The geological features of the Khasia are in many respects so similar to those of the Vindhya, Kymore, Behar, and Rajmahal mountains, that they have been considered by some observers as an eastern prolongation of that great chain, from which they are geographically separated by the delta of the Ganges and Burrampooter. The general contour of the mountains, and of their sandstone cliffs, is the same, and the association of this rock with coal and lime is a marked point of similarity; there is, however, this difference between them, that the coal-shales of Khasia and limestone of Behar are non-fossiliferous, while the lime of Khasia and the coal-shales of Behar contain fossils.
The prevalent north-east strike of the gneiss is the same in both, differing from the Himalaya, where the stratified rocks generally strike north-west. The nummulites of the limestone are the only known means we have of forming an approximate estimate of the age of the Khasia coal, which is the most interesting feature in the geology of the range: these fossils have been examined by MM. Archiac and Jules Haines,* ["Description des Animaux Fossiles des Indes Orientales;" p. 178. These species are Nummulites scabra, Lamarck, N. obtusa, Sowerby, N. Lucasana, Deshayes, and N. Beaumonti, d'Arch. and Haines.] who have pronounced the species collected by Dr. Thomson and myself to be the same as those found in the nummulite rocks of north-west India, Scinde, and Arabia.
CHAPTER XXX.
Boat voyage to Silhet — River — Palms — Teelas — Botany — Fish
weirs — Forests of Cachar — Sandal-wood, etc. — Porpoises —
Alligators — Silchar — Tigers — Rice crops — Cookies —
Munniporees — Hockey — Varnish — Dance — Nagas — Excursion to
Munnipore frontier — Elephant bogged — Bamboos — Cardiopteris —
Climate, etc., of Cachar — Mosquitos — Fall of banks — Silhet —
Oaks — Stylidium — Tree-ferns — Chattuc — Megna — Meteorology
— Palms — Noacolly — Salt-smuggling — Delta of Ganges and Megna
— Westward progress of Megna — Peat — Tide — Waves — Earthquakes
— Dangerous navigation — Moonlight scenes — Mud island —
Chittagong — Mug tribes — Views — Trees — Churs — Flagstaff
hill — Coffee — Pepper — Tea, etc. — Excursions from Chittagong
— Dipterocarpi or Gurjun oil trees — Earthquake — Birds — Papaw
— Bleeding of stems — Poppy and Sun fields — Seetakoond —
Bungalow and hill — Perpetual flame — Falconeria — Cycas —
Climate — Leave for Calcutta — Hattiah island — Plants —
Sunderbunds — Steamer — Tides — Nipa fruticans — Fishing —
Otters — Crocodiles — Phoenix paludosa — Departure from India.
We left Churra on the 17th of November, and taking boats at Pundua, crossed the Jheels to the Soormah, which we ascended to Silhet. Thence we continued our voyage 120 miles up the river in canoes, to Silchar, the capital of the district of Cachar: the boats were such as I described at Chattuc, and though it was impossible to sit upright in them, they were paddled with great swiftness. The river at Silhet is 200 yards broad; it is muddy, and flows with a gentle current of two to three miles an hour, between banks six to twelve feet high. As we glided up its stream, villages became rarer, and eminences more frequent in the Jheels. The people are a tall, bold, athletic Mahometan race, who live much on the water, and cultivate rice, sesamum, and radishes, with betel-pepper in thatched enclosures as in Sikkim: maize and sugar are rarer, bamboos abound, and four palms (Borassus, Areca, cocoa-nut, and Caryota) are planted, but there are no date-palms.
The Teelas (or hillocks) are the haunts of wild boars, tigers, and elephants, but not of the rhinoceros; they are 80 to 200 feet high, of horizontally stratified gravel and sand, slates, and clay conglomerates, with a slag-like honey-combed sandstone; they are covered with oaks, figs, Heretiera, and bamboos, and besides a multitude of common Bengal plants, there are some which, though generally considered mountain or cold country genera, here descend to the level of the sea; such are Kadsura, Rubus, Camellia, and Sabia; Aerides and Saccolabia are the common orchids, and rattan-canes and Pandani render the jungles impenetrable.
A very long sedge (Scleria) grows by the water, and is used for thatching: boatloads of it are collected for the Calcutta market, for which also were destined many immense rafts of bamboo, 100 feet long. The people fish much, using square and triangular drop-nets stretched upon bamboos, and rude basket-work weirs, that retain the fish as the river falls. Near the villages we saw fragments of pottery three feet below the surface of the ground, shewing that the bank, which is higher than the surrounding country, increases from the annual overflow.
About seventy miles up the river, the mountains on the north, which are east of Jyntea, rise 4000 feet high in forest-clad ranges like those of Sikkim. Swamps extend from the river to their base, and penetrate their valleys, which are extremely malarious: these forests are frequented by timber-cutters, who fell jarool (Lagerstroemia Reginae), a magnificent tree with red wood, which, though soft, is durable under water, and therefore in universal use for boat-building. The toon is also cut, with red sandal-wood (Adenanthera pavonina); also Nageesa,* [There is much dispute amongst oriental scholars about the word Nageesa; the Bombay philologists refer it to a species of Garcinia, whilst the pundits on the Calcutta side of India consider it to be Mesua ferrea. Throughout our travels in India, we were struck with the undue reliance placed on native names of plants, and information of all kinds; and the pertinacity with which each linguist adhered to his own crotchet as to the application of terms to natural objects, and their pronunciation. It is a very prevalent, but erroneous, impression, that savage and half-civilised people have an accurate knowledge of objects of natural history, and a uniform nomenclature for them.] Mesua ferrea, which is highly valued for its weight, strength, and durability: Aquilaria agallocha, the eagle-wood, a tree yielding uggur oil, is also much sought for its fragrant wood, which is carried to Silhet and Azmerigunj, where it is broken up and distilled. Neither teak, sissoo, sal, nor other Dipterocarpi, are found in these forests.
Porpoises, and both the long and the short-nosed alligator, ascend the Soormah for 120 miles, being found beyond Silchar, which place we reached on the 22nd, and were most hospitably received by Colonel Lister, the political agent commanding the Silhet Light Infantry, who was inspecting the Cookie levy, a corps of hill-natives which had lately been enrolled.
The station is a small one, and stands about forty feet above the river, which however rises half that height in the rains. Long low spurs of tertiary rocks stretch from the Tipperah hills for many miles north, through the swampy Jheels to the river; and there are also hills on the opposite or north side, but detached from the Cookie hills, as the lofty blue range twelve miles north of the Soormah is called. All these mountains swarm with tigers, wild buffalos, and boars, which also infest the long grass of the Jheels.