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Himalayan Journals — Volume 1

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Title: Himalayan Journals — Volume 1

Author: Joseph Dalton Hooker


        
Release date: September 1, 2004 [eBook #6476]
                Most recently updated: December 29, 2020

Language: English

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HIMALAYAN JOURNALS
or
NOTES OF A NATURALIST

IN BENGAL, THE SIKKIM AND NEPAL HIMALAYAS,
THE KHASIA MOUNTAINS, etc.

JOSEPH DALTON HOOKER, M.D., R.N., F.R.S.

Volume I

First published 1854

To CHARLES DARWIN, F.R.S., etc.
These volumes are dedicated,
by his affectionate friend,
J.D. HOOKER
Kew, Jan. 12th, 1854

-------------------------

PREFACE

HAVING accompanied Sir James Boss on his voyage of discovery to the
Antarctic regions, where botany was my chief pursuit, on my return I
earnestly desired to add to my acquaintance with the natural history
of the temperate zones, more knowledge of that of the tropics than I
bad hitherto had the opportunity of acquiring. My choice lay between
India and the Andes, and I decided upon the former, being principally
influenced by Dr. Falconer, who promised me every assistance which
his position as Superintendent of the H.E.I.C. Botanic Garden at
Calcutta, would enable hum to give. He also drew my attention to the
fact that we were ignorant even of the geography of the central and
eastern parts of these mountains, while all to the north was involved
in a mystery equally attractive to the traveller and the naturalist.

On hearing of the kind interest taken by Baron Humboldt in my
proposed travels, and at the request of my father (Sir William
Hooker), the Earl of Carlisle (then Chief Commissioner of Woods and
Forests) undertook to represent to Her Majesty's Government the
expediency of securing my collections for the Royal Gardens at Kew;
and owing to the generous exertions of that nobleman, and of the late
Earl of Auckland (then First Lord of the Admiralty), my journey
assumed the character of a Government mission, £400 per annum being
granted by the Treasury for two years.

I did not contemplate proceeding beyond the Himalaya and Tibet, when
Lord Auckland desired that I should afterwards visit Borneo, for the
purpose of reporting on the capabilities of Labuan, with reference to
the cultivation of cotton, tobacco, sugar, indigo, spices,
guttapercha, etc. To this end a commission in the navy (to which
service I was already attached) was given me, such instructions were
drawn up as might facilitate my movements in the East, and a suitable
sum of money was placed at my disposal.

Soon after leaving England, my plans became, from various causes,
altered. The Earl of Auckland* [It is with a melancholy satisfaction
that I here record the intentions of that enlightened nobleman.
The idea of turning to public account what was intended as a
scientific voyage, occurred to his lordship when considering my
application for official leave to proceed to India; and from the hour
of my accepting the Borneo commission with which he honoured me, he
displayed the most active zeal in promoting its fulfilment.
He communicated to me his views as to the direction in which I should
pursue my researches, furnished me with official and other
information, and provided me with introductions of the most essential
use.] was dead; the interest in Borneo had in a great measure
subsided; H.M.S. "Maeander," to which I had been attached for service
in Labuan, had left the Archipelago; reports of the unhealthy nature
of the coast had excited alarm; and the results of my researches in
the Himalaya had proved of more interest and advantage than had been
anticipated. It was hence thought expedient to cancel the Borneo
appointment, and to prolong my services for a third year in India;
for which purpose a grant of £300 (originally intended for defraying
the expense of collecting only, in Borneo) was transferred as salary
for the additional year to be spent in the Himalaya.

The portion of the Himalaya best worth exploring, was selected for me
both by Lord Auckland and Dr. Falconer, who independently recommended
Sikkim, as being ground untrodden by traveller or naturalist.
Its ruler was, moreover, all but a dependant of the British
government, and it was supposed, would therefore be glad to
facilitate my researches.

No part of the snowy Himalaya eastward of the northwest extremity of
the British possessions had been visited since Turner's embassy to
Tibet in 1789; and hence it was highly important to explore
scientifically a part of the chain which, from its central position,
might be presumed to be typical of the whole range. The possibility
of visiting Tibet, and of ascertaining particulars respecting the
great mountain Chumulari,* [My earliest recollections in reading are
of "Turner's Travels in Tibet," and of "Cook's Voyages." The account
of Lama worship and of Chumulari in the one, and of Kerguelen's Land
in the other, always took a strong hold on my fancy. It is,
therefore, singular that Kerguelen's Land should have been the first
strange country I ever visited (now fourteen years ago), and that in
the first King's ship which has touched there since Cook's voyage,
and whilst following the track of that illustrious navigator in south
polar discovery. At a later period I have been nearly the first
European who has approached Chumulari since Turner's embassy.] which
was only known from Turner's account, were additional inducements to
a student of physical geography; but it was not then known that
Kinchinjunga, the loftiest known mountain on the globe, was situated
on my route, and formed a principal feature in the physical geography
of Sikkim.

My passage to Egypt was provided by the Admiralty in H.M.
steam-vessel "Sidon," destined to convey the Marquis of Dalhousie,
Governor-General of India, thus far on his way. On his arrival in
Egypt, his Lordship did me the honour of desiring me to consider
myself in the position of one of his suite, for the remainder of the
voyage, which was performed in the "Moozuffer," a steam frigate
belonging to the Indian Navy. My obligations to this nobleman had
commenced before leaving England, by his promising me every facility
he could command; and he thus took the earliest opportunity of
affording it, by giving me such a position near himself as ensured me
the best reception everywhere; no other introduction being needed.
His Lordship procured my admission into Sikkim, and honoured me
throughout my travels with the kindest encouragement.

During the passage out, some days were spent in Egypt, at Aden,
Ceylon, and Madras. I have not thought it necessary to give here the
observations made in those well-known countries; they are detailed in
a series of letters published in the "London Journal of Botany," as
written for my private friends. Arriving at Calcutta in January, I
passed the remainder of the cold season in making myself acquainted
with the vegetation of the plains and hills of Western Bengal, south
of the Ganges, by a journey across the mountains of Birbhoom and
Behar to the Soane valley, and thence over the Vindhya range to the
Ganges, at Mirzapore, whence I descended that stream to Bhaugulpore;
and leaving my boat, struck north to the Sikkim Himalaya. This
excursion is detailed in the "London Journal of Botany," and the
Asiatic Society of Bengal honoured me by printing the meteorological
observations made during its progress.

During the two years' residence in Sikkim which succeeded, I was laid
under obligations of no ordinary nature to Brian H. Hodgson, Esq.,
B.C.S., for many years Resident at the Nepal Court; whose guest I
became for several months. Mr. Hodgson's high position as a man of
science requires no mention here; but the difficulties he overcame,
and the sacrifices he made, in attaining that position, are known to
few. He entered the wilds of Nepal when very young, and in
indifferent health; and finding time to spare, cast about for the
best method of employing it: he had no one to recommend or direct a
pursuit, no example to follow, no rival to equal or surpass; he had
never been acquainted with a scientific man, and knew nothing of
science except the name. The natural history of men and animals, in
its most comprehensive sense, attracted his attention; he sent to
Europe for books, and commenced the study of ethnology and zoology.
His labours have now extended over upwards of twenty-five years'
residence in the Himalaya. During this period he has seldom had a
staff of less than from ten to twenty persons (often many more), of
various tongues and races, employed as translators and collectors,
artists, shooters, and stuffers. By unceasing exertions and a
princely liberality, Mr. Hodgson has unveiled the mysteries of the
Boodhist religion, chronicled the affinities, languages, customs, and
faiths of the Himalayan tribes; and completed a natural history of
the animals and birds of these regions. His collections of specimens
are immense, and are illustrated by drawings and descriptions taken
from life, with remarks on the anatomy,* [In this department he
availed himself of the services of Dr. Campbell, who was also
attached to the Residency at Nepal, as surgeon and assistant
political agent.] habits, and localities of the animals themselves.
Twenty volumes of the Journals, and the Museum of the Asiatic Society
of Bengal, teem with the proofs of his indefatigable zeal; and
throughout the cabinets of the bird and quadruped departments of our
national museum, Mr. Hodgson's name stands pre-eminent. A seat in the
Institute of France, and the cross of the Legion of Honour, prove the
estimation in which his Boodhist studies are held on the continent of
Europe. To be welcomed to the Himalaya by such a person, and to be
allowed the most unreserved intercourse, and the advantage of all his
information and library, exercised a material influence on the
progress I made in my studies, and on my travels. When I add that
many of the subjects treated of in these volumes were discussed
between us, it will be evident that it is impossible for me to divest
much of the information thus insensibly obtained, of the appearance
of being the fruits of my own research.

Dr. Campbell, the Superintendent of Dorjiling, is likewise the
Governor-General's agent, or medium of communication between the
British Government and the Sikkim Rajah; and as such, invested with
many discretionary powers. In the course of this narrative, I shall
give a sketch of the rise, progress, and prospects of the Sanatarium,
or Health-station of Dorjiling, and of the anomalous position held by
the Sikkim Rajah. The latter circumstance led indirectly to the
detention of Dr. Campbell (who joined me in one of my journeys) and
myself, by a faction of the Sikkim court, for the purpose of
obtaining from the Indian Government a more favourable treaty than
that then existing. This mode of enforcing a request by _douce
violence_ and detention, is common with the turbulent tribes east
of Nepal, but was in this instance aggravated by violence towards my
fellow-prisoner, through the ill will of the persons who executed the
orders of their superiors, and who had been punished by Dr. Campbell
for crimes committed against both the British and Nepalese
governments. The circumstances of this outrage were misunderstood at
the time; its instigators were supposed to be Chinese; its
perpetrators Tibetans; and we the offenders were assumed to have
thrust ourselves into the country, without authority from our own
government, and contrary to the will of the Sikkim Rajah; who was
imagined to be a tributary of China, and protected by that nation,
and to be under no obligation to the East Indian government.

With regard to the obligations I owe to Dr. Campbell, I confine
myself to saying that his whole aim was to promote my comfort, and to
secure my success, in all possible ways. Every object I had in view
was as sedulously cared for by him as by myself: I am indebted to his
influence with Jung Bahadoor* [It was in Nepal that Dr. Campbell
gained the friendship of Jung Bahadoor, the most remarkable proof of
which is the acceding to his request, and granting me leave to visit
the eastern parts of his dominions; no European that I am aware of,
having been allowed, either before or since, to travel anywhere
except to and from the plains of India and valley of Katmandu, in
which the capital city and British residency are situated.] for the
permission to traverse his dominions, and to visit the Tibetan passes
of Nepal. His prudence and patience in negotiating with the Sikkim
court, enabled me to pursue my investigations in that country. My
journal is largely indebted to his varied and extensive knowledge of
the people and productions of these regions.

In all numerical calculations connected with my observations, I
received most essential aid from John Muller, Esq., Accountant of the
Calcutta Mint, and from his brother, Charles Muller, Esq., of Patna,
both ardent amateurs in scientific pursuits, and who employed
themselves in making meteorological observations at Dorjiling, where
they were recruiting constitutions impaired by the performance of
arduous duties in the climate of the plains. I cannot sufficiently
thank these gentlemen for the handsome manner in which they
volunteered me their assistance in these laborious operations.
Mr. J. Muller resided at Dorjiling during eighteen months of my stay
in Sikkim, over the whole of which period his generous zeal in my
service never relaxed; he assisted me in the reduction of many
hundreds of my observations for latitude, time, and elevation,
besides adjusting and rating my instruments; and I can recall no more
pleasant days than those thus spent with these hospitable friends.

Thanks to Dr. Falconer's indefatigable exertions, such of my
collections as reached Calcutta were forwarded to England in
excellent order; and they were temporarily deposited in Kew Gardens
until their destination should be determined. On my return home, my
scientific friends interested themselves in procuring from the
Government such aid as might enable me to devote the necessary time
to the arrangement, naming, and distributing of my collections, the
publication of my manuscripts, etc. I am in this most deeply indebted
to the disinterested and generous exertions of Mr. L. Horner, Sir
Charles Lyell, Dr. Lindley, Professor E. Forbes, and many others; and
most especially to the Presidents of the Royal Society (the Earl of
Rosse), of the Linnean (Mr. R. Brown), and Geological (Mr. Hopkins),
who in their official capacities memorialized in person the Chief
Commissioner of Woods and Forests on this subject; Sir William Hooker
at the same time bringing it under the notice of the First Lord of
the Treasury. The result was a grant of £400 annually for three years.

Dr. T. Thomson joined me in Dorjiling in the end of 1849, after the
completion of his arduous journeys in the North-West Himalaya and
Tibet, and we spent the year 1850 in travelling and collecting,
returning to England together in 1851. Having obtained permission
from the Indian Government to distribute his botanical collections,
which equal my own in extent and value, we were advised by all our
botanical friends to incorporate, and thus to distribute them. The
whole constitute an Herbarium of from 6000 to 7000 species of Indian
plants, including an immense number of duplicates; and it is now in
process of being arranged and named, by Dr. Thomson and myself,
preparatory to its distribution amongst sixty of the principal public
and private herbaria in Europe, India, and the United States
of America.

For the information of future travellers, I may state that the total
expense of my Indian journey, including outfit, three years and a
half travelling, and the sending of my collections to Calcutta, was
under £2000 (of which £1200 were defrayed by government), but would
have come to much more, had I not enjoyed the great advantages I have
detailed. This sum does not include the purchase of books and
instruments, with which I supplied myself, and which cost about £200,
nor the freight of the collections to England, which was paid by
Government. Owing to the kind services of Mr. J. C. Melvill,
Secretary of the India House, many small parcels of seeds, etc., were
conveyed to England, free of cost; and I have to record my great
obligations and sincere thanks to the Peninsular and Oriental Steam
Navigation Company, for conveying, without charge, all small parcels
of books, instruments and specimens, addressed to or by myself.

It remains to say something of the illustrations of this work.
The maps are from surveys of my own, made chiefly with my own
instruments, but partly with some valuable ones for the use of which
I am indebted to my friend Captain H. Thuillier, Deputy
Surveyor-General of India, who placed at my disposal the resources of
the magnificent establishment under his control, and to whose
innumerable good offices I am very greatly beholden.

The landscapes, etc. have been prepared chiefly from my own drawings,
and will, I hope, be found to be tolerably faithful representations
of the scenes. I have always endeavoured to overcome that tendency to
exaggerate heights, and increase the angle of slopes, which is I
believe the besetting sin, not of amateurs only, but of our most
accomplished artists. As, however, I did not use instruments in
projecting the outlines, I do not pretend to have wholly avoided this
snare; nor, I regret to say; has the lithographer, in all cases, been
content to abide by his copy. My drawings will be considered tame
compared with most mountain landscapes, though the subjects comprise
some of the grandest scenes in nature. Considering how conventional
the treatment of such subjects is, and how unanimous artists seem to
be as to the propriety of exaggerating those features which should
predominate in the landscape, it may fairly be doubted whether the
total effect of steepness and elevation, especially in a mountain
view, can, on a small scale, be conveyed by a strict adherence to
truth. I need hardly add, that if such is attainable, it is only by
those who have a power of colouring that few pretend to. In the list
of plates and woodcuts I have mentioned the obligations I am under to
several friends for the use of drawings, etc.

With regard to the spelling of native names, after much anxious
discussion I have adopted that which assimilates most to the English
pronunciation. For great assistance in this, for a careful revision
of the sheets as they passed through the press, and for numerous
valuable suggestions throughout, I am indebted to my
fellow-traveller, Dr. Thomas Thomson.

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER I.

Sunderbunds vegetation -- Calcutta Botanic Garden -- Leave for
Burdwan -- Rajah's gardens and menagerie -- Coal-beds, geology, and
plants of -- Lac insect and plant -- Camels -- Kunker -- Cowage --
Effloresced soda on soil -- Glass, manufacture of -- Atmospheric
vapours -- Temperature, etc. -- Mahowa oil and spirits -- Maddaobund
-- Jains -- Ascent of Paras-nath -- Vegetation of that mountain.

CHAPTER II.

Doomree -- Vegetation of table-land -- Lieutenant Beadle -- Birds --
Hot springs of Soorujkoond -- Plants near them -- Shells in them --
Cholera-tree -- Olibanum -- Palms, form of -- Dunwah pass -- Trees,
native and planted  -- Wild peacock -- Poppy fields -- Geography and
geology of Behar and Central India -- Toddy-palm -- Ground,
temperature of -- Baroon -- Temperature of plants -- Lizard -- Cross
the Soane -- Sand, ripple-marks on -- Kymore hills -- Ground,
temperature of -- Limestone -- Rotas fort and palace -- Nitrate of
lime -- Change of climate -- Lime stalagmites, enclosing leaves --
Fall of Soane -- Spiders, etc. -- Scenery and natural history of
upper Soane valley -- _Hardwickia binata_ -- Bhel fruit --
Dust-storm --  Alligator -- Catechu -- _Cochlospermum_ --
Leaf-bellows -- Scorpions -- Tortoises -- Florican -- Limestone
spheres -- Coles -- Tiger-hunt -- Robbery.

CHAPTER III.

Ek-powa Ghat -- Sandstones -- Shahgunj -- Table-land, elevation, etc.
-- Gum-arabic -- Mango -- Fair -- Aquatic plants -- Rujubbund --
Storm -- False sunset and sunrise -- Bind hills -- Mirzapore --
Manufactures, imports, etc. -- Climate -- Thuggee -- Chunar --
Benares -- Mosque -- Observatory -- Sar-nath --  Ghazeepore --
Rose-gardens -- Manufactory of attar -- Lord Cornwallis' tomb --
Ganges, scenery and natural history of -- Pelicans -- Vegetation --
Insects -- Dinapore -- Patna -- Opium godowns and manufacture --
Mudar, white and purple -- Monghyr islets -- Hot springs of
Seetakoond -- Alluvium of Ganges -- Rocks of Sultun-gunj --
Bhaugulpore -- Temples of Mt. Manden -- Coles and native tribes --
Bhaugulpore rangers -- Horticultural gardens.

CHAPTER IV.

Leave Bhaugulpore -- Kunker -- Colgong -- Himalaya, distant view of
-- Cosi, mouth of -- Difficult navigation -- Sand-storms --
Caragola-Ghat -- Purnea -- Ortolans -- Mahanuddy, transport of
pebbles, etc. -- Betel-pepper, cultivation of -- Titalya -- Siligoree
-- View of outer Himalaya -- Terai -- Mechis -- Punkabaree -- Foot of
mountains -- Ascent to Dorjiling -- Cicadas -- Leeches -- Animals --
Kursiong, spring vegetation of -- Pacheem -- Arrive at Dorjiling --
Dorjiling, origin and settlement of -- Grant of land from Rajah --
Dr. Campbell appointed superintendent -- Dewan, late and present --
Aggressive conduct of the latter -- Increase of the station -- Trade
-- Titalya fair -- Healthy climate for Europeans and children --
Invalids, diseases prejudicial to.

CHAPTER V.

View from Mr. Hodgson's of range of snowy mountains -- Their extent
and elevation -- Delusive appearance of elevation -- Sinchul, view
from and vegetation of -- Chumulari -- Magnolias, white and purple --
_Rhododendron Dalhousiae, arboreum_ and _argentium_ -- Natives of
Dorjiling -- Lepchas, origin, tradition of flood, morals, dress,
arms, ornaments, diet -- Cups, origin and value -- Marriages --
Diseases -- Burial -- Worship and religion -- Bijooas -- Kumpa Rong,
or Arrat -- Limboos, origin, habits, language, etc. -- Moormis --
Magras -- Mechis -- Comparison of customs with those of the natives
of Assam, Khasia, etc.

CHAPTER VI.

Excursion from Dorjiling to Great Rungeet -- Zones of vegetation --
Tree-ferns -- Palms, upper limit of -- Leebong, tea plantations --
Ging -- Boodhist remains -- Tropical vegetation -- Pines -- Lepcha
clearances -- Forest fires -- Boodhist monuments -- Fig --
Cane-bridge and raft over Rungeet -- Sago-palm -- India-rubber -- Yel
Pote -- Butterflies and other insects -- Snakes -- Camp --
Temperature and humidity of atmosphere -- Junction of Teesta and
Rungeet -- Return to Dorjiling -- Tonglo, excursion to -- Bamboo,
flowering -- Oaks -- _Gordonia_ -- Maize, hermaphrodite flowered
-- Figs -- Nettles -- Peepsa -- Simonbong, cultivation at -- European
fruits at Dorjiling-Plains of India.

CHAPTER VII.

Continue the ascent of Tonglo -- Trees -- Lepcha construction of hut
-- Simsibong -- Climbing-trees -- Frogs -- Magnolias, etc. -- Ticks
-- Leeches -- Cattle, murrain amongst -- Summit of Tonglo --
Rhododendrons -- _Skimmia_ -- Yew -- Rose -- Aconite -- Bikh
poison -- English genera of plants -- Ascent of tropical orders --
Comparison with south temperate zone -- Heavy rain -- Temperature,
etc. -- Descent -- Simonbong temple -- Furniture therein --
Praying-cylinder -- Thigh-bone trumpet -- Morning orisons -- Present
of Murwa beer, etc.

CHAPTER VIII.

Difficulty in procuring leave to enter Sikkim -- Obtain permission to
travel in East Nepal -- Arrangements -- Coolies -- Stores -- Servants
-- Personal equipment -- Mode of travelling -- Leave Dorjiling --
Goong ridge -- Behaviour of Bhotan coolies -- Nepal frontier -- Myong
valley -- Ilam -- Sikkim massacre -- Cultivation -- Nettles -- Camp
at Nanki on Tonglo -- Bhotan coolies run away -- View of Chumulari --
Nepal peaks to west -- Sakkiazong -- _Buceros_ -- Road to
Wallanchoon -- Oaks -- Scarcity of water -- Singular view of
mountain-valleys -- Encampment -- My tent and its furniture --
Evening occupations -- Dunkotah-Cross ridge of Sakkiazong -- Yews --
Silver-firs-View of Tambur valley -- Pemmi river -- Pebbly terraces
-- Geology -- Holy springs -- Enormous trees -- _Luculia
gratissima_ -- Khawa river, rocks of -- Arrive at Tambur --
Shingle and gravel terraces -- Natives, indolence of -- Canoe ferry
-- Votive offerings -- Bad road -- Temperature, etc. -- Chingtam
village, view from -- Mywa river and Guola -- House -- Boulders --
Chain-bridge -- Meepo, arrival of -- Fevers.

CHAPTER IX.

Leave Mywa -- Suspension bridge -- Landslips -- Vegetation -- Slope
of river-bed -- Bees' nests -- Glacial phenomena -- Tibetans,
clothing, ornaments, amulets, salutation, children, dogs -- Last
Limboo village, Taptiatok -- Beautiful scenery -- Tibet village of
Lelyp -- _Opuntia -- Edgeworthia -- Crab-apple_ -- Chameleon and
porcupine -- Praying-machine -- _Abies Brunoniana_ -- European
plants -- Grand scenery -- Arrive at Wallanchoon -- Scenery around --
Trees -- Tibet houses -- Manis and Mendongs -- Tibet household --
Food -- Tea-soup -- Hospitality -- Yaks and Zobo, uses and habits of
-- Bhoteeas -- Yak-hair tents -- Guobah of Walloong -- Jatamansi --
Obstacles to proceeding-Climate and weather -- Proceed --
Rhododendrons, etc. -- Lichens -- _Poa annua_ and Shepherd's
purse -- Tibet camp -- Tuquoroma -- Scenery of pass -- Glaciers and
snow -- Summit -- Plants, woolly, etc.

CHAPTER X.

Return from Wallanchoon pass -- Procure a bazaar at village -- Dance
of Lamas -- Blackening face, Tibetan custom of -- Temple and convent
-- Leave for Kanglachem pass -- Send part of party back to Dorjiling
-- Yangma Guola -- Drunken Tibetans -- Guobah of Wallanchoon -- Camp
at foot of Great Moraine -- View from top -- Geological speculations
-- Height of moraines -- Cross dry lake-bed -- Glaciers -- More
moraines -- Terraces -- Yangma temples -- Jos, books and furniture --
Peak of Nango -- Lake -- Arrive at village -- Cultivation -- Scenery
-- Potatos -- State of my provisions -- Pass through village --
Gigantic boulders -- Terraces -- Wild sheep -- Lake-beds -- Sun's
power -- Piles of gravel and detritus -- Glaciers and moraines --
Pabuk, elevation of -- Moonlight scene -- Return to Yangma --
Temperature, etc. -- Geological causes of phenomena in valley --
Scenery of valley on descent.

CHAPTER XI.

Ascend to Nango mountain -- Moraines -- Glaciers -- Vegetation --
_Rhododendron Hodgsoni_ -- Rocks -- Honey-combed surface of snow
-- Perpetual snow -- Top of pass -- View -- Elevation -- Geology --
Distance of sound -- Plants -- Temperature -- Scenery -- Cliffs of
granite and hurled boulders -- Camp -- Descent -- Pheasants -- Larch
-- Himalayan pines -- Distribution of Deodar, note on --
Tassichooding temples -- Kambachen village -- Cultivation -- Moraines
in valley, distribution of -- Picturesque lake-beds, and their
vegetation -- Tibetan sheep and goats -- _Cryptogramma crispa_
-- Ascent to Choonjerma pass -- View of Junnoo -- Rocks of its summit
-- Misty ocean -- Nepal peaks -- Top of pass -- Temperature, and
observations -- Gorgeous sunset -- Descent to Yalloong valley --
Loose path -- Night scenes -- Musk deer.

CHAPTER XII.

Yalloong valley -- Find Kanglanamo pass closed -- Change route for
the southward -- _Picrorhiza_ -- View of Kubra --
_Rhododendron Falconeri_ -- Yalloong river -- Junction of gneiss
and clay-slate -- Cross Yalloong range -- Yiew -- Descent -- Yew --
Vegetation -- Misty weather -- Tongdam village -- Khabang -- Tropical
vegetation -- Sidingbah mountain -- View of Kinchinjunga --
Yangyading village -- Slopes of hills, and courses of rivers --
Khabili valley -- Ghorkha Havildar's bad conduct -- Ascend Singalelah
-- Plague of ticks -- Short commons -- Cross Islumbo pass -- Boundary
of Sikkim -- Kulhait valley -- Lingcham -- Reception by Kajee -- Hear
of Dr. Campbell's going to meet Rajah -- Views in valley -- Leave for
Teesta river -- Tipsy Kajee -- Hospitality -- Murwa beer -- Temples
-- _Acorus Calamus_ -- Long Mendong -- Burning of dead --
Superstitions -- Cross Great Rungeet -- Boulders, origin of --
Purchase of a dog -- Marshes -- Lamas -- Dismiss Ghorkhas -- Bhoteea
house -- Murwa beer.

CHAPTER XIII.

Raklang pass -- Uses of nettles -- Edible plants -- Lepcha war --
Do-mani stone -- Neongong -- Teesta valley -- Pony, saddle, etc. --
Meet Campbell -- Vegetation and scenery -- Presents -- Visit of Dewan
-- Characters of Rajah and Dewan -- Accounts of Tibet -- Lhassa --
Siling -- Tricks of Dewan -- Walk up Teesta -- Audience of Rajah --
Lamas -- Kajees -- Tchebu Lama, his character and position -- Effects
of interview -- Heir-apparent -- Dewan's house -- Guitar -- Weather
-- Fall of river -- Tibet officers -- Gigantic trees -- Neongong lake
-- Mainom, ascent of -- Vegetation -- Camp on snow -- Silver-firs --
View from top -- Kinchin, etc. -- Geology -- Vapours -- Sunset effect
-- Elevation -- Temperature, etc. -- Lamas of Neongong -- Temples --
Religious festival Bamboo, flowering -- Recross pass of Raklang --
Numerous temples, villages, etc. -- Domestic animals -- Descent to
Great Rungeet.

CHAPTER XIV.

Tassiding, view of and from -- Funereal cypress -- Camp at Sunnook --
Hot vapours -- Lama's house -- Temples, decorations, altars, idols,
general effect -- Chaits -- Date of erection -- Plundered by Ghorkas
-- Cross Ratong -- Ascend to Pemiongehi -- Relation of river-beds to
strike of rocks -- Slopes of ravines -- Pemiongehi, view of --
Vegetation -- Elevation -- Temple, decorations, etc. -- Former
capital of Sikkim -- History of Sikkim -- Nightingales -- Campbell
departs -- Tchonpong -- _Edgeworthia_ -- Cross Rungbee and
Ratong -- Hoar-frost on plantains -- Yoksun -- Walnuts -- View --
Funereal cypresses -- Doobdi -- Gigantic cypresses -- Temples --
Snow-fall -- Sikkim, etc. -- Toys.

CHAPTER XV.

Leave Yoksun for Kinchinjunga -- Ascend Ratong valley --
Salt-smuggling over Ratong -- Landslips -- Plants -- Buckeem --
Blocks of gneiss -- Mon Lepcha -- View -- Weather -- View from Gubroo
-- Kinchinjunga, tops of -- Pundimcliff -- Nursing -- Vegetation of
Himalaya -- Coup d'oeil of Jongri -- Route to Yalloong -- Arduous
route of salt-traders from Tibet -- Kinchin, ascent of -- Lichens --
Surfaces sculptured by snow and ice -- Weather at Jongri -- Snow --
Shades for eyes.

CHAPTER XVI.

Ratong river below Mon Lepcha -- Ferns -- Vegetation of Yoksun,
tropical -- _Araliaceae_, fodder for cattle -- Rice-paper plant
-- Geology of Yoksun -- Lake -- Old temples -- Funereal cypresses --
Gigantic chart -- Altars -- Songboom -- Weather -- Catsuperri --
Velocity of Ratong -- Worship at Catsuperri lake -- Scenery -- Willow
-- Lamas and ecclesiastical establishments of Sikkim -- Tengling --
Changachelling temples and monks -- Portrait of myself on walls --
Block of mica-schist -- Lingcham Kajee asks for spectacles --
Hee-hill -- Arrive at Little Rungeet -- At Dorjiling -- Its deserted
and wintry appearance.

CHAPTER XVII.

Dispatch collections -- Acorns -- Heat -- Punkabaree -- Bees --
Vegetation -- Haze -- Titalya -- Earthquake -- Proceed to Nepal
frontier -- Terai, geology of -- Physical features of Himalayan
valleys -- Elephants, purchase of, etc. -- River-beds -- Mechi river
-- Return to Titalya -- Leave for Teesta -- Climate of plains --
Jeelpigoree -- Cooches -- Alteration in the appearance of country by
fires, etc. -- Grasses -- Bamboos -- Cottages -- Rajah of Cooch Behar
-- Condition of people -- Hooli festival -- Ascend Teesta -- Canoes
-- Cranes -- Forest -- Baikant-pore -- Rummai -- Religion -- Plants
at foot of mountains -- Exit of Teesta -- Canoe voyage down to
Rangamally -- English genera of plants -- Birds -- Beautiful scenery
-- Botanizing on elephants -- Willow -- Siligoree -- Cross Terai --
Geology -- Iron -- Lohar-ghur -- Coal and sandstone beds -- Mechi
fisherman -- Hailstorm -- Ascent to Kursiong -- To Dorjiling --
Vegetation -- Geology -- Folded quartz-beds -- Spheres of feldspar --
Lime deposits.


LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

LITHOGRAPHIC VIEWS.

Fig. I. The Dhak, _Butea frondosa,_ and _Cochlospermum
gossypium,_ with the Kymore Hills in the background. p.53
Fig. II. View of Kinchinjunga from Mr. Hodgson's bungalow at
Dorjiling, from a sketch by W. Tayler, Esq., B.C.S. Frontispiece.
Fig. III. From Chingtam, looking up the Tambur Valley. p.196
Fig. VI. Nango mountain, from the summit of the great moraine in
Yangma Valley, looking eastward. p.232
Fig. V. Junnoo mountain from the Choonjerma Pass. p.264

WOOD ENGRAVINGS.

Fig. 1. Old tamarind trees. p.17
Fig. 2. Crossing the Soane River above Tura, with the Kymore Hills in
the background. p.47
Fig. 3. Equatorial sun-dial, Benares Observatory. p.74
Fig. 4. Equinoctial sun-dial, Benares Observatory. p.75
Fig. 5. Azimuth circle, Benares Observatory. p.76
Fig. 6. Monghyr on the Ganges. p.88
Fig. 7. Punkabaree, Sikkim Terai, and Balasun River. The trees in the
foreground are _Araliaceae._ p.105
Fig. 8. Lepcha girl and Boodhist priest. From a sketch by Miss
Colvile. p.129
Fig. 9. _Pinus longifolia,_ in the great Rungeet Valley. p.148
Fig. 10. Construction of a cane suspension-bridge. p.149
Fig. 11. Lepcha boy carrying a bamboo water-vessel. From a sketch by
Miss Colvile. p.156
Fig. 12. Amulet usually worn by Lepchas. p.161
Fig. 13. Trunk-like root of _Wightia gigantea,_ ascending a
tree, which its stout rootlets clasp. p.164
Fig. 14. Interior of Boodhist temple at Simonbong. p.172
Fig. 15. Trumpet made of a human thigh-bone. p.173
Fig. 16. Tibetan amulet set with turquoises. p.176
Fig. 17. Head of Tibet Mastiff. From a sketch taken in the zoological
gardens by C. Jenyns, Esq. p.203
Fig. 18. View on the Tambur River, with _Ambies brunoniana_.
p.207
Fig. 19. Wallanchoon village, East Nepal. p.210
Fig. 20. Head of a Tibetan demon. From a model in the possession of
Captain H. Strachey. p.226
Fig. 21. Ancient moraines surrounding the lower lake-bed in the
Yangma valley (looking west). p.234
Fig. 22. Second lake-bed in the Yangma valley, with Nango mountain,
(looking east). p.237
Fig. 23. Diagram of the terraces and glacial boulders, etc., at the
fork of the Yangma valley (looking north-west up the valley). The
terraces are represented as much too level and angular, and the
boulders too large, the woodcut being intended as a diagram rather
than as a view. p.242
Fig. 24. View of the head of the Yangma valley, and ancient moraines
of debris, which rise in confused hills several hundred feet above
the floor of the valley below the Kanglachem pass (elevation 16,000
feet). p.245
Fig. 25. Skulls of _Ovis ammon._ Sketched by J. E. Winterbottom,
Esq. p.249
Fig. 26. Ancient moraines, in which small lake-beds occur, in the
Kambachen valley (elevation 11,400 feet). p.260
Fig. 21. Brass box to contain amulets, from Tibet. p.270
Fig. 23. Pemiongchi goompa (or temple) with Chaits in the foreground.
p.286
Fig. 29. Costumes of Sikkim lamas and monks, with the bell, mani,
dobje, and trident. p.291
Fig. 30. The Do-mani stone, with gigantic Tibetan characters. p.294
Fig. 31. Implements of worship in the Sikkim temples. p.314
Fig. 32. Chaits at Tassiding, with decayed funereal cypresses. p.316
Fig. 33. Vestibule of temple at Tassiding. p.319
Fig. 34. Southern temple, at Tassiding. p.320
Fig. 35. Middle temple, at Tassiding, with mounted yaks. p.321
Fig. 36. Chair, altar, and images in the great temple at Tassiding.
p.322
Fig. 37. Ground-plan of southern temple at Tassiding. p.323
Fig. 38. Interior of temple at Pemiongchi, the walls covered with
allegorical paintings. p.329
Fig. 39. Doobdi temple, with young and old funereal cypress. p.337
Fig. 40. Summit of Kinchinjunga, with Pundim on the right; its black
cliff traversed by white granite veins. p.347
Fig. 41. Image of Maitrya, the coming Boodh. p.357
Fig. 42. Stone altar, and erection for burning juniper ashes. p.361
Fig. 43. Facsimile of the vermilion seal of the Dhurma Rajah of
Bhotan, head of the Dookpa sect of Boodhists. Opposite p.372
Fig. 44. A Mech, native of the Sikkim Terai. Sketched by Miss
Colvile. p.406
Fig. 45. Mech pocket-comb (of wood). p.408


HIMALAYAN JOURNALS.

CHAPTER I.

Sunderbunds vegetation -- Calcutta Botanic Garden -- Leave for
Burdwan -- Rajah's gardens and menagerie -- Coal-beds, geology, and
plants of -- Lac insect and plant -- Camels -- Kunker -- Cowage --
Effloresced soda on soil -- Glass, manufacture of -- Atmospheric
vapours -- Temperature, etc. -- Mahowa oil and spirits -- Maddaobund
-- Jains -- Ascent of Paras-nath -- Vegetation of that mountain.

I left England on the 11th of November, 1847, and performed the
voyage to India under circumstances which have been detailed in the
Introduction. On the 12th of January, 1848, the "Moozuffer" was
steaming amongst the low swampy islands of the Sunderbunds.
These exhibit no tropical luxuriance, and are, in this respect,
exceedingly disappointing. A low vegetation covers them, chiefly made
up of a dwarf-palm (_Phoenix paludosa_) and small mangroves, with a
few scattered trees on the higher bank that runs along the water's
edge, consisting of fan-palm, toddy-palm, and _Terminalia._ Every now
and then, the paddles of the steamer tossed up the large fruits of
_Nipa fruticans,_ a low stemless palm that grows in the tidal waters
of the Indian ocean, and bears a large head of nuts. It is a plant of
no interest to the common observer, but of much to the geologist, from
the nuts of a similar plant abounding in the tertiary formations at
the mouth of the Thames, and having floated about there in as great
profusion as here, till buried deep in the silt and mud that now forms
the island of Sheppey.* [Bowerbank "On the Fossil Fruits and Seeds of
the Isle of Sheppey," and Lyell's "Elements of Geology," 3rd ed. p.
201.]

Higher up, the river Hoogly is entered, and large trees, with
villages and cultivation, replace the sandy spits and marshy jungles
of the great Gangetic delta. A few miles below Calcutta, the scenery
becomes beautiful, beginning with the Botanic Garden, once the
residence of Roxburgh and Wallich, and now of Falconer,--classical
ground to the naturalist. Opposite are the gardens of Sir Lawrence
Peel; unrivalled in India for their beauty and cultivation, and
fairly entitled to be called the Chatsworth of Bengal. A little
higher up, Calcutta opened out, with the batteries of Fort William in
the foreground, thundering forth a salute, and in a few minutes more
all other thoughts were absorbed in watching the splendour of the
arrangements made for the reception of the Governor-General of India.

During my short stay in Calcutta, I was principally occupied in
preparing for an excursion with Mr. Williams of the Geological
Survey, who was about to move his camp from the Damooda valley
coal-fields, near Burdwan, to Beejaghur on the banks of the Soane,
where coal was reported to exist, in the immediate vicinity of
water-carriage, the great desideratum of the Burdwan fields.

My time was spent partly at Government-House, and partly at Sir
Lawrence Peel's residence. The former I was kindly invited to
consider as my Indian home, an honour which I appreciate the more
highly, as the invitation was accompanied with the assurance that I
should have entire freedom to follow my own pursuits; and the
advantages which such a position afforded me, were, I need not say,
of no ordinary kind.

At the Botanic Gardens I received every assistance from Dr.
McLelland,* [Dr. Falconer's _locum tenens,_ then in temporary
charge of the establishment.] who was very busy, superintending the
publication of the botanical papers and drawings of his friend, the
late Dr. Griffith, for which native artists were preparing copies on
lithographic paper.

Of the Gardens themselves it is exceedingly difficult to speak; the
changes had been so very great, and from a state with which I had no
acquaintance. There had been a great want of judgment in the
alterations made since Dr. Wallich's time, when they were celebrated
as the most beautiful gardens in the east, and were the great object
of attraction to strangers and townspeople. I found instead an
unsightly wilderness, without shade (the first requirement of every
tropical garden) or other beauties than some isolated grand trees,
which had survived the indiscriminate destruction of the useful and
ornamental which had attended the well-meant but ill-judged attempt
to render a garden a botanical class-book. It is impossible to praise
too highly Dr. Griffith's abilities and acquirements as a botanist,
his perseverance and success as a traveller, or his matchless
industry in the field and in the closet; and it is not wonderful,
that, with so many and varied talents, he should have wanted the eye
of a landscape-gardener, or the education of a horticulturist.
I should, however, be wanting in my duty to his predecessor, and to
his no less illustrious successor, were these remarks withheld,
proceeding, as they do, from an unbiassed observer, who had the
honour of standing in an equally friendly relation to all parties.
Before leaving India, I saw great improvements, but many years must
elapse before the gardens can resume their once proud pre-eminence.

I was surprised to find the Botanical Gardens looked upon by many of
the Indian public, and even by some of the better informed official
men, as rather an extravagant establishment, more ornamental than
useful. These persons seemed astonished to learn that its name was
renowned throughout Europe, and that during the first twenty years
especially of Dr. Wallich's superintendence, it had contributed more
useful and ornamental tropical plants to the public and private
gardens of the world than any other establishment before or since.*
[As an illustration of this, I may refer to a Report presented to the
government of Bengal, from which it appears that between January,
1836, and December, 1840, 189,932 plants were distributed gratis to
nearly 2000 different gardens.] I speak from a personal knowledge of
the contents of our English gardens, and our colonial ones at the
Cape, and in Australia, and from an inspection of the ponderous
volumes of distribution lists, to which Dr. Falconer is daily adding.
The botanical public of Europe and India is no less indebted than the
horticultural to the liberality of the Hon. East India Company, and
to the energy of the several eminent men who have carried their views
into execution.* [I here allude to the great Indian herbarium,
chiefly formed by the staff of the Botanic Gardens under the
direction of Dr. Wallich, and distributed in 1829 to the principal
museums of Europe. This is the most valuable contribution of the kind
ever made to science, and it is a lasting memorial: of the princely
liberality of the enlightened men who ruled the counsels of India in
those days. No botanical work of importance has been published since
1829, without recording its sense of the obligation, and I was once
commissioned by a foreign government, to purchase for its national
museum, at whatever cost, one set of these collections, which was
brought to the hammer on the death of its possessor. I have heard it
remarked that the expense attending the distribution was enormous,
and I have reason to know that this erroneous impression has had an
unfavourable influence upon the destination of scarcely less valuable
collections, which have for years been lying untouched in the cellars
of the India House. I may add that officers who have exposed their
lives and impaired their health in forming similar ones at the orders
and expense of the Indian government, are at home, and thrown upon
their own resources, or the assistance of their scientific brethren,
for the means of publishing and distributing the fruits of their
labours.] The Indian government, itself, has already profited largely
by these gardens, directly and indirectly, and might have done so
still more, had its efforts been better seconded either by the
European or native population of the country. Amongst its greatest
triumphs may be considered the introduction of the tea-plant from
China, a fact I allude to, as many of my English readers may not be
aware that the establishment of the tea-trade in the Himalaya and
Assam is almost entirely the work of the superintendents of the
gardens of Calcutta and Seharunpore.

From no one did I receive more kindness than from Sir James Colvile,
President of the Asiatic Society, who not only took care that I
should be provided with every comfort, but presented me with a
completely equipped palkee, which, for strength and excellence of
construction, was everything that a traveller could desire.
Often _en route_ did I mentally thank him when I saw other
palkees breaking down, and travellers bewailing the loss of those
forgotten necessaries, with which his kind attention had
furnished me.

I left Calcutta to join Mr. Williams' camp on the 28th of January,
driving to Hoogly on the river of that name, and thence following the
grand trunk-road westward towards Burdwan. The novelty of
palkee-travelling at first renders it pleasant; the neatness with
which every thing is packed, the good-humour of the bearers, their
merry pace, and the many more comforts enjoyed than could be expected
in a conveyance _horsed by men_, the warmth when the sliding
doors are shut, and the breeze when they are open, are all fully
appreciated on first starting, but soon the novelty wears off, and
the discomforts are so numerous, that it is pronounced, at best, a
barbarous conveyance. The greedy cry and gestures of the bearers,
when, on changing, they break a fitful sleep by poking a torch in
your face, and vociferating "Bucksheesh, Sahib;" their discontent at
the most liberal largesse, and the sluggishness of the next set who
want bribes, put the traveller out of patience with the natives.
The dust when the slides are open, and the stifling heat when shut
during a shower, are conclusive against the vehicle, and on getting
out with aching bones and giddy head at the journey's end, I shook
the dust from my person, and wished never to see a palkee again.

On the following morning I was passing through the straggling
villages close to Burdwan, consisting of native hovels by the road
side, with mangos and figs planted near them, and palms waving over
their roofs. Crossing the nearly dry bed of the Damooda, I was set
down at Mr. M'Intosh's (the magistrate of the district), and never
more thoroughly enjoyed a hearty welcome and a breakfast.

In the evening we visited the Rajah of Burdwan's palace and
pleasure-grounds, where I had the first glimpse of oriental
gardening: the roads were generally raised, running through rice
fields, now dry and hard, and bordered with trees of Jack, Bamboo,
_Melia, Casuarina,_ etc. Tanks were the prominent features:
chains of them, full of Indian water-lilies, being fringed with rows
of the fan-palm, and occasionally the Indian date. Close to the house
was a rather good menagerie, where I saw, amongst other animals, a
pair of kangaroos in high health and condition, the female with young
in her pouch. Before dark I was again in my palkee, and hurrying
onwards. The night was cool and clear, very different from the damp
and foggy atmosphere I had left at Calcutta. On the following morning
I was travelling over a flat and apparently rising country, along an
excellent road, with groves of bamboos and stunted trees on either
hand, few villages or palms, a sterile soil, with stunted grass and
but little cultivation; altogether a country as unlike what I had
expected to find in India as well might be. All around was a dead
flat or table-land, out of which a few conical hills rose in the
west, about 1000 feet high, covered with a low forest of dusky green
or yellow, from the prevalence of bamboo. The lark was singing
merrily at sunrise, and the accessories of a fresh air and dewy grass
more reminded me of some moorland in the north of England than of the
torrid regions of the east.

At 10 p.m. I arrived at Mr. Williams' camp, at Taldangah, a dawk
station near the western limit of the coal basin of the Damooda
valley. His operations being finished, he was prepared to start,
having kindly waited a couple of days for my arrival.

Early on the morning of the last day of January, a motley group of
natives were busy striking the tents, and loading the bullocks,
bullock-carts and elephants: these proceeded on the march, occupying
in straggling groups nearly three miles of road, whilst we remained
to breakfast with Mr. F. Watkins, Superintendent of the East India
Coal and Coke Company, who were working the seams.

The coal crops out at the surface; but the shafts worked are sunk
through thick beds of alluvium. The age of these coal-fields is quite
unknown, and I regret to say that my examination of their fossil
plants throws no material light on the subject. Upwards of thirty
species of fossil plants have been procured from them, and of these
the majority are referred by Dr. McLelland* [Reports of the
Geological Survey of India. Calcutta, 1850.] to the inferior oolite
epoch of England, from the prevalence of species of _Zamia,
Glossopteris,_ and _Taeniopteris._ Some of these genera,
together with _Vertebraria_ (a very remarkable Indian fossil),
are also recognised in the coal-fields of Sind and of Australia.
I cannot, however, think that botanical evidence of such a nature is
sufficient to warrant a satisfactory reference of these Indian
coal-fields to the same epoch as those of England or of Australia; in
the first place the outlines of the fronds of ferns and their
nervation are frail characters if employed alone for the
determination of existing genera, and much more so of fossil
fragments: in the second place recent ferns are so widely
distributed, that an inspection of the majority affords little clue
to the region or locality they come from: and in the third place,
considering the wide difference in latitude and longitude of
Yorkshire, India, and Australia, the natural conclusion is that they
could not have supported a similar vegetation at the same epoch.
In fact, finding similar fossil plants at places widely different in
latitude, and hence in climate, is, in the present state of our
knowledge, rather an argument against than for their having existed
cotemporaneously. The _Cycadeae,_ especially, whose fossil
remains afford so much ground for geological speculations, are far
from yielding such precise data as is supposed. Species of the order
are found in Mexico, South Africa, Australia, and India, some
inhabiting the hottest and dampest, and others the driest climates on
the surface of the globe; and it appears to me rash to argue much
from the presence of the order in the coal of Yorkshire and India,
when we reflect that the geologist of some future epoch may find as
good reasons for referring the present Cape, Australian, or Mexican
Flora to the same period as that of the Lias and Oolites, when the
_Cycadeae_ now living in the former countries shall
be fossilised.

Specific identity of their contained fossils may be considered as
fair evidence of the cotemporaneous origin of beds, but amongst the
many collections of fossil plants that I have examined, there is
hardly a specimen, belonging to any epoch, sufficiently perfect to
warrant the assumption that the species to which it belonged can be
again recognised. The botanical evidences which geologists too often
accept as proofs of specific identity are such as no botanist would
attach any importance to in the investigation of existing plants.
The faintest traces assumed to be of vegetable origin are habitually
made into genera and species by naturalists ignorant of the
structure, affinities and distribution of living plants, and of such
materials the bulk of so-called systems of fossil plants is composed.

A number of women were here employed in making gunpowder, grinding
the usual materials on a stone, with the addition of water from the
Hookah; a custom for which they have an obstinate prejudice.
The charcoal here used is made from an _Acacia_: the Seiks, I
believe, employ _Justicia Adhatoda,_ which is also in use all
over India: at Aden the Arabs prefer the _Calotropis_, probably
because it is most easily procured. The grain of all these plants is
open, whereas in England, closer-grained and more woody trees,
especially willows, are preferred.

The jungle I found to consist chiefly of thorny bushes, Jujube of two
species, an _Acacia_ and _Butea frondosa,_ the twigs of the
latter often covered with lurid red tears of Lac, which is here
collected in abundance. As it occurs on the plants and is collected
by the natives it is called Stick-lac, but after preparation
Shell-lac. In Mirzapore, a species of _Celtis_ yields it, and
the Peepul very commonly in various parts of India. The elaboration
of this dye, whether by the same species of insect, or by many from
plants so widely different in habit and characters, is a very curious
fact; since none have red juice, but some have milky and
others limpid.

After breakfast, Mr. Williams and I started on an elephant, following
the camp to Gyra, twelve miles distant. The docility of these animals
is an old story, but it loses so much in the telling, that their
gentleness, obedience, and sagacity seemed as strange to me as if I
had never heard or read of these attributes. The swinging motion,
under a hot sun, is very oppressive, but compensated for by being so
high above the dust. The Mahout, or driver, guides by poking his
great toes under either ear, enforcing obedience with an iron goad,
with which he hammers the animal's head with quite as much force as
would break a cocoa-nut, or drives it through his thick skin down to
the quick. A most disagreeable sight it is, to see the blood and
yellow fat oozing out in the broiling sun from these great punctures!
Our elephant was an excellent one, when he did not take obstinate
fits, and so docile as to pick up pieces of stone when desired, and
with a jerk of the trunk throw them over his head for the rider to
catch, thus saving the trouble of dismounting to geologise!

Of sights on the road, unfrequented though this noble line is, there
were plenty for a stranger; chiefly pilgrims to Juggernath, most on
foot, and a few in carts or pony gigs of rude construction.
The vehicles from the upper country are distinguished by a far
superior build, their horses are caparisoned with jingling bells, and
the wheels and other parts are bound with brass. The kindness of the
people towards animals, and in some cases towards their suffering
relations, is very remarkable, and may in part have given origin to
the prevalent idea that they are less cruel and stern than the
majority of mankind; but that the "mild" Hindoo, however gentle on
occasion, is cruel and vindictive to his brother man and to animals,
when his indolent temper is roused or his avarice stimulated, no one
can doubt who reads the accounts of Thuggee, Dacoitee, and poisoning,
and witnesses the cruelty with which beasts of burthen are treated.
A child carrying a bird, kid, or lamb, is not an uncommon sight, and
a woman with a dog in her arms is still more frequently seen.
Occasionally too, a group will bear an old man to see Juggernath
before he dies, or a poor creature with elephantiasis, who hopes to
be allowed to hurry himself to his paradise, in preference to
lingering in helpless inactivity, and at last crawling up to the
second heaven only. The costumes are as various as the religious
castes, and the many countries to which the travellers belong.
Next in wealth to the merchants, the most thriving-looking wanderer
is the bearer of Ganges' holy water, who drives a profitable trade,
his gains increasing as his load lightens, for the further he wanders
from the sacred stream, the more he gets for the contents of his jar.

Of merchandise we passed very little, the Ganges being still the high
road between north-west India and Bengal. Occasionally a string of
camels was seen, but, owing to the damp climate, these are rare, and
unknown east of the meridian of Calcutta. A little cotton, clumsily
packed in ragged bags, dirty, and deteriorating every day, even at
this dry season, proves in how bad a state it must arrive at the
market during the rains, when the low wagons are dragged through
the streams.

The roads here are all mended with a curious stone, called Kunker,
which is a nodular concretionary deposit of limestone, abundantly
imbedded in the alluvial soil of a great part of India.* [Often
occurring in strata, like flints.] It resembles a coarse gravel, each
pebble being often as large as a walnut, and tuberculated on the
surface: it binds admirably, and forms excellent roads, but
pulverises into a most disagreeable impalpable dust.

A few miles beyond Taldangah we passed from the sandstone, in which
the coal lies, to a very barren country of gneiss and granite rocks,
upon which the former rests; the country still rising, more hills
appear, and towering far above all is Paras-nath, the culminant
point, and a mountain whose botany I was most anxious to explore.

The vegetation of this part of the country is very poor, no
good-sized trees are to be seen, all is a low stunted jungle.
The grasses were few, and dried up, except in the beds of the
rivulets. On the low jungly hills the same plants appear, with a few
figs, bamboo in great abundance, several handsome _Acanthaceae_; a
few _Asclepiadeae_ climbing up the bushes; and the Cowage plant, now
with over-ripe pods, by shaking which, in passing, there often falls
such a shower of its irritating microscopic hairs, as to make the
skin tingle for an hour.

On the 1st of February, we moved on to Gyra, another insignificant
village. The air was cool, and the atmosphere clear. The temperature,
at three in the morning, was 65 degrees, with no dew, the grass only
61 degrees°. As the sun rose, Parasnath appeared against the clear
grey sky, in the form of a beautiful broad cone, with a rugged peak,
of a deeper grey than the sky. It is a remarkably handsome mountain,
sufficiently lofty to be imposing, rising out of an elevated country,
the slope of which, upward to the base of the mountain, though
imperceptible, is really considerable; and it is surrounded by lesser
hills of just sufficient elevation to set it off. The atmosphere,
too, of these regions is peculiarly favourable for views: it is very
dry at this season; but still the hills are clearly defined, without
the harsh outlines so characteristic of a moist air. The skies are
bright, the sun powerful; and there is an almost imperceptible haze
that seems to soften the landscape, and keep every object in
true perspective.

Our route led towards the picturesque hills and values in front.
The rocks were all hornblende and micaceous schist, cut through by
trap-dykes, while great crumbling masses (or bosses) of quartz
protruded through the soil. The stratified rocks were often exposed,
pitched up at various inclinations: they were frequently white with
effloresced salts, which entering largely into the composition tended
to hasten their decomposition, and being obnoxious to vegetation,
rendered the sterile soil more hungry still. There was little
cultivation, and that little of the most wretched kind; even
rice-fields were few and scattered; there was no corn, or gram
(_Ervum Lens_), no Castor-oil, no Poppy, Cotton, Safflower, or other
crops of the richer soils that flank the Ganges and Hoogly; a very
little Sugar-cane, Dhal (_Cajana_), Mustard, Linseed, and Rape, the
latter three cultivated for their oil. Hardly a Palm was to be seen;
and it was seldom that the cottages could boast of a Banana,
Tamarind, Orange, Cocoa-nut or Date. The Mahowa (_Bassia latifolia_)
and Mango were the commonest trees. There being no Kunker in the soil
here, the roads were mended with angular quartz, much to the
elephants' annoyance.

We dismounted where some very micaceous stratified rock cropped out,
powdered with a saline efflorescence.* [An impure carbonate of soda.
This earth is thrown into clay vessels with water, which after
dissolving the soda, is allowed to evaporate, when the remainder is
collected, and found to contain so much silica, as to be capable of
being fused into glass. Dr. Boyle mentions this curious fact (Essay
on the Arts and Manufactures of India, read before the Society of
Arts, February 18, 1852), in illustration of the probably early epoch
at which the natives of British India were acquainted with the art of
making glass. More complicated processes are employed, and have been
from a very early period, in other parts of the continent.] Jujubes
(_Zizyphus_) prevailed, with the _Carissa carandas_ (in fruit), a
shrub belonging to the usually poisonous family of Dog-banes
(_Apocyneae_); its berries make good tarts, and the plant itself
forms tolerable hedges.

The country around Fitcoree is rather pretty, the hills covered with
bamboo and brushwood, and as usual, rising rather suddenly from the
elevated plains. The jungle affords shelter to a few bears and
tigers, jackals in abundance, and occasionally foxes; the birds seen
are chiefly pigeons. Insects are very scarce; those of the locust
tribe being most prevalent, indicative of a dry climate.

The temperature at 3 a.m.. was 65 degrees; at 3 p.m. 82 degrees; and
at 10 p.m., 68 degrees, from which there was no great variation
during the whole time we spent at these elevations. The clouds were
rare, and always light and high, except a little fleecy spot of
vapour condensed close to the summit of Paras-nath. Though the nights
were clear and starlight, no dew was deposited, owing to the great
dryness of the air. On one occasion, this drought was so great during
the passage of a hot wind, that at night I observed the wet-bulb
thermometer to stand 20.5 degrees below the temperature of the air,
which was 66 degrees; this indicated a dew-point of 11.5 degrees, or
54.5 degrees below the air, and a saturation-point of 0.146; there
being only 0.102 grains of vapour per cubic foot of air, which latter
was loaded with dust. The little moisture suspended in the atmosphere
is often seen to be condensed in a thin belt of vapour, at a
considerable distance above the dry surface of the earth, thus
intercepting the radiation of heat from the latter to the clear sky
above. Such strata may be observed, crossing the hills in ribbonlike
masses, though not so clearly on this elevated region as on the
plains bounding the lower course of the Soane, where the vapour is
more dense, the hills more scattered, and the whole atmosphere more
humid. During the ten days I spent amongst the hills I saw but one
cloudy sunrise, whereas below, whether at Calcutta, or on the banks
of the Soane, the sun always rose behind a dense fog-bank.

At 9.30 a.m. the black-bulb thermometer rose in the sun to 130
degrees. The morning observation before 10 or 11 a..m. always gives a
higher result than at noon, though the sun's declination is so
considerably less, and in the hottest part of the day it is lower
still (3.30 p.m. 109 degrees), an effect no doubt due to the vapours
raised by the sun, and which equally interfere with the photometer
observations. The N.W. winds invariably rise at about 9 a.m. and blow
with increasing strength till sunset; they are due to the rarefaction
of the air over the heated ground, and being loaded with dust, the
temperature of the atmosphere is hence raised by the heated
particles. The increased temperature of the afternoon is therefore
not so much due to the accumulation of caloric from the sun's rays,
as to the passage of a heated current of air derived from the much
hotter regions to the westward. It would be interesting to know how
far this N.W. diurnal tide extends; also the rate at which it gathers
moisture in its progress over the damp regions of the Sunderbunds.
Its excessive dryness in N.W. India approaches that of the African
and Australian deserts; and I shall give an abstract of my own
observations, both in the vallies of the Soane and Ganges, and on the
elevated plateaus of Behar and of Mirzapore.* [See Appendix A.]

On the 2nd of February we proceeded to Tofe-Choney, the hills
increasing in height to nearly 1000 feet, and the country becoming
more picturesque. We passed some tanks covered with _Villarsia_, and
frequented by flocks of white egrets. The existence of artificial
tanks so near a lofty mountain, from whose sides innumerable
water-courses descend, indicates the great natural dryness of the
country during one season of the year. The hills and vallies were
richer than I expected, though far from luxuriant. A fine _Nauclea_
is a common shady tree, and _Bignonia indica_, now leafless, but with
immense pods hanging from the branches. _Acanthaceae_ is the
prevalent natural order, consisting of gay-flowered _Eranthemums,
Ruellias, Barlerias,_ and such hothouse favourites.* [Other plants
gathered here, and very typical of the Flora of this dry region, were
_Linum trigynum, Feronia elephantum, Aegle marmelos, Helicteres
Asoca, Abrus precatorius, Flemingia_; various _Desmodia, Rhynchosiae,
Glycine,_ and _Grislea tomentosa_ very abundant, _Conocarpus
latifoliusa, Loranthus longiflorus,_ and another species;
_Phyllanthus Emblica,_ various _Convolvuli, Cuscuta,_ and several
herbaceous _Compositae._]

This being the most convenient station whence to ascend Paras-nath,
we started at 6 a.m. for the village of Maddaobund, at the north base
of the mountain, or opposite side from that on which the grand
trunk-road runs. After following the latter for a few miles to the
west, we took a path through beautifully wooded plains, with
scattered trees of the Mahowa (_Bassia latifolia_), resembling
good oaks: the natives distil a kind of arrack from its fleshy
flowers, which are also eaten raw. The seeds, too, yield a concrete
oil, by expression, which is used for lamps and occasionally
for frying.

Some villages at the west base of the mountain occupy a better soil,
and are surrounded with richer cultivation; palms, mangos, and the
tamarind, the first and last rare features in this part of Bengal,
appeared to be common, with fields of rice and broad acres of flax
and rape, through the latter of which the blue _Orobanche indica_
swarmed. The short route to Maddaobund, through narrow rocky vallies,
was impracticable for the elephants, and we had to make a very
considerable detour, only reaching that village at 2 p.m. All the
hill people we observed were a fine-looking athletic race; they
disclaimed the tiger being a neighbour, which every palkee-bearer
along the road declares to carry off the torch-bearers, torch and
all. Bears they said were scarce, and all other wild animals, but a
natural jealousy of Europeans often leads the natives to deny the
existence of what they know to be an attraction to the proverbially
sporting Englishman.

Illustration - OLD TAMARIND TREES.

The site of Maddaobund, elevated 1230 feet, in a clearance of the
forest, and the appearance of the snow-white domes and bannerets of
its temples through the fine trees by which it is surrounded, are
very beautiful. Though several hundred feet above any point we had
hitherto reached, the situation is so sheltered that the tamarind,
peepul, and banyan trees are superb. A fine specimen of the latter
stands at the entrance to the village, not a broadheaded tree, as is
usual in the prime of its existence, but a mass of trunks irregularly
throwing out immense branches in a most picturesque manner; the
original trunk is apparently gone, and the principal mass of root
stems is fenced in. This, with two magnificent tamarinds, forms a
grand clump. The ascent of the mountain is immediately from the
village up a pathway worn by the feet of many a pilgrim from the most
remote parts of India.

Paras-nath is a mountain of peculiar sanctity, to which circumstance
is to be attributed the flourishing state of Maddaobund. The name is
that of the twenty-third incarnation of Jinna (Sanscrit "Conqueror"),
who was born at Benares, lived one hundred years, and was buried on
this mountain, which is the eastern metropolis of Jain worship, as
Mount Aboo is the western (where are their libraries and most
splendid temples). The origin of the Jain sect is obscure, though its
rise appears to correspond with the wreck of Boodhism throughout
India in the eleventh century. The Jains form in some sort a
transition-sect between Boodhists and Hindoos, differing from the
former in acknowledging castes, and from both in their worship of
Paras-nath's foot, instead of that of Munja-gosha of the Boodhs, or
Vishnoo's of the Hindoos. As a sect of Boodhists their religion is
considered pure, and free from the obscenities so conspicuous in
Hindoo worship; whilst, in fact, perhaps the reverse is the case;
but the symbols are fewer, and indeed almost confined to the feet of
Paras-nath, and the priests jealously conceal their esoteric
doctrines.

The temples, though small, are well built, and carefully kept.
No persuasion could induce the Brahmins to allow us to proceed beyond
the vestibule without taking off our shoes, to which we were not
inclined to consent. The bazaar was for so small a village large, and
crowded to excess with natives of all castes, colours, and provinces
of India, very many from the extreme W. and N.W., Rajpootana, the
Madras Presidency, and Central India. Numbers had come in good cars,
well attended, and appeared men of wealth and consequence; while the
quantities of conveyances of all sorts standing about, rather
reminded me of an election, than of anything I had seen in India.

The natives of the place were a more Negro-looking race than the
Bengalees to whom I had previously been accustomed; and the curiosity
and astonishment they displayed at seeing (probably many of them for
the first time) a party of Englishmen, were sufficiently amusing.
Our coolies with provisions not having come up, and it being two
o'clock in the afternoon, I having had no breakfast, and being
ignorant of the exclusively Jain population of the village, sent my
servant to the bazaar, for some fowls and eggs; but he was mobbed for
asking for these articles, and parched rice, beaten flat, with some
coarse sugar, was all I could obtain; together with sweetmeats so
odiously flavoured with various herbs, and sullied with such
impurities, that we quickly made them over to the elephants.

Not being able to ascend the mountain and return in one day,
Mr. Williams and his party went back to the road, leaving Mr. Haddon
and myself, who took up our quarters under a tamarind-tree.

In the evening a very gaudy poojah was performed. The car, filled
with idols, was covered with gilding and silk, and drawn by noble
bulls, festooned and garlanded. A procession was formed in front; and
it opened into an avenue, up and down which gaily dressed
dancing-boys paced or danced, shaking castanets, the attendant
worshippers singing in discordant voices, beating tom-toms, cymbals,
etc. Images (of Boodh apparently) abounded on the car, in front of
which a child was placed. The throng of natives was very great and
perfectly orderly, indeed, sufficiently apathetic: they were
remarkably civil in explaining what they understood of their
own worship.

At 2 p.m., the thermometer was only 65 degrees, though the day was
fine, a strong haze obstructing the sun's rays; at 6 p.m., 58
degrees; at 9 p.m., 56 degrees, and the grass cooled to 49 degrees.
Still there was no dew, though the night was starlight.

Having provided doolies, or little bamboo chairs slung on four men's
shoulders, in which I put my papers and boxes, we next morning
commenced the ascent; at first through woods of the common trees,
with large clumps of bamboo, over slaty rocks of gneiss, much
inclined and sloping away from the mountain. The view from a ridge
500 feet high was superb, of the village, and its white domes half
buried in the forest below, the latter of which continued in sight
for many miles to the northward. Descending to a valley some ferns
were met with, and a more luxuriant vegetation, especially of
_Urticeae._ Wild bananas formed a beautiful, and to me novel
feature in the woods.

The conical hills of the white ants were very abundant. The structure
appears to me not an independent one, but the debris of clumps of
bamboos, or of the trunks of large trees, which these insects have
destroyed. As they work up a tree from the ground, they coat the bark
with particles of sand glued together, carrying up this artificial
sheath or covered way as they ascend. A clump of bamboos is thus
speedily killed; when the dead stems fall away, leaving the mass of
stumps coated with sand, which the action of the weather soon
fashions into a cone of earthy matter.

Ascending again, the path strikes up the hill, through a thick forest
of Sal (_Vateria robusta_) and other trees, spanned with cables
of scandent _Bauhinia_ stems. At about 3000 feet above the sea,
the vegetation becomes more luxuriant, and by a little stream I
collected five species of ferns and some mosses,--all in a dry state,
however. Still higher, _Clematis, Thalictrum,_ and an increased
number of grasses are seen; with bushes of _Verbenaceae_ and
_Compositae._ The white ant apparently does not enter this
cooler region. At 3500 feet the vegetation again changes, the trees
all become gnarled and scattered; and as the dampness also increases,
more mosses and ferns appear. We emerged from the forest at the foot
of the great ridge of rocky peaks, stretching E. and W. three or four
miles. Abundance of a species of berberry and an _Osbeckia_
marked the change in the vegetation most decidedly, and were frequent
over the whole summit, with coarse grasses, and various bushes.

At noon we reached the saddle of the crest (alt. 4230 feet), where
was a small temple, one of five or six which occupy various
prominences of the ridge. The wind, N.W., was cold, the temp. 56
degrees. The view was beautiful, but the atmosphere too hazy: to the
north were ranges of low wooded hills, and the course of the Barakah
and Adji rivers; to the south lay a flatter country, with lower
ranges, and the Damooda river, its all but waterless bed snowy-white
from the exposed granite blocks with which its course is strewn.
East and west the several sharp ridges of the mountain itself are
seen; the western considerably the highest. Immediately below, the
mountain flanks appear clothed with impenetrable forest, here and
there interrupted by rocky eminences; while to the north the grand
trunk road shoots across the plains, like a white thread, as straight
as an arrow, spanning here and there the beds of the mountain
torrents.

On the south side the vegetation was more luxuriant than on the
north, though, from the heat of the sun, the reverse might have been
expected. This is owing partly to the curve taken by the ridge being
open to the south, and partly to the winds from that quarter being
the moist ones. Accordingly, trees which I had left 3000 feet below
in the north ascent, here ascended to near the summit, such as figs
and bananas. A short-stemmed palm (_Phoenix_) was tolerably
abundant, and a small tree (_Pterospermum_) on which a species
of grass grew epiphytically; forming a curious feature in the
landscape.

The situation of the principal temple is very fine, below the saddle
in a hollow facing the south, surrounded by jungles of plantain and
banyan. It is small, and contains little worthy of notice but the
sculptured feet of Paras-nath, and some marble Boodh idols;
cross-legged figures with crisp hair and the Brahminical cord.
These, a leper covered with ashes in the vestibule, and an
officiating priest, were all we saw. Pilgrims were seen on various
parts of the mountain in very considerable numbers, passing from one
temple to another, and generally leaving a few grains of dry rice at
each; the rich and lame were carried in chairs, the poorer walked.

The culminant rocks are very dry, but in the rains may possess many
curious plants; a fine _Kalanchoe_ was common, with the berberry, a
beautiful _Indigofera,_ and various other shrubs; a _Bolbophyllum_
grew on the rocks, with a small _Begonia,_ and some ferns. There were
no birds, and very few insects, a beautiful small _Pontia_ being the
only butterfly. The striped squirrel was very busy amongst the rocks;
and I saw a few mice, and the traces of bears.

At 3 p.m., the temperature was 54 degrees, and the air deliciously
cool and pleasant. I tried to reach the western peak (perhaps 300
feet above the saddle), by keeping along the ridge, but was cut off
by precipices, and ere I could retrace my steps it was time to
descend. This I was glad to do in a doolie, and I was carried to the
bottom, with only one short rest, in an hour and three quarters.
The descent was very steep the whole way, partly down steps of sharp
rock, where one of the men cut his foot severely. The pathway at the
bottom was lined for nearly a quarter of a mile with sick, halt,
maimed, lame, and blind beggars, awaiting our descent. It was truly a
fearful sight, especially the lepers, and numerous unhappy victims
to elephantiasis.

Though the botany of Paras-nath proved interesting, its elevation was
not accompanied by such a change from the flora of its base as I had
expected. This is no doubt due to its dry climate and sterile soil;
characters which it shares with the extensive elevated area of which
it forms a part, and upon which I could not detect above 300 species
of plants during my journey. Yet, that the atmosphere at the summit
is more damp as well as cooler than at the base, is proved as well by
the observations as by the vegetation;* [Of plants eminently typical
of a moister atmosphere, I may mention the genera _Bolbophyllum,
Begonia, Aeginetia, Disporum, Roxburghia, Panax, Eugenia, Myrsine,
Shorea, Millettia,_ ferns, mosses, and foliaceous lichens; which
appeared in strange association with such dry-climate genera as
_Kalanchoe, Pterospermum,_ and the dwarf-palm, _Phoenix._ Add to this
list the _Berberis asiatica, Clematis nutans, Thalictrum
glyphocarpum,_ 27 grasses, _Cardamine,_ etc., and the mountain top
presents a mixture of the plants of a damp hot, a dry hot, and of a
temperate climate, in fairly balanced proportions. The prime elements
of a tropical flora were however wholly wanting on Paras-nath, where
are neither Peppers, _Pothos, Arum,_ tall or climbing palms,
tree-ferns, _Guttiferae,_ vines, or laurels.] and in some respects,
as the increased proportion of ferns, additional epiphytal orchideous
plants, _Begonias,_ and other species showed, its top supported a
more tropical flora than its base.

CHAPTER II.

Doomree -- Vegetation of table-land -- Lieutenant Beadle -- Birds --
Hot springs of Soorujkoond -- Plants near them -- Shells in them --
Cholera-tree -- Olibanum -- Palms, form of -- Dunwah Pass -- Trees,
native and planted -- Wild peacock -- Poppy fields -- Geography and
geology of Behar and Central India -- Toddy-palm -- Ground,
temperature of -- Barroon -- Temperature of plants -- Lizard -- Cross
the Soane -- Sand, ripple marks on -- Kymore hills -- Ground,
temperature of -- Limestone -- Rotas fort and palace -- Nitrate of
lime -- Change of climate -- Lime stalagmites, enclosing leaves --
Fall of Soane -- Spiders, etc. -- Scenery and natural history of
upper Soane valley -- _Hardwickia binata_ -- Bhel fruit --
Dust-storm -- Alligator -- Catechu -- _Cochlospermum_ --
Leaf-bellows -- Scorpions -- Tortoises -- Florican -- Limestone
spheres -- Coles -- Tiger-hunt -- Robbery.

In the evening we returned to our tamarind tree, and the next morning
regained the trunk road, following it to the dawk bungalow of
Doomree. On the way I found the _Caesalpinia paniculuta,_ a
magnificent climber, festooning the trues with its dark glossy
foliage and gorgeous racemes of orange blossoms. Receding from the
mountain, the country again became barren: at Doomree the hills were
of crystalline rocks, chiefly quartz and gneiss; no palms or large
trees of any kind appeared. The spear-grass abounded, and a
detestable nuisance it was, its long awns and husked seed working
through trowsers and stockings.

_Balanites_ was not uncommon, forming a low thorny bush, with
_Aegle marmelos_ and _Feronia elephantum._ Having rested
the tired elephant, we pushed on in the evening to the next stage,
Baghoda, arriving there at 3 a.m., and after a few hours' rest, I
walked to the bungalow of Lieutenant Beadle, the surveyor of roads,
sixteen miles further.

The country around Baghoda is still very barren, but improves
considerably in going westward, the ground becoming hilly, and the
road winding through prettily wooded vallies, and rising gradually to
1446 feet. _Nauclea cordifolia,_ a tree resembling a young
sycamore, is very common; with the Semul (_Bombax_), a very
striking tree from its buttressed trunk and gaudy scarlet flowers,
swarming with birds, which feed from its honeyed blossoms.

At 10 a.m. the sun became uncomfortably hot, the thermometer being
77 degrees, and the black-bulb thermometer 137 degrees. I had lost my
hat, and possessed no substitute but a silken nightcap; so I had to
tie a handkerchief over my head, to the astonishment of the
passers-by. Holding my head down, I had little source of amusement
but reading the foot-marks on the road; and these were strangely
diversified to an English eye. Those of the elephant, camel, buffalo
and bullock, horse, ass, pony, dog, goat, sheep and kid, lizard,
wild-cat and pigeon, with men, women, and children's feet, naked and
shod, were all recognisable.

It was noon ere I arrived at Lieutenant Beadle's, at Belcuppee (alt.
1219 feet), glad enough of the hearty welcome I received, being very
hot, dusty, and hungry. The country about his bungalow is very
pretty, from the number of wooded hills and large trees, especially
of banyan and peepul, noble oak-like Mahowa (_Bassia_), _Nauclea,_
Mango, and _Ficus infectoria._ These are all scattered, however, and
do not form forest, such as in a stunted form clothes the hills,
consisting of _Diospyros, Terminalia, Gmelina, Nauclea parvifolia,
Buchanania,_ etc. The rocks are still hornblende-schist and granite,
with a covering of alluvium, full of quartz pebbles. Insects and
birds are numerous, the latter consisting of jays, crows, doves,
sparrows, and maina (_Pastor_); also the _Phoenicophaus tristis_
("Mahoka" of the natives), with a note like that of the English
cuckoo, as heard late in the season.

I remained two days with Lieutenant Beadle, enjoying in his society
several excursions to the hot springs, etc. These springs (called
Soorujkoond) are situated close to the road, near the mouth of a
valley, in a remarkably pretty spot. They are, of course, objects of
worship; and a ruined temple stands close behind them, with three
very conspicuous trees--a peepul, a banyan, and a white,
thick-stemmed, leafless _Sterculia,_ whose branches bore dense
clusters of greenish foetid flowers. The hot springs are four in
number, and rise in as many ruined brick tanks about two yards
across. Another tank, fed by a cold spring, about twice that size,
flows between two of the hot, only two or three paces distant from
one of the latter on either hand. All burst through the gneiss rocks,
meet in one stream after a few yards, and are conducted by bricked
canals to a pool of cold water, about eighty yards off.

The temperatures of the hot springs were respectively 169 degrees,
170 degrees, 173 degrees, and 190 degrees; of the cold, 84 degrees at
4 p.m., and 75 degrees at 7 a.m. the following morning. The hottest
is the middle of the five. The water of the cold spring is sweet but
not good, and emits gaseous bubbles; it was covered with a green
floating _Conferva._ Of the four hot springs, the most copious
is about three feet deep, bubbles constantly, boils eggs, and though
brilliantly clear, has an exceedingly nauseous taste. This and the
other warm ones cover the bricks and surrounding rocks with a thick
incrustation of salts.

_Confervae_ abound in the warm stream from the springs, and two
species, one ochreous brown, and the other green, occur on the
margins of the tanks themselves, and in the hottest water; the brown
is the best Salamander, and forms a belt in deeper water than the
green; both appear in broad luxuriant strata, wherever the temp. is
cooled down to 168 degrees, and as low as 90 degrees. Of flowering
plants, three showed in an eminent degree a constitution capable of
resisting the heat, if not a predilection for it; these were all
_Cyperaceae,_ a _Cyperus_ and an _Eleocharis,_ having their roots in
water of 100 degrees, and where they are probably exposed to greater
heat, and a _Fimbristylis_ at 98 degrees; all were very luxuriant.
From the edges of the four hot springs I gathered sixteen species of
flowering plants, and from the cold tank five, which did not grow in
the hot. A water-beetle, _Colymbetes_(?) and _Notonecta,_ abounded in
water at 112 degrees, with quantities of dead shells; frogs were very
lively, with live shells, at 90 degrees, and with various other water
beetles. Having no means of detecting the salts of this water, I
bottled some for future analysis.* [For an account of the
_Confervae,_ and of the mineral constituents of the waters, etc. see
Appendix B.]

On the following day I botanized in the neighbourhood, with but poor
success. An oblique-leaved fig climbs the other trees, and generally
strangles them: two epiphytal _Orchideae_ also occur on the latter,
_Vanda Roxburghii_ and an _Oberonia._ Dodders (_Cuscuta_) of two
species, and _Cassytha,_ swarm over and conceal the bushes with their
yellow thread-like stems.

I left Belcuppee on the 8th of February, following Mr. Williams'
camp. The morning was clear and cold, the temperature only 56
degrees. We crossed the nearly dry broad bed of the Burkutta river, a
noble stream during the rains, carrying along huge boulders of
granite and gneiss. Near this I passed the Cholera-tree, a famous
peepul by the road side, so called from a detachment of infantry
having been attacked and decimated at the spot by that fell disease;
it is covered with inscriptions and votive tokens in the shape of
rags, etc. We continued to ascend to 1360 feet, where I came upon a
small forest of the Indian Olibanum (_Boswellia thurifera_),
conspicuous from its pale bark, and spreading curved branches, leafy
at their tips; its general appearance is a good deal like that of the
mountain ash. The gum, celebrated throughout the East, was flowing
abundantly from the trunk, very fragrant and transparent. The ground
was dry, sterile, and rocky; kunker, the curious formation mentioned
at Chapter 1, appears in the alluvium, which I had not elsewhere seen
at this elevation.

Descending to the village of Burshoot, we lost sight of the
_Boswellia,_ and came upon a magnificent tope of mango, banyan,
and peepul, so far superior to anything hitherto met with, that we
were glad to choose such a pleasant halting-place for breakfast.
There are a few lofty fan-palms here too, great rarities in this soil
and elevation: one, about eighty feet high, towered above some
wretched hovels, displaying the curious proportions of this tribe of
palms: first, a short cone, tapering to one-third the height of the
stem, the trunk then swelling to two-thirds, and again tapering to
the crown. Beyond this, the country again ascends to Burree (alt.
1169 feet), another dawk bungalow, a barren place, which we left on
the following morning.

So little was there to observe, that I again amused myself by
watching footsteps, the precision of which in the sandy soil was
curious. Looking down from the elephant, I was interested by seeing
them all in _relief,_ instead of _depressed,_ the slanting
rays of the sun in front producing this kind of mirage. Before us
rose no more of those wooded hills that had been our companions for
the last 120 miles, the absence of which was a sign of the nearly
approaching termination of the great hilly plateau we had been
traversing for that distance.

Chorparun, at the top of the Dunwah pass, is situated on an extended
barren flat, 1320 feet above the sea, and from it the descent from
the table-land to the level of the Soane valley, a little above that
of the Ganges at Patna, is very sudden. The road is carried zizgag
down a rugged hill of gneiss, with a descent of nearly 1000 feet in
six miles, of which 600 are exceedingly steep. The pass is well
wooded, with abundance of bamboo, _Bombax, Cassia, Acacia,_ and
_Butea,_ with _Calotropis,_ the purple Mudar, a very handsome
road-side plant, which I had not seen before, but which, with the
_Argemone Mexicana,_ was to be a companion for hundreds of miles
farther. All the views in the pass are very picturesque, though
wanting in good foliage, such as _Ficus_ would afford, of which I did
not see one tree. Indeed the rarity of the genus (except
_F. infectoria_) in the native woods of these hills, is very
remarkable. The banyan and peepul always appear to be planted, as do
the tamarind and mango.

Dunwah, at the foot of the pass, is 620 feet above the sea, and
nearly 1000 below the mean level of the highland I had been
traversing. Every thing bears here a better aspect; the woods at
the foot of the hills afforded many plants; the bamboo
(_B. stricta_) is green instead of yellow and white; a little
castor-oil is cultivated, and the Indian date (low and stunted)
appears about the cottages.

In the woods I heard and saw the wild peacock for the first time.
Its voice is not to be distinguished from that of the tame bird in
England, a curious instance of the perpetuation of character under
widely different circumstances, for the crow of the wild jungle-fowl
does not rival that of the farm-yard cock.

In the evening we left Dunwah for Barah (alt. 480 feet), passing over
very barren soil, covered with low jungle, the original woods having
apparently been cut for fuel. Our elephant, a timid animal, came on a
drove of camels in the dark by the road-side, and in his alarm
insisted on doing battle, tearing through the thorny jungle,
regardless of the mahout, and still more of me: the uproar raised by
the camel-drivers was ridiculous, and the danger to my barometer
imminent.

We proceeded on the 11th of February to Sheergotty, where Mr.
Williams and his camp were awaiting our arrival. Wherever cultivation
appeared the crops were tolerably luxuriant, but a great deal of the
country yielded scarcely half-a-dozen kinds of plants to any ten
square yards of ground. The most prevalent were _Carissa carandas,
Olax scandens,_ two _Zizyphi,_ and the ever-present _Acacia
Catechu._ The climate is, however, warmer and much moister, for I
here observed dew to be formed, which I afterwards found to be usual
on the low grounds. That its presence is due to the increased amount
of vapour in the atmosphere I shall prove: the amount of radiation,
as shown by the cooling of the earth and vegetation, being the same
in the elevated plain and lower levels.* [See Appendix C.]

The good soil was very richly cultivated with poppy (which I had not
seen before), sugar-cane, wheat, barley, mustard, rape, and flax.
At a distance a field of poppies looks like a green lake, studded
with white water-lilies. The houses, too, are better, and have tiled
roofs; while, in such situations, the road is lined with trees.

A retrospect of the ground passed over is unsatisfactory, as far as
botany is concerned, except as showing how potent are the effects of
a dry soil and climate during one season of the year upon a
vegetation which has no desert types. During the rains probably many
more species would be obtained, for of annuals I scarcely found
twenty. At that season, however, the jungles of Behar and Birbhoom,
though far from tropically luxuriant, are singularly unhealthy.

In a geographical point of view the range of hills between Burdwan
and the Soave is interesting, as being the north-east continuation of
a chain which crosses the broadest part of the peninsula of India,
from the Gulf of Cambay to the junction of the Ganges and Hoogly at
Rajmahal. This range runs south of the Soane and Kymore, which it
meets I believe at Omerkuntuk;* [A lofty mountain said to be
7000-8000 feet high.] the granite of this and the sandstone of the
other, being there both overlaid with trap. Further west again, the
ranges separate, the southern still betraying a nucleus of granite,
forming the Satpur range, which divides the valley of the Taptee from
that of the Nerbudda. The Paras-nath range is, though the most
difficult of definition, the longer of the two parallel ranges;
the Vindhya continued as the Kymore, terminating abruptly at the Fort
of Chunar on the Ganges. The general and geological features of the
two, especially along their eastern course, are very different.
This consists of metamorphic gneiss, in various highly inclined beds,
through which granite hills protrude, the loftiest of which is
Paras-nath. The north-east Vindhya (called Kymore), on the other
hand, consists of nearly horizontal beds of sandstone, overlying
inclined beds of non-fossiliferous limestone. Between the latter and
the Paras-nath gneiss, come (in order of superposition) shivered and
undulating strata of metamorphic quartz, hornstone, hornstone-
porphyry, jaspers, etc. These are thrown up, by greenstone I believe,
along the north and north-west boundary of the gneiss range, and are
to be recognised as forming the rocks of Colgong, of Sultangunj, and
of Monghyr, on the Ganges, as also various detached hills near Gyah,
and along the upper course of the Soane. From these are derived the
beautiful agates and cornelians, so famous under the name of Soane
pebbles, and they are equally common on the Curruckpore range, as on
the south bank of the Soane, so much so in the former position as to
have been used in the decoration of the walls of the now ruined
palaces near Bhagulpore.

In the route I had taken, I had crossed the eastern extremity alone
of the range, commencing with a very gradual ascent, over the
alluvial plains of the west bank of the Hoogly, then over laterite,
succeeded by sandstone of the Indian coal era, which is succeeded by
the granite table-land, properly so called. A little beyond the coal
fields, the table-land reaches an average height of 1130 feet, which
is continued for upwards of 100 miles, to the Dunwah pass. Here the
descent is sudden to plains, which, continuous with those of the
Ganges, run up the Soane till beyond Rotasghur. Except for the
occasional ridges of metamorphic rocks mentioned above, and some
hills of intruded greenstone, the lower plain is stoneless, its
subjacent rocks being covered with a thicker stratum of the same
alluvium which is thinly spread over the higher table-land above.
This range is of great interest from its being the source of many
important rivers,* [The chief rivers from this, the great watershed
of western Bengal, flow north-west and south-east; a few
comparatively insignificant streams running north to the Ganges.
Amongst the former are the Rheru, the Kunner, and the Coyle, which
contribute to the Soane; amongst the latter, the Dammooda, Adji, and
Barakah, flow into the Hoogly, and the Subunrika, Braminee, and
Mahanuddee into the Bay of Bengal.] and of all those which water the
country between the Soane, Hoogly, and Ganges, as well as from its
deflecting the course of the latter river, which washes its base at
Rajmahal, and forcing it to take a sinuous course to the sea. In its
climate and botany it differs equally from the Gangetic plains to the
north, and from the hot, damp, and exuberant forests of Orissa to the
south. Nor are its geological features less different, or its
concomitant and in part resultant characters of agriculture and
native population. Still further west, the great rivers of the
peninsula have their origin, the Nerbudda and Taptee flowing west to
the gulf of Cambay, the Cane to the Jumna, the Soane to the Ganges,
and the northern feeders of the Godavery to the Bay of Bengal.

On the 12th of February, we left Sheergotty (alt. 463 feet), crossing
some small streams, which, like all else seen since leaving the
Dunwah Pass, flow N. to the Ganges. Between Sheergotty and the Soane,
occur many of the isolated hills of greenstone, mentioned above,
better known to the traveller from having been telegraphic stations.
Some are much impregnated with iron, and whether for their colour,
the curious outlines of many, or their position, form quaint, and in
some cases picturesque features in the otherwise tame landscape.

The road being highly cultivated, and the Date-palm becoming more
abundant, we encamped in a grove of these trees. All were curiously
distorted; the trunks growing zigzag, from the practice of yearly
tapping the alternate sides for toddy. The incision is just below the
crown, and slopes upwards and inwards: a vessel is hung below the
wound, and the juice conducted into it by a little piece of bamboo.
This operation spoils the fruit, which, though eaten, is small, and
much inferior to the African date.

At Mudunpore (alt. 440 feet) a thermometer, sunk 3 feet 4 inches in
the soil, maintained a constant temperature of 71.5 degrees, that of
the air varying from 77.5 degrees, at 3 p.m., to 62 at daylight the
following morning; when we moved on to Nourunga (alt. 340 feet),
where I bored to 3 feet 8 inches with a heavy iron jumper through an
alluvium of such excessive tenacity, that eight natives were employed
for four hours in the operation. In both this and another hole,
4 feet 8 inches, the temperature was 72 degrees at 10 p.m.; and on
the following morning 71.5 degrees in the deepest hole, and
70 degrees in the shallower: that of the external air varied from
71 degrees at 3 p.m., to 57 degrees at daylight on the following
morning. At the latter time I took the temperature of the earth near
the surface, which showed, surface 53 degrees, 1 inch 57 degrees,
2 inches 58 degrees, 4 inches 62 degrees, 7 inches 64 degrees.

The following day we marched to Baroon (alt. 345 feet) on the
alluvial banks of the Soane, crossing a deep stream by a pretty
suspension bridge, of which the piers were visible two miles off, so
level is the road. The Soane is here three miles wide, its nearly dry
bed being a desert of sand, resembling a vast arm of the sea when the
tide is out: the banks are very barren, with no trees near, and but
very few in the distance. The houses were scarcely visible on the
opposite side, behind which the Kymore mountains rise. The Soane is a
classical river, being now satisfactorily identified with the
Eranoboas of the ancients.* [The etymology of Eranoboas is
undoubtedly _Hierrinia Vahu_ (Sanskrit), the golden-armed.
Sons is also the Sanskrit for gold. The stream is celebrated for its
agates (Soane pebbles), which are common, but gold is not now
obtained from it.]

The alluvium is here cut into a cliff, ten or twelve feet above the
bed of the river, and against it the sand is blown in naked
_dunes._ At 2 p.m., the surface-sand was heated to 110 degrees
where sheltered from the wind, and 104 degrees in the open bed of the
river. To compare the rapidity and depth to which the heat is
communicated by pure sand, and by the tough alluvium, I took the
temperature at some inches depth in both. That the alluvium absorbs
the heat better, and retains it longer, would appear from the
following, the only observations I could make, owing to the tenacity
of the soil.

2 p.m.
Surface           104 degrees
22.5 inches        93 degrees
5 inches           88 degrees
Sand at this depth 78 degrees.
5 a.m.
Surface            51 degrees
28 inches          68 degrees

Finding the fresh milky juice of _Calotropis_ to be only
72 degrees, I was curious to ascertain at what depth this
temperature was to be obtained in the sand of the river-bed, where
the plant grew.

Surface    104.5 degrees,
1 inch     102 degrees,
2 inches    94 degrees,
2.5 inches  90 degrees,
3.5 inches  85 degrees (Compact),
8 inches    73 degrees (Wet),
15 inches   72 degrees (Wet).

The power this plant exercises of maintaining a low temperature of 72
degrees, though the main portion which is subterraneous is surrounded
by a soil heated to between 90 degrees and 104 degrees, is very
remarkable, and no doubt proximately due to the rapidity of
evaporation from the foliage, and consequent activity in the
circulation. Its exposed leaves maintained a temperature of 80
degrees, nearly 25 degrees cooler than the similarly exposed sand and
alluvium. On the same night the leaves were cooled down to 54
degrees, when the sand had cooled to 51 degrees. Before daylight the
following morning the sand had cooled to 43 degrees, and the leaves
of the _Calotropis_ to 45.5 degrees. I omitted to observe the
temperature of the sap at the latter time; but the sand at the same
depth (15 inches) as that at which its temperature and that of the
plant agreed at mid-day, was 68 degrees. And assuming this to be the
heat of the plant, we find that the leaves are heated by solar
radiation during the day 8 degrees, and cooled by nocturnal
radiation, 22.5 degrees.

Mr. Theobald (my companion in this and many other rambles) pulled a
lizard from a hole in the bank. Its throat was mottled with scales of
brown and yellow. Three ticks had fastened on it, each of a size
covering three or four scales: the first was yellow, corresponding
with the yellow colour of the animal's belly, where it lodged, the
second brown, from the lizard's head; but the third, which was
clinging to the parti-coloured scales of the neck, had its body
parti-coloured, the hues corresponding with the individual scales
which they covered. The adaptation of the two first specimens in
colour to the parts to which they adhered, is sufficiently
remarkable; but the third case was most extraordinary.

During the night of the 14th of February, I observed a beautiful
display, apparently of the Aurora borealis, an account of which will
be found in the Appendix.

_February_ 15.--Our passage through the Soane sands was very
tedious, though accomplished in excellent style, the elephants
pushing forward the heavy waggons of mining tools with their
foreheads. The wheels were sometimes buried to the axles in sand, and
the draught bullocks were rather in the way than otherwise.

The body of water over which we ferried, was not above 80 yards wide.
In the rains, when the whole space of three miles is one rapid flood,
10 or 12 feet deep, charged with yellow sand, this river must present
an imposing spectacle. I walked across the dry portion, observing the
sand-waves, all ranged in one direction, perpendicular to that of the
prevailing wind, accurately representing the undulations of the
ocean, as seen from a mast-head or high cliff. As the sand was finer
or coarser, so did the surface resemble a gentle ripple, or an
ocean-swell. The progressive motion of the waves was curious, and
caused by the lighter particles being blown over the ridges, and
filling up the hollows to leeward. There were a few islets in the
sand, a kind of oases of mud and clay, in laminae no thicker than
paper, and these were at once denizened by various weeds. Some large
spots were green with wheat and barley-crops, both suffering
from smut.

We encamped close to the western shore, at the village of Dearee
(alt. 330 feet); it marks the termination of the Kymore Hills, along
whose S.E. bases our course now lay, as we here quitted the grand
trunk road for a rarely visited country.

On the 16th we marched south up the river to Tilotho (alt. 395 feet),
through a rich and highly cultivated country, covered with indigo,
cotton, sugar-cane, safflower, castor-oil, poppy, and various grains.
Dodders (_Cuscuta_) covered even tall trees with a golden web,
and the _Capparis acuminata_ was in full flower along the road
side. Tilotho, a beautiful village, is situated in a superb grove of
Mango, Banyan, Peepul, Tamarind, and _Bassia._ The Date or
toddy-palm and fan-palm are very abundant and tall: each had a pot
hung under the crown. The natives climb these trunks with a hoop or
cord round the body and both ancles, and a bottle-gourd or other
vessel hanging round the neck to receive the juice from the
stock-bottle, in this aerial wine-cellar. These palms were so lofty
that the climbers, as they paused in their ascent to gaze with wonder
at our large retinue, resembled monkeys rather than men. Both trees
yield a toddy, but in this district they stated that that from the
_Phoenix_ (Date) alone ferments, and is distilled; while in
other parts of India, the _Borassus_ (fan-palm) is chiefly
employed. I walked to the hills, over a level cultivated country
interspersed with occasional belts of low wood; in which the pensile
nests of the weaver-bird were abundant, but generally hanging out of
reach, in prickly _Acacias._

The hills here present a straight precipitous wall of horizontally
stratified sandstone, very like the rocks at the Cape of Good Hope,
with occasionally a shallow valley, and a slope of debris at the
base, densely clothed with dry jungle. The cliffs are about 1000 feet
high, and the plants similar to those at the foot of Paras-nath, but
stunted: I climbed to the top, the latter part by steps or ledges of
sandstone. The summit was clothed with long grass, trees of
_Diospyros_ and _Terminalia,_ and here and there the
_Boswellia._ On the precipitous rocks the curious white-barked
_Sterculia foetida_ "flung its arms abroad," leafless, and
looking as if blasted by lightning.

A hole was sunk here again for the thermometers, and, as usual, with
great labour; the temperatures obtained were--
Air.
9 p.m.    64.5 degrees
5.30 a.m. 58.5 degrees
4 feet 6 inches, under good shade of trees
9 p.m.    77 degrees
11 p.m.   76 degrees
5.30 a.m. 76 degrees

This is a very great rise (of 4 degrees) above any of those
previously obtained, and certainly indicates a much higher mean
temperature of the locality. I can only suppose it due to the
radiation of heat from the long range of sandstone cliff, exposed to
the south, which overlooks the flat whereon we were encamped, and
which, though four or five miles off, forms a very important feature.
The differences of temperature in the shade taken on this and the
other side of the river are 2.75 degrees higher on this side.

On the 17th we marched to Akbarpore (alt. 400. feet), a village
overhung by the rocky precipice of Rotasghur, a spur of the Kymore,
standing abruptly forward.

The range, in proceeding up the Soane valley, gradually approaches
the river, and beds of non-fossiliferous limestone are seen
protruding below the sandstone and occasionally rising into rounded
hills, the paths upon which appear as white as do those through the
chalk districts of England. The overlying beds of sandstone are
nearly horizontal, or with a dip to the N.W.; the subjacent ones of
limestone dip at a greater angle. Passing between the river and a
detached conical hill of limestone, capped with a flat mass of
sandstone, the spur of Rotas broke suddenly on the view, and very
grand it was, quite realising my anticipations of the position of
these eyrie-like hill-forts of India. To the left of the spur winds
the valley of the Soane, with low-wooded hills on its opposite bank,
and a higher range, connected with that of Behar, in the distance.
To the right, the hills sweep round, forming an immense and
beautifully wooded amphitheatre, about four miles deep, bounded with
a continuation of the escarpment. At the foot of the crowned spur is
the village of Akbarpore, where we encamped in a Mango tope;* [On the
24th of June, 1848, the Soane rose to an unprecedented height, and
laid this grove of Mangos three feet under water.] it occupies some
pretty undulating limestone hills, amongst which several streams flow
from the amphitheatre to the Soane.

During our two days' stay here, I had the advantage of the society of
Mr. C. E. Davis, who was our guide during some rambles in the
neighbourhood, and to whose experience, founded on the best habits of
observation, I am indebted for much information. At noon we started
to ascend to the palace, on the top of the spur. On the way we passed
a beautiful well, sixty feet deep, and with a fine flight of steps to
the bottom. Now neglected and overgrown with flowering weeds and
creepers, it afforded me many of the plants I had only previously
obtained in a withered state; it was curious to observe there some of
the species of the hill-tops, whose seeds doubtless are scattered
abundantly over the surrounding plains, and only vegetate where they
find a coolness and moisture resembling that of the altitude they
elsewhere affect. A fine fig-tree growing out of the stone-work
spread its leafy green branches over the well mouth, which was about
twelve feet square; its roots assumed a singular form, enveloping two
sides of the walls with a beautiful net-work, which at _high-water
mark_ (rainy season), abruptly divides into thousands of little
brushes, dipping into the water which they fringe. It was a pretty
cool place to descend to, from a temperature of 80 degrees above, to
74 degrees at the bottom, where the water was 60 degrees; and most
refreshing to look, either up the shaft to the green fig shadowing
the deep profound, or along the sloping steps through a vista of
flowering herbs and climbing plants, to the blue heaven of a
burning sky.

The ascent to Rotas is over the dry hills of limestone, covered with
a scrubby brushwood, to a crest where are the first rude and ruined
defences. The limestone is succeeded by the sandstone cliff cut into
steps, which led from ledge to ledge and gap to gap, well guarded
with walls and an archway of solid masonry. Through this we passed on
to the flat summit of the Kymore hills, covered with grass and
forest, intersected by paths in all directions. The ascent is about
1200 feet--a long pull in the blazing sun of February. The turf
consists chiefly of spear-grass and _Andropogon muricatus,_ the
kus-kus, which yields a favourite fragrant oil, used as a medicine in
India. The trees are of the kinds mentioned before. A pretty
octagonal summer-house, with its roof supported by pillars, occupies
one of the highest points of the plateau, and commands a superb view
of the scenery before described. From this a walk of three miles
leads through the woods to the palace. The buildings are very
extensive, and though now ruinous, bear evidence of great beauty in
the architecture: light galleries, supported by slender columns, long
cool arcades, screened squares and terraced walks, are the principal
features. The rooms open out upon flat roofs, commanding views of the
long endless table-land to the west, and a sheer precipice of 1000
feet on the other side, with the Soane, the amphitheatre of hills,
and the village of Akbarpore below.

This and Beejaghur, higher up the Soane, were amongst the most
recently reduced forts, and this was further the last of those
wrested from Baber in 1542. Some of the rooms are still habitable,
but the greater part are ruinous, and covered with climbers, both of
wild flowers and of the naturalised garden plants of the adjoining
shrubbery; the _Arbor-tristis,_ with _Hibiscus, Abutilon,_
etc., and above all, the little yellow-flowered _Linaria
ramosissima,_ crawling over every ruined wall, as we see the
walls of our old English castles clothed with its congener
_L. Cymbalaria._

In the old dark stables I observed the soil to be covered with a
copious evanescent efflorescence of nitrate of lime, like soap-suds
scattered about.

I made Rotas Palace 1490 feet above the sea, so that this table-land
is here only fifty feet higher than that I had crossed on the grand
trunk road, before descending at the Dunwah pass. Its mean
temperature is of course considerably (4 degrees) below that of the
valley, but though so cool, agues prevail after the rains.
The extremes of temperature are less marked than in the valley, which
becomes excessively heated, and where hot winds sometimes last for a
week, blowing in furious gusts.

The climate of the whole neighbourhood has of late changed
materially; and the fall of rain has much diminished, consequent on
felling the forests; even within six years the hail-storms have been
far less frequent and violent. The air on the hills is highly
electrical, owing, no doubt, to the dryness of the atmosphere, and to
this the frequent recurrence of hail-storms may be due.

The zoology of these regions is tolerably copious, but little is
known of the natural history of a great part of the plateau; a native
tribe, prone to human sacrifices, is talked of. Tigers are common,
and bears are numerous; they have, besides, the leopard, panther,
viverine cat, and civet; and of the dog tribe the pariah, jackal,
fox, and wild dog, called Koa. Deer are very numerous, of six or
seven kinds. A small alligator inhabits the hill streams, said to be
a very different animal from either of the Soane species.

During our descent we examined several instances of ripple-mark
(fossil waves' footsteps) in the sandstone; they resembled the
fluting of the _Sigillaria_ stems, in the coal-measures, and
occurring as they did here, in sandstone, a little above great beds
of limestone, had been taken for such, and as indications of coal.

On the following day we visited Rajghat, a steep ghat or pass leading
up the cliff to Rotas Palace, a little higher up the river. We took
the elephants to the mouth of the glen, where we dismounted, and
whence we followed a stream abounding in small fish and aquatic
insects (_Dytisci_ and _Gyrini_), through a close jungle,
to the foot of the cliffs, where there are indications of coal.
The woods were full of monkeys, and amongst other plants I observed
_Murraya exotica,_ but it was scarce. Though the jungle was so
dense, the woods were very dry, containing no Palm, _Adroideae,_
Peppers, _Orchideae_ or Ferns. Here, at the foot of the red
cliffs, which towered imposingly above, as seen through the tree
tops, are several small seams of coaly matter in the sandstone, with
abundance of pyrites, sulphur, and copious efflorescences of salts of
iron; but no coal. The springs from the cliffs above are charged with
lime, of which enormous tuff beds are deposited on the sandstone,
full of impressions of the leaves and stems of the surrounding trees,
which, however, I found it very difficult to recognize, and could not
help contrasting this circumstance with the fact that geologists,
unskilled in botany, see no difficulty in referring equally imperfect
remains of extinct vegetables to existing genera. In some parts of
their course the streams take up quantities of the efflorescence,
which they scatter over the sandstones in a singular manner.

At Akbarpore I had sunk two thermometers, one 4 feet 6 inches, the
other 5 feet 6 inches; both invariably indicated 76 degrees, the air
varying from 56 degrees to 79.5 degrees. Dew had formed every night
since leaving Dunwah, the grass being here cooled 12 degrees below
the air.

On the 19th of February we marched up the Soane to Tura, passing some
low hills of limestone, between the cliffs of the Kymore and the
river. On the shaded riverbanks grew abundance of English genera--
_Cynoglossum, Veronica, Potentilla, Ranunculus sceleratus, Rumex,_
several herbaceous _Compositae_ and _Labiatae_; _Tamarix_ formed a
small bush in rocky hillocks in the bed of the river, and in pools
were several aquatic plants, _Zannichellia, Chara,_ a pretty little
_Vallisneria,_ and _Potamogeton._ The Brahminee goose was common
here, and we usually saw in the morning immense flocks of wild geese
overhead, migrating northward.

Here I tried again the effect of solar and nocturnal radiation on the
sand, at different depths, not being able to do so on the alluvium.

Noon:
Temperature of air 87 degrees
Surface      110 degrees
1 inch       102 degrees
2 inches      93.5 degrees
4 inches      84 degrees
8 inches      77 degrees (sand wet)
16 inches     76 degrees (sand wet)
Daylight of following morning:
Surface       52 degrees
1 inch        55 degrees
2 inches      58 degrees
4 inches      67 degrees
8 inches      73 degrees (sand wet)
16 inches     74 degrees (sand wet)

From Tura our little army again crossed the Soane, the scarped cliffs
of the Kymore approaching close to the river on the west side.
The bed is very sandy, and about one mile and a half across.

The elephants were employed again, as at Baroon, to push the cart:
one of them had a bump in consequence, as large as a child's head,
just above the trunk, and bleeding much; but the brave beast
disregarded this, when the word of command was given by his driver.

The stream was very narrow, but deep and rapid, obstructed with beds
of coarse agate, jasper, cornelian and chalcedony pebbles. A clumsy
boat took us across to the village of Soanepore, a wretched
collection of hovels. The crops were thin and poor, and I saw no
palms or good trees. Squirrels however abounded, and were busy laying
up their stores; descending from the trees they scoured across a road
to a field of tares, mounted the hedge, took an observation, foraged
and returned up the tree with their booty, quickly descended, and
repeated the operation of reconnoitering and plundering.

The bed of the river is here considerably above that at Dearee, where
the mean of the observations with those of Baroon, made it about 300
feet. The mean of those taken here and on the opposite side, at Tura,
gives about 400 feet, indicating a fall of 100 feet in only 40 miles.

Near this the sandy banks of the Soane were full of martins' nests,
each one containing a pair of eggs. The deserted ones were literally
crammed full of long-legged spiders (_Opilio_), which could be
raked out with a stick, when they came pouring down the cliff like
corn from a sack; the quantities are quite inconceivable. I did not
observe the martin feed on them.

The entomology here resembled that of Europe, more than I had
expected in a tropical country, where predaceous beetles, at least
_Carabideae_ and _Staphylinideae,_ are generally considered
rare. The latter tribes swarmed under the clods, of many species but
all small, and so singularly active that I could not give the time to
collect many. In the banks again, the round egg-like earthy chrysalis
of the _Sphynx Atropos_ (?) and the many-celled nidus of the
leaf-cutter bee, were very common.

A large columnar _Euphorbia_ (_E. ligulata_) is common all along the
Soane, and I observed it to be used everywhere for fencing. I had not
remarked the _E. neriifolia_; and the _E. tereticaulis_ had been very
rarely seen since leaving Calcutta. The _Cactus_ is nowhere found; it
is abundant in many parts of Bengal, but certainly not indigenous.

Illustration --CROSSING THE SOANE, WITH THE KYMORE HILLS IN THE
DISTANCE.

From this place onwards up the Soane, there was no road of any kind,
and we were compelled to be our own road engineers. The sameness of
the vegetation and lateness of the season made me regret this the
less, for I was disappointed in my anticipations of finding
luxuriance and novelty in these wilds. Before us the valley narrowed
considerably, the forest became denser, the country on the south side
was broken with rounded hills, and on the north the noble cliffs of
the Kymore dipped down to the river. The villages were smaller, more
scattered and poverty-stricken, with the Mahowa and Mango as the
usual trees; the banyan, peepul, and tamarind being rare. The native,
are of an aboriginal jungle race; and are tall, athletic, erect, much
less indolent and more spirited than the listless natives of
the plains.

_February_ 21.--Started at daylight: but so slow and difficult
was our progress through fields and woods, and across deep gorges
from the hills, that we only advanced five miles in the day; the
elephant's head too was aching too badly to let him push, and the
cattle would not proceed when the draught was not equal. What was
worse, it was impossible to get them to pull together up the inclined
planes we cut, except by placing a man at the head of each of the
six, eight, or ten in a team, and simultaneously screwing round their
tails; when one tortured animal sometimes capsizes the vehicle.
The small carts got on better, though it was most nervous to see them
rushing down the steeps, especially those with our fragile
instruments, etc.

Kosdera, where we halted, is a pretty place, elevated 440 feet, with
a broad stream front the hills flowing past it. These hills are of
limestone, and rounded, resting upon others of hornstone and jasper.
Following up the stream I came to some rapids, where the stream is
crossed by large beds of hornstone and porphyry rocks, excessively
hard, and pitched up at right angles, or with a bold dip to the
north. The number of strata was very great, and only a few inches or
even lines thick: they presented all varieties of jasper, hornstone,
and quartz of numerous colours, with occasional seams of porphyry or
breccia. The racks were elegantly fringed with a fern I had not
hitherto seen, _Polypodium proliferum,_ which is the only
species the Soane valley presents at this season.

Returning over the hills, I found _Hardwickia binata,_ a most
elegant leguminous tree, tall, erect, with an elongated coma, and the
branches pendulous. These trees grew in a shallow bed of alluvium,
enclosing abundance of agate pebbles and kunker, the former derived
from the quartzy strata above noticed.

On the 23rd and 24th we continued to follow up the Soane, first to
Panchadurma (alt. 490 feet), and thence to Pepura (alt. 587 feet),
the country becoming densely wooded, very wild, and picturesque, the
woods being full of monkeys, parrots, peacocks, hornbills, and wild
animals. _Strychnos potatorum,_ whose berries are used to purify
water, forms a dense foliaged tree, 30 to 60 feet high, some
individuals pale yellow, others deep green, both in apparent health.
_Feronia Elephantum_ and _Aegle marmelos_* [The Bhel fruit, lately
introduced into English medical practice, as an astringent of great
effect, in cases of diarrhoea and dysentery.] were very abundant,
with _Sterculia,_ and the dwarf date-palm.

One of my carts was here hopelessly broken down; advancing on the
spokes instead of the tire of the wheels. By the banks of a deep
gully here the rocks are well exposed: they consist of soft clay
shales resting on the limestone, which is nearly horizontal; and this
again, unconformably on the quartz and hornstone rocks, which are
confused, and tilted up at all angles.

A spur of the Kymore, like that of Rotas, here projects to the bed of
the river, and was blazing at night with the beacon-like fires of the
natives, lighted to scare the tigers and bears from the spots where
they cut wood and bamboo; they afforded a splendid spectacle, the
flames in some places leaping zig-zag from hill to hill in front of
us, and looking as if a gigantic letter W were written in fire.

The night was bright and clear, with much lightning, the latter
attracted to the spur, and darting down as it were to mingle its fire
with that of the forest; so many flashes appeared to strike on the
flames, that it is probable the heated air in their neighbourhood
attracted them. We were awakened between 3 and 4 a.m., by a violent
dust-storm, which threatened to carry away the tents. Our position at
the mouth of the gulley formed by the opposite hills, no doubt
accounted for it. The gusts were so furious that it was impossible to
observe the barometer, which I returned to its case on ascertaining
that any indications of a rise or fall in the column must have been
quite trifling. The night had been oppressively hot, with many
insects flying about; amongst which I noticed earwigs, a genus
erroneously supposed rarely to take to the wing in Britain.

At 8.30 a.m. it suddenly fell calm, and we proceeded to Chanchee
(alt. 500 feet), the native carts breaking down in their passage over
the projecting beds of flinty rocks, or as they burned down the
inclined planes we cut through the precipitous clay banks of the
streams. Near Chanchee we passed an alligator, just killed by two
men, a foul beast, about nine feet long, of the mugger kind.
More absorbing than its natural history was the circumstance of its
having swallowed a child, that was playing in the water as its mother
was washing her utensils in the river. The brute was hardly dead,
much distended by the prey, and the mother was standing beside it.
A very touching group was this: the parent with her hands clasped in
agony, unable to withdraw her eyes from the cursed reptile, which
still clung to life with that tenacity for which its tribe are so
conspicuous; beside these the two athletes leaned on the bloody
bamboo staffs, with which they had all but despatched the animal.

This poor woman earned a scanty maintenance by making catechu:
inhabiting a little cottage, and having no property but two cattle to
bring wood from the hills, and a very few household chattels; and how
few of these they only know who have seen the meagre furniture of
Danga hovels. Her husband cut the trees in the forest and dragged
them to the hut, but at this time he was sick, and her only boy, her
future stay, it was, whom the beast had devoured.

This province is famous for the quantity of catechu its dry forests
yield. The plant (_Acacia_) is a little thorny tree, erect, and
bearing a rounded head of well remembered prickly branches. Its wood
is yellow, with a dark brick-red heart, most profitable in January
and useless in June (for yielding the extract).

Illustration -- SOANE VALLEY AND KYMORE HILLS COCHLOSPERMUM GOSSYPIUM
AND BUTEA FRONDOSA IN FLOWER.

The _Butea frondosa_ was abundantly in flower here, and a gorgeous
sight. In mass the inflorescence resembles sheets of flame, and
individually the flowers are eminently beautiful, the bright
orange-red petals contrasting brilliantly against the jet-black
velvety calyx. The nest of the _Megachile_ (leaf-cutter bee) was in
thousands in the cliffs, with Mayflies, Caddis-worms, spiders, and
many predaceous beetles. Lamellicorn beetles were very rare, even
_Aphodius,_ and of _Cetoniae_ I did not see one.

We marched on the 28th to Kota, at the junction of the river of that
name with the Soane, over hills of flinty rock, which projected
everywhere, to the utter ruin of the elephants' feet, and then over
undulating hills of limestone; on the latter I found trees of
_Cochlospermum,_ whose curious thick branches spread out
somewhat awkwardly, each tipped with a cluster of golden yellow
flowers, as large as the palm of the hand, and very beautiful: it is
a tropical Gum-Cistus in the appearance and texture of the petals,
and their frail nature. The bark abounds in a transparent gum, of
which the white ants seem fond, for they had killed many trees.
Of the leaves the curious rude leaf-bellows are made, with which the
natives of these hills smelt iron. Scorpions appeared very common
here, of a small kind, 1.5 inch long; several were captured, and one
of our party was stung on the finger; the smart was burning for an
hour or two, and then ceased.

At Kota we were nearly opposite the cliffs at Beejaghur, where coal
is reported to exist; and here we again crossed the Soane, and for
the last time. The ford is three miles up the river, and we marched
to it through deep sand. The bed of the river is here 500 feet above
the sea, and about three-quarters of a mile broad, the rapid stream
being 50 or 60 yards wide, and breast deep. The sand is firm and
siliceous, with no mica; nodules of coal are said to be washed down
thus far from the coal-beds of Burdee, a good deal higher up, but we
saw none.

The cliffs come close to the river on the opposite side, their bases
clothed with woods which teemed with birds. The soil is richer, and
individual trees, especially of _Bombax, Terminalia_ and _Mahowa,_
very fine; one tree of the _Hardwickia,_ about 120 feet high, was as
handsome a monarch of the forest as I ever saw, and it is not often
that one sees trees in the tropics, which for a combination of beauty
in outline, harmony of colour, and arrangement of branches and
foliage, would form so striking an addition to an English park.

There is a large break in the Kymore hills here, beyond the village
of Kunch, through which our route lay to Beejaghur, and the Ganges at
Mirzapore; the cliff's leaving the river and trending to the north in
a continuous escarpment flanked with low ranges of rounded hills, and
terminating in an abrupt spur (Mungeesa Peak) whose summit was
covered with a ragged forest. At Kunch we saw four alligators
sleeping in the river, looking at a distance like logs of wood, all
of the short-nosed or mugger kind, dreaded by man and beast; I saw
none of the sharp-shouted (or garial), so common on the Ganges, where
their long bills, with a garniture of teeth and prominent eyes
peeping out of the water, remind one of geological lectures and
visions of _Ichthyosauri._ Tortoises were frequent in the river,
basking on the rocks, and popping into the water when approached.

On the 1st of March we left the Soane, and struck inland over a rough
hilly country, covered with forest, fully 1000 feet below the top of
the Kymore table-land, which here recedes from the river and
surrounds an undulating plain, some ten miles either way, facing the
south. The roads, or rather pathways, were very bad, and quite
impassable for the carts without much engineering, cutting through
forest, smoothing down the banks of the watercourses to be crossed,
and clearing away the rocks as we best might. We traversed the empty
bed of a mountain torrent, with perpendicular banks of alluvium 30
feet high, and thence plunged into a dense forest. Our course was
directed towards Mungeesa Peak, the remarkable projecting spur,
between which and a conical hill the path led. Whether on the
elephants or on foot, the thorny jujubes, _Acacias,_ etc. were
most troublesome, and all our previous scratchings were nothing to
this. Peacocks and jungle-fowl were very frequent, the squabbling of
the former and the hooting of the monkeys constantly grating on the
ear. There were innumerable pigeons and a few Floricans (a kind of
bustard--considered the best eating game--bird in India). From the
defile we emerged on an open flat, halting at Sulkun, a scattered
village (alt. 684 feet), peopled by a bold-looking race (Coles)* [The
Coles, like the Danghas of the Rajmahal and Behar hills, and the
natives of the mountains of the peninsula, form one of the aboriginal
tribes of British India, and are widely different people from either
the Hindoos or Mussulmen.] who habitually carry the spear and shield.
We had here the pleasure of meeting Mr. Felle, an English gentleman
employed in the Revenue department; this being one of the roads along
which the natives transport their salt, sugar, etc., from one
province to another.

In the afternoon, I examined the conical hill, which, like that near
Rotas, is of stratified beds of limestone, capped with sandstone.
A stream runs round its base, cutting through the alluvium to the
subjacent rock, which is exposed, and contains flattened spheres of
limestone. These spheres are from the size of a fist to a child's
head, or even much larger; they are excessively hard, and neither
laminated nor formed of concentric layers. At the top of the hill the
sandstone cap was perpendicular on all sides, and its dry top covered
with small trees, especially of _Cochlospermum._ A few larger
trees of _Fici_ clung to the edge of the rocks, and by forcing
their roots into the interstices detached enormous masses, affording
good dens for bears and other wild animals. From the top, the view of
rock, river, forest, and plain, was very fine, the eye ranging over a
broad flat, girt by precipitous hills;--West, the Kymore or Vindhya
range rose again in rugged elevations; South, flowed the Soane,
backed by ranges of wooded hills, smoking like volcanos with the
fires of the natives;--below, lay the bed of the stream we had left
at the foot of the hills, cutting its way through the alluvium, and
following a deep gorge to the Soane, which was there hidden by the
rugged heights we had crossed, on which the greater part of our camp
might be seen still straggling onwards;--east, and close above us,
the bold spur of Mungeesa shot up, terminating a continuous stretch
of red precipices, clothed with forest along their bases, and over
their horizontal tops.

From Sulkun the view of the famed fort and palace of Beejaghur is
very singular, planted on the summit of an isolated hill of
sandstone, about ten miles off. A large tree by the palace marks its
site; for, at this distance, the buildings are themselves
undistinguishable.

There are many tigers on these hills; and as one was close by, and
had killed several cattle, Mr. Felle kindly offered us a chance of
slaying him. Bullocks are tethered out, over-night, in the places
likely to be visited by the brute; he kills one of them, and is from
the spot tracked to his haunt by natives, who visit the stations
early in the morning, and report the whereabouts of his lair.
The sportsman then goes to the attack mounted on an elephant, or
having a roost fixed in a tree, on the trail of the tiger, and he
employs some hundred natives to drive the animal past the
lurking-place.

On the present occasion, the locale of the tiger was doubtful; but it
was thought that by beating over several miles of country he (or at
any rate, some other game) might be driven past a certain spot.
Thither, accordingly, the natives were sent, who built machans
(stages) in the trees, high out of danger's reach; Mr. Theobald and
myself occupied one of these perches in a _Hardwickia_ tree, and
Mr. Felle another, close by, both on the slope of a steep hill,
surrounded by jungly valleys. We were also well thatched in with
leafy boughs, to prevent the wary beast from espying the ambush, and
had a whole stand of shall arms ready for his reception.

When roosted aloft, and duly charged to keep profound silence (which
I obeyed to the letter, by falling sound asleep), the word was passed
to the beaters, who surrounded our post on the plain-side, extending
some miles in line, and full two or three distant from us.
They entered the jungle, beating tom-toms, singing and shouting as
they advanced, and converging towards our position. In the noonday
solitude of these vast forests, our situation was romantic enough:
there was not a breath of wind, an insect or bird stirring; and the
wild cries of the men, and the hollow sound of the drums broke upon
the ear from a great distance, gradually swelling and falling, as the
natives ascended the heights or crossed the valleys. After about an
hour and a half, the beaters emerged from the jungle under our
retreat; one by one, two by two, but preceded by no single living
thing, either mouse, bird, deer, or bear, and much less tiger.
The beaters received about a penny a-piece for the day's work; a rich
guerdon for these poor wretches, whom necessity sometimes drives to
feed on rats and offal.

We were detained three days at Sulkun, from inability to get on with
the carts; and as the pass over the Kymore to the north (on the way
to Mirzapore) was to be still worse, I took advantage of Mr. Felle's
kind offer of camels and elephants to make the best of my way
forward, accompanying that gentleman, _en route,_ to his
residence at Shahgunj, on the table-land.

Both the climate and natural history of this flat on which Sulkun
stands, are similar to those of the banks of the Soane; the crops are
wretched. At this season the dryness of the atmosphere is excessive:
our nails cracked, and skins peeled, whilst all articles of wood,
tortoiseshell, etc., broke on the slightest blow. The air, too, was
always highly electrical, and the dew-point was frequently 40 degrees
below the temperature of the air.

The natives are far from honest: they robbed one of the tents placed
between two others, wherein a light was burning. One gentleman in it
was awake, and on turning saw five men at his bedside, who escaped
with a bag of booty, in the shape of clothes, and a tempting strong
brass-bound box, containing private letters. The clothes they dropped
outside, but the box of letters was carried off. There were about a
hundred people asleep outside the tents, between whose many fires the
rogues must have passed, eluding also the guard, who were, or ought
to have been, awake.

CHAPTER III.

Ek-powa Ghat -- Sandstones -- Shahgunj -- Table-land, elevation, etc.
-- Gum-arabic -- Mango -- Fair -- Aquatic plants -- Rujubbund --
Storm -- False sunset and sunrise -- Bind hills -- Mirzapore --
Manufactures, imports, etc. -- Climate of -- Thuggee -- Chunar --
Benares -- Mosque -- Observatory -- Sar-nath -- Ghazeepore --
Rose-gardens -- Manufactory of Attar -- Lord Cornwallis' tomb --
Ganges, scenery and natural history of -- Pelicans -- Vegetation --
Insects -- Dinapore -- Patna -- Opium godowns and manufacture --
Mudar, white and purple -- Monghyr islets -- Hot Springs of Setakoond
-- Alluvium of Ganges -- Rocks of Sultun-gunj -- Bhaugulpore --
Temples of Mt. Manden -- Coles and native tribes -- Bhaugulpore
rangers -- Horticultural gardens.

On the 3rd of March I bade farewell to Mr. Williams and his kind
party, and rode over a plain to the village of Markunda, at the foot
of the Ghat. There the country becomes very rocky and wooded, and a
stream is crossed, which runs over a flat bed of limestone, cracked
into the appearance of a tesselated pavement. For many miles there is
no pass over the Kymore range, except this, significantly called
"Ek-powa-Ghat" (one-foot Ghat). It is evidently a _fault,_ or
shifting of the rocks, producing so broken a cliff as to admit of a
path winding over the shattered crags. On either side, the precipices
are extremely steep, of horizontally stratified rocks, continued in
an unbroken line, and the views across the plain and Soane valley,
over which the sun was now setting, were superb. At the summit we
entered on a dead flat plain or table-land, with no hills, except
along the brim of the broad valley we had left, where are some
curious broad pyramids, formed of slabs of sandstone arranged in
steps. By dark we reached the village of Roump (alt. 1090 feet),
beyond the top of the pass.

On the next day I proceeded on a small, fast, and wofully
high-trotting elephant, to Shahgunj, where I enjoyed Mr. Felle's
hospitality for a few days. The country here, though elevated, is,
from the nature of the soil and formation, much more fertile than
what I had left. Water is abundant, both in tanks and wells, and
rice-fields, broad and productive, cover the ground; while groves of
tamarinds and mangos, now loaded with blossoms, occur at
every village.

It is very singular that the elevation of this table-land (1100 feet
at Shahgunj) should coincide with that of the granite range of Upper
Bengal, where crossed by the grand trunk road, though they have no
feature but the presence of alluvium in common. Scarce a hillock
varies the surface here, and the agricultural produce of the two is
widely different. Here the flat ledges of sandstone retain the
moisture, and give rise to none of those impetuous torrents which
sweep it off the inclined beds of gneiss, or splintered quartz.
Nor is there here any of the effloresced salts so forbidding to
vegetation where they occur. Wherever the alluvium is deep on these
hills, neither _Catechu, Olibanum, Butea, Terminalia, Diospyros,_
dwarf-palm, or any of those plants are to be met with, which abound
wherever the rock is superficial, and irrespectively of its
mineral characters.

The gum-arabic _Acacia_ is abundant here, though not seen below,
and very rare to the eastward of this meridian, for I saw but little
of it in Behar. It is a plant partial to a dry climate, and rather
prefers a good soil. In its distribution it in some degree follows
the range of the camel, which is its constant companion over
thousands of leagues. In the valley of the Ganges I was told that
neither the animal nor plant flourish east of the Soane, where I
experienced a marked change in the humidity of the atmosphere on my
passage down the Ganges. It was a circumstance I was interested in,
having first met with the camel at Teneriffe and the Cape Verd
Islands, the westernmost limit of its distribution; imported thither,
however, as it now is into Australia, where, though there is no
_Acacia Arabica,_ four hundred other species of the genus
are known.

The mango, which is certainly _the_ fruit of India, (as the
pine-apple is of the Eastern Islands, and the orange of the West,)
was now blossoming, and a superb sight. The young leaves are
purplish-green, and form a curious contrast to the deep lurid hue of
the older foliage; especially when the tree is (which often occurs)
dimidiate, one half the green, and the other the red shades of
colours; when in full blossom, all forms a mass of yellow, diffusing
a fragrance rather too strong and peculiar to be pleasant.

We passed a village where a large fair was being held, and singularly
familiar its arrangements were to my early associations. The women
and children are the prime customers; for the latter
whirl-you-go-rounds, toys, and sweetmeats were destined; to tempt the
former, little booths of gay ornaments, patches for the forehead,
ear-rings of quaint shapes, bugles and beads. Here as at home, I
remarked that the vendors of these superfluities occupy the
approaches to this Vanity-Fair. As, throughout the East, the trades
are congregated into particular quarters of the cities, so here the
itinerants grouped themselves into little bazaars for each class of
commodity. Whilst I was engaged in purchasing a few articles of
native workmanship, my elephant made an attack on a sweetmeat stall,
demolishing a magnificent erection of barley-sugar, before his
proceedings could be put a stop to.

Mr. Felle's bungalow (whose garden smiled with roses in this
wilderness) was surrounded by a moat (fed by a spring), which was
full of aquatic plants, _Nymphaea, Damasonium, Villarsia cristata,
Aponogeton,_ three species of _Potamogeton,_ two of _Naias, Chara_
and _Zannichellia_ (the two latter indifferently, and often together,
used in the refinement of sugar). In a large tank hard by, wholly fed
by rain water, I observed only the _Villarsia Indica,_ no
_Aponogeton, Nymphaea,_ or _Dammonium,_ nor did these occur in any of
the other tanks I examined, which were otherwise well peopled with
plants. This may not be owing to the quality of the water so much as
to its varying quantity in the tank.

All around here, as at Roump, is a dead flat, except towards the
crest of the ghats which overhang the valley of the Soane, and there
the sandstone rock rises by steps into low hills. During a ride to a
natural tank amongst these rocky elevations, I passed from the
alluvium to the sandstone, and at once met with all the prevailing
plants of the granite, gneiss, limestone and hornstone rocks
previously examined, and which I have enumerated too often to require
recapitulation; a convincing proof that the mechanical properties and
not the chemical constitution of the rocks regulate the distribution
of these plants.

Rujubbund (the pleasant spot), is a small tarn, or more properly the
expanded bed of a stream, art having aided nature in its formation:
it is edged by rocks and cliffs fringed with the usual trees of the
neighbourhood; it is a wild and pretty spot, not unlike some
birch-bordered pool in the mountains of Wales or Scotland,
sequestered and picturesque. It was dark before I got back, with
heavy clouds and vivid lightning approaching from the south-west.
The day had been very hot (3 p.m., 90 degrees), and the evening the
same; but the barometer did not foretell the coming tempest, which
broke with fury at 7 p.m., blowing open the doors, and accompanied
with vivid lightning and heavy thunder, close by and all round,
though no rain fell.

In the clear dry mornings of these regions, a curious optical
phenomena may be observed, of a _sunrise_ in the _west,_ and _sunset_
in the _east._ In either case, bright and well-defined beams rise to
the zenith, often crossing to the opposite horizon. It is a beautiful
feature in the firmament, and equally visible whether the horizon be
cloudy or clear, the white beams being projected indifferently
against a dark vapour or the blue serene. The zodiacal light shines
from an hour or two after sunset till midnight, with singular
brightness, almost equalling the milky way.

_March_ 7.-Left Shahgunj for Mirzapore, following the road to
Goorawal, over a dead alluvial flat without a feature to remark.
Turning north from that village, the country undulates, exposing the
rocky nucleus, and presenting the usual concomitant vegetation.
Occasionally park-like views occurred, which, where diversified by
the rocky valleys, resemble much the noble scenery of the Forest of
Dean on the borders of Wales; the _Mahowa_ especially
representing the oak, with its spreading and often gnarled branches.
Many of the exposed slabs of sandstone are beautifully waved on the
surface with the _ripple-mark_ impression.

Amowee, where I arrived at 9 p.m., is on an open grassy flat, about
fifteen miles from the Ganges, which is seen from the neighbourhood,
flowing among trees, with the white houses, domes, and temples of
Mirzapore scattered around, and high above which the dust-clouds were
coursing along the horizon.

Mr. Money, the magistrate of Mirzapore, kindly sent a mounted
messenger to meet me here, who had vast trouble in getting bearers
for my palkee. In it I proceeded the next day to Mirzapore,
descending a steep ghat of the Bind hills by an excellent road, to
the level plains of the Ganges. Unlike the Dunwah pass, this is
wholly barren. At the foot the sun was intensely hot, the roads
alternately rocky and dusty, the villages thronged with a widely
different looking race from those of the hills, and the whole air of
the outskirts, on a sultry afternoon, far from agreeable.

Mirzapore is a straggling town, said to contain 100,000 inhabitants.
It flanks the river, and is built on an undulating alluvial bank,
full of kunker, elevated 360 feet above the sea, and from 50 to 80
above the present level of the river. The vicinity of the Ganges and
its green bank, and the numbers of fine trees around, render it a
pleasing, though not a fine town. It presents the usual Asiatic
contrast of squalor and gaudiness; consisting of large squares and
broad streets, interspersed with acres of low huts and groves of
trees. It is celebrated for its manufactory of carpets, which are
admirable in appearance, and, save in durability, equal to the
English. Indigo seed from Bundelkund is also a most extensive article
of commerce, the best coming from the Doab. For cotton, lac, sugar,
and saltpetre, it is one of the greatest marts in India. The articles
of native manufacture are brass washing and cooking utensils, and
stone deities worked out of the sandstone.

There is little native vegetation, the country being covered with
cultivation and extensive groves of mango, and occasionally of guava.
English vegetables are abundant and excellent, and the strawberries,
which ripen in March, rival the European fruit in size, but hardly
in flavour.

During the few days spent at Mirzapore with my kind friend, Mr. C.
Hamilton, I was surprised to find the temperature of the day cooler
by nearly 4 degrees than that of the hills above, or of the upper
part of the Soane valley; while on the other hand the nights were
decidedly warmer. The dewpoint again was even lower in proportion,
(72 degrees) and the climate consequently drier. The atmosphere was
extremely dry and electrical, the hair constantly crackling when
combed. Further west, where the climate becomes still drier, the
electricity of the air is even greater. Mr. Griffith mentions in his
journal that in filling barometer tubes in Affghanistan, he
constantly experienced a shock.

Here I had the pleasure of meeting Lieutenant Ward, one of the
suppressors of Thuggee (_Thuggee,_ in Hindostan, signifies a
deceiver; fraud, not open force, being employed). This gentleman
kindly showed me the approvers or king's evidence of his
establishment, belonging to those three classes of human scourges,
the Thug, Dakoit, and Poisoner. Of these the first was the Thug, a
mild-looking man, who had been born and bred to the profession: he
had committed many murders, saw no harm in them, and felt neither
shame nor remorse. His organs of observation and destructiveness were
large, and the cerebellum small. He explained to me how the gang
waylay the unwary traveller, enter into conversation with him, and
have him suddenly seized, when the superior throws his own linen
girdle round the victim's neck and strangles him, pressing the
knuckles against the spine. Taking off his own, he passed it round my
arm, and showed me the turn as coolly as a sailor once taught me the
_hangman's knot._ The Thug is of any caste, and from any part
of India. The profession have particular stations, which they
generally select for murder, throwing the body of their victim into
a well.

The Dakoit (_dakhee,_ a robber) belongs to a class who rob in
gangs, but never commit murder--arson and housebreaking also forming
part of their profession. These are all high-class Rajpoots,
originally from Guzerat; who, on being conquered, vowed vengeance on
mankind. They speak both Hindostanee and the otherwise extinct
Guzerat language; this is guttural in the extreme, and very singular
in sound. They are a very remarkable people, found throughout India,
and called by various names; their women dress peculiarly, and are
utterly devoid of modesty. The man I examined was a short, square,
but far from powerful Nepalese, with high arched eyebrows, and no
organs of observation. These people are great cowards.

The Poisoners all belong to one caste, of Pasie, or dealers in toddy:
they go singly or in gangs, haunting the travellers' resting-places,
where they drop half a rupee weight of pounded or whole _Datura_
seeds into his food, producing a twenty-hours' intoxication, during
which he is robbed, and left to recover or sink under the stupifying
effects of the narcotic. He told me that the _Datura_ seed is
gathered without ceremony, and at any time, place, or age of the
plant. He was a dirty, ill-conditioned looking fellow, with no bumps
behind his ears, or prominence of eyebrow region, but a remarkable
cerebellum.

Though now all but extinct (except in Cuttack), through ten or
fifteen years of unceasing vigilance on the part of Government, and
incredible activity and acuteness in the officers employed, the Thugs
were formerly a wonderfully numerous body, who abstained from their
vocation solely in the immediate neighbourhood of their own villages;
which, however, were not exempt from the visits of other Thugs; so
that, as Major Sleeman says,--"The annually returning tide of murder
swept unsparingly over the whole face of India, from the Sutlej to
the sea-coast, and from the Himalaya to Cape Comorin. One narrow
district alone was free, the Concan, beyond the ghats, whither they
never penetrated." In Bengal, river Thugs replace the travelling
practitioner. Candeish and Rohilkund alone harboured no Thugs as
residents, but they were nevertheless haunted by the gangs.

Their origin is uncertain, but supposed to be very ancient, soon
after the Mahommedan conquest. They now claim a divine original, and
are supposed to have supernatural powers, and to be the emissaries of
the divinity, like the wolf, the tiger, and the bear. It is only
lately that they have swarmed so prodigiously,--seven original gangs
having migrated from Delhi to the Gangetic provinces about 200 years
ago, and from these all the rest have sprung. Many belong to the most
amiable, intelligent, and respectable classes of the lower and even
middle ranks: they love their profession, regard murder as sport, and
are never haunted with dreams, or troubled with pangs of conscience
during hours of solitude, or in the last moments of life. The victim
is an acceptable sacrifice to the goddess Davee, who by some classes
is supposed to eat the lifeless body, and thus save her votaries the
necessity of concealing it.

They are extremely superstitious, always consulting omens, such as
the direction in which a hare or jackall crosses the road; and even
far more trivial circumstances will determine the fate of a dozen of
people, and perhaps of an immense treasure. All worship the pickaxe,
which is symbolical of their profession, and an oath sworn on it
binds closer than on the Koran. The consecration of this weapon is a
most elaborate ceremony, and takes place only under certain trees.
They rise through various grades: the lowest are scouts; the second,
sextons; the third are holders of the victims' hands; the highest,
stranglers.

Though all agree in never practising cruelty, or robbing previous to
murder, never allowing any but infants to escape (and these are
trained to Thuggee), and never leaving a trace of such goods as may
be identified, there are several variations in their mode of
conducting operations; some tribes spare certain castes, others none:
murder of woman is against all rules; but the practice crept into
certain gangs, and this it is which led to their discountenance by
the goddess Davee, and the consequent downfall of the system.
Davee, they say, allowed the British to punish them, because a
certain gang had murdered the mothers to obtain their daughters to be
sold to prostitution.

Major Sleeman has constructed a map demonstrating the number of
"Bails," or regular stations for committing murder, in the kingdom of
Oude alone, which is 170 miles long by 100 broad, and in which are
274, which are regarded by the Thug with as much satisfaction and
interest as a game preserve is in England: nor are these "bails" less
numerous in other parts of India. Of twenty assassins who were
examined, one frankly confessed to having been engaged in 931
murders, and the least guilty of the number to 24. Sometimes 150
persons collected into one gang, and their profits have often been
immense, the murder of six persons on one occasion yielding 82,000
rupees; upwards of 8000 pounds.

Of the various facilities for keeping up the system, the most
prominent are, the practice amongst the natives of travelling before
dawn, of travellers mixing freely together, and taking their meals by
the way-side instead of in villages; in the very Bails, in fact, to
which they are inveigled by the Thug in the shape of a
fellow-traveller; money remittances are also usually made by
disguised travellers, whose treasure is exposed at the custom-houses,
and, worst of all, the bankers will never own to the losses they
sustain, which, as a visitation of God, would, if avenged, lead, they
think, to future, and perhaps heavier punishment. Had the Thugs
destroyed Englishmen, they would quickly have been put down; but the
system being invariably practised on a class of people acknowledging
the finger of the Deity in its execution, its glaring enormities were
long in rousing the attention of the Indian Government.

A few examples of the activity exercised by the suppressors may be
interesting. They act wholly through the information given by
approvers, who are simply king's evidences. Of 600 Thugs engaged in
the murder of 64 people, and the plunder of nearly 20,000 pounds, all
except seventy were captured in ten years, though separated into six
gangs, and their operations continued from 1826 to 1830:
the last party was taken in 1836. And again, between the years 1826
and 1835, 1562 Thugs were seized, of whom 382 were hanged, and 909
transported; so that now it is but seldom these wretches are ever
heard of.

To show the extent of their operations I shall quote an anecdote from
Sleeman's Reports (to which I am indebted for most of the above
information). He states that he was for three years in charge of a
district on the Nerbudda, and considered himself acquainted with
every circumstance that occurred in the neighbourhood; yet, during
that time, 100 people were murdered and buried within less than a
quarter of a mile of his own residence!

Two hundred and fifty boats full of river Thugs, in crews of fifteen,
infested the Ganges between Benares and Calcutta, during five months
of every year, under pretence of conveying pilgrims. Travellers along
the banks were tracked, and offered a passage, which if refused in
the first boat was probably accepted in some other. At a given signal
the crews rushed in, doubled up the decoyed victim, broke his back,
and threw him into the river, where floating corpses are too numerous
to elicit even an exclamation.

At Mirzapore I engaged a boat to carry me down the river to
Bhagulpore, whence I was to proceed to the Sikkim-Himalaya.
The vessel, which, though slow and very shabby, had the advantage of
being cooler and more commodious than the handsomer craft.
Its appearance was not unlike that of a floating haystack, or
thatched cottage: its length was forty feet, and breadth fifteen, and
it drew a foot and a half of water: the deck, on which a kind of
house, neatly framed of matting, was erected, was but a little above
the water's edge. My portion of this floating residence was lined
with a kind of reed-work formed of long culms of _Saccharum._
The crew and captain consisted of six naked Hindoos, one of whom
steered by the huge rudder, sitting on a bamboo-stage astern; the
others pulled four oars in the very bows opposite my door, or tracked
the boat along the riverbank.

In my room (for cabin I cannot call it) stood my palkee, fitted as a
bed, with mosquito curtains; a chair and table. On one side were
placed all my papers and plants, under arrangement to go home; on the
other, my provisions, rice, sugar, curry-powder, a preserved ham, and
cheese, etc. Around hung telescope, botanical box, dark lantern,
barometer, and thermometer, etc., etc. Our position was often
_ashore,_ and, Hindoo-like, on the lee-shore, going bump, bump,
bump, so that I could hardly write. I considered myself fortunate in
having to take this slow conveyance down, it enabling me to write and
arrange all day long.

I left on the 15th of March, and in the afternoon of the same day
passed Chunar.* [The first station at which Henry Martyn laboured in
India.] This is a tabular mass of sandstone, projecting into the
river, and the eastern termination of the Kymore range. There is not
a rock between this and the Himalaya, and barely a stone all the way
down the Ganges, till the granite and gneiss rocks of the Behar range
are again met with. The current of the Ganges is here very strong,
and its breadth much lessened: the river runs between high banks of
alluvium, containing much kunker. At Benares it expands into a broad
stream, with a current which during the rains is said to flow eight
miles an hour, when the waters rise 43 feet. The fall hence is 300
feet to its junction with the Hooghly, viz., one foot to every mile.
My observations made that from Mirzapore to Benares considerably
greater.

Benares is the Athens of India. The variety of buildings along the
bank is incredible. There are temples of every shape in all stages of
completion and dilapidation, and at all angles of inclination; for
the banks give way so much that many of these edifices are fearfully
out of the perpendicular.

The famed mosque, built by Aurungzebe on the site of a Hindoo temple,
is remarkable for its two octagonal minarets, 232 feet above the
Ganges. The view from it over the town, especially of the European
Resident's quarter, is fine; but the building itself is deficient in
beauty or ornament: it commands the muddy river with its thousands of
boats, its waters peopled with swimmers and bathers, who spring in
from the many temples, water-terraces, and ghats on the city side:
opposite is a great sandy plain. The town below looks a mass of poor,
square, flat-roofed houses, of which 12,000 are brick, and 16,000 mud
and thatch, through the crowd of which, and of small temples, the eye
wanders in vain for some attractive feature or evidence of the
wealth, the devotion, the science, or the grandeur of a city
celebrated throughout the East for all these attributes. Green
parrots and pigeons people the air.

The general appearance of an oriental town is always more or less
ruinous; and here the eye is fatigued with bricks and crumbling
edifices, and the ear with prayer-bells. The bright meadows and green
trees which adorn the European Resident's dwelling, some four miles
back from the river, alone relieve the monotony of the scene.
The streets are so narrow that it is difficult to ride a horse
through them; and the houses are often six stories high, with
galleries crossing above from house to house. These tall, gaunt
edifices sometimes give place to clumps of cottages, and a mass of
dusty ruins, the unsavoury retreats of vermin and filth, where the
_Calotropis arborea_ generally spreads its white branches and
glaucous leaves--a dusty plant. Here, too, enormous spiders' webs
hang from the crumbling walls, choked also with dust, and resembling
curtains of coarse muslin, being often some yards across, and not
arranged in radii and arcs, but spun like weaver's woofs.
Paintings, remarkable only for their hideous proportions and want of
perspective, are daubed in vermilion, ochre, and indigo.
The elephant, camel, and porpoise of the Ganges, dog, shepherd,
peacock, and horse, are especially frequent, and so is a running
pattern of a hand spread open, with a blood-red spot on the palm.
A still less elegant but frequent object is the fuel, which is
composed of the manure collected on the roads of the city, moulded
into flat cakes, and stuck by the women on the walls to dry,
retaining the sign-manual of the artist in the impressed form of her
outspread hand. The cognizance of the Rajah, two fish chained
together, appears over the gates of public buildings.

The hundreds of temples and shrines throughout the city are its most
remarkable feature: sacred bulls, and lingams of all sizes, strewed
with flowers and grains of rice meet the eye at every turn; and the
city's boast is the possession of one million idols, which, of one
kind and another, I can well believe. The great Hindoo festival of
the _Holi_ was now celebrating, and the city more than
ordinarily crowded; throwing red powder (lac and flour), with
rose-water, is the great diversion at a festival more childish by far
than a carnival.

Through the kindness of Mr. Reade (the Commissioner), I obtained
admission to the Bishishar-Kumardil, the "holiest of holies." It was
a small, low, stone building, daubed with red inside, and swarming
with stone images of Brahminee bulls, and various disgusting emblems.
A fat old Brahmin, naked to the waist, took me in, but allowed no
followers; and what with my ignorance of his phraseology, the clang
of bells and din of voices, I gained but little information.
Some fine bells from Nepal were evidently the lion of the temple.
I emerged, adorned with a chaplet of magnolia flowers, and with my
hands full of _Calotropis_ and _Nyctanthes_ blossoms.
It was a horrid place for noise, smell, and sights. Thence I went to
a holy well, rendered sacred because Siva, when stepping from the
Himalaya to Ceylon, accidentally let a medicine chest fall into it.
The natives frequent it with little basins or baskets of rice, sugar,
etc., dropping in a little of each while they mutter prayers.

Illustration -- EQUATORIAL-SUNDIAL

The observatory at Benares, and those at Delhi, Matra on the Jumna,
and Oujein, were built by Jey-Sing, Rajah of Jayanagar, upwards of
200 years ago; his skill in mathematical science was so well known,
that the Emperor Mahommed Shah employed him to reform the calendar.
Mr. Hunter, in the "Asiatic Researches," gives a translation of the
lucubrations of this really enlightened man, as contained in the
introduction to his own almanac.

Illustration -- EQUINOCTIAL SUN-DIAL.

Of the more important instruments I took sketches; No. 1, is the
Naree-wila, or Equatorial dial; No. 2, the Semrat-yunta, or
Equinoctial dial; No. 3, an Equatorial,  probably a Kranti-urit, or
Azimuth circle.* [Hunter, in As Soc. Researches, 177 (Calcutta); Sir
R. Barker in Phil. Trans., lxvii. 608 (1777); J. L. Williams, Phil.
Trans., lxxxiii. 45 (1793).] Jey-Sing's genius and love of science
seem, according to Hunter, to have descended to some of his family,
who died early in this century, when "Urania fled before the
brazen-fronted Mars, and the best of the observatories, that of
Oujein, was turned into an arsenal and cannon foundry."

Illustration -- BRASS AZIMUTH CIRCLE

The observatory is still the most interesting object in Benares,
though it is now dirty and ruinous, and the great stone instruments
are rapidly crumbling away. The building is square, with a central
court and flat roof, round which the astrolabes, etc. are arranged.
A half naked Astronomer-Royal, with a large sore on his stomach, took
me round--he was a pitiful object, and told me he was very hungry.
The observatory is nominally supported by the Rajah of Jeypore, who
doles out a too scanty pittance to his scientific corps.

In the afternoon Mr. Reade drove me to the Sar-nath, a singular
Boodhist temple, a cylindrical mass of brickwork, faced with stone,
the scrolls on which were very beautiful, and as sharp as if freshly
cut: it is surmounted by a tall dome, and is altogether about seventy
or a hundred feet high. Of the Boodh figures only one remains, the
others having been used by a recent magistrate of Benares in
repairing a bridge over the Goomtee! From this place the Boodhist
monuments, Hindoo temple, Mussulman mosque, and English church, were
all embraced in one _coup d'oeil._ On our return, we drove past
many enormous mounds of earth and brick-work, the vestiges of Old
Benares, but whether once continued to the present city or not is
unknown. Remains are abundant, eighteen feet below the site of the
present city.

Benares is the Mecca of the Hindoos, and the number of pilgrims who
visit it is incalculable. Casi (its ancient name, signifying
splendid), is alleged to be no part of this world, which rests on
eternity, whereas Benares is perched on a prong of Siva's trident,
and is hence beyond the reach of earthquakes.* [Probably an allusion
to the infrequency of these phenomena in this meridian; they being
common both in Eastern Bengal, and in Western India beyond the
Ganges.] Originally built of gold, the sins of the inhabitants were
punished by its transmutation into stone, and latterly into mud and
thatch: whoever enters it, and especially visits its principal idol
(Siva fossilised) is secure of heaven.

On the 18th I left Benares for Ghazepore, a pretty town situated on
the north bank of the river, celebrated for its manufacture of
rose-water, the tomb of Lord Cornwallis, and a site of the Company's
stud. The Rose gardens surround the town: they are fields, with low
bushes of the plant grown in rows, red with blossoms in the morning,
all of which are, however, plucked long before midday. The petals are
put into clay stills, with twice their weight of water, and the
produce exposed to the fresh air, for a night, in open vessels.
The unskimmed water affords the best, and it is often twice and even
oftener distilled; but the fluid deteriorates by too much
distillation. The Attar is skimmed from the exposed pans, and sells
at 10 pounds the rupee weight, to make which 20,000 flowers are
required. It is frequently adulterated with sandal-wood oil.

Lord Cornwallis' mausoleum is a handsome building, modelled by
Flaxman after the Sybil's Temple. The allegorical designs of Hindoos
and sorrowing soldiers with reversed arms, which decorate two sides
of the enclosed tomb, though perhaps as good as can be, are under any
treatment unclassical and uncouth. The simple laurel and oak-leaf
chaplets on the alternating faces are far more suitable
and suggestive.

_March_ 21.--I left Ghazepore and dropped down the Ganges; the
general features of which are soon described. A strong current four
or five miles broad, of muddy water, flows between a precipitous bank
of alluvium or sand on one side, and a flat shelving one of sand or
more rarely mud, on the other. Sand-banks are frequent in the river,
especially where the great affluents debouche; and there generally
are formed vast expanses of sand, small "Saharas," studded with
stalking pillars of sand, raised seventy or eighty feet high by gusts
of wind, erect, stately, grave-looking columns, all shaft, with
neither basement nor capital, the genii of the "Arabian Nights."
The river is always dotted with boats of all shapes, mine being
perhaps of the most common description; the great square, Yankee-like
steamers, towing their accommodation-boats (as the passengers'
floating hotels are called), are the rarest. Trees are few on the
banks, except near villages, and there is hardly a palm to be seen
above Patna. Towns are unfrequent, such as there are being mere
collections of huts, with the ghat and boats at the bottom of the
bank; and at a respectful distance from the bazaar, stand the neat
bungalows of the European residents, with their smiling gardens,
hedgings and fencings, and loitering servants at the door. A rotting
charpoy (or bedstead) on the banks is a common sight, the "_sola
reliquia_" of some poor Hindoo, who departs this life by the side
of the stream, to which his body is afterwards committed.

Shoals of small goggled-eyed fish are seen, that spring clear out of
the water; and are preyed upon by terns and other birds; a few
insects skim the surface; turtle and porpoises tumble along, all
forming a very busy contrast to the lazy alligator, sunning his green
and scaly back near the shore, with his ichthyosaurian snout raised
high above the water. Birds are numerous, especially early and late
in the day. Along the silent shore the hungry Pariah dog may be seen
tearing his meal from some stranded corpse, whilst the adjutant-bird,
with his head sunk on his body and one leg tucked up, patiently
awaits his turn. At night the beautiful Brahminee geese alight, one
by one, and seek total solitude; ever since having disturbed a god in
his slumbers, these birds are fated to pass the night in single
blessedness. The gulls and terns, again, roost in flocks, as do the
wild geese and pelicans,--the latter, however, not till after making
a hearty and very noisy supper. These birds congregate by the sides
of pools, and beat the water with violence, so as to scare the fish,
which thus become an easy prey; a fact which was, I believe, first
indicated by Pallas, during his residence on the banks of the Caspian
Sea. Shells are scarce, and consist of a few small bivalves; their
comparative absence is probably due to the paucity of limestone in
the mountains whence the many feeders flow. The sand is pure white
and small-grained, with fragments of hornblende and mica, the latter
varying in abundance as a feeder is near or far away. Pink sand* [I
have seen the same garnet sand covering the bottom of the Himalayan
torrents, where it is the produce of disintegrated gneiss, and whence
it is transported to the Ganges.] of garnets is very common, and
deposited in layers interstratified with the white quartz sand.
Worm-marks, ripple-marks, and the footsteps of alligators, birds and
beasts, abound in the wet sand. The vegetation of the banks consists
of annuals which find no permanent resting-place. Along the sandy
shores the ever-present plants are mostly English, as Dock, a
_Nasturtium, Ranunculus sceleratus, Fumitory, Juncus bufonius,_,
Common Vervain, _Gnaphalium luteo-album,_ and very frequently
_Veronica Anagallise._ On the alluvium grow the same, mixed with
Tamarisk, _Acacia Arabica,_ and a few other bushes.

Withered grass abounds; and wheat, dhal (_Cajanus_) and gram
(_Cicer arietinum_), _Carthamus,_ vetches, and rice are the
staple products of the country. Bushes are few, except the
universally prevalent Adhatoda and _Calotropis._ Trees, also,
are rare, and of stunted growth; Figs, the _Artocarpus_ and some
_Leguminosa_ prevail most. I saw but two kinds of palm, the
fan-palm, and _Phoenix_: the latter is characteristic of the
driest locality. Then, for the animal creation, men, women, and
children abound, both on the banks, and plying up and down the
Ganges. The humped cow (of which the ox is used for draught) is
common. Camels I occasionally observed, and more rarely the elephant;
poneys, goats, and dogs muster strong. Porpoises and alligators
infest the river, even above Benares. Flies and mosquitos are
terrible pests; and so are the odious flying-bugs,* [Large
Hemipterlus insects, of the genus _Derecteryx._] which insinuate
themselves between one's skin and clothes, diffusing a dreadful
odour, which is increased by any attempt to touch or remove them.
In the evening it was impossible to keep insects out of the boat, or
to hinder their putting the lights out; and of these the most
intolerable was the abovementioned flying-bug. Saucy crickets, too,
swarm, and spring up at one's face, whilst mosquitos maintain a
constant guerilla warfare, trying to the patience no less than to the
nerves. Thick webs of the gossamer spider float across the river
during the heat of the day, as coarse as fine thread, and being
inhaled keep tickling the nose and lips.

On the 18th, the morning commenced with a dust-storm, the horizon was
about 20 yards off, and ashy white with clouds of sand; the trees
were scarcely visible, and everything in my boat was covered with a
fine coat of impalpable powder, collected from the boundless alluvial
plains through which the Ganges flows. Trees were scarcely
discernible, and so dry was the wind that drops of water vanished
like magic. Neither ferns, mosses, nor lichens grow along the banks
of the Ganges, they cannot survive the transition from parching like
this to the three months' floods at midsummer, when the country is
for miles under water.

_March_ 23.--Passed the mouth of the Soane, a vast expanse of
sand dotted with droves of camels; and soon after, the wide-spread
spits of sand along the north bank announced the mouth of the Gogra,
one of the vastest of the many Himalayan affluents of the Ganges.

On the 25th of March I reached Dinapore, a large military station,
sufficiently insalubrious, particularly for European troops, the
barracks being so misplaced that the inmates are suffocated: the
buildings run east and west instead of north and south, and therefore
lose all the breeze in the hottest weather. From this place I sent
the boat down to Patna, and proceeded thither by land to the house of
Dr. Irvine, an old acquaintance and botanist, from whom I received a
most kind welcome. On the road, Bengal forms of vegetation, to which
I had been for three months a stranger, reappeared; likewise groves
of fan and toddy palms, which are both very rare higher up the river;
clumps of large bamboo, orange, _Acacia Sissoo, Melia, Guatteria
longifolia, Spondias mangifera, Odina, Euphorbia pentagona,
neriifolia_ and _trigona,_ were common road-side plants.
In the gardens, Papaw, _Croton, Jatropha, Buddleia, Cookia,_
Loquat, Litchi, Longan, all kinds of the orange tribe, and the
cocoa-nut, some from their presence, and many from their profusion,
indicated a decided change of climate, a receding from the desert
north-west of India, and its dry winds, and an approach to the damper
regions of the many-mouthed Ganges.

My main object at Patna being to see the opium Godowns (stores), I
waited on Dr. Corbett, the Assistant-Agent, who kindly explained
everything to me, and to whose obliging attentions I am much indebted.

The E.I. Company grant licences for the cultivation of the poppy, and
contract for all the produce at certain rates, varying with the
quality. No opium can be grown without this licence, and an advance
equal to about two-thirds of the value of the produce is made to the
grower. This produce is made over to district collectors, who
approximately fix the worth of the contents of each jar, and forward
it to Patna, where rewards are given for the best samples, and the
worst are condemned without payment; but all is turned to some
account in the reduction of the drug to a state fit for market.

The poppy flowers in the end of January and beginning of February,
and the capsules are sliced in February and March with a little
instrument like a saw, made of three iron plates with jagged edges,
tied together. The cultivation is very carefully conducted, nor are
there any very apparent means of improving this branch of commerce
and revenue. During the N.W., or dry winds, the best opium is
procured, the worst during the moist, or E. and N.E., when the drug
imbibes moisture, and a watery bad solution of opium collects in
cavities of its substance, and is called Passewa, according to the
absence of which the opium is generally prized.

At the end of March the opium jars arrive at the stores by water and
by land, and continue accumulating for some weeks. Every jar is
labelled and stowed in a proper place, separately tested with extreme
accuracy, and valued. When the whole quantity has been received, the
contents of all the jars are thrown into great vats, occupying a very
large building, whence the mass is distributed, to be made up into
balls for the markets. This operation is carried on in a long paved
room, where every man is ticketed, and many overseers are stationed
to see that the work is properly conducted. Each workman sits on a
stool, with a double stage and a tray before him. On the top stage is
a tin basin, containing opium sufficient for three balls; in the
lower another basin, holding water: in the tray stands a brass
hemispherical cup, in which the ball is worked. To the man's right
hand is another tray, with two compartments, one containing thin
pancakes of poppy petals pressed together, the other a cupful of
sticky opium-water, made from refuse opium. The man takes the brass
cup, and places a pancake at the bottom, smears it with opium-water,
and with many plies of the pancakes makes a coat for the opium. Of
this he takes about one-third of the mass before him, puts it inside
the petals, and agglutinates many other coats over it: the balls are
then again weighed, and reduced or increased to a certain weight if
necessary. At the day's end, each man takes his work to a rack with
numbered compartments, and deposits it in that which answers to his
own number, thence the balls (each being put in a clay cup) are
carried to an enormous drying-room, where they are exposed in tiers,
and constantly examined and turned, to prevent their being attacked
by weevils, which are very prevalent during moist winds, little boys
creeping along the racks all day long for this purpose. When dry, the
balls are packed in two layers of six each in chests, with the
stalks, dried leaves, and capsules of the plant, and sent down to
Calcutta. A little opium is prepared of very fine quality for the
Government Hospitals, and some for general sale in India; but the
proportion is trifling, and such is made up into square cakes. A good
workman will prepare from thirty to fifty balls a day, the total
produce being 10,000 to 12,000 a day; during one working season
1,353,000 balls are manufactured for the Chinese market alone.

The poppy-petal _pancakes,_ each about a foot radius, are made
in the fields by women, by the simple operation of pressing the fresh
petals together. They are brought in large baskets, and purchased at
the commencement of the season. The liquor with which the pancakes
are agglutinated together by the ball-maker, and worked into the
ball, is merely inspissated opium-water, the opium for which is
derived from the condemned opium, (Passewa,) the washing of the
utensils, and of the workmen, every one of whom is nightly laved
before he leaves the establishment, and the water is inspissated.
Thus not a particle of opium is lost. To encourage the farmers, the
refuse stalks, leaves, and heads are bought up, to pack the balls
with; but this is far from an economical plan, for it is difficult to
keep the refuse from damp and insects.

A powerful smell of opium pervaded these vast buildings, which Dr.
Corbett* [I am greatly indebted to Mr. Oldfield, the Opium Agent, and
to Dr. Corbett, for a complete set of specimens, implements, and
drawings, illustrating the cultivation and manufacture of Opium.
They are exhibited in the Kew Museum of Economic Botany.] assured me
did not affect himself or the assistants. The men work ten hours a
day, becoming sleepy in the afternoon; but this is only natural in
the hot season: they are rather liable to eruptive diseases, possibly
engendered by the nature of their occupation.

Even the best East Indian opium is inferior to the Turkish, and owing
to peculiarities of climate, will probably always be so. It never
yields more than five per cent. of morphia, whence its inferiority,
but is as good in other respects, and even richer in narcotine.

The care and attention devoted to every department of collecting,
testing, manipulating, and packing, is quite extraordinary; and the
result has been an impulse to the trade, beyond what was anticipated.
The natives have been quick at apprehending and supplying the wants
of the market, and now there are more demands for licences to grow
opium than can be granted. All the opium eaten in India is given out
with a permit to licensed dealers, and the drug is so adulterated
before it reaches the retailers in the bazaars, that it does not
contain one-thirtieth part of the intoxicating power that it did
when pure.

Patna is the stronghold of Mahommedanism, and from its central
position, its command of the Ganges, and its proximity to Nepal
(which latter has been aptly compared to a drawn dagger, pointed at
the heart of India), it is an important place. For this reason there
are always a European and several Native Regiments stationed there.
In the neighbourbood there is little to be seen, and the highly
cultivated flat country is unfavourable to native vegetation.

The _mudar_ plant (_Calotropis_) was abundant here, but I
found that its properties and nomenclature were far from settled
points. On the banks of the Ganges, the larger, white-flowered,
sub-arboreous species prevailed; in the interior, and along my whole
previous route, the smaller purple-flowered kind only was seen.
Mr. Davis, of Rotas, was in the habit of using the medicine
copiously, and vouched for the cure of eighty cases, chiefly of
leprosy, by the _white mudar,_ gathered on the Ganges, whilst
the purple of Rotas and the neighbourhood was quite inert:
Dr. Irvine, again, used the purple only, and found the white inert.
The European and native doctors, who knew the two plants, all gave
the preference to the white; except Dr. Irvine, whose experience over
various parts of India is entitled to great weight.

_March_ 29.--Dropped down the river, experiencing a succession
of east and north-east winds during the whole remainder of the
voyage. These winds are very prevalent throughout the month of March,
and they rendered the passage in my sluggish boat sufficiently
tedious. In other respects I had but little bad weather to complain
of: only one shower of rain occurred, and but few storms of thunder
and lightning. The stream is very strong, and its action on the
sand-banks conspicuous. All night I used to hear the falling cliffs
precipitated with a dull heavy splash into the water,--a pretty
spectacle in the day-time, when the whirling current is seen to carry
a cloud of white dust, like smoke, along its course.

The Curruckpore hills, the northern boundary of the gneiss and
granite range of Paras-nath, are seen first in the distance, and then
throwing out low loosely timbered spurs towards the river; but no
rock or hill comes close to the banks till near Monghyr, where two
islets of rock rise out of the bed of the river. They are of
stratified quartz, dipping, at a high angle, to the south-east; and,
as far as I could observe, quite barren, each crowned with a little
temple. The swarm of boats from below Patna to this place was
quite incredible.

_April_ 1.--Arrived at Monghyr, by far the prettiest town I had
seen on the river, backed by a long range of wooded hills,--detached
outliers of which rise in the very town. The banks are steep, and
they appear more so owing to the fortifications, which are extensive.
A number of large, white, two-storied houses, some very imposing, and
perched on rounded or conical hills, give a European aspect to
the place.

Monghyr is celebrated for its iron manufactures, especially of
muskets, in which respect it is the Birmingham of Bengal. Generally
speaking, these weapons are poor, though stamped with the first
English names. A native workman will, however, if time and sufficient
reward be given, turn out a first rate fowling-piece. The inhabitants
are reported to be sad drunkards, and the abundance of toddy-palms
was quite remarkable. The latter, (here the _Phoenix sylvestris,)
I never saw wild, but it is considered to be so in N.W. India; it is
still a doubtful point whether it is the same as the African species.
In the morning of the following day I went to the hot springs of
Seeta-koond (wells of Seeta), a few miles south of the town.

Illustration -- MONGHYR ON THE GANGES, WITH THE CURROCKPORE HILLS IN
THE DISTANCE.

The hills are hornstone and quartz, stratified and dipping southerly
with a very high angle; they are very barren, and evidently identical
with those on the south bank of the Soane; skirting, in both cases,
the granite and gneiss range of Paras-nath. The alluvium on the banks
of the Ganges is obviously an aqueous deposit subsequent to the
elevation of these hills, and is perfectly plane up to their bases.
The river has its course through the alluvium, like the Soane.
The depth of the former is in many places upwards of 100 feet, and
the kunker pebbles it contains are often disposed in parallel
undulating bands. It nowhere contains sand pebbles or fossils;
concretions of lime (kunker) alone interrupting its uniform
consistence. It attains its greatest thickness in the valleys of the
Ganges and the Soane, gradually sloping up to the Himalaya and
Curruckpore hills on either flank. It is, however, well developed on
the Kymore and Paras-nath hills, 1200 to 1500 feet above the Ganges
valley, and I have no doubt was deposited in very deep water, when
the relative positions of these mountains to the Ganges and Soane
valleys were the same that they are now. Like every other part of the
surface of India, it has suffered much from denudation, especially on
the above-named mountains, and around their bases, where various
rocks protrude through it. Along the Ganges again, its surface is an
unbroken level between Chunar and the rocks of Monghyr. The origin of
its component mineral matter must be sought in the denudation of the
Himalayas within a very recent geological period. The contrast
between the fertility of the alluvium and the sterility of the
protruded quartzy rocks is very striking, cultivation running up to
these fields of stones, and suddenly stopping.

Unlike the Soorujkoond hot-springs, those of Seetakoond rise in a
plain, and were once covered by a handsome temple. All the water is
collected in a tank, some yards square, with steps leading down to
it. The water, which is clear and tasteless (temp. 104 degrees), is
so pure as to be exported copiously, and the Monghyr manufactory of
soda-water presents the anomaly of owing its purity to Seeta's
ablutions.

On my passage down the river I passed the picturesque rocks of
Sultangunj; they are similar to those of Monghyr, but very much
larger and loftier. One, a round-headed mass, stands on the bank,
capped with a triple-domed Mahommedan tomb, palms, and figs.
The other, which is far more striking, rises isolated in the bed of
the river, and is crowned with a Hindoo temple, its pyramidal cone
surmounted with a curious pile of weathercocks, and two little
banners. The current of the Ganges is here very strong, and runs in
deep black eddies between the rocks.

Though now perhaps eighty or a hundred yards from the shore, the
islet must have been recently a peninsula, for it retains a portion
of the once connecting bank of alluvium, in the form of a short
flat-topped cliff, about thirty feet above the water. Some curious
looking sculptures on the rocks are said to represent Naragur (or
Vishnu), Suree and Sirooj; but to me they were quite unintelligible.
The temple is dedicated to Naragur, and inhabited by Fakirs; it is
the most holy on the Ganges.

_April_ 5.--I arrived at Bhagulpore, and took up my quarters
with my friend Dr. Grant, till he should arrange my dawk for Sikkim.

The town has been supposed to be the much-sought Palibothra, and a
dirty stream hard by (the Chundum), the Eranoboas; but Mr. Ravenshaw
has now brought all existing proofs to bear on Patna and the Soane.
It is, like most hilly places in India, S. of the Himalaya, the seat
of much Jain worship; and the temples on Mount Manden,* [For the
following information about Bhagulpore and its neighbourhood, I am
indebted chiefly to Col. Francklin's essay in the Asiatic Researches;
and the late Major Napleton and Mr. Pontet.] a few miles off, are
said to have been 540 in number. At the assumed summer-palaces of the
kings of Palibothra the ground is covered with agates, brought from
the neighbouring hills, which were, in a rough state, let into the
walls of the buildings. These agates perfectly resemble the Soane
pebbles, and they assist in the identification of these flanking
hills with those of the latter river.

Again, near the hills, the features of interest are very numerous.
The neighbouring mountains of Curruckpore, which are a portion of the
Rajmahal and Paras-nath range, are peopled by tribes representing the
earliest races of India, prior to the invasion of young Rama, prince
of Oude, who, according to the legend, spread Brahminism with his
conquests, and won the hand of King Jannuk's daughter, Seeta, by
bending her father's bow. These people are called Coles, a
middle-sized, strong, very dark, and black-haired race, with thick
lips: they have no vocation but collecting iron from the soil, which
occurs abundantly in nodules. They eat flesh, whether that of animals
killed by themselves, or of those which have died a natural death,
and mix with Hindoos, but not with Mussulmen. There are other tribes,
vestiges of the Tamulian race, differing somewhat in their rites from
these, and approaching, in their habits, more to Hindoos; but all are
timorous and retiring.

The hill-rangers, or Bhagulpore-rangers, are all natives of the
Rajmahal hills, and form a local corps maintained by the Company for
the protection of the district. For many years these people were
engaged in predatory excursions, which, owing to the nature of the
country, were checked with great difficulty. The plan was therefore
conceived, by an active magistrate in the district, of embodying a
portion into a military force, for the protection of the country from
invasions of their own tribes; and this scheme has answered perfectly.

To me the most interesting object in Bhagulpore was the Horticultural
Gardens, whose origin and flourishing condition are due to the
activity and enterprise of the late Major Napleton, commander of the
hill-rangers. The site is good, consisting of fifteen acres, that
were, four years ago, an indigo field, but form now a smiling garden.
About fifty men are employed; and the number of seeds and vegetables
annually distributed is very great. Of trees the most conspicuous are
the tamarind, _Tecoma jasminoides, Erythrina, Adansonia,
Bombax,_ teak, banyan, peepul, _Sissoo, Casuarina, Terminalia,
Melia, Bauhinia._ Of introduced species English and Chinese flat
peaches (pruned to the centre to let the sun in), Mangos of various
sorts, _Eugenia Jambos,_ various Anonas, Litchi, Loquat and
Longan, oranges, _Sapodilla_; apple, pear, both succeeding
tolerably; various Cabool and Persian varieties of fruit-trees; figs,
grapes, guava, apricots, and jujube. The grapes looked extremely
well, but they require great skill and care in the management.
They form a long covered walk, with a row of plantains on the W.
side, to diminish the effects of the hot winds, but even with this
screen, the fruit on that side are inferior to that on the opposite
trellis. Easterly winds, again, being moist, blight these and other
plants, by favouring the abundant increase of insects, and causing
the leaves to curl and fall off; and against this evil there is no
remedy. With a clear sky the mischief is not great; under a cloudy
one the prevalence of such winds is fatal to the crop. The white ant
sometimes attacks the stems, and is best checked by washing the roots
with limewater, yellow arsenic, or tobacco-water. Numerous Cerealia,
and the varieties of cotton, sugar-cane, etc. all thrive extremely
well; so do many of our English vegetables. Cabbages, peas, and beans
are much injured by the caterpillars of a _Pontia,_ like our
English "White;" raspberries, currants, and gooseberries will not
grow at all.

The seeds were all deposited in bottles, and hung round the walls of
a large airy apartment; and for cleanliness and excellence of kind
they would bear comparison with the best seedsman's collection in
London. Of English garden vegetables, and varieties of the Indian
Cerealia, and leguminous plants, Indian corn, millets, rice, etc.,
the collections for distribution were extensive.

The manufacture of economic products is not neglected. Excellent
coffee is grown; and arrow-root, equal to the best West Indian, is
prepared, at 18s. 6d. per bottle of twenty-four ounces, about a
fourth of the price of that article in Calcutta.

In most respects the establishment is a model of what such
institutions ought to be in India; not only of real practical value,
in affording a good and cheap supply of the best culinary and other
vegetables that the climate can produce, but as showing to what
departments efforts are best directed. Such gardens diffuse a taste
for the most healthy employments, and offer an elegant resource for
the many unoccupied hours which the Englishman in India finds upon
his hands. They are also schools of gardening; and a simple
inspection of what has been done at Bhagulpore is a valuable lesson
to any person about to establish a private garden of his own.

I often heard complaints made of the seeds distributed from these
gardens not vegetating freely in other parts of India, and it is not
to be expected that they should retain their vitality unimpaired
through an Indian rainy season; but on the other hand I almost
invariably found that the planting and tending had been left to the
uncontrolled management of native gardeners, who with a certain
amount of skill in handicraft are, from habits and prejudices,
singularly unfit for the superintendence of a garden.



 CHAPTER IV.

Leave Bhagulpore -- Kunker -- Colgong -- Himalaya, distant view of --
Cosi, mouth of -- Difficult navigation -- Sand storms --
Caragola-Ghat -- Purnea -- Ortolans -- Mahanuddee, transport of
pebbles, etc. -- Betel-pepper, cultivation of -- Titalya -- Siligoree
-- View of outer Himalaya -- Terai -- Mechis -- Punkabaree -- Foot of
mountains -- Ascent to Dorjiling -- Cicadas -- Leeches -- Animals --
Kursiong, spring vegetation of -- Pacheem -- Arrive at Dorjiling --
Dorjiling, origin and settlement of -- Grant of land from Rajah --
Dr. Campbell appointed superintendent -- Dewan, late and present --
Aggressive conduct of the latter -- Increase of the station -- Trade
-- Titalya fair -- Healtby climate for Europeans and children --
Invalids, diseases prejudicial to.

I took as it were, a new departure, on Saturday, April the 8th, my
dawk being laid on that day from Caragola-Ghat, about thirty miles
down the river, for the foot of the Himalaya range and Dorjiling.

Passing the pretty villa-like houses of the English residents, the
river-banks re-assumed their wonted features the hills receded from
the shore; and steep clay cliffs, twenty to fifty feet high, on one
side, opposed long sandy shelves on the other. Kunker was still most
abundant, especially in the lower bed of the banks, close to the (now
very low) water. The strata containing it were much undulated, but
not uniformly so; horizontal layers over or under-lying the disturbed
ones. At Colgong, conical hills appear, and two remarkable
sister-rocks start out of the river, the same in structure with those
of Sultangunj. A boisterous current swirls round them, strong even at
this season, and very dangerous in the rains, when the swollen river
is from twenty-eight to forty feet deeper than now. We landed
opposite the rocks, and proceeded to the residence of Mr. G. Barnes,
prettily situated on one of the conical elevations characteristic of
the geology of the district. The village we passed through had been
recently destroyed by fire; and nothing but the clay outer walls and
curious-looking partition walls remained, often white-washed and
daubed with figures in red of the palm of the hand, elephant,
peacock, and tiger,--a sort of rude fresco-painting. We did not
arrive till past mid-day, and the boat, with my palkee and servant,
not having been able to face the gale, I was detained till the middle
of the following day. Mr. Barnes and his brother proved most
agreeable companions,--very luckily for me, for it requires no
ordinary philosophy to bear being storm-stayed on a voyage, with the
prospect of paying a heavy demurrage for detaining the dawk, and the
worse one of finding the bearers given to another traveller when you
arrive at the rendezvous. The view from Mr. Barnes' house is very
fine: it commands the river and its rocks; the Rajmahal hills to the
east and south; broad acres of indigo and other crops below; long
lines of palm-trees, and groves of mango, banana, tamarind, and other
tropical trees, scattered close around and in the distance. In the
rainy season, and immediately after, the snowy Himalaya are
distinctly seen on the horizon, fully 170 miles off. Nearly opposite,
the Cosi river enters the Ganges, bearing (considering its short
course) an enormous volume of water, comprising the drainage of the
whole Himalaya between the two giant peaks of Kinchinjunga in Sikkim,
and Gossain-Than in Nepal. Even at this season, looking from Mr.
Barnes' eyrie over the bed of the Ganges, the enormous expanses of
sand, the numerous shifting islets, and the long spits of mud betray
the proximity of some very restless and resistless power. During the
rains, the scene must indeed be extraordinary, when the Cosi lays
many miles of land under water, and pours so vast a quantity of
detritus into the bed of the Ga

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