Books: Himalayan Journals (Complete)

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

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The performances began by a copper-coloured Cupid entering and
calling the virgins with a flute; these appeared from a green-room,
to the number of thirty or forty, of all ages and sizes. Each had her
hair dressed in a topknot, and her head covered with a veil; a
scarlet petticoat loaded with tinsel concealed her naked feet, and
over this was a short red kirtle, and an enormous white shawl was
swathed round the body from the armpits to the waist. A broad belt
passed over the right shoulder and under the left arm, to which hung
gold and silver chains, corals, etc., with tinsel and small mirrors
sewed on everywhere: the arms and hands were bare, and decorated with
bangles and rings.

Many of the women were extremely tall, great stature being common
amongst the Munniporees. They commenced with a prostration to Cupid,
around whom they danced very slowly, with the arms stretched out, and
the hands in motion; at each step the free foot was swung backwards
and forwards. Cupid then chose a partner, and standing in the middle
went through the same motions, a compliment the women acknowledged by
curtseying and whirling round, making a sort of cheese with their
petticoats, which, however, were too heavy to inflate properly.

The Nagas are another people found on this frontier, chiefly on the
hills to the north: they are a wild, copper-coloured, uncouth jungle
tribe, who have proved troublesome on the Assam frontier.
Their features are more Tartar than those of the Munniporees,
especially amongst the old men. They bury their dead under the
threshold of their cottages. The men are all but naked, and stick
plumes of hornbills' feathers in their hair, which is bound with
strips of bamboo: tufts of small feathers are passed through their
ears, and worn as shoulder lappets. A short blue cotton cloth, with a
fringe of tinsel and tufts of goat's hair dyed red, is passed over
the loins in front only: they also wear brass armlets, and necklaces
of cowries, coral, amber, ivory, and boar's teeth. The women draw a
fringed blue cloth tightly across the breast, and wear a checked or
striped petticoat. They are less ornamented than the men, and are
pleasing looking; their hair is straight, and cut short over
the eyebrows.

The Naga dances are very different from those of the Munniporees;
being quick, and performed in excellent time to harmonious music.
The figures are regular, like quadrilles and country-dances: the men
hold their knives erect during the performance, the women extend
their arms only when turning partners, and then their hands are not
given, but the palms are held opposite. The step is a sort of polka
and balancez, very graceful and lively. A bar of music is always
played first, and at the end the spectators applaud with two short
shouts. Their ear for music, and the nature of their dance, are as
Tibetan as their countenances, and different from those of the
Indo-Chinese tribes of the frontier.

We had the pleasure of meeting Lieutenant Raban at Silchar, and of
making several excursions in the neighbourhood with him; for which
Colonel Lister here, as at Churra, afforded us every facility of
elephants and men. Had we had time, it was our intention to have
visited Munnipore, but we were anxious to proceed to Chittagong.
I however made a three days' excursion to the frontier, about thirty
miles distant, proceeding along the north bank of the Soormah. On the
way my elephant got bogged in crossing a deep muddy stream: this is
sometimes an alarming position, as should the animal become
terrified, he will seize his rider, or pad, or any other object
(except his driver), to place under his knees to prevent his sinking.
In this instance the driver in great alarm ordered me off, and I had
to flounder out through the black mud. The elephant remained fast all
night, and was released next morning by men with ropes.

The country continued a grassy level, with marshes and rice
cultivation, to the first range of hills, beyond which the river is
unnavigable; there also a forest commences, of oaks, figs, and the
common trees of east Bengal. The road hence was a good one, cut by
Sepoys across the dividing ranges, the first of which is not 500 feet
high. On the ascent bamboos abound, of the kind called Tuldah or
Dulloah, which has long very thin-walled joints; it attains no great
size, but is remarkably gregarious. On the east side of the range,
the road runs through soft shales and beds of clay, and
conglomerates, descending to a broad valley covered with gigantic
scattered timber-trees of jarool, acacia, _Diospyros, Urticeae,_ and
_Bauhiniae,_ rearing their enormous trunks above the bamboo jungle:
immense rattan-canes wound through the forest, and in the gullies
were groves of two kinds of tree-fern, two of _Areca, Wallichia_
palm, screw-pine, and _Dracaena._ Wild rice grew abundantly in the
marshes, with tal1 grasses; and _Cardiopteris_* [A remarkable plant
of unknown affinity; see Brown and Bennett, "Flora Java:" it is found
in the Assam valley and Chittagong.] covered the trees for upwards of
sixty feet, like hops, with a mass of pale-green foliage, and dry
white glistening seed-vessels. This forest differed from those of the
Silhet and Khasia mountains, especially in the abundance of bamboo
jungle, which is, I believe, the prevalent feature of the low hills
in Birmah, Ava, and Munnipore; also in the gigantic size of the
rattans, 1arger palms, and different forest trees, and in the scanty
undergrowth of herbs and bushes. I only saw, however, the skirts of
the forest; the mountains further east, which I am told rise several
thousand feet in limestone cliffs, are doubtless richer in
herbaceous plants.

The climate of Cachar partakes of that of the Jheels in its damp
equable character: during our stay the weather was fine, and dense
fogs formed in the morning: the mean maximum was 80 degrees, minimum
58.4 degrees.* [The temperature does not rise above 90 degrees in
summer, nor sink below 45 degrees or 50 degrees in January:
forty-seven comparative observations with Calcutta showed the mean
temperature to be 1.8 degrees lower at Silchar, and the air damper,
the saturation point being, at Calcutta 0.3791, at Silchar 0.4379.]

The annual rain-fall in 1850 was 111.60 inches, according to a
register kindly given me by Captain Verner. There are few mosquitos,
which is one of the most curious facts in the geographical
distribution of these capricious bloodsuckers; for the locality is
surrounded by swamps, and they swarm at Silhet, and on the river
lower down. Both on the passage up and down, we were tormented in our
canoes by them for eighty or ninety miles above Silhet, and thence
onwards to Cachar we were free.

On the 30th of November, we were preparing for our return to Silhet,
and our canoes were loading, when we were surprised by a loud rushing
noise, and saw a high wave coming down the river, swamping every boat
that remained on its banks, whilst most of those that pushed out into
the stream, escaped with a violent rocking. It was caused by a slip
of the bank three quarters of a mile up the stream, of no great size,
but which propagated a high wave. This appeared to move on at about
the rate of a mile in three or four minutes, giving plenty of time
for our boatmen to push out from the land on hearing the shouts of
those first overtaken by the calamity; but they were too timid, and
consequently one of our canoes, full of papers, instruments, and
clothes, was swamped. Happily our dried collections were not
embarked, and the hot sun repaired much of the damage.

We left in the evening of the 2nd of December, and proceeded to
Silhet, where we were kindly received by Mr. Stainforth, the district
judge. Silhet, the capital of the district of the same name, is a
large Mahometan town, occupying a slightly raised part of the Jheels,
where many of the Teelas seem joined together by beds of gravel and
sand. In the rains it, is surrounded by water, and all communication
with other parts is by boats: in winter, Jynteapore and Pundua may be
reached by land, crossing creeks innumerable on the way.
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,
Buttneria_; 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 _Pandanus_ 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 grasses, 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 shining 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 hardships 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 grasses
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 grasses or bushes. Enormous islets of living water-grasses
(_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 passed the Dacca river; below which the Megna is
several miles wide, and there is an appearance of tide, from masses
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 (_Borassus_ 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 ships, 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 canal-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 establishing 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 _Cucumis Madraspatana_ and
another Cucurbitaceous plant, leaves of _Saccharum Sara_ and _Ficus
cordifolia._ Specks of some glistening substance were scattered
through the mass, 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 hoar-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 1ower.]
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 passage 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 flashing 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.