452 POON, BLACK WOOD, AND TEAK. Chap. XXVI. 



After leaving Ooticully we still had to pass through fifteen 

 miles of jungle, before reaching the open cultivated country 

 in northern Malabar. In driving down the ghaut the views, 

 through occasional openings, of the wide expanses of forest 

 were very grand. Tall trunks of trees towered up to a great 

 height in search of light and air, palms and bamboos waved 

 gracefully over the road, and the range of Coorg mountains 

 filled up the background. Most of the valuable timber has 

 been long since felled in these forests, excepting in the very 

 inaccessible parts. The poon-trees {Calophyllum angustifo- 

 lium),^ which are chiefly found in Coorg, and yield most 

 valuable spars for masts, have become exceedingly scarce. 

 The young trees are now vigilantly preserved. Black-wood 

 {^Dalhergia latifolia) is also getting scarce, though I saw a 

 good deal of it in some of the Coorg jungles ; and teak-trees 

 of any size have almost entirely disappeared, excepting 

 in the forests of North Canara. 



At a distance of twenty miles from the sea the cultivated 

 country commences in this part of Malabar, and the road on 

 each side is lined with pepper-fields, with occasional gi'oves 

 of plantains and clumps of cocoa and betel-nut palms. The 

 land undulates in a succession of hills and dales, with rice 

 cultivation in some of the hollows. Here the pepper is 

 regularly grown in large fields, and not in gardens as at 

 Calicut. In the first place trees are planted in rows, usually 

 such as have rough or prickly bark^ — the jack, the mango, 

 or the cashew-nut. In the country we were passing through 

 the tree used was an Erytlirina, with the bark of trunk and 

 branches thickly covered with thorns. Until the trees have 

 grown to the proper size the land is often used for raising 

 plantains. "When the trees have attained a height of 15 or 



^ Cleghorn, p. 11. Pooii spars are I tree with brownish flowers, emitting 

 ,'ilso obtained from Stercula feetida, a | a most horrible smell. 



