104 OUTER HIMALAYA. C«ap. IV. 



apparently covered with a dense forest. Secondary spurs 

 of clay and gravel, like that immediately below Punkabaree, 

 rest on the bases of the mountains, and seem to form ail 

 intermediate neutral ground between flat and mountainous 

 India. The .Terai district forms a very irregular belt, 

 scantily clothed, and intersected by innumerable rivulets 

 from the hills, which unite and divide again on the flat, till, 

 emerging from the region of many trees, they enter the 

 plains, following devious courses, which glisten like silver 

 threads. The whole horizon is bounded by the sea-like 

 expanse of the plains, which stretch away into the region 

 of sunshine and fine weather, in one boundless flat. 



In the distance, the courses of the Teesta and Cosi, the 

 great drainers of the snowy Himalayas, and the recipients 

 of innumerable smaller rills, are with difficulty traced at 

 this, the dry season. The ocean-like appearance of this 

 southern view is even more conspicuous in the heavens 

 than on the land, the clouds arranging themselves after a 

 singularly sea-scape fashion. Endless strata run in parallel 

 ribbons over the extreme horizon ; above these, scattered 

 cumuli, also in horizontal lines, are dotted against a clear 

 grey sky, which gradually, as the eye is lifted, passes into 

 a deep cloudless blue vault, continuously clear to the 

 zenith ; there the cumuli, in white fleecy masses, again 

 appear ; till, in the northern celestial hemisphere, they 

 thicken and assume the leaden hue of nimbi, discharging 

 their moisture on the dark forest-clad hills around. The 

 breezes are south-easterly, bringing that vapour from 

 the Indian Ocean, which is rarefied and suspended aloft 

 over the heated plains, but condensed into a drizzle when 

 it strikes the cooler flanks of the hills, and into heavy rain 

 when it meets their still colder summits. Upon what a 

 gigantic scale docs nature here operate ! Vapours, raised 



