We descended rapidly for many miles through beautiful rocky woods, with villages nestling amongst groves of banana and trellised climbers; and from the brow of a hill looked down upon a slope covered with vegetation and huts, which formed the mart of Chela, and below which the Boga-panee flowed in a deep gorge. The view was a very striking one: owing to the steepness of the valley below our feet, the roofs alone of the cottages were visible, from which ascended the sounds and smells of a dense native population, and to which there appeared to be no way of descending. The opposite side rose precipitously in lofty table-topped mountains, and the river was studded with canoes.
The descent was fully 800 feet, on a slope averaging 25 degrees to 35 degrees. The cottages were placed close together, each within a little bamboo enclosure, eight to ten yards deep; and no two were on the same level. Each was built against a perpendicular wall which supported a cutting in the bank behind; and a similar wall descended in front of it, forming the back of the compartment in which the cottage next below it was erected. The houses were often raised on platforms, and some had balconies in front, which overhung the cottage below. All were mere hovels of wattle or mud, with very high-pitched roofs: stone tanks resembling fonts, urns, coffins, and sarcophagi, were placed near the better houses, and blocks of stone were scattered everywhere.
We descended from hovel to hovel, alternately along the gravelled flat of each enclosure, and perpendicularly down steps cut in the sandstone or let into the walls. I counted 800 houses from the river, and there must be many more: the inhabitants are Bengalees and Khasias, and perhaps amount to 3000 or 4000; but this is a very vague estimate.
Illustration—CHELA VILLAGE.
We lodged in a curious house, consisting of one apartment, twenty feet long, and five high, raised thirty feet upon bamboos: the walls were of platted bamboo matting, fastened to strong wooden beams, and one side opened on a balcony that overhung the river. The entrance was an oval aperture reached by a ladder, and closed by folding-doors that turned on wooden pivots. The roof was supported by tressels of great thickness, and like the rest of the woodwork, was morticed, no nails being used throughout the building. The floor was of split bamboos laid side by side.
We ascended the Boga-panee in canoes, each formed of a hollowed trunk fifty feet long and four broad; we could not, however, proceed far, on account of the rapids. The rocks in its bed are limestone, but a great bluff cliff of sandy conglomerate (strike east-south-east and dip south-south-west 70 degrees), several hundred feet high, rises on the east bank close above the village, above which occurs amygdaloidal basalt. The pebbles in the river (which was seventy yards broad, and turbid) were of slate, basalt, sandstone, and syenite: on the opposite bank were sandstones over-lain by limestone, both dipping to the southward.
Beautiful palms, especially Caryota urens (by far the handsomest in India), and groves of betel-nut bordered the river, with oranges, lemons, and citrons; intermixed with feathery bamboos, horizontally-branched acacias, oaks, with pale red young leaves, and deep green foliaged figs. Prickly rattans and Plectocomia climbed amongst these, their enormous plumes of foliage upborne by the matted branches of the trees, and their arrowy tops shooting high above the forest.
After staying three days at Chela, we descended the stream in canoes, shooting over pebbly rapids, and amongst rocks of limestone, water-worn into fantastic shapes, till we at last found ourselves gliding gently along the still canals of the Jheels. Many of these rapids are so far artificial, that they are enclosed by gravel banks, six feet high, which, by confining the waters, give them depth; but, Chela being hardly above the level of the sea, their fall is very trifling. We proceeded across the Jheels* [The common water-plants of the Jheels are Vallisneria serrata, Damasonium, 2 Myriophylla, 2 Villarsiae, Trapa, blue, white, purple and scarlet water-lilies, Hydrilla, Utricularia, Limnophila, Azolla, Salvinia, Ceratopteris, and floating grasses.] to Chattuc, and then north again to Pundua, and so to Churra.
Having pretty well exhausted the botany of Churra, Dr. Thomson and I started on the 13th of September for the eastern part of the Khasia and Jyntea mountains. On the Kala-panee road,* [The Pea-violet (Crotalaria occulta) was very common by the road-side, and smelt deliciously of violets: the English name suggests the appearance of the flower, for which and for its fragrance it is well worth cultivation.] which we followed, we passed crowds of market people, laden with dried fish in a half-putrid state, which scented the air for many yards: they were chiefly carp, caught and dried at the foot of the hills. Large parties were bringing down baskets of bird-cherries, cinnamon-bark, iron, pine planks, fire-wood, and potatoes. Of these, the bird-cherries (like damsons) are made into an excellent preserve by the English residents, who also make capital cherry-brandy of them: the trade in cinnamon is of recent introduction, and is much encouraged by the Inglis family, to whose exertions these people are so greatly indebted; the cinnamon is the peeled bark of a small species of Cinnamomum allied to that of Ceylon, and though inferior in flavour and mucilaginous (like cassia), finds a ready market at Calcutta. It has been used to adulterate the Ceylon cinnamon; and an extensive fraud was attempted by some Europeans at Calcutta, who sent boxes of this, with a top layer of the genuine, to England. The smell of the cinnamon loads was as fragrant as that of the fish was offensive.
The road from Kala-panee bungalow strikes off north-easterly, and rounds the head of the deep valley to the east of Churra; it then crosses the head-waters of the Kala-panee river, still a clear stream, the bed of which is comparatively superficial: the rocks consist of a little basalt and much sandstone, striking east by north, and dipping north by west. The Boga-panee is next reached, flowing in a shallow valley, about 200 feet below the general level of the hills, which are grassy and treeless. The river8 [The fall of this river, between this elevation (which may be considered that of its source) and Chela, is about 5,500 feet.] is thirty yards across, shallow and turbid; its bed is granite, and beyond it scattered stunted pines are met with; a tree which seems to avoid the sandstone. In the evening we arrived at Nonkreem, a large village in a broad marshy valley, where we procured accommodation with some difficulty, the people being by no means civil, and the Rajah, Sing Manuk, holding himself independent of the British Government.