120 DR. HOOKER’S MISSION TO INDIA. 
Feb. 29th.—Being now nearly opposite the cliffs at Bidjegir, where 
coal ís reported to exist, we again, and for the last time, crossed the 
Soane. The ford is some three miles up the river, to which we 
marched through deep sand. On the banks saw a species of Celtis, 
covered with lac. This tree is said to produce it here in great 
abundance, as the Butea does at Burdwan, and the Peepul in many 
parts of the country: I do not know which yields the best, or 
whether the insects are alike on each ; and the merchants do not distin- 
guish the kinds. Whether they be the same or different insects, the 
power they are endowed with of producing the same coloured sub- 
stance from trees of such totally distinct habit and Natural Order, is 
highly remarkable. 
Here the bed of the Soane is about three-quarters of a mile broad, 
and the rapid stream fifty or sixty yards, and breast deep. The sand 
is firm and siliceous, with no mica. Nodules of coal are said to be 
washed down here from the coal bed of Burdee, a good deal higher 
up; but we saw none. The cliffs come close to the river on the 
opposite side, their bases are well wooded, and teeming with birds. 
e soil is richer, and the individual trees, especially of Bombax, Ter- 
minalia, and Mahoua, very fine. One specimen of the Hardwickia, 
about 120 feet high, was as handsome a monarch of the forest as I ever 
beheld, and it is not often that one sees any tree in the tropies, whieb, 
for a combination of beauty in outline, harmony of colour, and arrange- 
ment of branches and foliage, would form so striking an addition to 
an English park. 
There is a large break in the Kymaor hills here, through which our 
route lay to Bidjegir and the Ganges at Mirzapur, The cliffs leaving 
the river and trending to the north, form a continuous escarpment, 
flanked with low ranges of rounded hills, and terminating in an abrupt 
spur (in Saxon Ness or Naze), hoary with a ragged forest. 
Four alligators lay asleep, looking like logs of wood in the river, all 
of the short-nosed or Mager kind, dreaded by man and beast. I saw 
none of the curious and sharp-snouted species, so common in the 
Ganges, whose long bill and prominent eyes, just visible above the 
water, conjure up visions of Ichthyosawri and geological lectures. 
The latter alligators are harmless and fish-eaters only. 
