52 SOANE VALLEY. Chap. TL 



absorbing than its natural history was the circumstance of 

 its having swallowed a child, that was playing in the water 

 as its mother was washing her utensils in the river. The 

 brute was hardly dead, much distended by the prey, and 

 the mother was standing beside it. A very touching group 

 was this : the parent with her hands clasped in agony, 

 unable to withdraw her eyes from the cursed reptile, which 

 still clung to life with that tenacity for which its tribe are 

 so conspicuous ; beside these the two athletes leaned on 

 the bloody bamboo staffs, with which they had all but 

 despatched the animal. 



This poor woman earned a scanty maintenance by 

 making catechu : inhabiting a little cottage, and having no 

 property but two cattle to bring wood from the hills, and 

 a very few household chattels ; and how few of these they 

 only know who have seen the meagre furniture of Danga 

 hovels. Her husband cut the trees in the forest and 

 dragged them to the hut, but at this time he was sick, and 

 her only boy, her future stay, it was, whom the beast had 

 devoured. 



This province is famous for the quantity of catechu its dry 

 forests yield. The plant {Acacia) is a little thorny tree, 

 erect, and bearing a rounded head of well remembered 

 prickly branches. Its wood is yellow, with a dark brick- 

 red heart, most profitable in January and useless in June 

 (for yielding the extract). 



The Butea frondosa was abundantly in flower here, and 

 a gorgeous sight. In mass the inflorescence resembles 

 sheets of flame, and individually the flowers are eminently 

 beautiful, the bright orange-red petals contrasting bril- 

 liantly against the jet-black velvety calyx. The nest of the 

 Megacldle (leaf-cutter bee) was in thousands in the cliffs, 

 with Mayflies, Caddis-worms, spiders, and many predaceous 



