CLIMATE OF HIMALAYA. 2ol 



swampy land, which is well known in India by the name of 

 Terai, and which, where it is developed to any considerable 

 extent, bears a very bad character for unhealtliiness, and is 

 indeed in many places quite impassable for Europeans at most 

 seasons of the year. This forest belt seems to be due to the 

 greater humidity of atmosphere, and at the same time greater 

 equability of temperature, which is produced by the proximity of 

 the mountains. Its width is very various, from forty or fifty 

 miles, to which I believe it attains in some parts of Nepal, to 

 eight or ten miles, which is a more common width. Westward 

 of the Jumna it almost disappears, being represented by a line 

 of swampy or marshy ground, and a low jungle of bushes of the 

 common plain species of trees. 



In this belt, which occupies the base of the mountains, the 

 vegetation is of course quite tropical in character, and is too 

 varied to be described in detail. Large cotton trees (Bombax) 

 are in all parts of it particularly conspicuous from the immense 

 size of their trunks, which are not cylindrical, but buttressed all 

 round by immense plates which project far forward from the 

 main trunk. Numerous fig trees of very various species are also 

 common, especially to the eastward, where many fine forms of 

 these magnificent trees everywhere meet the eye, along witli 

 species of Dillenia, Careya, Bauliinia, and Lagerstrcimia. 



It is from the forest whicli lies along the foot of the Himalaya 

 that a great part of the timber is derived which is consumed in 

 northern India. In the most eastern part, the most valuable 

 timber is furnished by Lagerstromia reginae, and perhaps other 

 allied species ; further west, the sal Patica robusta, the Shorea 

 robusta of Roxbursrh, is that which is most esteemed. The sal 

 extends from the valley of Assam as far west, I believe, as the 

 Punjab, and is found not only in the forest tract, but also in hot 

 valleys among the mountains. It belongs to a natural order 

 (Dipterocarpeae) which is peculiarly Indian, and which furnishes 

 many valuable kinds of timber. None of the species, however, 

 except the one under consideration, extend beyond the tropics ; 

 but they abound in the hilly countries of the peninsula as well as 

 in the low ranges of the Malayan peninsula, and I believe in 

 Java and other Indian islands. The sal is so much valued that 

 it has become in accessible places, from Avhence it can easily be 

 conveyed to the plains, very scarce, and in the vicinity of large 

 towns, where tliere is a great demand for timber, I believe 

 almost extinct ; it is therefore less commonly employed than the 

 sissoo, a species of Dalbergia, which is particularly abundant 

 along the foot of the mountains, more especially to the westward, 

 growing in great profusion on gravelly soil, and yielding a 

 most ornamental and valuable wood. 



