318 JYNTEA HILLS. Ciiai-. XXX. 



which to the east become higher and more wooded : to 

 the west the Khasia are seen, and several Himalayan 

 peaks to the north. 



The ascent to the village from the river is by steps cut in 

 a narrow cleft of the schist rocks, to a flat, elevated 4,178 

 feet above the sea : we here procured a cottage, and found 

 the people remarkably civil. The general appearance is the 

 same as at Joowye, but there are here extensive and very 

 unhealthy marshes, whose evil effects we experienced, in 

 having the misfortune to lose one of our servants by fever. 

 Except pines, there are few large trees ; but the quantity of 

 species of perennial woody plants contributing to form the 

 jungles is quite extraordinary : I enumerated 140, of which 

 60 were trees or large shrubs above twenty feet high. 

 One of these was the Hamamelis chinensis, a plant 

 hitherto only known as a native of China. This, the 

 Boioringia, and the little Nymjjltcea, are three out of 

 many remarkable instances of our approach to the eastern 

 Asiatic flora. 



From Nurtiung we walked to the Bor-panee river, six- 

 teen or twenty miles to the north-east (not the river of that 

 name below Nunklow), returning the same night ; a most 

 fatiguing journey in so hot and damp a climate. The path 

 lay for the greatest part of the way over grassy hills of 

 mica- schist, with boulders of granite, and afterwards of 

 syenite, like those of Nunklow. The descent to the river 

 is through noble woods of spreading oaks,*" chesnuts, mag- 

 nolias, and tall pines : the vegetation is very tropical, and 

 with the exception of there being no sal, it resembles that 

 of the dry hills of the Sikkim Terai. The Bor-panee is 



* We collected upwards of fifteen kinds of oak and chesnut in these and the 

 Khasia mountains ; many are magnificent trees, with excellent wood, while others 

 are inferior as timber. 



