CHAPTER XXXI. 



Boat voyage to Silhet — River — Palms — Teelas — Botany — Fish weirs — Forests of 

 Cachar — Sandal-wood, &c. — Porpoises — Alligators — Silchar — Tigers — Rice- 

 crops — Cookies — Munniporees — Hockey — Varnish — Dance — Nagas — 

 Excursion to Munnipore frontier — Elephant bogged — Bamboos — Cardiopteris 

 — Climate, &c, of Cachar — Mosquitos — Fall of banks — Silhet — Oaks — 

 Stylidium — Tree-ferns — Chattuc — Megna — Meteorology — Palms — Noacolly — 

 Salt-smuggling — Delta of Ganges and Megna — Westward progress of Megna — 

 Peat — Tide — Waves — Earthquakes — Dangerous navigation — Moonlight scenes 

 —-Mud island — Chittagong — Mug tribes — Views — Trees — Churs — Flagstaff 

 hill — Coffee — Pepper — Tea, &c. — Excursions from Chittagong — Dipterocarpi 

 or Gurjun oil trees — Earthquake — Birds — Papaw — Bleeding of stems — Poppy 

 and Sun fields — Seetakoond — Bungalow and hill — Perpetual flame — Falconeria 

 — Cycas — Climate — Leave for Calcutta — Hattiah island— Plants — Sunder- 

 bunds — Steamer — Tides — Nipa fruticans — Fishing — Otters — Crocodiles — 

 Phcenix paludosa — Departure from India. 



We left Churra on the 17th of November, and taking boats 

 at Pundna, crossed the Jheels to the Soormah, which we 

 ascended to Silhet. Thence we continued our voyage 120 

 miles up the river in canoes, to Silchar, the capital of the 

 district of Cachar: the boats were such as I described 

 at Chattuc, and though it was impossible to sit upright in 

 them, they were paddled with great swiftness. The river 

 at Silhet is 200 yards broad ; it is muddy, and flows with a 

 gentle current of two to three miles an hour, between banks 

 six to twelve feet high. As we glided up its stream, villages 

 became rarer, and eminences more frequent in the Jheels. 

 The people are a tall, bold, athletic Mahometan race, who 

 live much on the water, and cultivate rice, sesamum, and 



