This fall is very local: at Silhet, not thirty miles further south, it is under 100 inches; at Gowahatty, north of the Khasia in Assam, it is about 80; and even on the hills, twenty miles inland from Churra itself, the fall is reduced to 200. At the Churra station, the distribution of the rain is very local; my gauges, though registering the same amount when placed beside a good one in the station; when removed half a mile, received a widely different quantity, though the different gauges gave nearly the same mean amount at the end of each whole month.
The direct effect of this deluge is to raise the little streams about Churra fourteen feet in as many hours, and to inundate the whole flat; from which, however, the natural drainage is so complete, as to render a tract, which in such a climate and latitude should be clothed with exuberant forest, so sterile, that no tree finds support, and there is no soil for cultivation of any kind whatsoever, not even of rice. Owing, however, to the hardness of the horizontally stratified sandstone, the streams have not cut deep channels, nor have the cataracts worked far back into the cliffs. The limestone alone seems to suffer, and the turbid streams from it prove how rapidly it is becoming denuded. The great mounds of angular gravel on the Churra flat, are perhaps the remains of an extensive deposit, fifty feet thick, elsewhere washed away by these rains; and I have remarked traces of the same over many slopes of the hills around.
The mean temperature of Churra (elev. 4000 feet) is about 66 degrees, or 16 degrees below that of Calcutta; which, allowing for 22 degrees of northing, gives 1 degree of temperature to every 290 to 300 feet of ascent. In summer the thermometer often rises to 88 degrees and 90 degrees; and in the winter, owing to the intense radiation, hoar-frost is frequent. Such a climate is no less inimical to the cultivation of plants, than is the wretched soil: of this we saw marked instances in the gardens of two of the resident officers, Lieutenants Raban and Cave, to whom we were indebted for the greatest kindness and hospitality. These gentlemen are indefatigable horticulturists, and took a zealous interest in our pursuits, accompanying us in our excursions, enriching our collections in many ways, and keeping an eye to them and to our plant-driers during our absence from the station. In their gardens the soil had to be brought from a considerable distance, and dressed copiously with vegetable matter. Bamboo clumps were planted for shelter within walls, and native shrubs, rhododendrons, etc., introduced. Many Orchideae throve well on the branches of the stunted trees which they had planted, and some superb kinds of Hedychium in the ground; but a very few English garden plants throve in the flower-beds. Even in pots and frames, geraniums, etc., would rot, from the rarity of sunshine, which is as prejudicial as the damp and exposure. Still many wild shrubs of great interest and beauty flourished, and some European ones succeeded with skill and management; as geraniums, Salvia, Petunia, nasturtium, chrysanthemum, Kennedya rubicunda, Maurandya, and Fuchsia. The daisy seed sent from England as double, came up very poor and single. Dahlias do not thrive, nor double balsams. Now they have erected small but airy green-houses, and sunlight is the only desideratum.
At the end of June, we started for the northern or Assam face of the mountains. The road runs between the extensive and populous native village, or poonji, on the left, and a deep valley on the right, and commands a beautiful view of more waterfalls. Beyond this it ascends steeply, and the sandstone on the road itself is curiously divided into parallelograms, like hollow bricks,* [I have seen similar bricks in the sandstones of the coal-districts of Yorkshire; they are very puzzling, and are probably due to some very obscure crystalline action analogous to jointing and cleavage.] enclosing irregularly shaped nodules, while in other places it looks as if it had been run or fused: spherical concretions of sand, coloured concentrically by infiltration, are common in it, which have been regarded as seeds, shells, etc.; it also contained spheres of iron pyrites. The general appearance of much of this rock is as if it had been bored by Teredines (ship worms), but I never detected any trace of fossils. It is often beautifully ripple-marked, and in some places much honeycombed, and full of shales and narrow seams of coal, resting on a white under-clay full of root-fibres, like those of Stigmaria.
At about 5000 feet the country is very open and bare, the ridges being so uniform and flat-topped, that the broad valleys they divide are hidden till their precipitous edges are reached; and the eye wanders far east and west over a desolate level grassy country, unbroken, save by the curious flat-topped hills I have described as belonging to the limestone formation, which lie to the south-west. These features continue for eight miles, when a sudden descent of 600 or 700 feet, leads into the valley of the Kala-panee (Black water) river, where there is a very dark and damp bungalow, which proved a very great accommodation to us.* [It may be of use to the future botanist in this country to mention a small wood on the right of this road, near the village of Surureem, as an excellent botanical station: the trees are chiefly Rhododendron arboreum, figs, oaks, laurels, magnolias, and chestnuts, on whose limbs are a profusion of Orchideae, and amongst which a Rattan palm occurs.
Lailang-kot is another village full of iron forges, from a height near which a splendid view is obtained over the Churra flat. A few old and very stunted shrubs of laurel and Symplocos grow on its bleak surface, and these are often sunk from one to three feet in a well in the horizontally stratified sandstone. I could only account for this by supposing it to arise from the drip from the trees, and if so, it is a wonderful instance of the wearing effects of water, and of the great age which small bushes sometimes attain.
The vegetation is more alpine at Kala-panee (elevation, 5,300 feet); Benthamia, Kadsura, Stauntonia, Illicium, Actinidia, Helwingia, Corylopsis, and berberry—all Japan and Chinese, and most of them Dorjiling genera—appear here, with the English yew, two rhododendrons, and Bucklandia. There are no large trees, but a bright green jungle of small ones and bushes, many of which are very rare and curious. Luculia Pinceana makes a gorgeous show here in October.
The sandstone to the east of Kala-panee is capped by some beds, forty feet thick, of conglomerate worn into cliffs; these are the remains of a very extensive horizontally stratified formation, now all but entirely denuded. In the valley itself, the sandstone alternates with alum shales, which rest on a bed of quartz conglomerate, and the latter on black greenstone. In the bed of the river, whose waters are beautifully clear, are hornstone rocks, dipping north-east, and striking north-west. Beyond the Kalapanee the road ascends about 600 feet, and is well quarried in hard greenstone; and passing through a narrow gap of conglomerate rock,* [Formed of rolled masses of greenstone and sandstone, united by a white and yellow cement.] enters a shallow, wild, and beautiful valley, through which it runs for several miles. The hills on either side are of greenstone capped by tabular sandstone, immense masses of which have been precipitated on the floor of the valley, producing a singularly wild and picturesque scene. In the gloom of the evening it is not difficult for a fertile imagination to fancy castles and cities cresting the heights above.* [Hydrangea grows here, with ivy, Mussoenda, Pyrua, willow, Viburnum, Parnassia, Anemone, Leycesteria formosa, Neillia, Rubus, Astilbe, rose, Panax, apple, Bucklandia, Daphne, pepper, Scindapsus, Pierix, holly, Lilium giganteum ("Kalang tatti," Khas.), Camellia, Elaeocarpus, Buddleia, etc. Large bees' nests hang from the rocks.]
There is some cultivation here of potatoes, and of Rhysicosia vestita a beautiful purple-flowered leguminous plant, with small tuberous roots. Beyond this, a high ridge is gained above the valley of the Boga-panee, the largest river in the Khasia; from this the Bhotan Himalaya may be seen in clear weather, at the astonishing distance of from 160 to 200 miles! The vegetation here suddenly assumes a different aspect, from the quantity of stunted fir-trees clothing the north side of the valley, which rises very steeply 1000 feet above the river: quite unaccountably, however, not one grows on the south face. A new oak also appears abundantly; it has leaves like the English, whose gnarled habit it also assumes.
The descent is very steep, and carried down a slope of greenstone;* [This greenstone decomposes into a thick bed of red clay; it is much intersected by fissures or cleavage planes at all angles, whose surfaces are covered with a shining polished superficial layer; like the fissures in the cleavage planes of the gneiss granite of Kinchinjhow, whose adjacent surfaces are coated with a glassy waved layer of hornblende. This polishing of the surfaces is generally attributed to their having been in contact and rubbed together, an explanation which is wholly unsatisfactory to me; no such motion could take place in cleavage planes which often intersect, and were it to occur, it would not produce two polished surfaces of an interposed layer of a softer mineral. It is more probably due to metamorphic action.] the road then follows. a clear affluent of the Boga-panee, and afterwards winds along the margin of that river, which is a rapid turbulent stream, very muddy, and hence contrasting remarkably with the Kala-panee. It derives its mud from the decomposition of granite, which is washed by the natives for iron, and in which rock it rises to the eastward. Thick beds of slate crop out by the roadside (strike north-east and dip north-west), and are continued along the bed of the river, passing into conglomerates, chert, purple slates, and crystalline sandstones, with pebbles, and angular masses of schist. Many of these rocks are much crumpled, others quite flat, and they are overlaid by soft, variegated gneiss, which is continued alternately with the slates to the top of the hills on the opposite side.
Small trees of hornbeam grow near the river, with Rhus, Xanthoxylon, Vaccinium, Gualtheria, and Spiraea, while many beautiful ferns, mosses, and orchids cover the rocks. An elegant iron suspension- bridge is thrown across the stream, from a rock matted with tufts of little parasitic Orchideae. Crossing it, we came on many pine-trees; these had five-years' old cones on them, as well as those of all succeeding years; they bear male flowers in autumn, which impregnate the cones formed the previous year. Thus, the cones formed in the spring of 1850 are fertilised in the following autumn, and do not ripen their seeds till the second following autumn, that of 1852.
A very steep ascent leads to the bungalow of Moflong, on a broad, bleak hill-top, near the axis of the range (alt. 6,062 feet). Here there is a village, and some cultivation, surrounded by hedges of Erythrina, Pieris, Viburnum, Pyres, Colquhounia, and Corylopsis, amongst which grew an autumn-flowering lark-spur, with most foetid flowers.* [There is a wood a mile to the west of the bungalow, worth visiting by the botanist: besides yew, oak, Sabia and Camellia, it contains Olea, Euonymus, and Sphaerocarya, a small tree that bears a green pear-shaped sweet fruit, with a large stone: it is pleasant, but leaves a disagreeable taste in the mouth. On the grassy flats an Astragalus occurs, and Roscoea purpurea, Tofieldia, and various other fine plants are common.] The rocks are much contorted slates and gneiss (strike north-east and dip south-east). In a deep gulley to the northward, greenstone appears, with black basalt and jasper, the latter apparently altered gneiss: beyond this the rocks strike the opposite way, but are much disturbed.
We passed the end of June here, and experienced the same violent weather, thunder, lightning, gales, and rain, which prevailed during every midsummer I spent in India. A great deal of Coix (Job's tears) is cultivated about Moflong: it is of a dull greenish purple, and though planted in drills, and carefully hoed and weeded, is a very ragged crop. The shell of the cultivated sort is soft, and the kernel is sweet; whereas the wild Coix is so hard that it cannot be broken by the teeth. Each plant branches two or three times from the base, and from seven to nine plants grow in each square yard of soil: the produce is small, not above thirty or forty fold.
From a hill behind Moflong bungalow, on which are some stone altars, a most superb view is obtained of the Bhotan Himalaya to the northward, their snowy peaks stretching in a broken series from north 17 degrees east to north 35 degrees west; all are below the horizon of the spectator, though from 17,000 to 20,000 feet above his level. The finest view in the Khasia mountains, and perhaps a more extensive one than has ever before been described, is that from Chillong hill, the culminant point of the range, about six miles north-east from Moflong bungalow. This hill, 6,660 feet above the sea, rises from an undulating grassy country, covered with scattered trees and occasional clumps of wood; the whole scenery about being park-like, and as little like that of India at so low an elevation as it is possible to be.
I visited Chillong in October with Lieutenant Cave; starting from Churra, and reaching the bungalow, two miles from its top, the same night, with two relays of ponies, which he had kindly provided. We were unfortunate in not obtaining a brilliant view of the snowy mountains, their tops being partially clouded; but the coup d'oeil was superb. Northward, beyond the rolling Khasia hills, lay the whole Assam valley, seventy miles broad, with the Burrampooter winding through it, fifty miles distant, reduced to a thread. Beyond this, banks of hazy vapour obscured all but the dark range of the Lower Himalaya, crested by peaks of frosted silver, at the immense distance of from 100 to 220 miles from Chillong. All are below the horizon of the observer; yet so false is perspective, that they seem high in the air. The mountains occupy sixty degrees of the horizon, and stretch over upwards of 250 miles, comprising the greatest extent of snow visible from any point with which I am acquainted.
Westward from Chillong the most distant Garrow hills visible are about forty miles off; and eastward those of Cachar, which are loftier, are about seventy miles. To the south the view is limited by the Tipperah hills, which, where nearest, are 100 miles distant; while to the south-west lies the sea-like Gangetic delta, whose horizon, lifted by refraction, must be fully 120. The extent of this view is therefore upwards of 340 miles in one direction, and the visible horizon of the observer encircles an area of fully thirty thousand square miles, which is greater than that of Ireland!
Scarlet-flowered rhododendron bushes cover the north side of Chillong,* [These skirt a wood of prickly bamboo, in which occur fig, laurel, Aralia, Boemeria, Smilax, Toddalia, wild cinnamon, and three kinds of oak.] whilst the south is grassy and quite bare; and except some good Orchideae on the trees, there is little to reward the botanist. The rocks appeared to be sandstone at the summit, but micaceous gneiss all around.
Continuing northward from Moflong, the road, after five miles, dips into a very broad and shallow flat-floored valley, fully a mile across, which resembles a lake-bed: it is bounded by low hills, and is called "Lanten-tannia," and is bare of aught but long grass and herbs; amongst these are the large groundsel (Senecio), Dipsacus, Ophelia, and Campanula. On its south flank the micaceous slates strike north-east, and dip north-west, and on the top repose beds, a foot in thickness, of angular water-worn gravel, indicating an ancient water-level, 400 feet above the floor of the valley. Other smaller lake-beds, in the lateral valleys, are equally evident.
A beautiful blue-flowered Clitoria creeps over the path, with the ground-raspberry of Dorjiling. From the top a sudden descent of 400 feet leads to another broad flat valley, called "Syong" (elevation, 5,725 feet), in which is a good bungalow, surrounded by hedges of Prinsepia utilis, a common north-west Himalayan plant, only found at 8000 feet in Sikkim. The valley is grassy, but otherwise bare. Beyond this the road passes over low rocky hills, wooded on their north or sheltered flanks only, dividing flat-floored valleys: a red sandy gneiss is the prevalent rock, but boulders of syenite are scattered about. Extensive moors (elevation, 6000 feet) succeed, covered with stunted pines, brake, and tufts of harsh grasses.* [These are principally Andropogon and Brachypodium, amongst which grow yellow Corydalis, Thalictrum, Anemone, Parnassia, Prunella, strawberry, Eupatorium, Hypericum, willow, a Polygonum like Bistorta, Osmunda regalis and another species Lycopodium alpinum, a Senecio like Jacobaea, thistles, Gnaphalium, Gentians, Iris, Paris, Sanguisorba and Agrimonia.]
Near the Dengship-oong (river), which flows in a narrow valley, is a low dome of gneiss altered by syenite. The prevalent dip is uniformly south-east, and the strike north-east; and detached boulders of syenite become more frequent, resting on a red gneiss, full of black garnets, till the descent to the valley of Myrung, one of the most beautiful spots in the Khasia, and a favourite resort, having an excellent bungalow which commands a superb view of the Himalaya: it is 5,650 feet above the sea, and is placed on the north flank of a very shallow marshy valley, two miles broad, and full of rice cultivation, as are the flat heads of all the little valleys that lead into it. There is a guard here of light infantry, and a little garden, boasting a gardener and some tea-plants, so that we had vegetables during our four visits to the place, on two of which occasions we stayed some days.
From Kala-panee to Myrung, a distance of thirty-two miles, the road does not vary 500 feet above or below the mean level of 5,700 feet, and the physical features are the same throughout, of broad flat-floored, steep-sided valleys, divided by bleak, grassy, tolerably level-topped bills. Beyond Myrung the Khasia mountains slope to the southward in rolling loosely-wooded hills, but the spurs do not dip suddenly till beyond Nunklow, eight miles further north.
On the south side of the Myrung valley is Nungbree wood, a dense jungle, occupying, like all the other woods, the steep north exposure of the hill; many good plants grow in it, including some gigantic Balanophorae, Pyrola, and Monotropa. The bungalow stands on soft, contorted, decomposing gneiss, which is still the prevalent rock, striking north-east. On the hills to the east of it, enormous hard blocks lie fully exposed, and are piled on one another, as if so disposed by glacial action; and it is difficult to account for them by denudation, though their surface scales, and similar blocks are scattered around Myrung exactly similar to the syenite blocks of Nunklow, and the granite ones of Nonkreem, to be described hereafter, and which are undoubtedly due to the process of weathering. A great mass of flesh-coloured crystalline granite rises in the centre of the valley, to the east of the road: it is fissured in various directions, and the surface scales concentrically; it is obscurely stratified in some parts, and appears to be half granite and half gneiss in mineralogical character.
We twice visited a very remarkable hill, called Kollong, which rises as a dome of granite 5,400 feet high, ten or twelve miles south-west of Myrung, and conspicuous from all directions. The path to it turns off from that to Nunklow, and strikes westerly along the shallow valley of Monai, in which is a village, and much rice and other cultivation. Near this there is a large square stockade, formed of tall bamboos placed close together, very like a New Zealand "Pa;" indeed, the whole country hereabouts much recalls the grassy clay hills, marshy valleys, and bushy ridges of the Bay of Islands. The hills on either side are sometimes dotted with pinewoods, sometimes conical and bare, with small clumps of pines on the summit only; while in other places are broad tracts containing nothing but young trees, resembling plantations, but which, I am assured, are not planted; on the other hand, however, Mr. Yule states, that the natives do plant fir-trees, especially near the iron forges, which give employment to all the people of Monai.
All the streams rise in flat marshy depressions amongst the hills with which the whole country is covered; and both these features, together with the flat clay marshes into which the rivers expand, are very suggestive of tidal action. Rock is hardly anywhere seen, except in the immediate vicinity of Kollong, where are many scattered boulders of fine-grained gneiss, of which are made the broad stone slabs, placed as seats, and the other erections of this singular people. We repeatedly remarked cones of earth, clay, and pebbles, about twelve feet high, upon the hills, which appeared to be artificial, but of which the natives could give no explanation. Wild apple and birch are common trees, but there is little jungle, except in the hollows, and on the north slopes of the higher hills. Coarse long grass, with bushes of Labiate and Composite plants, are the prevalent features.
Kollong rock is a steep dome of red granite,* [This granite is highly crystalline, and does not scale or flake, nor is its surface polished.] accessible from the north and east, but almost perpendicular to the southward, where the slope is 80 degrees for 600 feet. The elevation is 400 feet above the mean level of the surrounding ridges, and 700 above the bottom of the valleys. The south or steepest side is encumbered with enormous detached blocks, while the north is clothed with a dense forest, containing red tree-rhododendrons and oaks; on its skirts grew a white bushy rhododendron, which we found nowhere else. The hard granite of the top was covered with matted mosses, lichens, Lycopodiums, and ferns, amongst which were many curious and beautiful airplants.* [Eria, Coelogyne (Wallichii, maculata, and elata), Cymbidium, Dendrobium, Sunipia some of them flowering profusely; and though freely exposed to the sun and wind, dews and frosts, rain and droughts, they were all fresh, bright, green and strong, under very different treatment from that to which they are exposed in the damp, unhealthy, steamy orchid-houses of our English gardens. A wild onion was most abundant all over the top of the hill, with Hymenopogon, Vaccinium, Ophiopogon, Anisadenia, Commelyna, Didymocarpus, Remusatia, Hedychium, grass and small bamboos, and a good many other plants. Many of the lichens were of European kinds; but the mosses (except Bryum argenteum) and ferns were different. A small Staphylinus, which swarmed under the sods, was the only insect I remarked.]
Illustration—KOLLONG ROCK.
The view from the top is very extensive to the northward, but not elsewhere: it commands the Assam valley and the Himalaya, and the billowy range of undulating grassy Khasia mountains. Few houses were visible, but the curling smoke from the valleys betrayed their lurking-places, whilst the tinkling sound of the hammers from the distant forges on all sides was singularly musical and pleasing; they fell on the ear like "bells upon the wind," each ring being exquisitely melodious, and chiming harmoniously with the others. The solitude and beauty of the scenery, and the emotions excited by the music of chimes, tended to tranquillise our minds, wearied by the fatigues of travel, and the excitement of pursuits that required unremitting attention; and we rested for some time, our imaginations wandering to far-distant scenes, brought vividly to our minds by these familiar sounds.
CHAPTER XXIX.
View of Himalaya from the Khasia — Great masses of snow — Chumulari — Donkia — Grasses — Nunklow — Assam valley and Burrampooter — Tropical forest — Borpanee — Rhododendrons — Wild elephants — Blocks of Syenite — Return to Churra — Coal — August temperature — Leave for Chela — Jasper hill — Birds — Arundina — Habits of leaf-insects — Curious village — Houses — Canoes — Boga-panee river — Jheels — Chattuc — Churra — Leave for Jyntea hills — Trading parties — Dried fish — Cherries — Cinnamon — Fraud — Pea-violet — Nonkreem — Sandstone — Pines — Granite boulders — Iron washing — Forges — Tanks — Siberian Nymphaea — Barren country — Pomrang — Podostemon — Patchouli plant — Mooshye — Enormous stone slabs — Pitcher-plant — Joowye cultivation and vegetation — Hydropeltis — Sulky hostess — Nurtiung — Hamamelis chinensis — Bor-panee river — Sacred grove and gigantic stone structures — Altars — Pyramids, etc. — Origin of names — Vanda coerulea — Collections — November vegetation — Geology of Khasia — Sandstone — Coal — Lime — Gneiss — Greenstone — Tidal action — Strike of rocks — Comparison with Rajmahal hills and the Himalaya.
The snowy Himalaya was not visible during our first stay at Myrung, from the 5th to the 10th of July; but on three subsequent occasions, viz., 27th and 28th of July, 13th to 17th October, and 22nd to 25th October, we saw these magnificent mountains, and repeatedly took angular heights and bearings of the principal peaks. The range, as seen from the Khasia, does not form a continuous line of snowy mountains, but the loftiest eminences are conspicuously grouped into masses, whose position is probably between the great rivers which rise far beyond them and flow through Bhotan. This arrangement indicates that relation of the rivers to the masses of snow, which I have dwelt upon in the Appendix; and further tends to prove that the snowy mountains, seen from the southward, are not on the axis of a mountain chain, and do not even indicate its position; but that they are lofty meridional spurs which, projecting southward, catch the moist vapours, become more deeply snowed, and protect the dry loftier regions behind.
The most conspicuous group of snows seen from the Khasia bears N.N.E. from Myrung, and consists of three beautiful mountains with wide-spreading snowy shoulders. These are distant (reckoning from west to east) respectively 164, 170, and 172 miles from Myrung, and subtend angles of + 0 degrees 4 minutes 0 seconds, - 0 degrees 1 minute 30 seconds, and -0 degrees 2 minutes 28 seconds.* [These angles were taken both at sunrise and sunset, and with an excellent theodolite, and were repeated after two considerable intervals. The telescopes were reversed after each observation, and every precaution used to insure accuracy; nevertheless the mean of one set of observations of angular height often varied 1 degree from that of another set. This is probably much due to atmospheric refraction, whose effect and amount it is impossible to estimate accurately in such cases. Here the objects are not only viewed through 160 miles of atmosphere, but through belts from between 6000 to 20,000 feet of vertical height, varying in humidity and transparency at different parts of the interval. If we divide this column of atmosphere into sections parallel to those of latitude, we have first a belt fifteen miles broad, hanging over the Khasia, 2000 to 4000 feet above the sea; beyond it, a second belt, seventy miles broad, hangs over the Assam valley, which is hardly 300 feet above the level of the sea; and thirdly, the northern part of the column, which reposes on 60 to 100 miles of the Bhotan lower Himalaya: each of these belts has probably a different refractive power.] From Nunklow (940 feet lower than Myrung) they appear higher, the western peak rising 14 degrees 35 minutes above the horizon; whilst from Moflong (32 miles further south, and elevation 6,062 feet) the same is sunk 2 degrees below the horizon. My computations make this western mountain upwards of 24,000 feet high; but according to Col. Wilcox's angles, taken from the Assam valley, it is only 21,600, the others being respectively 20,720 and 21,475. Captain Thuillier (the Deputy Surveyor General) agrees with me in considering that Colonel Wilcox's altitudes are probably much under-estimated, as those of other Himalayan peaks to the westward were by the old surveyors. It is further evident that these mountains have (as far as can be estimated by angles) fully 6-8000 feet of snow on them, which would not be the case were the loftiest only 21,600 feet high.
It is singular, that to the eastward of this group, no snowy mountains are seen, and the lower Himalaya also dip suddenly. This depression is no doubt partly due to perspective; but as there is no such sudden disappearance of the chain to the westward, where peaks are seen 35 degrees to the west of north, it is far more probable that the valley of the Soobansiri river, which rises in Tibet far behind these peaks, is broad and open; as is that of the Dihong, still farther east, which we have every reason to believe is the Tibetan Yaru or Burrampooter.
Supposing then the eastern group to indicate the mountain mass separating the Soobansiri from the Monass river, no other mountains conspicuous for altitude or dimension rise between N.N.E. and north, where there is another immense group. This, though within 120 miles of Myrung, is below its horizon, and scarcely above that of Nunklow (which is still nearer to it), and cannot therefore attain any great elevation.
Far to the westward again, is a very lofty peaked mountain bearing N.N.W., which subtends an angle of -3 degrees 30 minutes from Myrung, and +6 degrees 0 minutes from Nunklow. The angles of this seem to indicate its being either Chumulari, or that great peak which I saw due east from Bbomtso top, and which I then estimated at ninety miles off and 23,500 feet high. From the Khasia angles, its latitude and longitude are 28 degrees 6 minutes and 89 degrees 30 minutes, its elevation 27,000 feet, and its distance from Myrung 200 miles. I need hardly add that neither the position nor the elevation computed from such data is worthy of confidence.
Further still, to the extreme west, is an immense low hog-backed mass of snow, with a small peak on it; this bears north-west, both from Myrung and Nunklow, subtending an angle of -25 minutes from the former, and -17 minutes from the latter station. It is in all probability Chumulari, 210 miles distant from Nunklow. Donkia, if seen, would be distant 230 miles from the same spot in the Khasia, and Kinchinjunga 260; possibly they are visible (by refraction) from Chillong, though even further from it.
The distance from Myrung to Nunklow is ten miles, along an excellent road. The descent is at first sudden, beyond which the country is undulating, interspersed with jungle (of low trees, chiefly oaks) and marshes, with much rice cultivation. Grasses are exceedingly numerous; we gathered fifty kinds, besides twenty Cyperaceae: four were cultivated, namely sugar-cane, rice, Coix, and maize. Most of the others were not so well suited to pasturage as those of higher localities. Dwarf Phoenix palm occurs by the roadside at 5000 feet elevation.
Gneiss (with garnets) highly inclined, was the prevalent rock (striking north-east), and scattered boulders of syenite became very frequent. In one place the latter rock is seen bursting through the gneiss, which is slaty and very crystalline at the junction.
Nunklow is placed at the northern extremity of a broad spur that over-hangs the valley of the Burrampooter river, thirty miles distant. The descent from it is very rapid, and beyond it none of the many spurs thrown out by the Khasia attain more than 1000 feet elevation; hence, though the range does not present so abrupt a face to the Burrampooter as it does to the Jheels, Nunklow is considered as on the brink of its north slope. The elevation of the bungalow is 4,688 feet, and the climate being hot, it swarms with mosquitos, fleas, and rats. It commands a superb view to the north, of the Himalayan snows, of the Burrampooter, and intervening malarious Terai forest; and to the south, of the undulating Khasia, with Kollong rock bearing south-west. All the hills between this and Myrung look from Nunklow better wooded than they do from Myrung, in consequence of the slopes exposed to the south being bare of forest.
A thousand feet below the bungalow, a tropical forest begins, of figs, birch, horse-chestnut, oak, nutmeg. Cedrela, Engelhardtia, Artocarpeae, and Elaeocarpus, in the gullies, and tall pines on the dry slopes, which are continued down to the very bottom of the valley in which flows the Bor-panee, a broad and rapid river that descends from Chillong, and winds round the base of the Nunklow spur. Many of the pines are eighty feet high, and three or four in diameter, but none form gigantic trees. The quantity of balsams in the wet ravines is very great, and tree-ferns of several kinds are common.
The Bor-panee is about forty yards wide, and is spanned by an elegant iron suspension-bridge, that is clamped to the gneiss rock (strike north-east, dip north-west) on either bank; beneath is a series of cascades, none high, but all of great beauty from the broken masses of rocks and picturesque scenery on either side. We frequently botanised up and down the river with great success: many curious plants grow on its stony and rocky banks; and amongst them Rhododendron formosum at the low elevation of 2000 feet. A most splendid fern, Dipteris Wallichii, is abundant, with the dwarf Phoenix palm and Cycas pectinata.
Wild animals are very abundant here, though extremely rare on the higher part of the Khasia range; tigers, however, and bears, ascend to Nunklow. We saw troops of wild dogs ("Kuleam," Khas.), deer, and immense quantities of the droppings of the wild elephant; an animal considered in Assam dangerous to meet, whereas in other parts of India it is not dreaded till provoked. There is, however, no quadruped that varies more in its native state than this: the Ceylon kind differs from the Indian in the larger size and short tusks, and an experienced judge at Calcutta will tell at once whether the newly caught elephant is from Assam, Silhet, Cuttack, Nepal, or Chittagong. Some of the differences, in size, roundness of shoulders and back, quantity of hair, length of limb, and shape of head, are very marked; and their dispositions are equally various.
The lowest rocks seen are at a considerable distance down the Bor-panee; they are friable sandstones that strike uniformly with the gneiss. From the bridge upwards the rocks are all gneiss, alternating with chert and quartz. The Nunklow spur is covered with enormous rounded blocks of syenite, reposing on clay or on one another. These do not descend the hill, and are the remains of an extensive formation which we could only find in situ at one spot on the road to Myrung (see earlier), but which must have been of immense thickness.* [The tendency of many volcanic rocks to decompose in spheres is very well known: it is conspicuous in the black basalts north of Edinburgh, but I do not know any instance equal to this of Nunklow, for the extent of decomposition and dimensions of the resulting spheres.] One block within ten yards of the bungalow door was fifteen feet long, six high, and eight broad; it appeared half buried, and was rapidly decomposing from the action of the rain. Close by, to the westward, in walking amongst the masses we were reminded of a moraine of most gigantic sized blocks; one which I measured was forty feet long and eleven above the ground; its edges were rounded, and its surface flaked off in pieces a foot broad and a quarter of an inch thick. Trees and brushwood often conceal the spaces between these fragments, and afford dens for bears and leopards, into which man cannot follow them.
Sitting in the cool evenings on one of these great blocks, and watching the Himalayan glaciers glowing with the rays of sunset, appearing to change in form and dimensions with the falling shadows, it was impossible to refrain from speculating on the possibility of these great boulders heaped on the Himalayan-ward face of the Khasia range, having been transported hither by ice at some former period; especially as the Mont Blanc granite, in crossing the lake of Geneva to the Jura, must have performed a hardly less wonderful ice journey: but this hypothesis is clearly untenable; and unparalleled in our experience as the results appear, if attributed to denudation and weathering alone, we are yet compelled to refer them to these causes. The further we travel, and the longer we study, the more positive becomes the conviction that the part played by these great agents in sculpturing the surface of our planet, is as yet but half recognised.
We returned on the 7th of August to Churra, where we employed ourselves during the rest of the month in collecting and studying the plants of the neighbourhood. We hired a large and good bungalow, in which three immense coal fires* [This coal is excellent for many purposes. We found it generally used by the Assam steamers, and were informed on board that in which we traversed the Sunderbunds, some months afterwards, that her furnaces consumed 729 lbs. per hour; whereas the consumption of English coal was 800 lbs., of Burdwan coal 8401bs., and of Assam 900 lbs.] were kept up for drying plants and papers, and fifteen men were always employed, some in changing, and some in collecting, from morning till night. The coal was procured within a mile of our door, and cost about six shillings a month; it was of the finest quality, and gave great heat and few ashes. Torrents of rain descended almost daily, twelve inches in as many hours being frequently registered; and we remarked that it was impossible to judge of the quantity by estimation, an apparent deluge sometimes proving much less in amount than much lighter but steadier falls; hence the greatest fall is probably that in which the drops are moderately large; very close together, and which pass through a saturated atmosphere. The temperature of the rain here and elsewhere in India was always a degree or two below that of the air.
Though the temperature in August rose to 75 degrees, we never felt a fire oppressive, owing to the constant damp, and absence of sun. The latter, when it broke through the clouds, shone powerfully, raising the thermometer 20 degrees and 30 degrees in as many minutes. On such occasions, hot blasts of damp wind ascend the valleys, and impinge suddenly against different houses on the flat, giving rise to extraordinary differences between the mean daily temperatures of places not half a mile apart.
On the 4th of September we started for the village of Chela, which lies west from Churra, at the embouchure of the Boga-panee on the Jheels. The path runs by Mamloo, and down the spur to the Jasper hill (see chapter xxviii): the vegetation all along is very tropical, and pepper, ginger, maize, and Betel palm, are cultivated around small cottages, which are only distinguishable in the forest by their yellow thatch of dry Calamus (Rattan) leaves. From Jasper hill a very steep ridge leads to another, called Lisouplang, which is hardly so high as Mamloo; the rocks are the same sandstone, with fragments of coal, and remains of the limestone formation capping it.
Hot gusts of wind blow up the valleys, alternating with clouds and mists, and it is curious to watch the effects of the latter in stilling the voices of insects (Cicadas) and birds. Common crows and vultures haunt the villages, but these, and all other large birds, are very rare in the Khasia. A very few hawks are occasionally seen, also sparrows and kingfishers, and I once heard a cuckoo; pheasants are sometimes shot, but we never saw any. Kites become numerous after the rains, and are regarded as a sign of their cessation. More remarkable than the rarity of birds is the absence of all animals except domestic rats, as a more suitable country for hares and rabbits could not be found. Reptiles, and especially Colubridae, are very common in the Khasia mountains, and I procured sixteen species and many specimens. The natives repeatedly assured us that these were all harmless, and Dr. Gray, who has kindly examined all my snakes, informs me of the remarkable fact (alluded to in a note in chapter xviii), that whereas none of these are poisonous, four out of the eleven species which I found in Sikkim are so. One of the Khasia blind-worms (a new species) belongs to a truly American genus (Ophisaurus), a fact as important as is that of the Sikkim skink and Agama being also American forms.
Arundina, a beautiful purple grassy-leaved orchid, was abundantly in flower on the hill-top, and the great white swallow-tailed moth (Saturnia Atlas) was extremely common, with tropical butterflies and other insects. The curious leaf-insect (Mantis) was very abundant on the orange trees, on the leaves of which the natives believe it to feed; nor indeed could we persuade some of our friends that its thin sharp jaws are unsuited for masticating leaves, and that these and its prehensile feet indicate its predacious nature: added to which, its singular resemblance to a leaf is no less a provision against its being discovered by its enemies, than an aid in deceiving its prey.
We descended rapidly for many miles through beautiful rocky woods, with villages nestling amongst groves of banana and trellised climbers; and from the brow of a hill looked down upon a slope covered with vegetation and huts, which formed the mart of Chela, and below which the Boga-panee flowed in a deep gorge. The view was a very striking one: owing to the steepness of the valley below our feet, the roofs alone of the cottages were visible, from which ascended the sounds and smells of a dense native population, and to which there appeared to be no way of descending. The opposite side rose precipitously in lofty table-topped mountains, and the river was studded with canoes.
The descent was fully 800 feet, on a slope averaging 25 degrees to 35 degrees. The cottages were placed close together, each within a little bamboo enclosure, eight to ten yards deep; and no two were on the same level. Each was built against a perpendicular wall which supported a cutting in the bank behind; and a similar wall descended in front of it, forming the back of the compartment in which the cottage next below it was erected. The houses were often raised on platforms, and some had balconies in front, which overhung the cottage below. All were mere hovels of wattle or mud, with very high-pitched roofs: stone tanks resembling fonts, urns, coffins, and sarcophagi, were placed near the better houses, and blocks of stone were scattered everywhere.
We descended from hovel to hovel, alternately along the gravelled flat of each enclosure, and perpendicularly down steps cut in the sandstone or let into the walls. I counted 800 houses from the river, and there must be many more: the inhabitants are Bengalees and Khasias, and perhaps amount to 3000 or 4000; but this is a very vague estimate.
Illustration—CHELA VILLAGE.
We lodged in a curious house, consisting of one apartment, twenty feet long, and five high, raised thirty feet upon bamboos: the walls were of platted bamboo matting, fastened to strong wooden beams, and one side opened on a balcony that overhung the river. The entrance was an oval aperture reached by a ladder, and closed by folding-doors that turned on wooden pivots. The roof was supported by tressels of great thickness, and like the rest of the woodwork, was morticed, no nails being used throughout the building. The floor was of split bamboos laid side by side.
We ascended the Boga-panee in canoes, each formed of a hollowed trunk fifty feet long and four broad; we could not, however, proceed far, on account of the rapids. The rocks in its bed are limestone, but a great bluff cliff of sandy conglomerate (strike east-south-east and dip south-south-west 70 degrees), several hundred feet high, rises on the east bank close above the village, above which occurs amygdaloidal basalt. The pebbles in the river (which was seventy yards broad, and turbid) were of slate, basalt, sandstone, and syenite: on the opposite bank were sandstones over-lain by limestone, both dipping to the southward.
Beautiful palms, especially Caryota urens (by far the handsomest in India), and groves of betel-nut bordered the river, with oranges, lemons, and citrons; intermixed with feathery bamboos, horizontally-branched acacias, oaks, with pale red young leaves, and deep green foliaged figs. Prickly rattans and Plectocomia climbed amongst these, their enormous plumes of foliage upborne by the matted branches of the trees, and their arrowy tops shooting high above the forest.
After staying three days at Chela, we descended the stream in canoes, shooting over pebbly rapids, and amongst rocks of limestone, water-worn into fantastic shapes, till we at last found ourselves gliding gently along the still canals of the Jheels. Many of these rapids are so far artificial, that they are enclosed by gravel banks, six feet high, which, by confining the waters, give them depth; but, Chela being hardly above the level of the sea, their fall is very trifling. We proceeded across the Jheels* [The common water-plants of the Jheels are Vallisneria serrata, Damasonium, 2 Myriophylla, 2 Villarsiae, Trapa, blue, white, purple and scarlet water-lilies, Hydrilla, Utricularia, Limnophila, Azolla, Salvinia, Ceratopteris, and floating grasses.] to Chattuc, and then north again to Pundua, and so to Churra.
Having pretty well exhausted the botany of Churra, Dr. Thomson and I started on the 13th of September for the eastern part of the Khasia and Jyntea mountains. On the Kala-panee road,* [The Pea-violet (Crotalaria occulta) was very common by the road-side, and smelt deliciously of violets: the English name suggests the appearance of the flower, for which and for its fragrance it is well worth cultivation.] which we followed, we passed crowds of market people, laden with dried fish in a half-putrid state, which scented the air for many yards: they were chiefly carp, caught and dried at the foot of the hills. Large parties were bringing down baskets of bird-cherries, cinnamon-bark, iron, pine planks, fire-wood, and potatoes. Of these, the bird-cherries (like damsons) are made into an excellent preserve by the English residents, who also make capital cherry-brandy of them: the trade in cinnamon is of recent introduction, and is much encouraged by the Inglis family, to whose exertions these people are so greatly indebted; the cinnamon is the peeled bark of a small species of Cinnamomum allied to that of Ceylon, and though inferior in flavour and mucilaginous (like cassia), finds a ready market at Calcutta. It has been used to adulterate the Ceylon cinnamon; and an extensive fraud was attempted by some Europeans at Calcutta, who sent boxes of this, with a top layer of the genuine, to England. The smell of the cinnamon loads was as fragrant as that of the fish was offensive.
The road from Kala-panee bungalow strikes off north-easterly, and rounds the head of the deep valley to the east of Churra; it then crosses the head-waters of the Kala-panee river, still a clear stream, the bed of which is comparatively superficial: the rocks consist of a little basalt and much sandstone, striking east by north, and dipping north by west. The Boga-panee is next reached, flowing in a shallow valley, about 200 feet below the general level of the hills, which are grassy and treeless. The river8 [The fall of this river, between this elevation (which may be considered that of its source) and Chela, is about 5,500 feet.] is thirty yards across, shallow and turbid; its bed is granite, and beyond it scattered stunted pines are met with; a tree which seems to avoid the sandstone. In the evening we arrived at Nonkreem, a large village in a broad marshy valley, where we procured accommodation with some difficulty, the people being by no means civil, and the Rajah, Sing Manuk, holding himself independent of the British Government.
Atmospheric denudation and weathering have produced remarkable effects on the lower part of the Nonkreem valley, which is blocked up by a pine-crested hill, 200 feet high, entirely formed of round blocks of granite, heaped up so as to resemble an old moraine; but like the Nunklow boulders, these are not arranged as if by glacial action. The granite is micaceous, and usually very soft, decomposing into a coarse reddish sand, that colours the Boga-panee. To procure the iron-sand, which is disseminated through it, the natives conduct water over the beds of granite sand, and as the lighter particles are washed away, the remainder is removed to troughs, where the separation of the ore is completed. The smelting is very rudely carried on in charcoal fires, blown by enormous double-action bellows, worked by two persons, who stand on the machine, raising the flaps with their hands, and expanding them with their feet, as shown in the cut further on. There is neither furnace nor flux used in the reduction. The fire is kindled on one aide of an upright stone (like the head-stone of a grave), with a small arched hole close to the ground: near this hole the bellows are suspended; and a bamboo tube from each of its compartments, meets in a larger one, by which the draught is directed under the hole in the stone to the fire. The ore is run into lumps as large as two fists, with a rugged surface: these lumps are afterwards cleft nearly in two, to show their purity.
Illustration—NONKREEM VILLAGE.
The scenery about Nonkreem village is extremely picturesque, and we procured many good plants on the rocks, which were covered with the purple-flowered Orchid, Coelogyne Wallichii. The country is everywhere intersected with trenches for iron-washing, and some large marshes were dammed up for the same purpose: in these we found some beautiful balsams, Hypericum and Parnassia; also a diminutive water-lily, the flower of which is no larger than a half-crown; it proves to be the Nymphaea pygmaea of China and Siberia—a remarkable fact in the geographical distribution of plants.
Illustration—BELLOWS.
From Nonkreem we proceeded easterly to Pomrang, leaving Chillong hill on the north, and again crossing the Bega-panee, beyond which the sandstone appeared (strike north-east and dip north-west 60 degrees); the soil was poor in the extreme; not an inhabitant or tree was to be seen throughout the grassy landscape, and hardly a bush, save an occasional rhododendron, dwarf oak, or Pieris, barely a few inches high.
At Pomrang we took up our quarters in an excellent empty bungalow, built by Mr. Stainforth (Judge of Silhet), who kindly allowed us the use of it. Its elevation was 5,143 feet, and it occupied the eastern extremity of a lofty spur that overhangs the deep fir-clad valley of the Oongkot, dividing Khasia from Jyntea. The climate of Pomrang is so much cooler and less rainy than at Churra, that this place is more eligible for a station; but the soil is quite impracticable, there is an occasional scarcity of water, the pasture is wholly unsuited for cattle or sheep, and the distance from the plains is too great.
A beautiful view extends eastwards to the low Jyntea hills, backed by the blue mountains of Cachar, over the deep valley in front; to the northward, a few peaks of the Himalaya are seen, and westward is Chillong. We staid here till the 23rd September, and then proceeded south-eastward to Mooshye. The path descends into the valley of the Oongkot, passing the village of Pomrang, and then through woods of pine, Gordonia, and oak, the latter closely resembling the English, and infested with galls. The slopes are extensively cultivated with black awnless unirrigated rice, and poor crops of Coix, protected from the birds by scarecrows of lines stretched across the fields, bearing tassels and tufts of fern, shaken by boys. This fern proved to be a very curious and interesting genus, which is only known to occur elsewhere at Hong-Kong in China, and has been called Bowringia, after the eminent Dr. Bowring.
We crossed the river* [Podostemom grew on the stones at the bottom: it is a remarkable waterplant, resembling a liver-wort in its mode of growth. Several species occur at different elevations in the Khasia, and appear only in autumn, when they often carpet the bottom of the streams with green. In spring and summer no traces of them are seen; and it is difficult to conceive what becomes of the seeds in the interval, and how these, which are well known, and have no apparent provision for the purpose, attach themselves to the smooth rocks at the bottom of the torrents. All the kinds flower and ripen their seeds under water; the stamens and pistil being protected by the closed flower from the wet. This genus does not inhabit the Sikkim rivers, probably owing to the great changes of temperature to which these are subject.] twice, proceeding south-west to Mooshye, a village placed on an isolated, flat-topped, and very steep-sided hill, 4,863 feet above the sea, and perhaps 3,500 above the Oongkot, which winds round its base. A very steep path led up slate rocks to the top (which was of sandstone), where there is a stockaded guard-house, once occupied by British troops, of which we took possession. A Labiate plant (Mesona Wallichiana) grew on the ascent, whose bruised leaves smelt as strongly of patchouli, as do those of the plant producing that perfume, to which it is closely allied. The Pogostemon Patchouli has been said to occur in these parts of India, but we never met with it, and doubt the accuracy of the statement. It is a native of the Malay peninsula, whence the leaves are imported into Bengal, and so to Europe.
The summit commands a fine view northward of some Himalayan peaks, and southwards of the broad valley of the Oongkot, which is level, and bounded by steep and precipitous hills, with flat tops. On the 25th we left Mooshye for Amwee in Jyntea, which lies to the south-east. We descended by steps cut in the sandstone, and fording the Oongkot, climbed the hills on its east side, along the grassy tops of which we continued, at an elevation of 4000 feet. Marshy flats intersect the hills, to which wild elephants sometimes ascend, doing much damage to the rice crops. We crossed a stream by a bridge formed of one gigantic block of sandstone, 20 feet long, close to the village, which is a wretched one, and is considered unhealthy: it stands on the high road from Jynteapore (at the foot of the hills to the southward) to Assam: the only road that crosses the mountains east of that from Churra to Nunklow.
Illustration—OLD BRIDGE AT AMWEE.
Though so much lower, this country, from the barrenness of the soil, is more thinly inhabited than the Khasia. The pitcher-plant (Nepenthes) grows on stony and grassy hills about Amwee, and crawls along the ground; its pitchers seldom contain insects in the wild state, nor can we suggest any special function for the wonderful organ it possesses.
About eight miles south of the village is a stream, crossed by a bridge, half of which is formed of slabs of stone (of which one is twenty-one feet long, seven broad, and two feet three and a half inches thick), supported on piers, and the rest is a well turned arch, such as I have not seen elsewhere among the hill tribes of India. It is fast crumbling away, and is covered with tropical plants, and a beautiful white-flowered orchis* [Diplomeris; Apostasia also grew in this gulley, with a small Arundina, some beautiful species of Sonerila, and Argostemma. The neighbourhood was very rich in plants.] grew in the mossy crevices of its stones.
From Amwee our route lay north-east across the Jyntea hills to Joowye, the hill-capital of the district. The path gradually ascended, dipping into valleys scooped out in the horizontal sandstone down to the basalt; and boulders of the same rock were scattered about. Fields of rice occupy the bottoms of these valleys, in which were placed gigantic images of men, dressed in rags, and armed with bows and arrows, to scare away the wild elephants! Slate rocks succeed the sandstone (strike north-east, dip north-west), and with them pines and birch appear, clothing the deep flanks of the Mintadoong valley, which we crossed.
The situation of Joowye is extremely beautiful: it occupies the broken wooded slope of a large open flat valley, dotted with pines; and consists of an immense number of low thatched cottages, scattered amongst groves of bamboo, and fields of plantain, tobacco, yams, sugar-cane, maize, and rice, surrounded by hedges of bamboo, Colquhounia, and Erythrina. Narrow steep lanes lead amongst these, shaded with oak, birch, Podocarpus, Camellia, and Araliaceae; the larger trees being covered with orchids, climbing palms, Pothos, Scindapsus, pepper, and Gnetum; while masses of beautiful red and violet balsams grew under every hedge and rock. The latter was of sandstone, overlying highly inclined schists, and afforded magnificent blocks for the natives to rear on end, or make seats of. Some erect stones on a hill at the entrance are immensely large, and surround a clump of fine fig and banyan trees.* [In some tanks we found Hydropeltis, an American and Australian plant allied to Nymphaea. Mr. Griffith first detected it here, and afterwards in Bhotan, these being the only known habitats for it in the Old World. It grows with Typha, Acorus Calamus (sweet flag), Vallisneria, Potamogeton, Sparganium, and other European water-plants.]
We procured a good house after many delays, for the people were far from obliging; it was a clean, very long cottage, with low thatched eaves almost touching the ground, and was surrounded by a high bamboo paling that enclosed out-houses built on a well-swept floor of beaten earth. Within, the woodwork was carved in curious patterns, and was particularly well fitted. The old lady to whom it belonged got tired of us before two days were over, and first tried to smoke us out by a large fire of green wood at that end of the cottage which she retained; and afterwards by inviting guests to a supper, with whom she kept up a racket all night. Her son, a tall, sulky fellow, came to receive the usual gratuity on our departure, which we made large to show we bore no ill-will: he, however, behaved so scornfully, pretending to despise it, that I had no choice but to pocket it again; a proceeding which was received with shouts of laughter, at his expense, from a large crowd of bystanders.
On the 30th of September we proceeded north-east from Joowye to Nurtiung, crossing the watershed of the Jyntea range, which is granitic, and scarcely raised above the mean level of the hills; it is about 4,500 feet elevation. To the north the descent is at first rather abrupt for 500 feet, to a considerable stream, beyond which is the village of Nurtiung. The country gradually declines hence to the north-east, in grassy hills; which to the east become higher and more wooded: to the west the Khasia are seen, and several Himalayan peaks to the north.
The ascent to the village from the river is by steps cut in a narrow cleft of the schist rocks, to a flat, elevated 4,178 feet above the sea: we here procured a cottage, and found the people remarkably civil. The general appearance is the same as at Joowye, but there are here extensive and very unhealthy marshes, whose evil effects we experienced, in having the misfortune to lose one of our servants by fever. Except pines, there are few large trees; but the quantity of species of perennial woody plants contributing to form the jungles is quite extraordinary: I enumerated 140, of which 60 were trees or large shrubs above twenty feet high. One of these was the Hamamelis chinensis, a plant hitherto only known as a native of China. This, the Bowringia, and the little Nymphaea, are three out of many remarkable instances of our approach to the eastern Asiatic flora.
From Nurtiung we walked to the Bor-panee river, sixteen or twenty miles to the north-east (not the river of that name below Nunklow), returning the same night; a most fatiguing journey in so hot and damp a climate. The path lay for the greatest part of the way over grassy hills of mica-schist, with boulders of granite, and afterwards of syenite, like those of Nunklow. The descent to the river is through noble woods of spreading oaks,* [We collected upwards of fifteen kinds of oak and chesnut in these and the Khasia mountains; many are magnificent trees, with excellent wood, while others are inferior as timber.] chesnuts, magnolias, and tall pines: the vegetation is very tropical, and with the exception of there being no sal, it resembles that of the dry hills of the Sikkim Terai. The Bor-panee is forty yards broad, and turbid; its bed, which is of basalt, is 2,454 feet above the sea: it is crossed by a raft pulled to and fro by canes.
Nurtiung contains a most remarkable collection of those sepulchral and other monuments, which form so curious a feature in the scenery of these mountains and in the habits of their savage population. They are all placed in a fine grove of trees, occupying a hollow; where several acres are covered with gigantic, generally circular, slabs of stone, from ten to twenty-five feet broad, supported five feet above the ground upon other blocks. For the most part they are buried in brushwood of nettles and shrubs, but in one place there is an open area of fifty yards encircled by them, each with a gigantic headstone behind it. Of the latter the tallest was nearly thirty feet high, six broad, and two feet eight inches in thickness, and must have been sunk at least five feet, and perhaps much more, in the ground. The flat slabs were generally of slate or hornstone; but many of them, and all the larger ones, were of syenitic granite, split by heat and cold water with great art. They are erected by dint of sheer brute strength, the lever being the only aid. Large blocks of syenite were scattered amongst these wonderful erections.
Splendid trees of Bombax, fig and banyan, overshadowed them: the largest banyan had a trunk five feet in diameter, clear of the buttresses, and numerous small trees of Celtic grew out of it, and an immense flowering tuft of Vanda caerulea (the rarest and most beautiful of Indian orchids) flourished on one of its limbs. A small plantain with austere woolly scarlet fruit, bearing ripe seeds, was planted in this sacred grove, where trees of the most tropical genera grew mixed with the pine, birch, Myrica, and Viburnum.
The Nurtiung Stonehenge is no doubt in part religious, as the grove suggests, and also designed for cremation, the bodies being burnt on the altars. In the Khasia these upright stones are generally raised simply as memorials of great events, or of men whose ashes are not necessarily, though frequently, buried or deposited in hollow stone sarcophagi near them, and sometimes in an urn placed inside a sarcophagus, or under horizontal slabs.
Illustration—STONES AT NURTIUNG.
The usual arrangement is a row of five, seven, or more erect oblong blocks with round heads (the highest being placed in the middle), on which are often wooden discs and cones: more rarely pyramids are built. Broad slabs for seats are also common by the wayside. Mr. Yule, who first drew attention to these monuments, mentions one thirty-two feet by fifteen, and two in thickness; and states that the sarcophagi (which, however, are rare) formed of four slabs, resemble a drawing in Bell's Circassia, and descriptions in Irby and Mangles' Travels in Syria. He adds that many villages derive their names from these stones, "mau" signifying "stone:" thus "Mausmai" is "the stone of oath," because, as his native informant said, "there was war between Churra and Mausmai, and when they made peace, they swore to it, and placed a stone as a witness;" forcibly recalling the stone Jacob set up for a pillar, and other passages in the old Testament: "Mamloo" is "the stone of salt," eating salt from a sword's point being the Khasia form of oath: "Mauflong" is "the grassy stone," etc.* [Notes on the Khasia mountains and people; by Lieutenant H. Yule, Bengal Engineers. Analogous combinations occur in the south of England and in Brittany, etc., where similar structures are found. Thus maen, man, or men is the so-called Druidical name for a stony, whence Pen-maen-mawr, for "the hill of the big stone," Maen-hayr, for the standing stones of Brittany, and Dol-men, °the table-stone," for a cromlech.] Returning from this grove, we crossed a stream by a single squared block, twenty-eight feet long, five broad, and two thick, of gray syenitic granite with large crystals of felspar.
We left Nurtiung on the 4th of October, and walked to Pomrang, a very long and fatiguing day's work. The route descends north-west of the village, and turns due east along bare grassy hills of mica-schist and slate (strike east and west, and dip north). Near the village of Lernai oak woods are passed, in which Vanda coerulea grows in profusion, waving its panicles of azure flowers in the wind. As this beautiful orchid is at present attracting great attention, from its high price, beauty, and difficulty of culture, I shall point out how totally at variance with its native habits, is the cultivation thought necessary for it in England.* [We collected seven men's loads of this superb plant for the Royal Gardens at Kew; but owing to unavoidable accidents and difficulties, few specimens reached England alive. A gentleman who sent his gardener with us to be shown the locality, was more successful: he sent one man's load to England on commission, and though it arrived in a very poor state, it sold for 300 pounds, the individual plants fetching prices varying from 3 pounds to 10 pounds. Had all arrived alive, they would have cleared 1000 pounds. An active collector, with the facilities I possessed, might easily clear from 2000 pounds to 3000 pounds, in one season, by the sale of Khasia orchids.] The dry grassy hills which it inhabits are elevated 3000 to 4000 feet: the trees are small, gnarled, and very sparingly leafy, so that the Vanda which grows on their limbs is fully exposed to sun, rain, and wind. There is no moss or lichen on the branches with the Vanda, whose roots sprawl over the dry rough bark. The atmosphere is on the whole humid, and extremely so during the rains; but there is no damp heat, or stagnation of the air, and at the flowering season the temperature ranges between 60 degrees and 80 degrees, there is much sunshine, and both air and bark are dry during the day: in July and August, during the rains, the temperature is a little higher than above, but in winter it falls much lower, and hoar-frost forms on the ground. Now this winter's cold, summer's heat, and autumn's drought, and above all, this constant free exposure to fresh air and the winds of heaven, are what of all things we avoid exposing our orchids to in England. It is under these conditions, however, that all the finer Indian Orchideae, grow, of which we found Dendrobium Farmeri, Dalhousianum, Devonianum, etc., with Vanda coerulea; whilst the most beautiful species of Coelogyne, Cymbidium, Bolbophyllum, and Cypripedium, inhabit cool climates at elevations above 4000 feet in Khasia, and as high as 6000 to 7000 in Sikkim.
On the following day we turned out our Vanda to dress the specimens for travelling, and preserve the flowers for botanical purposes. Of the latter we had 360 panicles, each composed of from six to twenty-one broad pale-blue tesselated flowers, three and a half to four inches across and they formed three piles on the floor of the verandah, each a yard high: what would we not have given to have been able to transport a single panicle to a Chiswick fete!
On the 10th of October we sent twenty-four strong mountaineers to Churra, laden with the collections of the previous month; whilst we returned to Nonkreem, and crossing the shoulder of Chillong, passed through the village of Moleem in a north-west direction to the Syong bungalow. From this we again crossed the range to Nunklow and the Bor-panee, and returned by Moflong and the Kala-panee to Churra during the latter part of the month.
In November the vegetation above 4000 feet turns wintry and brown, the weather becomes chilly, and though the cold is never great, hoar-frost forms at Churra, and water freezes at Moflong. We prepared to leave as these signs of winter advanced: we had collected upwards of 2,500 species, and for the last few weeks all our diligence, and that of our collectors, had failed to be rewarded by a single novelty. We however procured many species in fruit, and made a collection of upwards of 300 kinds of woods, many of very curious structure. As, however, we projected a trip to Cachar before quitting the neighbourhood, we retained our collectors, giving orders for them to meet us at Chattuc, on our way down the Soormah in December, with their collections, which amounted to 200 men's loads, and for the conveyance of which to Calcutta, Mr. Inglis procured us boats.
Before dismissing the subject of the Khasia mountains, it will be well to give a slight sketch of their prominent geographical features, in connection with their geology. The general geological characters of the chain may be summed up in a few words. The nucleus or axis is of highly inclined stratified metamorphic rocks, through which the granite has been protruded, and the basalt and syenite afterwards injected. After extensive denudations of these, the sandstone, coal, and limestone were successively deposited. These are altered and displaced along the southern edge of the range, by black amygdaloidal trap, and have in their turn been extensively denuded; and it is this last operation that has sculptured the range, and given the mountains their present aspect; for the same gneisses, slates, and basalts in other countries, present rugged peaks, domes, or cones, and there is nothing in their composition or arrangement here that explains the tabular or rounded outline they assume, or the uniform level of the spurs into which they rise, or the curious steep sides and flat floors of the valleys which drain them.
All these peculiarities of outline are the result of denudation, of the specific action of which agent we are very ignorant. The remarkable difference between the steep cliffs on the south face of the range, and the rounded outline of the hills on the northern slopes, may be explained on the supposition that when the Khasia was partially submerged, the Assam valley was a broad bay or gulf; and that while the Churra cliffs were exposed to the full sweep of the ocean, the Nunklow shore was washed by a more tranquil sea.
The broad flat marshy heads of all the streams in the central and northern parts of the chain, and the rounded hills that separate them, indicate the levelling action of a tidal sea, acting on a low flat shore;* [Since our return to England, we have been much struck with the similarity in contour of the Essex and Suffolk coasts, and with the fact that the tidal coast sculpturing of this surface is preserved in the very centre of High Suffolk, twenty to thirty miles distant from the sea, in rounded outlines and broad flat marshy valleys.]whilst the steep flat- floored valleys of the southern watershed may be attributed to the scouring action of higher tides on a boisterous rocky coast. These views are confirmed by an examination of the east shores of the Bay of Bengal, and particularly by a comparison of the features of the country about Silhet, now nearly 280 miles distant from the sea, with those of the Chittagong coast, with which they are identical.
The geological features of the Khasia are in many respects so similar to those of the Vindhya, Kymore, Behar, and Rajmahal mountains, that they have been considered by some observers as an eastern prolongation of that great chain, from which they are geographically separated by the delta of the Ganges and Burrampooter. The general contour of the mountains, and of their sandstone cliffs, is the same, and the association of this rock with coal and lime is a marked point of similarity; there is, however, this difference between them, that the coal-shales of Khasia and limestone of Behar are non-fossiliferous, while the lime of Khasia and the coal-shales of Behar contain fossils.
The prevalent north-east strike of the gneiss is the same in both, differing from the Himalaya, where the stratified rocks generally strike north-west. The nummulites of the limestone are the only known means we have of forming an approximate estimate of the age of the Khasia coal, which is the most interesting feature in the geology of the range: these fossils have been examined by MM. Archiac and Jules Haines,* ["Description des Animaux Fossiles des Indes Orientales;" p. 178. These species are Nummulites scabra, Lamarck, N. obtusa, Sowerby, N. Lucasana, Deshayes, and N. Beaumonti, d'Arch. and Haines.] who have pronounced the species collected by Dr. Thomson and myself to be the same as those found in the nummulite rocks of north-west India, Scinde, and Arabia.