Himalayan Journals, vol 2 by J. D. Hooker (great reads TXT) 📖

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,

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