There is some cultivation here of potatoes, and of Rhysicosia vestita a beautiful purple-flowered leguminous plant, with small tuberous roots. Beyond this, a high ridge is gained above the valley of the Boga-panee, the largest river in the Khasia; from this the Bhotan Himalaya may be seen in clear weather, at the astonishing distance of from 160 to 200 miles! The vegetation here suddenly assumes a different aspect, from the quantity of stunted fir-trees clothing the north side of the valley, which rises very steeply 1000 feet above the river: quite unaccountably, however, not one grows on the south face. A new oak also appears abundantly; it has leaves like the English, whose gnarled habit it also assumes.
The descent is very steep, and carried down a slope of greenstone;* [This greenstone decomposes into a thick bed of red clay; it is much intersected by fissures or cleavage planes at all angles, whose surfaces are covered with a shining polished superficial layer; like the fissures in the cleavage planes of the gneiss granite of Kinchinjhow, whose adjacent surfaces are coated with a glassy waved layer of hornblende. This polishing of the surfaces is generally attributed to their having been in contact and rubbed together, an explanation which is wholly unsatisfactory to me; no such motion could take place in cleavage planes which often intersect, and were it to occur, it would not produce two polished surfaces of an interposed layer of a softer mineral. It is more probably due to metamorphic action.] the road then follows. a clear affluent of the Boga-panee, and afterwards winds along the margin of that river, which is a rapid turbulent stream, very muddy, and hence contrasting remarkably with the Kala-panee. It derives its mud from the decomposition of granite, which is washed by the natives for iron, and in which rock it rises to the eastward. Thick beds of slate crop out by the roadside (strike north-east and dip north-west), and are continued along the bed of the river, passing into conglomerates, chert, purple slates, and crystalline sandstones, with pebbles, and angular masses of schist. Many of these rocks are much crumpled, others quite flat, and they are overlaid by soft, variegated gneiss, which is continued alternately with the slates to the top of the hills on the opposite side.
Small trees of hornbeam grow near the river, with Rhus, Xanthoxylon, Vaccinium, Gualtheria, and Spiraea, while many beautiful ferns, mosses, and orchids cover the rocks. An elegant iron suspension- bridge is thrown across the stream, from a rock matted with tufts of little parasitic Orchideae. Crossing it, we came on many pine-trees; these had five-years' old cones on them, as well as those of all succeeding years; they bear male flowers in autumn, which impregnate the cones formed the previous year. Thus, the cones formed in the spring of 1850 are fertilised in the following autumn, and do not ripen their seeds till the second following autumn, that of 1852.
A very steep ascent leads to the bungalow of Moflong, on a broad, bleak hill-top, near the axis of the range (alt. 6,062 feet). Here there is a village, and some cultivation, surrounded by hedges of Erythrina, Pieris, Viburnum, Pyres, Colquhounia, and Corylopsis, amongst which grew an autumn-flowering lark-spur, with most foetid flowers.* [There is a wood a mile to the west of the bungalow, worth visiting by the botanist: besides yew, oak, Sabia and Camellia, it contains Olea, Euonymus, and Sphaerocarya, a small tree that bears a green pear-shaped sweet fruit, with a large stone: it is pleasant, but leaves a disagreeable taste in the mouth. On the grassy flats an Astragalus occurs, and Roscoea purpurea, Tofieldia, and various other fine plants are common.] The rocks are much contorted slates and gneiss (strike north-east and dip south-east). In a deep gulley to the northward, greenstone appears, with black basalt and jasper, the latter apparently altered gneiss: beyond this the rocks strike the opposite way, but are much disturbed.
We passed the end of June here, and experienced the same violent weather, thunder, lightning, gales, and rain, which prevailed during every midsummer I spent in India. A great deal of Coix (Job's tears) is cultivated about Moflong: it is of a dull greenish purple, and though planted in drills, and carefully hoed and weeded, is a very ragged crop. The shell of the cultivated sort is soft, and the kernel is sweet; whereas the wild Coix is so hard that it cannot be broken by the teeth. Each plant branches two or three times from the base, and from seven to nine plants grow in each square yard of soil: the produce is small, not above thirty or forty fold.
From a hill behind Moflong bungalow, on which are some stone altars, a most superb view is obtained of the Bhotan Himalaya to the northward, their snowy peaks stretching in a broken series from north 17 degrees east to north 35 degrees west; all are below the horizon of the spectator, though from 17,000 to 20,000 feet above his level. The finest view in the Khasia mountains, and perhaps a more extensive one than has ever before been described, is that from Chillong hill, the culminant point of the range, about six miles north-east from Moflong bungalow. This hill, 6,660 feet above the sea, rises from an undulating grassy country, covered with scattered trees and occasional clumps of wood; the whole scenery about being park-like, and as little like that of India at so low an elevation as it is possible to be.
I visited Chillong in October with Lieutenant Cave; starting from Churra, and reaching the bungalow, two miles from its top, the same night, with two relays of ponies, which he had kindly provided. We were unfortunate in not obtaining a brilliant view of the snowy mountains, their tops being partially clouded; but the coup d'oeil was superb. Northward, beyond the rolling Khasia hills, lay the whole Assam valley, seventy miles broad, with the Burrampooter winding through it, fifty miles distant, reduced to a thread. Beyond this, banks of hazy vapour obscured all but the dark range of the Lower Himalaya, crested by peaks of frosted silver, at the immense distance of from 100 to 220 miles from Chillong. All are below the horizon of the observer; yet so false is perspective, that they seem high in the air. The mountains occupy sixty degrees of the horizon, and stretch over upwards of 250 miles, comprising the greatest extent of snow visible from any point with which I am acquainted.
Westward from Chillong the most distant Garrow hills visible are about forty miles off; and eastward those of Cachar, which are loftier, are about seventy miles. To the south the view is limited by the Tipperah hills, which, where nearest, are 100 miles distant; while to the south-west lies the sea-like Gangetic delta, whose horizon, lifted by refraction, must be fully 120. The extent of this view is therefore upwards of 340 miles in one direction, and the visible horizon of the observer encircles an area of fully thirty thousand square miles, which is greater than that of Ireland!
Scarlet-flowered rhododendron bushes cover the north side of Chillong,* [These skirt a wood of prickly bamboo, in which occur fig, laurel, Aralia, Boemeria, Smilax, Toddalia, wild cinnamon, and three kinds of oak.] whilst the south is grassy and quite bare; and except some good Orchideae on the trees, there is little to reward the botanist. The rocks appeared to be sandstone at the summit, but micaceous gneiss all around.
Continuing northward from Moflong, the road, after five miles, dips into a very broad and shallow flat-floored valley, fully a mile across, which resembles a lake-bed: it is bounded by low hills, and is called "Lanten-tannia," and is bare of aught but long grass and herbs; amongst these are the large groundsel (Senecio), Dipsacus, Ophelia, and Campanula. On its south flank the micaceous slates strike north-east, and dip north-west, and on the top repose beds, a foot in thickness, of angular water-worn gravel, indicating an ancient water-level, 400 feet above the floor of the valley. Other smaller lake-beds, in the lateral valleys, are equally evident.