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 Phœnix 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, Dracæna, 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°.
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 above ([p. 343]), 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 Exœcaria, 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 Compositæ, 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 détour of three hundred.
From the masts of the steamer we obtained an excellent coup-d’œil 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 Phœnix 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.[[394]]
[394] 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, and clumps of planted Casuarina.
On the 28th of January we passed Saugor island, and entered the Hoogly, steamed past Diamond Harbour, and landed at the Botanic Garden Ghat, where we received a hearty welcome from Dr. Falconer. Ten days later we bade farewell to India, reaching England on the 25th of March, 1851.