts of goat's hair dyed red, is pa.s.sed over the loins in front only: they also wear bra.s.s armlets, and necklaces of cowries, coral, amber, ivory, and boar's teeth. The women draw a fringed blue cloth tightly across the breast, and wear a checked or striped petticoat. They are less ornamented than the men, and are pleasing looking; their hair is straight, and cut short over the eyebrows.

The Naga dances are very different from those of the Munniporees; being quick, and performed in excellent time to harmonious music.

The figures are regular, like quadrilles and country-dances: the men hold their knives erect during the performance, the women extend their arms only when turning partners, and then their hands are not given, but the palms are held opposite. The step is a sort of polka and balancez, very graceful and lively. A bar of music is always played first, and at the end the spectators applaud with two short shouts. Their ear for music, and the nature of their dance, are as Tibetan as their countenances, and different from those of the Indo-Chinese tribes of the frontier.

We had the pleasure of meeting Lieutenant Raban at Silchar, and of making several excursions in the neighbourhood with him; for which Colonel Lister here, as at Churra, afforded us every facility of elephants and men. Had we had time, it was our intention to have visited Munnipore, but we were anxious to proceed to Chittagong.

I however made a three days' excursion to the frontier, about thirty miles distant, proceeding along the north bank of the Soormah. On the way my elephant got bogged in crossing a deep muddy stream: this is sometimes an alarming position, as should the animal become terrified, he will seize his rider, or pad, or any other object (except his driver), to place under his knees to prevent his sinking.

In this instance the driver in great alarm ordered me off, and I had to flounder out through the black mud. The elephant remained fast all night, and was released next morning by men with ropes.

The country continued a gra.s.sy level, with marshes and rice cultivation, to the first range of hills, beyond which the river is unnavigable; there also a forest commences, of oaks, figs, and the common trees of east Bengal. The road hence was a good one, cut by Sepoys across the dividing ranges, the first of which is not 500 feet high. On the ascent bamboos abound, of the kind called Tuldah or Dulloah, which has long very thin-walled joints; it attains no great size, but is remarkably gregarious. On the east side of the range, the road runs through soft shales and beds of clay, and conglomerates, descending to a broad valley covered with gigantic scattered timber-trees of jarool, acacia, _Diospyros, Urticeae,_ and _Bauhiniae,_ rearing their enormous trunks above the bamboo jungle: immense rattan-canes wound through the forest, and in the gullies were groves of two kinds of tree-fern, two of _Areca, Wallichia_ palm, screw-pine, and _Dracaena._ Wild rice grew abundantly in the marshes, with tall gra.s.ses; and _Cardiopteris_* [A remarkable plant of unknown affinity; see Brown and Bennett, "Flora Java:" it is found in the a.s.sam valley and Chittagong.] covered the trees for upwards of sixty feet, like hops, with a ma.s.s of pale-green foliage, and dry white glistening seed-vessels. This forest differed from those of the Silhet and Khasia mountains, especially in the abundance of bamboo jungle, which is, I believe, the prevalent feature of the low hills in Birmah, Ava, and Munnipore; also in the gigantic size of the rattans, larger palms, and different forest trees, and in the scanty undergrowth of herbs and bushes. I only saw, however, the skirts of the forest; the mountains further east, which I am told rise several thousand feet in limestone cliffs, are doubtless richer in herbaceous plants.

The climate of Cachar partakes of that of the Jheels in its damp equable character: during our stay the weather was fine, and dense fogs formed in the morning: the mean maximum was 80 degrees, minimum 58.4 degrees.* [The temperature does not rise above 90 degrees in summer, nor sink below 45 degrees or 50 degrees in January: forty-seven comparative observations with Calcutta showed the mean temperature to be 1.8 degrees lower at Silchar, and the air damper, the saturation point being, at Calcutta 0.3791, at Silchar 0.4379.]

The annual rain-fall in 1850 was 111.60 inches, according to a register kindly given me by Captain Verner. There are few mosquitos, which is one of the most curious facts in the geographical distribution of these capricious bloodsuckers; for the locality is surrounded by swamps, and they swarm at Silhet, and on the river lower down. Both on the pa.s.sage up and down, we were tormented in our canoes by them for eighty or ninety miles above Silhet, and thence onwards to Cachar we were free.

On the 30th of November, we were preparing for our return to Silhet, and our canoes were loading, when we were surprised by a loud rushing noise, and saw a high wave coming down the river, swamping every boat that remained on its banks, whilst most of those that pushed out into the stream, escaped with a violent rocking. It was caused by a slip of the bank three quarters of a mile up the stream, of no great size, but which propagated a high wave. This appeared to move on at about the rate of a mile in three or four minutes, giving plenty of time for our boatmen to push out from the land on hearing the shouts of those first overtaken by the calamity; but they were too timid, and consequently one of our canoes, full of papers, instruments, and clothes, was swamped. Happily our dried collections were not embarked, and the hot sun repaired much of the damage.

We left in the evening of the 2nd of December, and proceeded to Silhet, where we were kindly received by Mr. Stainforth, the district judge. Silhet, the capital of the district of the same name, is a large Mahometan town, occupying a slightly raised part of the Jheels, where many of the Teelas seem joined together by beds of gravel and sand. In the rains it, is surrounded by water, and all communication with other parts is by boats: in winter, Jynteapore and Pundua may be reached by land, crossing creeks innumerable on the way.