350 CHITTAGONG. Chap. XXXI. 



smartly agitated. * The same shock was felt at Mymen- 

 sing and at Dacca, 110 miles north-west of this.* 



We crossed the dividing ridge of the littoral range on 

 the 9th, and descended to Seetakoond bungalow, on the 

 high road from Chittagong to Comilla. The forests at the 

 foot of the range were very extensive, and swarmed with 

 large red ants that proved very irritating: they build 

 immense pendulous nests of dead and living leaves at the 

 ends of the branches of trees, and mat them with a white 

 web. Tigers, leopards, wild dogs, and boars, are numerous ; 

 as are snipes, pheasants, peacocks, and jungle-fowl, the 

 latter waking the morn with their shrill crows ; and in 

 strange association with them, common English woodcock, 

 is occasionally found. 



The trees are of little value, except the Gurjun, and 

 " Kistooma," a species of Bradleia, which was stacked 

 extensively, being used for building purposes. Thepapawf 

 is abundantly cultivated, and its great gourd-like fruit is 

 eaten (called " Papita ' or " Chinaman ") ; the flavour is 

 that of* a bad melon, and a white juice exudes from the 

 rind. The Hodgsonia heteroclita {Trichosanthes of Rox- 

 burgh), a magnificent Cucurbitaceous climber, grows in 

 these forests ; it is the same species as the Sikkim one (see 

 p. 7). The long stem bleeds copiously when cut, and like 

 almost all woody climbers, is full of large vessels ; the 

 juice does not, however, exude from these great tubes, 

 which hold air, but from the close woody fibres. A 

 climbing Apocyneous plant grows in these forests, the 



* Earthquakes are extremely common, and sometimes violent, at Chittagong, 

 and doubtless belong to the volcanic forces of the Malayan peninsula. 



+ The Papaw tree is said to have the curious property of rendering tough meat 

 tender, when hung under its leaves, or touched with the juice ; this hastening the 

 process of decay. With this fact, well-known in the West Indies, I never found 

 a person in the East acquainted. 



