Himalayan Journals, vol 1 by J. D. Hooker (best thriller books to read txt) 📕

A number of large, white, two-storied houses, some very imposing, and perched on rounded or conical hills, give a European aspect to the place.

Monghyr is celebrated for its iron manufactures, especially of muskets, in which respect it is the Birmingham of Bengal. Generally speaking, these weapons are poor, though stamped with the first English names. A native workman will, however, if time and sufficient reward be given, turn out a first rate fowling-piece. The inhabitants are reported to be sad drunkards, and the abundance of toddy-palms was quite remarkable. The latter, (here the _Phoenix sylvestris,) I never saw wild, but it is considered to be so in N.W. India; it is still a doubtful point whether it is the same as the African species.

In the morning of the following day I went to the hot springs of Seetakoond (wells of Seeta), a few miles south of the town.

Illustration — MONGHYR ON THE GANGES, WITH THE CURROCKPORE HILLS IN

THE DISTANCE.

The hills are hornstone and quartz, stratified and dipping southerly with a very high angle; they are very barren, and evidently identical with those on the south bank of the Soane; skirting, in both cases, the granite and gneiss range of Parasnath. The alluvium on the banks of the Ganges is obviously an aqueous deposit subsequent to the elevation of these hills, and is perfectly plane up to their bases.

The river has its course through the alluvium, like the Soane.

The depth of the former is in many places upwards of 100 feet, and the kunker pebbles it contains are often disposed in parallel undulating bands. It nowhere contains sand pebbles or fossils; concretions of lime (kunker) alone interrupting its uniform consistence. It attains its greatest thickness in the valleys of the Ganges and the Soane, gradually sloping up to the Himalaya and Curruckpore hills on either flank. It is, however, well developed on the Kymore and Parasnath hills, 1200 to 1500 feet above the Ganges valley, and I have no doubt was deposited in very deep water, when the relative positions of these mountains to the Ganges and Soane valleys were the same that they are now. Like every other part of the surface of India, it has suffered much from denudation, especially on the above-named mountains, and around their bases, where various rocks protrude through it. Along the Ganges again, its surface is an unbroken level between Chunar and the rocks of Monghyr. The origin of its component mineral matter must be sought in the denudation of the Himalayas within a very recent geological period. The contrast between the fertility of the alluvium and the sterility of the protruded quartzy rocks is very striking, cultivation running up to these fields of stones, and suddenly stopping.

Unlike the Soorujkoond hot-springs, those of Seetakoond rise in a plain, and were once covered by a handsome temple. All the water is collected in a tank, some yards square, with steps leading down to it. The water, which is clear and tasteless (temp. 104 degrees), is so pure as to be exported copiously, and the Monghyr manufactory of soda-water presents the anomaly of owing its purity to Seeta’s ablutions.

On my passage down the river I passed the picturesque rocks of Sultangunj; they are similar to those of Monghyr, but very much larger and loftier. One, a round-headed mass, stands on the bank, capped with a triple-domed Mahommedan tomb, palms, and figs.

The other, which is far more striking, rises isolated in the bed of the river, and is crowned with a Hindoo temple, its pyramidal cone surmounted with a curious pile of weathercocks, and two little banners. The current of the Ganges is here very strong, and runs in deep black eddies between the rocks.

Though now perhaps eighty or a hundred yards from the shore, the islet must have been recently a peninsula, for it retains a portion of the once connecting bank of alluvium, in the form of a short flat-topped cliff, about thirty feet above the water. Some curious looking sculptures on the rocks are said to represent Naragur (or Vishnu), Suree and Sirooj; but to me they were quite unintelligible.

The temple is dedicated to Naragur, and inhabited by Fakirs; it is the most holy on the Ganges.

April 5.—I arrived at Bhagulpore, and took up my quarters with my friend Dr. Grant, till he should arrange my dawk for Sikkim.

The town has been supposed to be the much-sought Palibothra, and a dirty stream hard by (the Chundum), the Eranoboas; but Mr. Ravenshaw has now brought all existing proofs to bear on Patna and the Soane.

It is, like most hilly places in India, S. of the Himalaya, the seat of much Jain worship; and the temples on Mount Manden,* [For the following information about Bhagulpore and its neighbourhood, I am indebted chiefly to Col. Francklin’s essay in the Asiatic Researches; and the late Major Napleton and Mr. Pontet.] a few miles off, are said to have been 540 in number. At the assumed summer-palaces of the kings of Palibothra the ground is covered with agates, brought from the neighbouring hills, which were, in a rough state, let into the walls of the buildings. These agates perfectly resemble the Soane pebbles, and they assist in the identification of these flanking hills with those of the latter river.

Again, near the hills, the features of interest are very numerous.

The neighbouring mountains of Curruckpore, which are a portion of the Rajmahal and Parasnath range, are peopled by tribes representing the earliest races of India, prior to the invasion of young Rama, prince of Oude, who, according to the legend, spread Brahminism with his conquests, and won the hand of King Jannuk’s daughter, Seeta, by bending her father’s bow. These people are called Coles, a middle-sized, strong, very dark, and black-haired race, with thick lips: they have no vocation but collecting iron from the soil, which occurs abundantly in nodules. They eat flesh, whether that of animals killed by themselves, or of those which have died a natural death, and mix with Hindoos, but not with Mussulmen. There are other tribes, vestiges of the Tamulian race, differing somewhat in their rites from these, and approaching, in their habits, more to Hindoos; but all are timorous and retiring.

The hill-rangers, or Bhagulpore-rangers, are all natives of the Rajmahal hills, and form a local corps maintained by the Company for the protection of the district. For many years these people were engaged in predatory excursions, which, owing to the nature of the country, were checked with great difficulty. The plan was therefore conceived, by an active magistrate in the district, of embodying a portion into a military force, for the protection of the country from invasions of their own tribes; and this scheme has answered perfectly.

To me the most interesting object in Bhagulpore was the Horticultural Gardens, whose origin and flourishing condition are due to the activity and enterprise of the late Major Napleton, commander of the hill-rangers. The site is good, consisting of fifteen acres, that were, four years ago, an indigo field, but form now a smiling garden.

About fifty men are employed; and the number of seeds and vegetables annually distributed is very great. Of trees the most conspicuous are the tamarind, Tecoma jasminoides, Erythrina, Adansonia, Bombax, teak, banyan, peepul, Sissoo, Casuarina, Terminalia, Melia, Bauhinia. Of introduced species English and Chinese flat peaches (pruned to the centre to let the sun in), Mangos of various sorts, Eugenia Jambos, various Anonas, Litchi, Loquat and Longan, oranges, Sapodilla; apple, pear, both succeeding tolerably; various Cabool and Persian varieties of fruit-trees; figs, grapes, guava, apricots, and jujube. The grapes looked extremely well, but they require great skill and care in the management.

They form a long covered walk, with a row of plantains on the W.

side, to diminish the effects of the hot winds, but even with this screen, the fruit on that side are inferior to that on the opposite trellis. Easterly winds, again, being moist, blight these and other plants, by favouring the abundant increase of insects, and causing the leaves to curl and fall off; and against this evil there is no remedy. With a clear sky the mischief is not great; under a cloudy one the prevalence of such winds is fatal to the crop. The white ant sometimes attacks the stems, and is best checked by washing the roots with limewater, yellow arsenic, or tobacco-water. Numerous Cerealia, and the varieties of cotton, sugar-cane, etc. all thrive extremely well; so do many of our English vegetables. Cabbages, peas, and beans are much injured by the caterpillars of a Pontia, like our English “White;” raspberries, currants, and gooseberries will not grow at all.

The seeds were all deposited in bottles, and hung round the walls of a large airy apartment; and for cleanliness and excellence of kind they would bear comparison with the best seedsman’s collection in London. Of English garden vegetables, and varieties of the Indian Cerealia, and leguminous plants, Indian corn, millets, rice, etc., the collections for distribution were extensive.

The manufacture of economic products is not neglected. Excellent coffee is grown; and arrow-root, equal to the best West Indian, is prepared, at 18s. 6d. per bottle of twenty-four ounces, about a fourth of the price of that article in Calcutta.

In most respects the establishment is a model of what such institutions ought to be in India; not only of real practical value, in affording a good and cheap supply of the best culinary and other vegetables that the climate can produce, but as showing to what departments efforts are best directed. Such gardens diffuse a taste for the most healthy employments, and offer an elegant resource for the many unoccupied hours which the Englishman in India finds upon his hands. They are also schools of gardening; and a simple inspection of what has been done at Bhagulpore is a valuable lesson to any person about to establish a private garden of his own.

I often heard complaints made of the seeds distributed from these gardens not vegetating freely in other parts of India, and it is not to be expected that they should retain their vitality unimpaired through an Indian rainy season; but on the other hand I almost invariably found that the planting and tending had been left to the uncontrolled management of native gardeners, who with a certain amount of skill in handicraft are, from habits and prejudices, singularly unfit for the superintendence of a garden.

CHAPTER IV.

Leave Bhagulpore — Kunker — Colgong — Himalaya, distant view of —

Cosi, mouth of — Difficult navigation — Sand storms —

Caragola-Ghat — Purnea — Ortolans — Mahanuddee, transport of pebbles, etc. — Betel-pepper, cultivation of — Titalya — Siligoree — View of outer Himalaya — Terai — Mechis — Punkabaree — Foot of mountains — Ascent to Dorjiling — Cicadas — Leeches — Animals —

Kursiong, spring vegetation of — Pacheem — Arrive at Dorjiling —

Dorjiling, origin and settlement of — Grant of land from Rajah —

Dr. Campbell appointed superintendent — Dewan, late and present —

Aggressive conduct of the latter — Increase of the station — Trade — Titalya fair — Healtby climate for Europeans and children —

Invalids, diseases prejudicial to.

I took as it were, a new departure, on Saturday, April the 8th, my dawk being laid on that day from Caragola-Ghat, about thirty miles down the river, for the foot of the Himalaya range and Dorjiling.

Passing the pretty villa-like houses of the English residents, the