55 



bear a considerable weight, and is conducted without difficulty, 

 This satisfactorily explains the earthen-ware boats of Juvenal. 



Hac saevit rabie imbelle et inutile vulgus, 



Parvula fictilibus solitum dare vela phaselis, 



Et brevibus pictoe remis incumbere testae. Sat. 15. ver. 126. 



On crossing the Dahder I entered the Jamboseer purgunna ; it 

 presents a more pleasing landscape than Ahmood and Baroche, 

 which generally consist of open cultivated plains, with trees only 

 near the villages. Here the fields are enclosed, and the whole 

 country enriched by plantations of mango, tamarind, and banian- 

 trees. Forty or fifty full-grown mango-trees will cover a square 

 acre of ground, forming a dark grove of beautiful foliage to shelter 

 the traveller from meridian heat ; and at the season I was there, 

 affording a golden produce for his refreshment. The mangos vary 

 as much in size as flavour, weighing from two ounces to near a 

 pound. Although the tamarind tree is exquisitely beautiful, and 

 its fruit pleasant and wholesome, it is deemed by the natives ex- 

 tremely unhealthy to sleep or even to rest under its shade. Captain 

 Williamson justly observes, that " the numerous plantations of 

 mango-trees by the natives, chiefly through ostentation, afford con- 

 siderable convenience to persons inhabiting tents. Some of these 

 plantations, or topes, are of such extent that an army of ten or 

 twelve thousand men may encamp under shelter; a circumstance 

 which to the native soldiery, with whom tents are not in use, is of 

 great moment. In the hot season the shade is both pleasant and salu- 

 tary, in the cold months these woods afford warmth by keeping off 

 the bleak wind; and in the rainy portion of the year those trees 



