June, 1850. COIX CULTIVATION. MOFLONG. 289 



Pj/rus, Colquhounid, and Corj/lopsis, amongst which grew 

 an autumn-flowering lark-spur, with most foetid flowers.* 

 The rocks are much contorted slates and gneiss (strike 

 north-east and dip south-east). In a deep gulley to the 

 northward, greenstone appears, with black basalt and 

 jasper, the latter apparently altered gneiss : beyond 

 this the rocks strike the opposite way, but are much 

 disturbed. 



We passed the end of June here, and experienced the same 

 violent weather, thunder, lightning, gales, and rain, which 

 prevailed during every midsummer I spent in India. A 

 great deal of Coix (Job's tears) is cultivated about Moflong : 

 it is of a dull greenish purple, and though planted in drills, 

 and carefully hoed and weeded, is a very ragged crop. The 

 shell of the cultivated sort is soft, and the kernel is sweet ; 

 whereas the wild Coix is so hard that it cannot be broken 

 by the teeth. Each plant branches two or three times 

 from the base, and from seven to nine plants grow in each 

 square yard of soil : the produce is small, not above thirty 

 or forty fold. 



From a hill behind Moflong bungalow, on which are 

 some stone altars, a most superb view is obtained of the 

 Bhotan Himalaya to the northward, their snowy peaks 

 stretching in a broken series from north 17° east to north 

 35° west ; all are below the horizon of the spectator, though 

 from 17,000 to 20,000 feet above his level. The finest 

 view in the Khasia mountains, and perhaps a more exten- 

 sive one than has ever before been described, is that from 



* There is a wood a mile to the west of the bungalow, worth visiting by the 

 botanist : besides yew, oak, Sabia and Camellia, it contains Olea, Euonymus, and 

 Sphairocarya, a small tree that bears a green pear-shaped sweet fruit, with a large 

 stone : it is pleasant, but leaves a disagreeable taste in the mouth. On the 

 grassy flats an Astragalus occurs, and Roscoea purpurea, Tofieldia, and various 

 other fine plants are common. 



VOL. II. U 



