308 Mr. J. D. de La Touche on 



which we followed for some time. I saw here a good many 

 Sand-Martins {Cotile sinensis?), also Wagtails and Sand- 

 Plovers of some kind, probably j^gialites caniianus. The 

 scenery soon began to get very beautiful ; the road led once 

 more along the stream, and before long became merged in 

 it, so that the carriers and bearers walked in the river-bed, 

 which was firm, the water being shallow and muddy. Gradually 

 woods appeared on the hill-sides^ and these became steeper 

 and steeper, and hemmed in the stream more closely, till we 

 arrived at a spot where the hills seemed as if they would 

 altogether stop our progress. The bed of the river had 

 become rocky and pebbly, and the stream here issued forth 

 out of a narrow pass, formed by the steep wooded slope on 

 one side and a wall of sandstone cliffs on the other. The 

 trees growing over the stream closed above our heads as, 

 scrambling up the bank to avoid a deep jdooI, we crossed a 

 narrow bamboo bridge which spanned the rivulet under their 

 shade, and a few yards further on emerged into a pretty glen, 

 one side of it shut in by a perpendicular wall of sandstone, 

 while on the other the wooded hills came down in a rapid 

 incline to the stream wending its way to the dark leafy 

 tunnel we had just passed through. 



From this glen the road keeps rising till the first tall ridge 

 overlooking the Baksa valley is reached. Now it follows the 

 hill-sides, a mere cut on the steep slopes, now it wanders up 

 and down, into the valleys and straight over the hills, through 

 tangled jungle and woods. Sometimes we found ourselves 

 on a ridge overlooking ravines, whence the soil had been 

 washed away, and which appeared as if furrowed by the 

 tropical rains. 



The formation of this mountainous country is of blue clay, 

 the lower hills near the plain appearing to be formed of soft 

 sandstone. When woods occur the trees do not seem to 

 attain to any great size; they are mostly 'nung-°%n,^' with 

 here and there a few date-palms and an occasional mango 

 appearing above the jungle and undergrowth of brushwood, 

 sword-grass, bamboos, &c, I did not see or hear many birds 

 on the way ; in fact, the country seemed singularly devoid of 



