PHYSICAL AND CLIMATIC FEATURES. 5 



it birth, and the little island, torn away rapidly by the chafing 

 waters, is known no more, except in memory and on old maps. 

 Haply the earth, which supported thousands of creatures, 

 re-appears still further out at sea, to become its waste-paper 

 basket or lumber-room, on which to cast her discarded play- 

 things mutilated trunks of great trees, remains of wrecked 

 boats, or the ribs and masts of ships destroyed in its fury 

 far away; and so, again, the land may rise by degrees 

 once more, and acquire, perhaps, a permanent name and 

 position. 



In the map attached to this little work, the difference in 

 the leading features of the country has been shown by colours. 

 Thus, that portion tinted yellow is Bengal proper, Behar, 

 and the greater part of Orissa, highly cultivated, thickly popu- 

 lated, and scantily provided with heavy grass or tree coverts, 

 consequently containing little to invite the sportsman in search 

 of big game, wild hog and panthers excepted, if they may be 

 classified as such, these being found almost everywhere. The 

 tracts tinted red are laterite, or high-lying lands, the most re- 

 markable vegetation of which is the " sal " forest, the home in 

 particular of the Indian sloth bear. Neutral tint represents 

 hills and thick woods, in which the elephant, the bison, and 

 the tambur roam at large, little troubled by the presence of 

 man. Lastly, portions of the map coloured green, are either 

 grass plains, as those along the foot of the mountains, low 

 forests, as the " Soonderbuns," or jungles scattered amid cul- 

 tivated tracts, in which the tiger, the rhinoceros, the wild 

 buffalo, and many varieties of deer may still be successfully 

 sought. The best hog-hunting grounds have been tinted brown ; 

 but, besides these places, there are many others throughout 

 the country in which a boar worth riding may occasionally be 

 speared ; even the immediate environs of Calcutta itself will 

 now and then give a run, especially early in the cold season, 

 when the rice crops have all, or nearly all, been reaped, and 

 cattle have not yet trodden down every patch of bush or 



3. 



There is one obstacle to sport which is to be met with 



