332 DR. HOOKER’S MISSION TO INDIA. 
tion of the same amongst the jungly herbage; the amount of vapour 
in the humid atmosphere above, checking the upward passage of that 
from the soil; the sheltered nature of the locality at the immediate 
base of a lofty range; and probably the reverberation of heat from the 
mountains rising immediately above them. There appears to me to be 
here all necessary elements which, combined, will produce a maximum 
of stagnation and deterioration in the atmosphere loaded with vapour. 
Fatal as this district is, and especially to the Europeans, a race in- 
habit it with impunity, and which, if not numerous, do not owe their 
paucity to any climatic causes. These are the Mechis,* often described 
as a squalid, sickly people, typical of the region they frequent; but 
who are, in reality, more robust than the Europeans in India, and whose 
disagreeably sallow complexion is deceptive as indicating a sickly con- 
stitution. They are described to me as a mild, inoffensive people, 
moral, and industrious for Orientals ; they live by annually burning the 
Terai jungle and cultivating the cleared spots; and though so se- 
questered and isolated, unlike the Rajmahal and Behar Dangas, they 
rather court than avoid intercourse with those whites whom they know 
to be kindly disposed. 
After proceeding some six miles in the gradually descending path, I 
came to a considerable stream, cutting its way through the gravel, with 
cliffs on each side of fifteen to twenty feet, here and there covered with 
a Pteris and other Ferns, the little Ozalis sensitiva, weedy Acanthacee, 
and other herbs, The road here suddenly ascends a steep gravelly hill, 
and opens out on a short flat, or spur, from which the Sub-Himalaya 
mountains abruptly rise, clothed with forest to the base ; the little Bun- 
galow of Punkabarrie, my immediate destination, nestled in the woods, 
crowned a lateral knoll, above which, to E. and W., as far as the 
eye could reach, were range after range of wooded mountain. 
The character and vegetation of this flat is identical with that of the 
lower level from which I had ascended; the same gravelly subsoil, 
stratum of vegetable mould, the same grasses, herbs, and trees. Curcuma 
still continued the prevalent and typical plant; others are Terminalia 
and Conocarpus ; Ficus elastica, here at its western limit, scarce and 
small. I observed no Palms, but this, and the absence of much more 
arboreous vegetation, is no doubt due to artificial causes, as clearing 
b e flat, however, presents no water-courses, and ap- 
* N.B. No relation to the Magie Strop. 
