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

>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