MISCELLANEOUS NOTES, 302 
In the year 1874 I passed through the Pandooah jungle between Maldah 
and Dinagepore, in Lower Bengal, on so-called famine duty. Returning in 
May, 1875, I found all the thick, thorny bamboos of that large tract—a variety 
strongly resembling, but smaller than, the Katang—had lately seeded. 
The general seeding at Jubbulpore in 1870 followed the Bundelkand famine. 
T have heard mention of bamboos seeding at the time of the Madras famine, 
but cannot vouch for the accuracy of the information. 
I know of no noteworthy scarcity following on drought in or previous to 
1882 or 1885 or 1893. 
On the second topic of belief all the evidence I have to offer is this, In 
Seoni strenuous efforts were made to raise an avenue by laying down off-sets 
from old clumps taken from the nearest source of supply, the station of 
Jubbulpore and Sleeman’s Park. I saw these full of promise in 1869. By 
the following May they had prematurely budded from the stem and were 
withering away with their abortive seeds. 
Although there may be no more evidence available, it would be rash to 
reject this native theory. Atany rate it is pretty and is not disproved, 
I cannot now refer to Sir William Sleeman’s writings, but I cannot resist 
a belief that some of the clumps in his park at Jubbulpore and those in his 
garden at Narsinghpur came from the seeding in the Doon, about which he 
wrote. That seeding was about 1832. Moreover, there was a general 
seeding in the Doon in 1882. This gives an interval or life-period of fifty 
years. 
Some late enquiries in the Doon elicited the curious answer that between 
two consecutive flowerings of this bamboo “a child will grow to be a man 
and his son will reach manhood,’’ Nothing more definite could be learnt. 
Were I an interviewer, no doubt the words of a conversation of about 
1879 in the Bhandara or Balaghat district would be forthcoming. Though 
they cannot be given, their substance is clearly remembered. Speaking of 
another old man, my informant declared his friend to be old beyond com- 
putation—a hundred years old or more, Well, if the sahib was not content 
with that, surely it was enough to say that his friend had twice in his life- 
time eaten the seed of the great bamboo. (ently pressed to try to fix the 
earlier time, the old man at last gave a clear clue to it. He had often heard 
his absent friend speak of having had to eat the seed of the Katang bamboo 
in the year when the Raja, Appa Sahib Bhonsleh, lost his kingdom. “ All 
the villages were burnt by the gods, who rose in rebellion for the king’s 
sake, and but for the seeds and roots of the forest, people had died of 
hunger,” 
There is no valid reason for disbeliving this unpremeditated story. It 
may then be concluded that there was a general seeding in the Upper Wein- 
ganga Valley in 1818,and another between 1865 and 1870—an interval of 
some fifty years. 
