Books: Himalayan Journals (Complete)

J >> J. D. Hooker >> Himalayan Journals (Complete)

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The Khasia people are of the Indo-Chinese race; they are short, very
stout, and muscular, with enormous calves and knees, rather narrow
eyes and little beard, broad, high cheekbones, flat noses, and open
nostrils. I believe that a few are tattooed. The hair is gathered
into a top-knot, and sometimes shaved off the forehead and temples.
A loose cotton shirt, often striped blue and red, without sleeves and
bordered with long thread fringes, is their principal garment; it is
gathered into a girdle of silver chains by people of rank. A cotton
robe is sometimes added, with a large cotton turban or small
skull-cap. The women wear a long cloth tied in a knot across the
breast. During festivals both men and women load themselves with silk
robes, fans, peacock's feathers, and gold and silver ornaments of
great value, procured from Assam, many of which are said to be
extremely curious, but I regret to say that I never saw any of them.
On these occasions spirits are drunk, and dancing kept up all night:
the dance is described as a slow ungraceful motion, the women being
tightly swathed in cloths.

All their materials are brought from Assam; the only articles in
constant use, of their own manufacture, being a rude sword or knife
with a wooden handle and a long, narrow, straight blade of iron, and
the baskets with head-straps, like those used by the Lepchas, but
much neater; also a netted bag of pine-apple fibre (said to come from
Silhet) which holds a clasp-knife, comb, flint, steel, and betel-nut
box. They are much addicted to chewing pawn (betel-nut, pepper
leaves, and lime) all day long, and their red saliva looks like blood
on the paths. Besides the sword I have described, they carry bows and
arrows, and rarely a lance, and a bamboo wicker-work shield.

We found the Khasias to be sulky intractable fellows, contrasting
unpleasantly with the Lepchas; wanting in quickness, frankness, and
desire to please, and obtrusively independent in manner; nevertheless
we had a head man who was very much the reverse of this, and whom we
had never any cause to blame. Their language is, I believe,
Indo-Chinese and monosyllabic: it is disagreeably nasal and guttural,
and there are several dialects and accents in contiguous villages.
All inflections are made by prefixing syllables, and when using the
Hindoo language, the future is invariably substituted for the past
tense. They count up to a hundred, and estimate distances by the
number of mouthfuls of pawn they eat on the road.

Education has been attempted by missionaries with partial success,
and the natives are said to have shown themselves apt scholars.
Marriage is a very loose tie amongst them, and hardly any ceremony
attends it. We were informed that the husband does not take his wife
home, but enters her father's household, and is entertained there.
Divorce and an exchange of wives is common, and attended with no
disgrace: thus the son often forgets his father's name and person
before he grows up, but becomes strongly attached to his mother.
The sister's son inherits both property and rank, and the
proprietors' or Rajahs' offspring are consequently often reared in
poverty and neglect. The usual toy of the children is the bow and
arrow, with which they are seldom expert; they are said also to spin
pegtops like the English, climb a greased pole, and run round with a
beam turning horizontally on an upright, to which it is attached by
a pivot.

The Khasias eat fowls, and all meat, especially pork, potatos and
vegetables, dried and half putrid fish in abundance, but they have an
aversion to milk, which is very remarkable, as a great proportion of
their country is admirably adapted for pasturage. In this respect,
however, they assimilate to the Chinese, and many Indo-Chinese
nations who are indifferent to milk, as are the Sikkim people.
The Bengalees, Hindoos, and Tibetans, on the other hand, consume
immense quantities of milk. They have no sheep, and few goats or
cattle, the latter of which are kept for slaughter; they have,
however, plenty of pigs and fowls. Eggs are most abundant, but used
for omens only, and it is a common, but disgusting occurrence, to see
large groups employed for hours in breaking them upon stones,
shouting and quarrelling, surrounded by the mixture of yellow yolks
and their red pawn saliva.

The funeral ceremonies are the only ones of any importance, and are
often conducted with barbaric pomp and expense; and rude stones of
gigantic proportions are erected as monuments, singly or in rows,
circles, or supporting one another, like those of Stonehenge, which
they rival in dimensions and appearance. The body is burned, though
seldom during the rains, from the difficulty of obtaining a fire; it
is therefore preserved in honey (which is abundant and good) till the
dry season: a practice I have read of as prevailing among some tribes
in the Malay peninsula. Spirits are drunk on these occasions; but the
hill Khasia is not addicted to drunkenness, though some of the
natives of the low valleys are very much so. These ascend the rocky
faces of the mountains by ladders, to the Churra markets, and return
loaded at night, apparently all but too drunk to stand; yet they
never miss their footing in places which are most dangerous to
persons unaccustomed to such situations.

Illustration--THE TABLE-LAND AND STATION OF CHURRA, WITH THE JHEELS,
COURSE OF THE SOORMAH RIVER, AND TIPPERAH HILLS IN THE EXTREME
DISTANCE, LOOKING SOUTH.

The Khasias are superstitious, but have no religion; like the
Lepchas, they believe in a supreme being, and in deities of the
grove, cave, and stream. Altercations are often decided by holding
the disputants' heads under water, when the longest winded carries
his point. Fining is a common punishment, and death for grave
offences. The changes of the moon are accounted for by the theory
that this orb, who is a man, monthly falls in love with his wife's
mother, who throws ashes in his face. The sun is female; and Mr.
Yule* [I am indebted to Mr. Inglis for most of this information
relating to the Khasias, which I have since found, with much more
that is curious and interesting, in a paper by Lieut. Yule in Bengal
Asiat. Soc. Journal.] (who is my authority) says that the Pleiades
are called "the Hen-man" (as in Italy "the chickens"); also that they
have names for the twelve months; they do not divide their time by
weeks, but hold a market every four days. These people are
industrious, and good cultivators of rice, millet, and legumes of
many kinds. Potatoes were introduced amongst them about twenty years
ago by Mr. Inglis, and they have increased so rapidly that the
Calcutta market is now supplied by their produce. They keep bees in
rude hives of logs of wood.

The flat table-land on which Churra Poonji is placed, is three miles
long and two broad, dipping abruptly in front and on both sides, and
rising behind towards the main range, of which it is a spur.
The surface of this area is everywhere intersected by shallow, rocky
watercourses, which are the natural drains for the deluge that
annually visits it. The western part is undulated and hilly, the
southern rises in rocky ridges of limestone and coal, and the eastern
is very flat and stony, broken only by low isolated conical mounds.

The scenery varies extremely at different parts of the surface.
Towards the flat portion, where the English reside, the aspect is as
bleak and inhospitable as can be imagined: a thin stratum of marshy
or sandy soil covers a tabular mass of cold red sandstone; and there
is not a tree, and scarcely a shrub to be seen, except occasional
clumps of Pandanus. The low white bungalows are few in number, and
very scattered, some of them being a mile asunder, enclosed with
stone walls and shrubs; and a small white church, disused on account
of the damp, stands lonely in the centre of all.

The views from the margins of this plateau are magnificent: 4000 feet
below are bay-like valleys, carpetted as with green velvet, from
which rise tall palms, tree-ferns with spreading crowns, and rattans
shooting their pointed heads, surrounded with feathery foliage, as
with ostrich plumes, far above the great trees. Beyond are the
Jheels, looking like a broad shallow sea with the tide half out,
bounded in the blue distance by the low-hills of Tipperah. To the
right and left are the scarped red rocks and roaring waterfalls,
shooting far over the cliff's, and then arching their necks as they
expand in feathery foam, over which rainbows float, forming and
dissolving as the wind sways the curtains of spray from side to side.

To the south of Churra the lime and coal measures rise abruptly in
flat-topped craggy hills, covered with brushwood and small trees.
Similar hills are seen far westward across the intervening valleys in
the Garrow country, rising in a series of steep isolated ranges, 300
to 400 feet above the general level of the country, and always
skirting the south face of the mountains. Considerable caverns
penetrate the limestone, the broken surface of which rock presents
many picturesque and beautiful spots, like the same rocks in England.

Westward the plateau becomes very hilly, bare, and grassy, with the
streams broad and full, but superficial and rocky, precipitating
themselves in low cascades over tabular masses of sand-stone.
At Mamloo their beds are deeper, and full of brushwood, and a
splendid valley and amphitheatre of red cliffs and cascades,
rivalling those of Moosmai (chapter xxvii), bursts suddenly into
view. Mamloo is a large village, on the top of a spur, to the
westward: it is buried in a small forest, particularly rich in
plants, and is defended by a stone wall behind: the only road is
tunnelled through the sandstone rock, under the wall; and the spur on
either side dips precipitously, so that the place is almost
impregnable if properly defended. A sanguinary conflict took place
here between the British and the Khasias, which terminated in the
latter being driven over the precipices, beneath which many of them
were shot. The fan-palm, _Chamaerops Khasiana_ ("Pakha," Khas.),
grows on the cliff's near Mamloo: it may be seen on looking over the
edge of the plateau, its long curved trunk rising out of the naked
rocks, but its site is generally inaccessible;* [This species is very
closely allied to, if not identical with _P. Martiana_ of Nepal;
which ascends to 8000 feet in the western Himalaya, where it is
annually covered with snow: it is not found in Sikkim, but an allied
species occurs in Affghanistan, called _P. Ritcheana_: the dwarf palm
of southern Europe is a fourth species.] while near it grows the
_Saxifragis ciliaris_ of our English gardens, a common plant in the
north-west Himalaya, but extremely scarce in Sikkim and the
Khasia mountains.

Illustration--MAMLOO CASCADES.

The descent of the Mamloo spur is by steps, alternating with pebbly
flats, for 1500 feet, to a saddle which connects the Churra hills
with those of Lisouplang to the westward. The rise is along a very
steep narrow ridge to a broad long grassy hill, 3,500 feet high,
whence an extremely steep descent leads to the valley of the
Boga-panee, and the great mart of Chela, which is at the embouchure
of that river. The transverse valley thus formed by the Mamloo spur,
is full of orange groves, whose brilliant green is particularly
conspicuous from above. At the saddle below Mamloo are some jasper
rocks, which are the sandstone altered by basalt. Fossil shells are
recorded to have been found by Dr. M'Lelland* [See a paper on the
geology of the Khasia mountains by Dr. M'Lelland in the "Bengal
Asiatic Society's Journal."] on some of the flats, which he considers
to be raised beaches: but we sought in vain for any evidence of this
theory beyond the pebbles, whose rounding we attributed to the action
of superficial streams.

It is extremely difficult to give within the limits of this narrative
any idea of the Khasia flora, which is, in extent and number of fine
plants, the richest in India, and probably in all Asia. We collected
upwards of 2000 flowering plants within ten miles of the station of
Churra, besides 150 ferns, and a profusion of mosses, lichens, and
fungi. This extraordinary exuberance of species is not so much
attributable to the elevation, for the whole Sikkim Himalaya (three
times more elevated) does not contain 500 more flowering plants, and
far fewer ferns, etc.; but to the variety of exposures; namely,
1. the Jheels, 2. the tropical jungles, both in deep, hot, and wet
valleys, and on drier slopes; 3. the rocks; 4. the bleak table-lands
and stony soils; 5. the moor-like uplands, naked and exposed, where
many species and genera appear at 5000 to 6000 feet, which are not
found on the outer ranges of Sikkim under 10,000.* [As _Thalictrum,
Anemone,_ primrose, cowslip, _Tofieldia,_ Yew, Pine, Saxifrage,
_Delphinium, Pedicularis._] In fact, strange as it may appear, owing
to this last cause, the temperate flora descends fully 4000 feet
lower in the latitude of Khasia (25 degrees N.) than in that of
Sikkim (27 degrees N.), though the former is two degrees nearer
the equator.

The _Pandanus_ alone forms a conspicuous feature in the immediate
vicinity of Churra; while the small woods about Mamloo, Moosmai, and
the coal-pits, are composed of _Symplocos,_ laurels, brambles, and
jasmines, mixed with small oaks and _Photinia,_ and many tropical
genera of trees and shrubs.

_Orchideae_ are, perhaps, the largest natural order in the Khasia,
where fully 250 kinds grow, chiefly on trees and rocks, but many are
terrestrial, inhabiting damp woods and grassy slopes. I doubt whether
in any other part of the globe the species of orchids outnumber those
of any other natural order, or form so large a proportion of the
flora. Balsams are next in relative abundance (about twenty-five),
both tropical and temperate kinds, of great beauty and variety in
colour, form, and size of blossom. Palms amount to fourteen, of which
the _Chamaerops_ and _Arenga_ are the only genera not found in
Sikkim. Of bamboos there are also fifteen, and of other grasses 150,
which is an immense proportion, considering that the Indian flora
(including those of Ceylon, Kashmir, and all the Himalaya), hardly
contains 400. _Scitamineae_ also are abundant, and extremely
beautiful; we collected thirty-seven kinds.

No rhododendron grows at Churra, but several species occur a little
further north: there is but one pine (_P. Khasiana_) besides the yew,
(and two _Podocarpi_), and that is only found in the drier interior
regions. Singular to say, it is a species not seen in the Himalaya or
elsewhere, but very nearly allied to _Pinua longifolia,_*
[Cone-bearing pines with long leaves, like the common Scotch fir, are
found in Asia, and as far south as the Equator (in Borneo) and also
inhabit Arracan, the Malay Peninsula, Sumatra, and South China. It is
a very remarkable fact that no Gymnospermous tree inhabits the
Peninsula of India; not even the genus _Podocarpus,_ which includes
most of the tropical Gymnosperms, and is technically coniferous, and
has glandular woody fibre; though like the yew it bears berries.
Two species of this genus are found in the Khasia, and one advances
as far west as Nepal. The absence of oaks and of the above genera
(_Podocarpus_ and _Pinus_) is one of the most characteristic
differences between the botany of the east and west shores of the Bay
of Bengal.] though more closely resembling the Scotch fir than that
tree does.

The natural orders whose rarity is most noticeable, are _Cruciferae,_
represented by only three kinds, and _Caryophylleae._ Of
_Ranunculaceae,_ there are six or seven species of _Clematis,_ two of
_Anemone,_ one _Delphinium,_ three of _Thalictrum,_ and two
_Ranunculi._ _Compsitae_ and _Leguminosae_ are far more numerous than
in Sikkim.

The climate of Khasia is remarkable for the excessive rain-fall.
Attention was first drawn to this by Mr. Yule, who stated, that in
the month of August, 1841, 264 inches fell, or twenty-two feet; and
that during five successive days, thirty inches fell in every
twenty-four hours! Dr. Thomson and I also recorded thirty inches in
one day and night, and during the seven months of our stay, upwards
of 500 inches fell, so that the total annual fall perhaps greatly
exceeded 600 inches, or fifty feet, which has been registered in
succeeding years! From April, 1849, to April, 1850, 502 inches
(forty-two feet) fell. This unparalleled amount is attributable to
the abruptness of the mountains which face the Bay of Bengal, from
which they are separated by 200 miles of Jheels and Sunderbunds.

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.