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

banks, each with a swarm of boats, and rude kilns for burning the lime brought from the Khasia

mountains, which is done with grass and bushes. We ascended to

Chattuc, against a gentle current, arriving on the 9th.

From this place the Khasia mountains are seen as a long table-topped range running east and west, about 4000 to 5000 feet high, with steep faces towards the Jheels, out of which they appear to rise abruptly.

Though twelve miles distant, large waterfalls are very clearly seen precipitating themselves over the cliffs into a bright green mass of foliage, that seems to creep half way up their flanks. The nearly

horizontal arrangement of the strata is as conspicuous here, as in

the sandstone of the Kymore hills in the Soane valley, which these

mountains a good deal resemble; but they are much higher, and the

climate is widely different. Large valleys enter the hills, and are divided by hog-backed spurs, and it is far within these valleys that the waterfalls and precipices occur; but the nearer and further

cliffs being thrown by perspective into one range, they seem to rise out of the Jheels so abruptly as to remind one of some precipitous

island in the ocean.

Chattuc is mainly indebted for its existence to the late Mr. Inglis, who resided there for upwards of sixty years, and opened a most

important trade between the Khasia and Calcutta in oranges, potatos, coal, lime, and timber. We were kindly received by his son, whose

bungalow occupies a knoll, of which there are several, which

attracted our attention as being the only elevations fifty feet high which we had ascended since leaving the foot of the Sikkim Himalaya.

They rise as islets (commonly called Teela, Beng.) out of the Jheels, within twelve to twenty miles of the Khasia; they are chiefly formed of stratified gravel and sand, and are always occupied by villages

and large trees. They seldom exceed sixty feet in height, and

increase in number and size as the hills are approached; they are

probably the remains of a deposit that was once spread uniformly

along the foot of the mountains, and they in all respects resemble

those I have described as rising abruptly from the plains near

Titalya (see vol. i. chapter xvii).

The climate of Chattuc is excessively damp and hot throughout the

year, but though sunk amid interminable swamps, the place is

perfectly healthy! Such indeed is the character of the climate

throughout the Jheels, where fevers and agues are rare; and though no situations can appear more malarious to the common observer than

Silhet and Cachar, they are in fact eminently salubrious. These facts admit of no explanation in the present state of our knowledge of

endemic diseases. Much may be attributed to the great amount and

purity of the water, the equability of the climate, the absence of

forests and of sudden changes from wet to dry; but such facts afford no satisfactory explanation. The water, as I have above said, is of a rich chesnut-brown in the narrow creeks of the Jheels, and is golden yellow by transmitted light, owing no doubt, as in bog water and that of dunghills, to a vegetable extractive and probably the presence of carburetted hydrogen. Humboldt mentions this dark-coloured water as prevailing in some of the swamps of the Cassiquares, at the junction of the Orinoco and Amazon, and gives much curious information on its accompanying features of animal and vegetable life.

The rains generally commence in May: they were unusually late this

year, though the almost daily gales and thunder-storms we

experienced, foretold their speedy arrival. From May till October

they are unremitting, and the country is under water, the Soormah

rising about fifty feet. North-easterly winds prevail, but they are a local current reflected from the Khasia, against which the southerly perennial trade-wind impinges. Westerly winds are very rare, but the dry north-west blasts of India have been known to traverse the delta and reach this meridian, in one or two short hot dry puffs during

March and April. Hoarfrost is unknown.* [It however forms further

south, at the very mouth of the Megna, and is the effect of intense radiation when the thermometer in the shade falls to 45 degrees.]

China roses and tropical plants (Bignoniae, Asclepiadeae, and

Convolvuli) rendered Mr. Inglis' bungalow gay, but little else will grow in the gardens. Pine-apples are the best fruit, and oranges from the foot of the Khasia: plantains ripen imperfectly, and the mango is always acid, attacked by grubs, and having a flavour of turpentine.

The violent hailstorms of the vernal equinox cut both spring and cold season flowers and vegetables, and the rains destroy all summer

products. The soil is a wet clay, in which some European vegetables thrive well if planted in October or November. We were shown

marrowfat peas that had been grown for thirty years without

degenerating in size, but their flavour was poor.

Small long canoes, paddled rapidly by two men, were procured here,

whereby to ascend the narrow rivers that lead up to the foot of the mountains: they each carry one passenger, who lies along the bottom, protected by a bamboo platted arched roof. We started at night, and early the next morning arrived at Pundua,* [Pundua, though an

insignificant village, surrounded by swamps, has enjoyed an undue

share of popularity as a botanical region. Before the geographical

features of the country north of Silhet were known, the plants

brought from those hills by native collectors were sent to the

Calcutta garden (and thence to Europe) as from Pundua. Hence Silhet mountains and Pundua mountains, both very erroneous terms, are

constantly met with in botanical works, and generally refer to plants growing in the Khasia mountains.] where there is a dilapidated

bungalow: the inhabitants are employed in the debarkation of lime,

coal, and potatos. Large fleets of boats crowded the narrow creeks, some of the vessels being of several tons burden.

Elephants were kindly sent here for us by Mr. H. Inglis, to take us to the foot of the mountains, about three miles distant, and relays of mules and ponies to ascend to Churra, where we were received with the greatest hospitality by that gentleman, who entertained us till the end of June, and procured us servants and collectors. To his kind offices we were also indebted throughout our travels in the Khasia, for much information, and for facilities and necessaries of all

kinds: things in which the traveller is more dependent on his fellow countrymen in India, than in any other part of the world.

We spent two days at Pundua, waiting for our great boats (which drew several feet of water), and collecting in the vicinity. The old

bungalow, without windows and with the roof falling in, was a most

miserable shelter; and whichever way we turned from the door, a river or a swamp lay before us. Birds, mosquitos, leeches, and large wasps swarmed, also rats and sandflies. A more pestilential hole cannot be conceived; and yet people traverse this district, and sleep here at all seasons of the year with impunity. We did so ourselves in the

month of June, when the Sikkim and all other Terais are deadly: we

returned in September, traversing the Jheels and nullahs at the very foot of the hills during a short break of fine weather in the middle of the rains; and we again slept here in November,* [At the north

foot of the Khasia, in the heavily timbered dry Terai stretching for sixty miles to the Burrampooter, it is almost inevitable death for a European to sleep, any time between the end of April and of November.

Many have crossed that tract, but not one without taking fever:

Mr. H. Inglis was the only survivor of a party of five, and he was

ill from the effects for upwards of two years, after having been

brought to death's door by the first attack, which came on within

three weeks of his arrival at Churra, and by several relapses.]

always exposed in the heat of the day to wet and fatigue, and never having even a soupcon of fever, ague, or rheumatism. This immunity does not, however, extend to the very foot of the hills, as it is

considered imprudent to sleep at this season in the bungalow of

Terrya, only three miles off.

The elevation of Pundua bungalow is about forty feet above the sea, and that of the waters surrounding it, from ten to thirty, according to the season. In June the mean of the barometer readings at the

bungalow was absolutely identical with that of the Calcutta

barometer, In September it was 0.016 inch lower, and in November

0.066 lower. The mean annual temperature throughout the Jheels is

less than 2 degrees below that of Calcutta.

Terrya bungalow lies at the very foot of the first rise of the

mountains; on the way we crossed many small streams upon the

elephants, and one large one by canoes: the water in all was cool*

[Temperature in September 77 degrees to 80 degrees; and in November 75.7 degrees.] and sparkling, running rapidly over boulders and

pebbles. Their banks of sandy clay were beautifully fringed with a

willow-like laurel, Ehretia bushes, bamboos, palms, _Bauhinia,

Bombax, and _Erythrina, over which Calamus palm (rattan) and

various flowering plants climbed. The rock at Terrya is a nummulitic limestone, worn into extensive caverns. This formation is said to

extend along the southern flank of the Khasia, Garrow, and Jyntea

mountains, and to be associated with sandstone and coal: it is

extensively quarried in many places, several thousand tons being

annually shipped for Calcutta and Dacca. It is succeeded by a

horizontally stratified sandstone, which is continued up to 4000

feet, where it is overlain by coal-beds and then by limestone again.

The sub-tropical scenery of the lower and outer Sikkim Himalaya,

though on a much more gigantic scale, is not comparable in beauty and luxuriance with the really tropical vegetation induced by the hot,

damp, and insular climate of these perennially humid mountains.

At the Himalaya forests of gigantic trees, many of them deciduous,

appear from a distance as masses of dark gray foliage, clothing

mountains 10,000 feet high: here the individual trees are smaller,

more varied in kind, of a brilliant green, and contrast with gray

limestone and red sandstone rocks and silvery cataracts. Palms are

more numerous here;* [There are upwards of twenty kinds of Palm in

this district, including Chamaerops, three species of Areca, two of Wallichia, Arenga, Caryota, three of _Phoenix, Plectocomia,

Licuala, and many species of _Calamus. Besides these there are

several kinds of Pandanus, and the Cycas pectinata.] the

cultivated Areca (betel-nut) especially, raising its graceful stem and feathery crown, "like an arrow shot down from heaven," in

luxuriance and beauty above the verdant slopes. This difference is at once expressed to the Indian botanist by defining the Khasia flora as of Malayan character; by which is meant the prevalence of brilliant glossy-leaved evergreen tribes of trees (as Euphorbiaceae and

Urticeae), especially figs, which abound in the hot gulleys, where the property of their roots, which inosculate and form natural

grafts, is taken advantage of in bridging streams, and in

constructing what are called living bridges, of the most picturesque forms. Combretaceae, oaks, oranges, Garcinia (gamboge),

Diospyros, figs, Jacks, plantains, and Pandanus, are more

frequent here, together with pinnated leaved _Leguminosae,

Meliaceae,_ vines and peppers, and above all palms, both climbing

ones with pinnated shining leaves (as Calamus and Plectocomia), and erect ones with similar leaves (as cultivated cocoa-nut, Areca

and Arenga), and the broader-leaved wild betel-nut, and beautiful Caryota or wine-palm, whose immense decompound leaves are twelve

feet long. Laurels and wild nutmegs, with Henslowia, Itea, etc.,

were frequent in the forest,