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

8th of January we experienced a sharp earthquake, preceded by a dull thumping sound; it lasted about twenty seconds, and seemed to come up from the southward; the water of a tank by which we were

seated was smartly agitated. The same shock was felt at Mymensing and at Dacca, 110 miles north-west of this.* [Earthquakes are extremely common, and sometimes violent, at Chittagong, and doubtless belong to the volcanic forces of the Malayan peninsula.]

We crossed the dividing ridge of the littoral range on the 9th, and descended to Seetakoond bungalow, on the high road from Chittagong to Comilla. The forests at the foot of the range were very extensive,

and swarmed with large red ants that proved very irritating: they

build immense pendulous nests of dead and living leaves at the ends of the branches of trees, and mat them with a white web. Tigers,

leopards, wild dogs, and boars, are numerous; as are snipes,

pheasants, peacocks, and jungle-fowl, the latter waking the morn with their shrill crows; and in strange association with them, common

English woodcock, is occasionally found.

The trees are of little value, except the Gurjun, and "Kistooma," a species of Bradleia, which was stacked extensively, being used for building purposes. The papaw* [The Papaw tree is said to have the

curious property of rendering tough meat tender, when hung under its leaves, or touched with the juice; this hastening the process of

decay. With this fact, well-known in the West Indies, I never found a person in the East acquainted.] is abundantly cultivated, and its

great gourd-like fruit is eaten (called "Papita" or "Chinaman"); the flavour is that of a bad melon, and a white juice exudes from the

rind. The Hodgsonia heteroclita (Trichosanthes of Roxburgh), a

magnificent Cucurbitaceous climber, grows in these forests; it is the same species as the Sikkim one (see chapter xviii). The long stem

bleeds copiously when cut, and like almost all woody climbers, is

full of large vessels; the juice does not, however, exude from these great tubes, which hold air, but from the close woody fibres.

A climbing Apocyneous plant grows in these forests, the milk of

which flows in a continuous stream, resembling caoutchouc (it is

probably the Urceola elastica, which yields Indian-rubber).

The subject of bleeding is involved in great obscurity, and the

systematic examination of the motions in the juices of tropical

climbers by resident observers, offers a fertile field to the

naturalist. I have often remarked that if a climbing stem, in which the circulation is vigorous, be cut across, it bleeds freely from

both ends, and most copiously from the lower, if it be turned

downwards; but that if a truncheon be severed, there will be no flow from either of its extremities. This is the case with all the Indian watery-juiced climbers, at whatever season they may be cut.

When, however, the circulation in the plant is feeble, neither end of a simple cut will bleed much, but if a truncheon be taken from it,

both the extremities will.

The ascent of the hills, which are densely wooded, was along spurs, and over knolls of clay; the rocks were sandy and slaty (dip

north-east 60 degrees. The road was good, but always through bamboo jungle, and it wound amongst the low spurs, so that there was no

defined crest or top of the pass, which is about 800 feet high.

There were no tall palms, tree-ferns, or plantains, no Hymenophylla

or Lycopodia, and altogether the forest was smaller and poorer in plants than we had expected. The only palms (except a few rattans)

were two kinds of Wallichia.

From the summit we obtained a very extensive and singular view.

At our feet was a broad, low, grassy, alluvial plain, intersected by creeks, bounding a black expanse of mud which (the tide being out)

appeared to stretch almost continuously to Sundeep Island, thirty

miles distant; while beyond, the blue hills of Tipperah rose on the north-west horizon. The rocks yielded a dry poor soil, on which grew dwarf Phoenix and cycas-palm (Cycas circinalis or pectinata).

Descending, we rode several miles along an excellent road, that runs to Tipperah, and stopped at the bungalow of Seetakoond, twenty-five miles north of Chittagong. The west flank of the range which we had crossed is much steeper than the east, often precipitous, and

presents the appearance of a sea-worn cliff towards the Bay of

Bengal. Near Seetakoond (which is on the plain) a hill on the range, bearing the same name, rises 1,136 feet high, and being damper and

more luxuriantly wooded, we were anxious to explore it, and therefore spent some days at the bungalow. Fields of poppy and sun (Crotalaria juncea), formed most beautiful crops; the latter grows from four to six feet high, and bears masses of laburnum-like flowers, while the poppy fields resembled a carpet of dark-green velvet, sprinkled with white stars; or, as I have elsewhere remarked, a green lake studded with water-lilies.

The road to the top of Seetakoond leads along a most beautiful

valley, and then winds up a cliff that is in many places almost

precipitous, the ascent being partly by steps cut in the rock, of

which there are 560. The mountain is very sacred, and there is a

large Brahmin temple on its flank; and near the base a perpetual

flame bursts out of the rock. This we were anxious to examine, and

were extremely disappointed to find it a small vertical hole in a

slaty rock, with a lateral one below for a draught; and that it is

daily supplied by pious pilgrims and Brahmins with such enormous

quantities of ghee (liquid butter), that it is to all intents and

purposes an artificial lamp; no trace of natural phenomena being

discoverable.

Illustration--SEETAKUND HILL.

On the dry but wooded west face of the mountain, grows Falconeria,

a curious Euphorbiaceous tree, with an acrid milky juice that affects the eyes when the wood is cut. Beautiful Cycas palms are also

common, with Terminalia, Bignonia, Sterculia, dwarf Phoenix palm, and Gurjun trees. The east slope of the mountain is damper, and much more densely wooded; we there found two wild species of nutmeg trees, whose wood is full of a brown acrid oil, seven palms, tree-ferns, and many other kinds of ferns, several kinds of oak, Dracaena, and

figs. The top is 1,136 feet above the sea, and commands an extensive view to all points of the compass; but the forests, in which the ashy bark of the Gurjun trees is conspicuous, and the beautiful valley on the west, are the only attractive features.

The weather on the east side of the range differs at this season

remarkably from that on the west, where the vicinity of the sea keeps the atmosphere more humid and warm, and at the same time prevents the formation of the dense fogs that hang over the valleys to the

eastward every morning at sunrise. We found the mean temperature at the bungalow, from January 9th till the 13th, to be 70.2 degrees.

We embarked again at Chittagong on the 16th of January, at 10 p.m., for Calcutta, in a very large vessel, rowed by twelve men: we made

wretchedly slow progress, for the reasons mentioned earlier, being

for four days within sight of Chittagong! On the 20th we only reached Sidhee, and thence made a stretch to Hattiah, an island which may be said to be moving bodily to the westward, the Megna annually cutting many acres from the east side; and the tide-wave depositing mud on

the west. The surface is flat, and raised four feet above mean

high-water level; the tide rises about 14 feet up the bank, and then retires for miles; the total rise and fall is, however, much less

here than in the Fenny, higher up the gulf. The turf is composed of Cynodon and a Fimbristylis; and the earth being impregnated with salt, supports different kinds of Chenopodium. Two kinds of

tamarisk, and a thorny Cassia and Exoecaria, are the only shrubs on the eastern islands; on the central ones a few dwarf mangroves

appear, with the holly-leaved Dilivaria, dwarf screw-pine

(Pandanus), a shrub of Compositae, and a curious fern, a variety of Aristichum aureum. Towards the northern end of Hattiah, Talipot, cocoa-nut and date-palms appear.

On the 22nd we entered the Sunderbunds, rowing amongst narrow

channels, where the tide rises but a few feet. The banks were covered with a luxuriant vegetation, chiefly of small trees, above which rose stately palms. On the 25th, we were overtaken by a steamer from

Assam, a novel sight to us, and a very strange one in these creeks, which in some places seemed hardly broad enough for it to pass

through. We jumped on board in haste, leaving our boat and luggage to follow us. She had left Dacca two days before, and this being the dry season, the route to Calcutta, which is but sixty miles in a straight line, involved a detour of three hundred.

From the masts of the steamer we obtained an excellent coup-d'oeil

of the Sunderbunds; its swamps clothed with verdure, and intersected by innumerable inosculating channels, with banks a foot or so high.

The amount of tide, which never exceeds ten feet, diminishes in

proceeding westwards into the heart of these swamps, and the epoch, direction, and duration of the ebb and flow vary so much in every

canal, that at times, after stemming a powerful current, we found

ourselves, without materially changing our course, suddenly swept

along with a favouring stream. This is owing to the complex

ramifications of the creeks, the flow of whose waters is materially influenced by the most trifling accidents of direction.

Receding from the Megna, the water became saltier, and _Nipa

fruticans_ appeared, throwing up pale yellow-green tufts of feathery leaves, from a short thick creeping stem, and bearing at the base of the leaves its great head of nuts, of which millions were floating on the waters, and vegetating in the mud. Marks of tigers were very

frequent, and the footprints of deer, wild boars, and enormous

crocodiles: these reptiles were extremely common, and glided down the mud banks on the approach of the steamer, leaving between the

footmarks a deep groove in the mud made by their tail. The Phoenix paludosa, a dwarf slender-stemmed date-palm, from six to eight feet high, is the all-prevalent feature, covering the whole landscape with a carpet of feathery fronds of the liveliest green. The species is

eminently gregarious, more so than any other Indian palm, and

presents so dense a mass of foliage, that when seen from above, the stems are wholly hidden.* [Sonneratia, Heritiera littoralis, and

Careya, form small gnarled trees on the banks, with deep shining

green-leaved species of Carallia Rhizophora, and other Mangroves.

Occasionally the gigantic reed-mace (Typha elephantina) is seen,

and tufts of tall reeds (Arundo).]

The water is very turbid, and only ten to twenty feet deep, which, we were assured by the captain, was not increased during the rains: it is loaded with vegetable matter, but the banks are always muddy, and we never saw any peat. Dense fogs prevented our progress in the

morning, and we always anchored at dusk. We did not see a village or house in the heart of the Sunderbunds (though such do occur), but we saw canoes, with fishermen, who use the tame otter in fishing; and

the banks were covered with piles of firewood, stacked for the

Calcutta market. As we approached the Hoogly, the water became very salt and clear; the Nipa fruits were still most abundant, floating

out to sea, but no more of the plant itself was seen. As the channels became broader, sand-flats appeared, with old salt factories,