346 CHITTAGONG. Chap. XXXI. 



interspersed with trees and tanks j the hills resemble those 

 of Silhet, and are covered with a similar vegetation : on 

 these the European houses are built. The climate is very 

 healthy, which is not remarkable, considering how closely it 

 approximates in character to that of Silhet and other places 

 in Eastern Bengal, but very extraordinary, if it be com- 

 pared with Arracan, only 200 miles further south, which is 

 extremely unhealthy. The prominent difference between 

 the physical features of Chittagong and Arracan, is the 

 presence of mangrove swamps at the latter place, for which 

 the water is too fresh at the former. 



The hills about the station are not more than 150 or 

 200 feet high, and are formed of stratified gravel, sand, 

 and clay, that often becomes nodular, and is interstratified 

 with slag-like iron clay. Eossil wood is found ; and some 

 of the old buildings about Chittagong contain nummulitic 

 limestone, probably imported from Silhet or the peninsula 

 of India, with which countries there is no such trade now. 

 The views are beautiful, of the blue mountains forty to fifty 

 miles distant, and the many-armed river, covered with 

 sails, winding amongst groves of cocoa-nuts, Areca palm, 

 and yellow rice fields. Good European houses surmount 

 all the eminences, surrounded by trees of Acacia and 

 CcesaljAnia. In the hollows are native huts amidst vegeta- 

 tion of every hue, glossy green Garcinice and figs, broad 

 plantains, feathery Cassia and Acacias, dark Mesua, red- 

 purple Terminalia, leafless scarlet-flowered Bombax, and 

 grey Casuarina* Seaward the tide leaves immense flats, 

 called churs, which stretch for many miles on either side 

 the offing. 



This, which is almost exclusively an Australian genus, is not indigenous at 

 Chittagong : to it belongs an extra-Australian species common in the Malay 

 islands, and found wild as far north as Arracan. 



