Books: Himalayan Journals (Complete)

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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.

CHAPTER XXX.

Boat voyage to Silhet -- River -- Palms -- Teelas -- Botany -- Fish
weirs -- Forests of Cachar -- Sandal-wood, etc. -- Porpoises --
Alligators -- Silchar -- Tigers -- Rice crops -- Cookies --
Munniporees -- Hockey -- Varnish -- Dance -- Nagas -- Excursion to
Munnipore frontier -- Elephant bogged -- Bamboos -- _Cardiopteris_ --
Climate, etc., of Cachar -- Mosquitos -- Fall of banks -- Silhet --
Oaks -- _Stylidium_ -- Tree-ferns -- Chattuc -- Megna -- Meteorology
-- Palms -- Noacolly -- Salt-smuggling -- Delta of Ganges and Megna
-- Westward progress of Megna -- Peat -- Tide -- Waves -- Earthquakes
-- Dangerous navigation -- Moonlight scenes -- Mud island --
Chittagong -- Mug tribes -- Views -- Trees -- Churs -- Flagstaff
hill -- Coffee -- Pepper -- Tea, etc. -- Excursions from Chittagong
-- _Dipterocarpi_ or Gurjun oil trees -- Earthquake -- Birds -- Papaw
-- Bleeding of stems -- Poppy and Sun fields -- Seetakoond --
Bungalow and hill -- Perpetual flame -- _Falconeria -- Cycas_ --
Climate -- Leave for Calcutta -- Hattiah island -- Plants --
Sunderbunds -- Steamer -- Tides -- _Nipa fruticans_ -- Fishing --
Otters -- Crocodiles -- _Phoenix paludosa_ -- Departure from India.

We left Churra on the 17th of November, and taking boats at Pundua,
crossed the Jheels to the Soormah, which we ascended to Silhet.
Thence we continued our voyage 120 miles up the river in canoes, to
Silchar, the capital of the district of Cachar: the boats were such
as I described at Chattuc, and though it was impossible to sit
upright in them, they were paddled with great swiftness. The river at
Silhet is 200 yards broad; it is muddy, and flows with a gentle
current of two to three miles an hour, between banks six to twelve
feet high. As we glided up its stream, villages became rarer, and
eminences more frequent in the Jheels. The people are a tall, bold,
athletic Mahometan race, who live much on the water, and cultivate
rice, sesamum, and radishes, with betel-pepper in thatched enclosures
as in Sikkim: maize and sugar are rarer, bamboos abound, and four
palms (_Borassus, Areca,_ cocoa-nut, and _Caryota_) are planted, but
there are no date-palms.

The Teelas (or hillocks) are the haunts of wild boars, tigers, and
elephants, but not of the rhinoceros; they are 80 to 200 feet high,
of horizontally stratified gravel and sand, slates, and clay
conglomerates, with a slag-like honey-combed sandstone; they are
covered with oaks, figs, _Heretiera,_ and bamboos, and besides a
multitude of common Bengal plants, there are some which, though
generally considered mountain or cold country genera, here descend to
the level of the sea; such are _Kadsura, Rubus, Camellia,_ and
_Sabia_; _Aerides_ and _Saccolabia_ are the common orchids, and
rattan-canes and _Pandani_ render the jungles impenetrable.

A very long sedge (_Scleria_) grows by the water, and is used for
thatching: boatloads of it are collected for the Calcutta market, for
which also were destined many immense rafts of bamboo, 100 feet long.
The people fish much, using square and triangular drop-nets stretched
upon bamboos, and rude basket-work weirs, that retain the fish as the
river falls. Near the villages we saw fragments of pottery three feet
below the surface of the ground, shewing that the bank, which is
higher than the surrounding country, increases from the
annual overflow.

About seventy miles up the river, the mountains on the north, which
are east of Jyntea, rise 4000 feet high in forest-clad ranges like
those of Sikkim. Swamps extend from the river to their base, and
penetrate their valleys, which are extremely malarious: these forests
are frequented by timber-cutters, who fell jarool (_Lagerstroemia
Reginae_), a magnificent tree with red wood, which, though soft, is
durable under water, and therefore in universal use for
boat-building. The toon is also cut, with red sandal-wood
(_Adenanthera pavonina_); also Nageesa,* [There is much dispute
amongst oriental scholars about the word Nageesa; the Bombay
philologists refer it to a species of _Garcinia,_ whilst the pundits
on the Calcutta side of India consider it to be _Mesua ferrea._
Throughout our travels in India, we were struck with the undue
reliance placed on native names of plants, and information of all
kinds; and the pertinacity with which each linguist adhered to his
own crotchet as to the application of terms to natural objects, and
their pronunciation. It is a very prevalent, but erroneous,
impression, that savage and half-civilised people have an accurate
knowledge of objects of natural history, and a uniform nomenclature
for them.] _Mesua ferrea,_ which is highly valued for its weight,
strength, and durability: _Aquilaria agallocha,_ the eagle-wood, a
tree yielding uggur oil, is also much sought for its fragrant wood,
which is carried to Silhet and Azmerigunj, where it is broken up and
distilled. Neither teak, sissoo, sal, nor other _Dipterocarpi,_ are
found in these forests.

Porpoises, and both the long and the short-nosed alligator, ascend
the Soormah for 120 miles, being found beyond Silchar, which place we
reached on the 22nd, and were most hospitably received by Colonel
Lister, the political agent commanding the Silhet Light Infantry, who
was inspecting the Cookie levy, a corps of hill-natives which had
lately been enrolled.

The station is a small one, and stands about forty feet above the
river, which however rises half that height in the rains. Long low
spurs of tertiary rocks stretch from the Tipperah hills for many
miles north, through the swampy Jheels to the river; and there are
also hills on the opposite or north side, but detached from the
Cookie hills, as the lofty blue range twelve miles north of the
Soormah is called. All these mountains swarm with tigers, wild
buffalos, and boars, which also infest the long grass of the Jheels.

The elevation of the house we occupied at Silchar was 116 feet above
the sea. The bank it stood on was of clay, with soft rocks of
conglomerate, which often assume the appearance of a brown
sandy slag.

During the first Birmese war, Colonel Lister was sent with a force up
to this remote corner of Bengal, when the country was an uninhabited
jungle, so full of tigers that not a day passed without one or more
of his grass or wood-cutters being carried off. Now, thousands of
acres are cultivated with rice, and during our stay we did not see a
tiger. The quantity of land brought into cultivation in this part of
Bengal, and indeed throughout the Gangetic delta, has probably been
doubled during the last twenty years, and speaks volumes for the
state of the peasant under the Indian Company's sway, as compared
with his former condition. The Silchar rice is of admirable quality,
and much is imported to Silhet, the Jheels not producing grain enough
for the consumption of the people. Though Silchar grows enough for
ten times its population, there was actually a famine six weeks
before our arrival, the demand from Silhet being so great.

The villages of Cachar are peopled by Mahometans, Munniporees, Nagas,
and Cookies; the Cacharies themselves being a poor and peaceful
jungle tribe, confined to the mountains north of the Soormah.
The Munniporees* [The Munnipore valley has never been explored by any
naturalist, its mountains are said to be pine-clad, and to rise 8000
feet above the level of the sea. The Rajah is much harassed by the
Birmese, and is a dependant of the British, who are in the very
frequent dilemma of supporting on the throne a sovereign opposed by a
strong faction of his countrymen, and who has very dubious claims to
his position. During our stay at Silchar, the supposed rightful Rajah
was prevailing over the usurper; a battle had been fought on the
hills on the frontier, and two bodies floated past our bungalow,
pierced with arrows.] are emigrants from the kingdom of that name,
which lies beyond the British possessions, and borders on Assam and
Birmah. Low ranges of forest-clad mountains at the head of the
Soormah, separate it from Silchar, with which it is coterminous; the
two chief towns being seven marches apart. To the south-east of
Silchar are interminable jungles, peopled by the Cookies, a wild
Indo-Chinese tribe, who live in a state of constant warfare, and
possess the whole hill-country from this, southward to beyond
Chittagong. Two years ago they invaded and ravaged Cachar, carrying
many of the inhabitants into slavery, and so frightening the people,
that land previously worth six rupees a biggah, is now reduced to one
and a half. Colonel Lister was sent with a strong party to rescue the
captives, and marched for many days through their country without
disturbing man or beast; penetrating deep forests of gigantic trees
and tall bamboos, never seeing the sun above, or aught to the right
and left, save an occasional clearance and a deserted village.
The incursion, however, had its effects, and the better inclined near
the frontier have since come forward, and been enrolled as the
Cookie levy.

The Munnipore emigrants are industrious settlers for a time, but
never remain long in one place: their religion is Hindoo, and they
keep up a considerable trade with their own country, whence they
import a large breed of buffalos, ponies, silks, and cotton cloths
dyed with arnotto (_Bixa_), and universally used for turbans.
They use bamboo blowing-tubes and arrows for shooting birds, make
excellent shields of rhinoceros hide (imported from Assam), and play
at hockey on horseback like the Western Tibetans. A fine black
varnish from the fruit of _Holigarna longifolia,_ is imported from
Munnipore, as is another made from _Sesuvium Anacardium_
(marking-nut), and a remarkable black pigment resembling that from
_Melanorhoea usitatissima,_ which is white when fresh, and requires
to be kept under water.* [This turns of a beautiful black colour when
applied to a surface, owing, according to Sir D. Brewster, to the
fresh varnish consisting of a congeries of minute organised
particles, which disperse the rays of light in all directions; the
organic structure is destroyed when the varnish dries and the rays of
light are consequently transmitted.]

One fine moonlight night we went to see a Munnipore dance. A large
circular area was thatched with plantain leaves, growing on their
trunks, which were stuck in the ground; and round the enclosure was a
border neatly cut from the white leaf-sheaths of the same tree.
A double enclosure of bamboo, similarly ornamented, left an inner
circle for the performers, and an outer for the spectators: the whole
was lighted with oil lamps and Chinese paper lanterns. The musicians
sat on one side, with cymbals, tomtoms, and flutes, and sang choruses.