Himalayan Journals, vol 2, J. D. Hooker [small books to read txt] 📗

is now hardly grown, and scarcely a loom exists which is fit for the finest fabrics. The jewellers

still excel in gold and silver filagree.

Pine-apples, plantains, mangos, and oranges, abound in the Dacca

market, betokening a better climate for tropical fruits than that of Western Bengal; and we also saw the fruit of Euryale ferox,* [An

Indian water-lily with a small red flower, covered everywhere with

prickles, and so closely allied to Victoria regia as to be scarcely generically distinguishable from it. It grows in the eastern

Sunderbunds, and also in Kashmir. The discoverer of Victoria called the latter "Euryale Amazonica." These interestiug plants are

growing side by side in the new Victoria house at Kew. The Chinese

species has been erroneously considered different from the Indian

one.] which is round, soft, pulpy, and the size of a small orange; it contains from eight to fifteen round black seeds as large as peas,

which are full of flour, and are eaten roasted in India and China, in which latter country the plant is said to have been in cultivation

for upwards of 3000 years.

The native vegetation is very similar to that of the Hoogly, except that the white rose is frequent here. The fact of a plant of this

genus being as common on the plains of Bengal as a dog-rose is in

England, and associated with cocoa-nuts, palms, mangos, plantains,

and banyans, has never yet attracted the attention of botanists,

though the species was described by Roxburgh. As a geographical fact it is of great importance, for the rose is usually considered a

northern genus, and no kind but this inhabits a damp hot tropical

climate. Even in mountainous countries situated near the equator, as in the Himalaya and Andes, wild roses are very rare, and only found at great elevations, whilst they are unknown in the southern

hemisphere. It is curious that this rose, which is also a native of Birma and the Indian Peninsula, does not in this latitude grow west of the meridian of 87 degrees; it is confined to the upper Gangetic delta, and inhabits a climate in which it would least of all be

looked for.

I made the elevation of Dacca by barometer only seventy-two feet

above the sea; and the banks of the Dallisary being high, the level of its waters at this season is scarcely above that of the Bay of

Bengal. The mean temperature of the air was 86.75 degrees during our stay, or half a degree lower than Calcutta at the same period.

We pursued our voyage on the 30th of May, to the old bed of the

Burrampooter, an immense shallow sheet of water, of which the eastern bank is for eighty miles occupied by the delta of the Soormah.

This river rises on the Munnipore frontier, and flows through Cachar, Silhet, and the Jheels of east Bengal, receiving the waters of the

Cachar, Jyntea, Khasia, and Garrow mountains (which bound the Assam valley to the south), and of the Tipperah hills, which stretch

parallel to them, and divide the Soormah valley from the Bay of

Bengal. The immense area thus drained by the Soormah is hardly raised above the level of the sea, and covers about 10,000 square miles.

The anastomosing rivers that traverse it, flow very gently, and do

not materially alter their course; hence their banks gradually rise above the mean level of the surrounding country, and on them the

small villages are built, surrounded by extensive rice-fields that

need no artificial irrigation. At this season the general surface of the Jheels is marshy; but during the rains, which are excessive on

the neighbouring mountains, they resemble an inland sea, the water

rising gradually to within a few inches of the floor of the huts; as, however, it subsides as slowly in autumn, it commits no devastation.

The communication is at all seasons by boats, in the management of

which the natives (chiefly Mahometans) are expert.

The want of trees and shrubs is the most remarkable feature of the

Jheels; in which respect they differ from the Sunderbunds, though the other physical features of each are similar, the level being exactly the same: for this difference there is no apparent cause, beyond the influence of the tide and sea atmosphere. Long grasses of tropical

genera (Saccharum, Donax, Andropogon, and Rottboellia) ten feet high, form the bulk of the vegetation, with occasional low bushes

along the firmer banks of the natural canals that everywhere

intersect the country; amongst these the rattan cane (Calamus),

rose, a laurel, Stravadium, and fig, are the most common; while

beautiful convolvuli throw their flowering shoots across the water.

The soil, which is sandy along the Burrampooter, is more muddy and

clayey in the centre of the Jheels, with immense spongy accumulations of vegetable matter in the marshes, through which we poked the

boat-staves without finding bottom: they were for the most part

formed of decomposed grass roots, with occasionally leaves, but no

quantity of moss or woody plants. Along the courses of the greater

streams drift timber and various organic fragments are no doubt

imbedded, but as there is no current over the greater part of the

flooded surface, there can be little or no accumulation, except

perhaps of old canoes, or of such vegetables as grow on the spot.

The waters are dark-coloured, but clear and lucid, even at

their height.

We proceeded up the Burrampooter, crossing it obliquely; its banks

were on the average five miles apart, and formed of sand, without

clay, and very little silt or mud: the water was clear and brown,

like that of the Jheels, and very different from that of the Jummul.

We thence turned eastwards into the delta of the Soormah, which we

traversed in a north-easterly direction to the stream itself.

We often passed through very narrow channels, where the grasses

towered over the boats: the boatmen steered in and out of them as

they pleased, and we were utterly at a loss to know how they guided themselves, as they had neither compass nor map, and there were few villages or landmarks; and on climbing the mast we saw multitudes of other masts and sails peeing over the grassy marshes, doing just the same as we did. All that go up have the south-west wind in their

favour, and this helps them to their course, but beyond this they

have no other guide but that instinct which habit begets. Often we

had to retreat from channels that promised to prove short cuts, but which turned out to be blind alleys. Sometimes we sailed up broader streams of chesnut-brown water, accompanied by fleets of boats

repairing to the populous districts at the foot of the Khasia, for

rice, timber, lime, coal, bamboos, and long reeds for thatching, all of which employ an inland navy throughout the year in their transport to Calcutta.

Leeches and mosquitos were very troublesome, the latter appearing in clouds at night; during the day they were rarer, but the species was the same. A large cray-fish was common, but there were few birds and no animals to be seen.

Fifty-four barometric observations, taken at the level of the water on the voyage between Dacca and the Soormah, and compared with

Calcutta, showed a gradual rise of the mercury in proceeding

eastwards; for though the pressure at Calcutta was .055 of an inch

higher than at Dacca, it was .034 lower than on the Soormah: the mean difference between all these observations and the cotemporaneous ones at Calcutta was + .003 in favour of Calcutta, and the temperature

half a degree lower; the dew-point and humidity were nearly the same at both places. This being the driest season of the year, it is very probable that the mean level of the water at this part of the delta is not higher than that of the Bay of Bengal; but as we advanced

northwards towards the Khasia, and entered the Soormah itself, the

atmospheric pressure increased further, thus appearing to give the

bed of that stream a depression of thirty-five feet below the Bay of Bengal, into which it flows! This was no doubt the result of unequal atmospheric pressure at the two localities, caused by the disturbance of the column of atmosphere by the Khasia mountains; for in December of the same year, thirty-eight observations on the surface of the

Soormah made its bed forty-six feet above the Bay of Bengal,

whilst, from twenty-three observations on the Megna, the pressure

only differed + 0.020 of an inch from that of the barometer at

Calcutta, which is eighteen feet above the sea-level.

These barometric levellings, though far from satisfactory as compared with trigonometric, are extremely interesting in the absence of the latter. In a scientific point of view nothing has been done towards determining the levels of the land and waters of the great Gangetic delta, since Rennell's time, yet no geodetical operation promises

more valuable results in geography and physical geology than running three lines of level across its area; from Chittagong to Calcutta,

from Silhet to Rampore, and from Calcutta to Silhet. The foot of the Sikkim Himalaya has, I believe, been connected with Calcutta by the great trigonometrical survey, but I am given to understand that the results are not published.

My own barometric levellings would make the bed of the Mahanuddy and Ganges at the western extremity of the delta, considerably higher

than I should have expected, considering how gentle the current is, and that the season was that of low water. If my observations are

correct, they probably indicate a diminished pressure, which is not easily accounted for, the lower portion of the atmospheric column at Rampore being considerably drier and therefore heavier than at

Calcutta. At the eastern extremity again, towards Silhet, the

atmosphere is much damper than at Calcutta, and the barometer should therefore have stood lower, indicating a higher level of the waters than is the case.

To the geologist the Jheels and Sunderbunds are a most instructive

region, as whatever may be the mean elevation of their waters, a

permanent depression of ten to fifteen feet would submerge an immense tract, which the Ganges, Burrampooter, and Soormah would soon cover with beds of silt and sand. There would be extremely few shells in

the beds thus formed, the southern and northern divisions of which

would present two very different floras and faunas, and would in all probability be referred by future geologists to widely different

epochs. To the north, beds of peat would be formed by grasses, and in other parts, temperate and tropical forms of plants and animals would be preserved in such equally balanced proportions as to confound the palaeontologist; with the bones of the long-snouted alligator,

Gangetic porpoise, Indian cow, buffalo, rhinoceros, elephant, tiger, deer, boar; and a host of other animals, he would meet with acorns of several species of oak, pine-cones and magnolia fruits, rose seeds, and Cycas nuts, with palm nuts, screw-pines, and other tropical

productions. On the other hand, the Sunderbunds portion, though

containing also the bones of the tiger, deer, and buffalo, would have none of the Indian cow, rhinoceros, or elephant; there would be

different species of porpoise, alligator, and deer, and none of the above mentioned plants (Cycas, oak, pine, magnolia and rose), which would be replaced by numerous others, all distinct from those of the Jheels, and many of them indicative of the influence of salt water, whose proximity (from the rarity of sea-shells) might not otherwise be suspected.

Illustration--VIEW IN THE JHEELS.

On the 1st of June we entered the Soormah, a full and muddy stream

flowing west, a quarter of a mile broad, with banks of mud and clay twelve or fifteen feet high, separating it from marshes, and covered with betel-nut and cocoa-nut palms, figs, and banyans. Many small

villages were scattered along the