June, 1850. SCENERY. CHURRA TABLE-LAND. 277 



The sun is female ; and Mr. Yule * (who is my authority) 

 says that the Pleiades are called " the Hen-man" (as in 

 Italy " the chickens ") ; also that they have names for 

 the twelve months ; they do not divide their time by 

 weeks, but hold a market every four days. These people 

 are industrious, and good cultivators of rice, millet, 

 and legnmes of many kinds. Potatoes were introduced 

 amongst them about twenty years ago by Mr. Inglis, and 

 they have increased so rapidly that the Calcutta market is 

 now supplied by their produce. They keep bees in rude 

 hives of logs of wood. 



The flat table-land on which Churra Poonji is placed, 

 is three miles long and two broad, dipping abruptly in 

 front and on both sides, and rising behind towards the 

 main range, of which it is a spur. The surface of this 

 area is everywhere intersected by shallow, rocky water- 

 courses, which are the natural drains for the deluge that 

 annually visits it. The western part is undulated and 

 hilly, the southern rises in rocky ridges of limestone and 

 coal, and the eastern is very flat and stony, broken only 

 by low isolated conical mounds. 



The scenery varies extremely at different parts of the 

 surface. Towards the flat portion, where the English 

 reside, the aspect is as bleak and inhospitable as can be 

 imagined : a thin stratum of marshy or sandy soil covers a 

 tabular mass of cold red sandstone ; and there is not a tree, 

 and scarcely a shrub to be seen, except occasional clumps 

 of Pandanus. The low white bungalows are few in number, 

 and very scattered, some of them being a mile asunder, 

 enclosed with stone walls and shrubs ; and a small white 



* I am indebted to Mr. Inglis for most of this information relating to the 

 Khasias, which I have since found, with much more that is curious and interesting, 

 in a paper by Lieut. Yule in Bengal Asiat. Soc. Journal. 



