Himalayan Journals Part 42

Mr. Stainforth's house, like those of most of the other Europeans, occupies the top of one of the Teelas, 150 feet high, and is surrounded by fine spreading oaks,* [It is not generally known that oaks are often very tropical plants; not only abounding at low elevations in the mountains, but descending in abundance to the level of the sea. Though unknown in Ceylon, the Peninsula of India, tropical Africa, or South America, they abound in the hot valleys of the Eastern Himalaya, East Bengal, Malay Peninsula, and Indian islands; where perhaps more species grow than in any other part of the world. Such facts as this disturb our preconceived notions of the geographical distribution of the most familiar tribes of plants, and throw great doubt on the conclusions which fossil plants are supposed to indicate.] _Garcinia,_ and _Diospyros_ trees. The rock of which the hill is composed, is a slag-like ochreous sandstone, covered in most places with a shrubbery of rose-flowered _Melastoma,_ and some peculiar plants.* [_Gelonium, Adelia, Moacurra, Linostoma, Justicia, Trophis, Connarus, Ixora, Congea, Dalhousiea, Grewia, Myrsine, b.u.t.tneria_; and on the shady exposures a _Calamus, Briedelia,_ and various ferns.]

Broad flat valleys divide the hills, and are beautifully clothed with a bright green jungle of small palms, and many kinds of ferns.

In sandy places, blue-flowered _Burmannia, Hypoxis,_ and other pretty tropical annuals, expand their blossoms, with an inconspicuous _Stylidium,_ a plant belonging to a small natural family, whose limits are so confined to New Holland, that this is almost the only kind that does not grow in that continent. Where the ground is swampy, dwarf _Panda.n.u.s_ abounds, with the gigantic nettle, _Urtica crenulata_ ("Mealum-ma" of Sikkim, see chapter xxiv).

The most interesting botanical ramble about Silhet is to the tree-fern groves on the path to Jynteapore, following the bottoms of shallow valleys between the Teelas, and along clear streams, up whose beds we waded for some miles, under an arching canopy of tropical shrubs, trees, and climbers, tall gra.s.ses, screw-pines, and _Aroideae._ In the narrower parts of the valleys the tree-ferns are numerous on the slopes, rearing their slender brown trunks forty feet high, with feathery crowns of foliage, through which the sun-beams trembled on the broad s.h.i.+ning foliage of the tropical herbage below.

Silhet, though hot and damp, is remarkably healthy, and does not differ materially in temperature from Silchar, though it is more equable and humid.* [During our stay of five days the mean maximum temperature was 74 degrees, minimum 64.8 degrees: that of thirty-two observations compared with Calcutta show that Silhet is only 1.7 degrees cooler, though Mr. Stainforth's house is upwards of 2 degrees further north, and 160 feet more elevated. A thermometer sunk two feet seven inches, stood at 73.5 degrees. The relative saturation-points were, Calcutta .633, Silhet .821.] It derives some interest from having been first brought into notice by the enterprise of one of the Lindsays of Balcarres, at a time when the pioneers of commerce in India encountered great hards.h.i.+ps and much personal danger. Mr. Lindsay, a writer in the service of the East India Company, established a factory at Silhet, and commenced the lime trade with Calcutta,* [For an account of the early settlement of Silhet, see "Lives of the Lindsays," by Lord Lindsay.] reaping an enormous fortune himself, and laying the foundation of that prosperity amongst the people which has been much advanced by the exertions of the Inglis family, and has steadily progressed under the protecting rule of the Indian government.

From Silhet we took large boats to navigate the Burrampooter and Megna, to their embouchure in the Bay of Bengal at Noacolly, a distance of 250 miles, whence we were to proceed across the head of the bay to Chittagong, about 100 miles farther. We left on the 7th of December, and arrived at Chattuc on the 9th, where we met our Khasia collectors with large loads of plants, and paid them off. The river was now low, and presented a busy scene, from the numerous trading boats being confined to its fewer and deeper channels. Long gra.s.ses and sedges (_Arundo, Saccharum_ and _Scleria_), were cut, and stacked along the water's edge, in huge brown piles, for export and thatching.

On the 13th December, we entered the broad stream of the Megna.

Rice is cultivated along the mud flats left by the annual floods, and the banks are lower and less defined than in the Soormah, and support no long gra.s.ses or bushes. Enormous islets of living water-gra.s.ses (_Oplismenus stagninus_) and other plants, floated past, and birds became more numerous, especially martins and egrets. The sun was hot, but the weather otherwise cool and pleasant: the mean temperature was nearly that of Calcutta, 69.7 degrees, but the atmosphere was more humid.* [The river-water was greenish, and a little cooler (73.8 degrees) than that of the Soormah (74.3 degrees), which was brown and muddy. The barometer on the Soormah stood 0.028 inch higher than that of Calcutta (on the mean of thirty-eight observations), whereas on the Megna the pressure was 0.010 higher. As Calcutta is eighteen feet above the level of the Bay of Bengal, this shows that the Megna (which has no perceptible current) is at the level of the sea, and that either the Soormah is upwards of thirty feet above that level, or that the atmospheric pressure there, and at this season, is less than at Calcutta, which, as I have hinted at chapter xxvii, is probably the case.]

On the 14th we pa.s.sed the Dacca river; below which the Megna is several miles wide, and there is an appearance of tide, from ma.s.ses of purple _Salvinia_ (a floating plant, allied to ferns), being thrown up on the beach like sea-weed. Still lower down, the vegetation of the Sunderbunds commences; there is a narrow beach, and behind it a mud bank several feet high, supporting a luxuriant green jungle of palms (_Bora.s.sus_ and _Phoenix_), immense fig-trees, covered with _Calami,_ and tall betel-palms, clothed with the most elegant drapery of _Arostichum scandens,_ a climbing fern with pendulous fronds.

Towards the embouchure, the banks rise ten feet high, the river expands into a muddy sea, and a long swell rolls in, to the disquiet of our fresh-water boatmen. Low islands of sand and mud stretch along the horizon: which, together with the s.h.i.+ps, distorted by extraordinary refraction, flicker as if seen through smoke. Mud is the all prevalent feature; and though the water is not salt, we do not observe in these broad deltas that amount of animal life (birds, fish, alligators, and porpoises), that teems in the narrow creeks of the western Sunderbunds.

We landed in a ca.n.a.l-like creek at Tuktacolly,* ["Colly" signifies a muddy creek, such as intersect the delta.] on the 17th, and walked to Noacolly, over a flat of hard mud or dried silt, covered with turf of _Cynodon Dactylon._ We were hospitably received by Dr. Baker, a gentleman who has resided here for twenty-three years; and who communicated to us much interesting information respecting the features of the Gangetic delta.

Noacolly is a station for collecting the revenue and preventing the manufacture of salt, which, with opium, are the only monopolies now in the hands of the East India Company. The salt itself is imported from Arracan, Ceylon, and even Europe, and is stored in great wooden buildings here and elsewhere. The ground being impregnated with salt, the illicit manufacture by evaporation is not easily checked; but whereas the average number of cases brought to justice used to be twenty and thirty in a week, they are now reduced to two or three.

It is remarkable, that though the soil yields such an abundance of this mineral, the water of the Megna at Noacolly is only brackish, and it is therefore to repeated inundations and surface evaporations that the salt is due. Fresh water is found at a very few feet depth everywhere, but it is not good.

When it is considered how comparatively narrow the sea-board of the delta is, the amount of difference in the physical features of the several parts, will appear most extraordinary. I have stated that the difference between the northern and southern halves of the delta is so great, that, were all depressed and their contents fossilised, the geologist who examined each by itself, would hardly recognise the two parts as belonging to one epoch; and the difference between the east and west halves of the lower delta is equally remarkable.

The total breadth of the delta is 260 miles, from Chittagong to the mouth of the Hoogly, divided longitudinally by the Megna: all to the west of that river presents a luxuriant vegetation, while to the east is a bare muddy expanse, with no trees or shrubs but what are planted On the west coast the tides rise twelve or thirteen feet, on the east, from forty to eighty. On the west, the water is salt enough for mangroves to grow for fifty miles up the Hoogly; on the east, the sea coast is too fresh for that plant for ten miles south of Chittagong.

On the west, fifty inches is the Cuttack fall of rain; on the east, 90 to 120 at Noacolly and Chittagong, and 200 at Arracan. The east coast is annually visited by earthquakes, which are rare on the west; and lastly, the majority of the great trees and shrubs carried down from the Cuttack and Orissa forests, and deposited on the west coast of the delta, are not only different in species, but in natural order, from those that the Fenny and Chittagong rivers bring down from the jungles.* [The Cuttack forests are composed of teak, Sal, Sissoo, ebony, _Pentaptera, Buchanania,_ and other trees of a dry soil, and that require a dry season alternating with a wet one.

These are unknown in the Chittagong forests, which have Jarool (_Lagerstroemia_) _Mesua, Dipterocarpi,_ nutmegs, oaks of several kinds, and many other trees not known in the Cuttack forests, and all typical of a perennially humid atmosphere.]

We were glad to find at Noacolly that our observations on the progression westwards of the Burrampooter (see chapter xxvii) were confirmed by the fact that the Megna also is gradually moving in that direction, leaving much dry land on the Noacolly side, and forming islands opposite that coast; whilst it encroaches on the Sunderbunds, and is cutting away the islands in that direction. This advance of the fresh waters amongst the Sunderbunds is destructive to the vegetation of the latter, which requires salt; and if the Megna continues its slow course westwards, the obliteration of thousands of square miles of a very peculiar flora, and the extinction of many species of plants and animals that exist nowhere else, may ensue.

In ordinary cases these plants, etc., would take up their abode on the east coast, as they were driven from the west; but such might not be the case in this delta; for the sweeping tides of the east coast prevent any such vegetation establis.h.i.+ng itself there, and the mud which the eastern rivers carry down, becomes a caking dry soil, unsuited to the germination of seeds.

On our arrival at Calcutta in the following February, Dr. Falconer showed us specimens of very modern peat, dug out of the banks of the Hoogly a few feet below the surface of the soil, in which were seeds of the _Euryale ferox_:* [This peat Dr. Falconer also found to contain bones of birds and fish, seeds of _Cuc.u.mis Madraspatana_ and another Cucurbitaceous plant, leaves of _Saccharum Sara_ and _Ficus cordifolia._ Specks of some glistening substance were scattered through the ma.s.s, apparently incipient carbonisation of the peat.]

this plant is not now known to be found nearer than Dacca (sixty miles north-east, see chapter xxvii), and indicates a very different state of the surface at Calcutta at the date of its deposition than that which exists now, and also shows that the estuary was then much fresher.

The main land of Noacolly is gradually extending seawards, and has advanced four miles within twenty-three years: this seems sufficiently accounted for by the recession of the Megna. The elevation of the surface of the land is caused by the overwhelming tides and south-west hurricanes in May and October: these extend thirty miles north and south of Chittagong, and carry the waters of the Megna and Fenny back over the land, in a series of tremendous waves, that cover islands of many hundred acres, and roll three miles on to the main land. On these occasions, the average earthy deposit of silt, separated by micaceous sand, is an eighth of an inch for every tide; but in October, 1848, these tides covered Sundeep island, deposited six inches on its level surface, and filled ditches several feet deep. These deposits become baked by a tropical sun, and resist to a considerable degree denudation by rain. Whether any further rise is caused by elevation from below is doubtful; there is no direct evidence of it, though slight earthquakes annually occur; and even when they have not been felt, the water of tanks has been seen to oscillate for three-quarters of an hour without intermission, from no discernible cause.* [The natives are familiar with this phenomenon, of which Dr. Baker remembers two instances, one in the cold season of 1834-5, the other in that of 1830-1. The earthquakes do not affect any particular month, nor are they accompanied by any meteorological phenomena.]

Noacolly is considered a healthy spot, which is not the case with the Sunderbund stations west of the Megna. The climate is uniformly hot, but the thermometer never rises above 90 degrees, nor sinks below 45 degrees; at this temperature h.o.a.r-frost will form on straw, and ice on water placed in porous pans, indicating a powerful radiation.*

[The winds are north-west and north in the cold season (from November to March), drawing round to west in the afternoons. North-west winds and heavy hailstorms are frequent from March to May, when violent gales set in from the southward. The rains commence in June, with easterly and southerly winds, and the temperature from 82 degrees to 84 degrees; May and October are the hottest months. The rains cease in the end of October (on the 8th of November in 1849, and 12th of November in 1850, the latest epoch ever remembered): there is no land or sea breeze along any part of the coast. During our stay we found the mean temperature for twelve observations to be precisely that of Calcutta, but the humidity was more, and the pressure 0.040 lower.]

We left Noacolly on the 19th for Chittagong; the state of the tide obliging us to go on board in the night. The distance is only 100 miles, but the pa.s.sage is considered dangerous at this time (during the spring-tides) and we were therefore provided with a large vessel and an experienced crew. The great object in this navigation is to keep afloat and to make progress towards the top of the tide and during its flood, and to ground during the ebb in creeks where the bore (tidal wave) is not violent; for where the channels are broad and open, the height and force of this wave rolls the largest coasting craft over and swamps them.

Our boatmen pushed out at 3 in the morning, and brought up at 5, in a narrow muddy creek on the island of Sidhee. The waters retired along channels scooped several fathoms deep in black mud, leaving our vessel aground six or seven feet below the top of the bank, and soon afterwards there was no water to be seen; as far as the eye could reach, all was a glistening oozy mud, except the bleak level surfaces of the islands, on which neither shrub nor tree grew. Soon after 2 p.m. a white line was seen on the low black horizon, which was the tide-wave, advancing at the rate of five miles an hour, with a hollow roar; it bore back the mud that was gradually slipping along the gentle slope, and we were afloat an hour after: at night we grounded again, opposite the mouth of the Fenny.

By moonlight the scene was oppressively solemn: on all sides the gurgling waters kept up a peculiar sound that filled the air with sullen murmurs; the moonbeams slept upon the slimy surface of the mud, and made the dismal landscape more ghastly still. Silence followed the ebb, broken occasionally by the wild whistle of a bird like the curlew, of which a few wheeled through the air: till the harsh roar of the bore was heard, to which the sailors seemed to waken by instinct. The waters then closed in on every side, and the far end of the reflected moonbeam was broken into flas.h.i.+ng light, that approached and soon danced beside the boat.

We much regretted not being able to obtain any more accurate data than I have given, as to the height of the tide at the mouth of the Fenny; but where the ebb sometimes retires twenty miles from high-water mark, it is obviously impossible to plant any tide-gauge.

On the 21st we were ash.o.r.e at daylight on the Chittagong coast far north of the station, and were greeted by the sight of hills on the horizon: we were lying fully twenty feet below high-water mark, and the tide was out for several miles to the westward. The bank was covered with flocks of white geese feeding on short gra.s.s, upon what appeared to be detached islets on the surface of the mud.

These islets, which are often an acre in extent, are composed of stratified mud; they have perpendicular sides several feet high, and convex surfaces, owing to the tide was.h.i.+ng away the earth from under their sides; and they were further slipping seawards, along the gently sloping mud-beach. Few or no sh.e.l.ls or seaweed were to be seen, nor is it possible to imagine a more lifeless sea than these muddy coasts present.

We were three days and nights on this short voyage, without losing sight of mud or land. I observed the barometer whenever the boat was on the sh.o.r.e, and found the mean of six readings (all reduced to the same level) to be identical with that at Calcutta. These being all taken at elevations lower than that of the Calcutta observatory, show either a diminished atmospheric pressure, or that the mean level of high-water is not the same on the east and west coasts of the Bay of Bengal: this is quite possible, considering the widely different direction of the tides and currents on each, and that the waters may be banked up, as it were, in the narrow channels of the western Sunderbunds. The temperature of the air was the same as at Calcutta, but the atmosphere was damper. The water was always a degree warmer than the air.

We arrived at Chittagong on the 23rd of December, and became the guests of Mr. Sconce, Judge of the district, and of Mr. Lautour; to both of whom we were greatly indebted for their hospitality and generous a.s.sistance in every way.

Chittagong is a large town of Mahometans and Mugs, a Birmese tribe who inhabit many parts of the Malay peninsula, and the coast to the northward of it. The town stands on the north sh.o.r.e of an extensive delta, formed by rivers from the lofty mountains separating this district from Birma. These mountains are fine objects on the horizon, rising 4000 to 8000 feet; they are forest-clad, and inhabited by turbulent races, who are coterminous with the Cookies of the Cachar and Tipperah forests; if indeed they be not the same people.

The mountains abound with the splendid timber-trees of the Cachar forests, but like these are said to want teak, Sal, and Sissoo; they have, besides many others,, magnificent Gurjun trees (_Dipterocarpi_), the monarchs of the forests of these coasts.

The natives of Chittagong are excellent s.h.i.+pbuilders and active traders, and export much rice and timber to Madras and Calcutta.

The town is large and beautifully situated, interspersed with trees and tanks; the hills resemble those of Silhet, and are covered with a similar vegetation: on these the European houses are built.

The climate is very healthy, which is not remarkable, considering how closely it approximates in character to that of Silhet and other places in Eastern Bengal, but very extraordinary, if it be compared with Arracan, only 200 miles further south, which is extremely unhealthy. The prominent difference between the physical features of Chittagong and Arracan, is the presence of mangrove swamps at the latter place, for which the water is too fresh at the former.

The hills about the station are not more than 150 or 200 feet high, and are formed of stratified gravel, sand, and clay, that often becomes nodular, and is interstratified with slag-like iron clay.

Fossil wood is found; and some of the old buildings about Chittagong contain nummulitic limestone, probably imported from Silhet or the peninsula of India, with which countries there is no such trade now.

The views are beautiful, of the blue mountains forty to fifty miles distant, and the many-armed river, covered with sails, winding amongst groves of cocoa-nuts, Areca palm, and yellow rice fields.

Good European houses surmount all the eminences, surrounded by trees of _Acacia_ and _Caesalpinia._ In the hollows are native huts amidst vegetation of every hue, glossy green _Garciniae_ and figs, broad plantains, feathery _Ca.s.sia_ and Acacias, dark _Mesua_, red-purple _Terminalia,_ leafless scarlet-flowered _Bombax,_ and grey _Casuarina._* [This, which is almost exclusively an Australian genus, is not indigenous at Chittagong: to it belongs an extra-Australian species common in the Malay islands, and found wild as far north as Arracan.] Seaward the tide leaves immense flats, called churs, which stretch for many miles on either side the offing.

We accompanied Mr. Sconce to a bungalow which he has built at the telegraph station at the south head of the harbour: its situation, on a hill 100 feet above the sea, is exposed, and at this season the sea-breeze was invigorating, and even cold, as it blew through the mat-walls of the bungalow.* [The mean temperature of the two days (29th and 30th) we spent at this bungalow was 66.5 degrees, that of Calcutta being 67.6 degrees; the air was damp, and the barometer 0.144 lower at the flagstaff hill, but it fell and rose with the Calcutta instrument.] To the south, undulating dunes stretch along the coast, covered with low bushes, of which a red-flowered _Melastoma_ is the most prevalent,* [_Melastoma,_ jasmine, _Calamus, AEgle Marmelos, Adelia, Memecylon, Ixora, Limostoma, Congea,_ climbing _Coesalpinia,_ and many other plants; and along their bases large trees of _Amoora, Gaurea,_ figs, _Mesua,_ and _Micromelon._]

and is considered a species of _Rhododendron_ by many of the residents! The flats along the beach are several miles broad, intersected with tidal creeks, and covered with short gra.s.s, while below high-water mark all is mud, coated with green _Conferva._ There are no leafy seaweeds or mangroves, nor any seaside shrub but _Dilivaria ilicifolia._ Animal life is extremely rare; and a _Cardium_-like sh.e.l.l and small crab are found sparingly.

Coffee has been cultivated at Chittagong with great success; it is said to have been introduced by Sir W. Jones, and Mr. Sconce has a small plantation, from which his table is well supplied. Both a.s.sam and Chinese teas flourish, but Chinamen are wanted to cure the leaves. Black pepper succeeds admirably, as do cinnamon, arrowroot, and ginger.

Early in January we accompanied Mr. Lautour on an excursion to the north, following a valley separated from the coast by a range of wooded hills, 1000 feet high. For several marches the bottom of this valley was broad, flat, and full of villages. At Sidhee, about twenty-five miles from Chittagong, it contracts, and spurs from the hills on either flank project into the middle: they are 200 to 300 feet high, formed of red clay, and covered with brushwood. At Kajee-ke-hath, the most northern point we reached, we were quite amongst these hills, and in an extremely picturesque country, intersected by long winding flat valleys, that join one another: some are full of copsewood, while others present the most beautiful park-like scenery, and a third cla.s.s expand into gra.s.sy marshes or lake-beds, with wooded islets rising out of them. The hillsides are clothed with low jungle, above which tower magnificent Gurjun trees (wood-oil). The whole contour of this country is that of a low bay, whose coast is raised above the sea, and over which a high tide once swept for ages.

The elevation of Hazari-ke-hath is not 100 feet above the level of the sea. It is about ten miles west of the mouth of the Fenny, from which it is separated by hills 1000 feet high; its river falls into that at Chittagong, thirty miles south. Large myrtaceous trees (_Eugenia_) are common, and show a tendency to the Malayan flora, which is further demonstrated by the abundance of Gurjun (_Dipterocarpus turbinatus_). This is the most superb tree we met with in the Indian forests: we saw several species, but this is the only common one here; it is conspicuous for its gigantic size, and for the straightness and graceful form of its tall unbranched pale grey trunk, and small symmetrical crown: many individuals were upwards of 200 feet high, and fifteen in girth. Its leaves are broad, glossy, and beautiful; the flowers (then falling) are not conspicuous; the wood is hard, close-grained, and durable, and a fragrant oil exudes from the trunk, which is extremely valuable as pitch and varnish, etc., besides being a good medicine. The natives procure it by cutting transverse holes in the trunk, pointing downwards, and lighting fires in them, which causes the oil to flow.*

[The other trees of these dry forests are many oaks, _Henslowia, Gordonia, Engelhardtia, Duabanga, Adelia, Byttneria, Bradleia,_ and large trees of _Pongamia,_ whose seeds yield a useful oil.]

Ill.u.s.tration--GURJUN TREE.

On the 8th of January we experienced a sharp earthquake, preceded by a dull thumping sound; it lasted about twenty seconds, and seemed to come up from the southward; the water of a tank by which we were seated was smartly agitated. The same shock was felt at Mymensing and at Dacca, 110 miles north-west of this.* [Earthquakes are extremely common, and sometimes violent, at Chittagong, and doubtless belong to the volcanic forces of the Malayan peninsula.]

We crossed the dividing ridge of the littoral range on the 9th, and descended to Seetakoond bungalow, on the high road from Chittagong to Comilla. The forests at the foot of the range were very extensive, and swarmed with large red ants that proved very irritating: they build immense pendulous nests of dead and living leaves at the ends of the branches of trees, and mat them with a white web. Tigers, leopards, wild dogs, and boars, are numerous; as are snipes, pheasants, peac.o.c.ks, and jungle-fowl, the latter waking the morn with their shrill crows; and in strange a.s.sociation with them, common English woodc.o.c.k, is occasionally found.

The trees are of little value, except the Gurjun, and "Kistooma," a species of _Bradleia,_ which was stacked extensively, being used for building purposes. The papaw* [The Papaw tree is said to have the curious property of rendering tough meat tender, when hung under its leaves, or touched with the juice; this hastening the process of decay. With this fact, well-known in the West Indies, I never found a person in the East acquainted.] is abundantly cultivated, and its great gourd-like fruit is eaten (called "Papita" or "Chinaman"); the flavour is that of a bad melon, and a white juice exudes from the rind. The _Hodgsonia heteroc.l.i.ta_ (_Trichosanthes_ of Roxburgh), a magnificent Cucurbitaceous climber, grows in these forests; it is the same species as the Sikkim one (see chapter xviii). The long stem bleeds copiously when cut, and like almost all woody climbers, is full of large vessels; the juice does not, however, exude from these great tubes, which hold air, but from the close woody fibres.

A climbing _Apocyneous_ plant grows in these forests, the milk of which flows in a continuous stream, resembling caoutchouc (it is probably the _Urceola elastica,_ which yields Indian-rubber).

The subject of bleeding is involved in great obscurity, and the systematic examination of the motions in the juices of tropical climbers by resident observers, offers a fertile field to the naturalist. I have often remarked that if a climbing stem, in which the circulation is vigorous, be cut across, it bleeds freely from both ends, and most copiously from the lower, if it be turned downwards; but that if a truncheon be severed, there will be no flow from either of its extremities. This is the case with all the Indian watery-juiced climbers, at whatever season they may be cut.

When, however, the circulation in the plant is feeble, neither end of a simple cut will bleed much, but if a truncheon be taken from it, both the extremities will.

The ascent of the hills, which are densely wooded, was along spurs, and over knolls of clay; the rocks were sandy and slaty ?dip north-east 60 degrees. The road was good, but always through bamboo jungle, and it wound amongst the low spurs, so that there was no defined crest or top of the pa.s.s, which is about 800 feet high.

There were no tall palms, tree-ferns, or plantains, no _Hymenophylla_ or _Lycopodia,_ and altogether the forest was smaller and poorer in plants than we had expected. The only palms (except a few rattans) were two kinds of _Wallichia._

From the summit we obtained a very extensive and singular view.

At our feet was a broad, low, gra.s.sy, alluvial plain, intersected by creeks, bounding a black expanse of mud which (the tide being out) appeared to stretch almost continuously to Sundeep Island, thirty miles distant; while beyond, the blue hills of Tipperah rose on the north-west horizon. The rocks yielded a dry poor soil, on which grew dwarf _Phoenix_ and cycas-palm (_Cycas circinalis_ or _pectinata_).

Descending, we rode several miles along an excellent road, that runs to Tipperah, and stopped at the bungalow of Seetakoond, twenty-five miles north of Chittagong. The west flank of the range which we had crossed is much steeper than the east, often precipitous, and presents the appearance of a sea-worn cliff towards the Bay of Bengal. Near Seetakoond (which is on the plain) a hill on the range, bearing the same name, rises 1,136 feet high, and being damper and more luxuriantly wooded, we were anxious to explore it, and therefore spent some days at the bungalow. Fields of poppy and sun (_Crotalaria juncea_), formed most beautiful crops; the latter grows from four to six feet high, and bears ma.s.ses of laburnum-like flowers, while the poppy fields resembled a carpet of dark-green velvet, sprinkled with white stars; or, as I have elsewhere remarked, a green lake studded with water-lilies.

The road to the top of Seetakoond leads along a most beautiful valley, and then winds up a cliff that is in many places almost precipitous, the ascent being partly by steps cut in the rock, of which there are 560. The mountain is very sacred, and there is a large Brahmin temple on its flank; and near the base a perpetual flame bursts out of the rock. This we were anxious to examine, and were extremely disappointed to find it a small vertical hole in a slaty rock, with a lateral one below for a draught; and that it is daily supplied by pious pilgrims and Brahmins with such enormous quant.i.ties of ghee (liquid b.u.t.ter), that it is to all intents and purposes an artificial lamp; no trace of natural phenomena being discoverable.

Ill.u.s.tration--SEETAKUND HILL.