Having returned to Titalya, Mr. Hodgson and I set off in an eastern direction for the Teesta river, whose embouchure from the mountains to the plains I was anxious to visit. Though the weather is hot, and oppressively so in the middle of the day, there are few climates more delicious than that of these grassy savannahs from December to March. We always started soon after daybreak on ponies, and enjoyed a twelve to sixteen miles' gallop in the cool of the morning before breakfast, which we found prepared on our arrival at a tent sent on ahead the night before. The road led across an open country, or followed paths through interminable rice-fields, now dry and dusty. On poor soil a white-flowered Leucas monopolized the space, like our charlock and poppy: it was apparently a pest to the agriculturist, covering the surface in some places like a sprinkling of snow. Sometimes the river-beds exposed fourteen feet of pure stratified sand, with only an inch of vegetable soil above.
At this season the mornings are very hazy, with the thermometer at sunrise 60 degrees; one laid on grass during the night falling 7 degrees below that temperature: dew forms, but never copiously: by 10 a.m. the temperature has risen to 75 degrees, and the faint easterly morning breezes die away; the haze thickens, and covers the sky with a white veil, the thermometer rising to 82 degrees at noon, and the west wind succeeding in parching tornados and furious gusts, increasing with the temperature, which attains its maximum in the afternoon, and falling again with its decline at sunset. The evenings are calm; but the earth is so heated, that the thermometer stands at 10 p.m. at 66 degrees, and the minimum at night is not below 55 degrees: great drought accompanies the heat at this season, but not to such a degree as in North-west India, or other parts of this meridian further removed from the hills. In the month of March, and during the prevalence of west winds, the mean temperature was 79 degrees, and the dew-point 22 degrees lower, indicating great drought. The temperature at Calcutta was 7 degrees warmer, and the atmosphere very much damper.
On the second day we arrived at Jeelpigoree, a large straggling village near the banks of the Teesta, a good way south of the forest: here we were detained for several days, waiting for elephants with which to proceed northwards. The natives are Cooches, a Mogul (Mongolian) race, who inhabit the open country of this district, replacing the Mechis of the Terai forest. They are a fine athletic people, not very dark, and formed the once-powerful house of Cooch Behar. Latterly the upper classes have adopted the religion of the Brahmins, and have had caste conferred upon them; while the lower orders have turned Mahomedans: these, chiefly agriculturists, are a timid, oppressed class, who everywhere fled before us, and were with difficulty prevailed upon even to direct us along our road. A rude police is established by the British Government all over the country, and to it the traveller applies for guides and assistance; but the Conches were so shy and difficult to deal with, that we were generally left to our own resources.
Grass is the prevailing feature of the country, as there are few shrubs, and still fewer trees. Goats and the common Indian cow are plentiful; but it is not swampy enough for the buffalo; and sheep are scarce, on account of the heat of the climate. This uniformity of feature over so immense an area is, however, due to the agency of man, and is of recent introduction; as all concur in affirming, that within the last hundred years the face of the country was covered with the same long jungle-grasses which abound in the Terai forest; and the troops cantoned at Titalya (a central position in these plains) from 1816 to 1828, confirm this statement as far as their immediate neighbourhood is concerned.
These gigantic Gramineae seem to be destroyed by fire with remarkable facility at one season of the year; and it is well that this is the case; for, whether as a retainer of miasma, a shelter for wild beasts, both carnivorous and herbivorous, alike dangerous to man, or from their liability to ignite, and spread destruction far and wide, the grass-jungles are most serious obstacles to civilization. Next to the rapidity with which it can be cleared, the adaptation of a great part of the soil to irrigation during the rains, has greatly aided the bringing of it under cultivation.
By far the greater proportion of this universal short turf grass is formed of Andropogon acicularis, Cynodon Dactylon,* [Called "Dhob." This is the best pasture grass in the plains of India, and the only one to be found over many thousands of square miles.] and in sandy places, Imperata cylindrica; where the soil is wetter, Ameletia Indica is abundant, giving a heather-like colour to the turf, with its pale purple flowers: wherever there is standing water, its surface is reddened by the Azolla, and Salvinia is also common.
At Jeelpigoree we were waited upon by the Dewan, who governs the district for the Rajah, a boy about ten years old, whose estates are locked up during the trial of an interminable suit for the succession, that has been instituted against him by a natural son of the late Rajah: we found the Dewan to be a man of intelligence, who promised us elephants as soon as the great Hooli festival, now commenced, should be over.
The large village, at the time of our visit, was gay with holiday dresses. It is surrounded by trees, chiefly of banyan, jack, mango, peepul, and tamarind: interminable rice-fields extend on all sides, and except bananas, slender betel-nut palms, and sometimes pawn, or betel-pepper, there is little other extensive cultivation. The rose-apple, orange, and pine-apple are rare, as are cocoa-nuts: there are few date or fan-palms, and only occasionally poor crops of castor-oil and sugar-cane. In the gardens I noticed jasmine, Justicia Adhatoda, Hibiscus, and others of the very commonest Indian ornamental plants; while for food were cultivated Chenopodium, yams, sweet potatos, and more rarely peas, beans, and gourds. Bamboos were planted round the little properties and smaller clusters of houses, in oblong squares, the ridge on which the plants grew being usually bounded by a shallow ditch. The species selected was not the most graceful of its family; the stems, or culms, being densely crowded, erect, as thick at the base as the arm, copiously branching, and very feathery throughout their whole length of sixty feet.
A gay-flowered Osbeckia was common along the roadsides, and, with a Clerodendron,* [Clerodendron leaves, bruised, are used to kill vermin, fly-blows, etc., in cattle; and the twigs form toothpicks. The flowers are presented to Mahadeo, as a god of peace; milk, honey, flowers, fruit, amrit (ambrosia), etc., being offered to the pacific gods, as Vishnu, Krishna, etc.; while Mudar (Asclepias), Bhang (Cannabis sativa), Datura, flesh, blood, and spirituous liquors, are offered to Siva, Doorga, Kali, and other demoniacal deities.] whose strong, sweet odour was borne far through the air, formed a low undershrub beneath every tree, generally intermixed with three ferns (a Polypodium, Pteris, and Goniopteris).
The cottages are remarkable, and have a very neat appearance, presenting nothing but a low white-washed platform of clay, and an enormous high, narrow, black, neatly thatched roof, so arched along the ridge, that its eaves nearly touch the ground at each gable; and looking at a distance like a gigantic round-backed elephant. The walls are of neatly-platted bamboo: each window (of which there are two) is crossed by slips of bamboo, and wants only glass to make it look European; they have besides shutters of wattle, that open upwards, projecting during the day like the port-hatches of a ship, and let down at night. Within, the rooms are airy and clean: one end contains the machans (bedsteads), the others some raised clay benches, the fire, frequently an enormous Hookah, round wattled stools, and various implements. The inhabitants appeared more than ordinarily well-dressed; the men in loose flowing robes of fine cotton or muslin, the women in the usual garb of a simple thick cotton cloth, drawn tight immediately above the breast, and thence falling perpendicularly to the knee; the colour of this is a bright blue in stripes, bordered above and below with red.