PHYSICAL AND CLIMATIC FEATURES. 3 



not furnish a single soldier to the armies of the State, and is 

 fonder of chattering and splitting legal straws than of action 

 and physical exertions. 



The province of Behar, lying on both banks of the Ganges, 

 from near Benares down to Peerpointee, resembles Bengal in 

 so far as it too is highly cultivated and thickly peopled. 

 Possessing a drier and more salubrious climate, its inhabitants 

 are sturdier and more manly than those of Bengal, but still 

 inferior to those of the Upper and Central Provinces. Except 

 in Purneah and some parts of Shahabad, Gaya, and Monghyr, 

 Behar is bare of extensive jungles, and as a field for the sports- 

 man takes a low place. 



Chutia, or Chota Nagpoor, comes next a high and healthy 

 plateau the home of the Kol, the Moondah, the Kherwar, 

 the Bhogtah, and other non- Aryan tribes. Kising step by step 

 from the banks of the Damooda, the revered of the Santhals, 

 and its affluent the Barrakur, these highlands attain an alti- 

 tude of over two thousand feet at Hazaribagh and Ranchi, and 

 further west form still loftier plateaus in Sirgooja. Forests 

 of " sal " and other trees clothe the hills and the banks of 

 rivers which spring from their sides, and at first flow in small 

 streamlets among rocks and stones, till, breaking through the 

 highlands and woods of Nagpoor, they burst in broad and 

 shallow courses into the sea, through the lowlands of Orissa. 



The soil of this province is in general sterile, and its sur- 

 face is much seamed and scarred with deep ravines. Numerous 

 hills rise abruptly some mere heaps of rocks, others lofty 

 and grand, such as Pareesnath well-wooded to their summits. 

 A noticeable feature of this country is the occurrence upon its 

 face, at considerable distances apart, of hills of considerable 

 altitude, which stand like sentries on guard ; these are, com- 

 mencing with the lowest and most eastward, Soosoonia, 

 Beharinath, Pachart, Dalma, and, lord of all, Pareesnath, 

 whose storm -riven peak attains a height of over four thousand 

 feet. 



Fourthly and last, there is Orissa, a narrow strip of fertile 

 land, lying between the sea and the timber-clothed hills of 



B 2 



