396 TERAI. Chap. XVII. 



Punkabaree to the Teesta, but of Avhich none are said to 

 occur for eight miles eastwards along the Bhotan Dooars : 

 if true, this is probably clue in part to the alteration of the 

 course of the Teesta, which is gradually working to the 

 westward, and cutting away these lofty banks. 



The elephant- drivers appeared to have taken us by 

 mistake to the exit of the Chawa, a small stream which 

 joins the Teesta further to the eastward. The descent to 

 the bed of this rivulet, round the first spur of rock we met 

 with, was fully eighty feet, through a very irregular 

 depression, probably the old bed of the stream ; it runs 

 southwards from the hills, and was covered from top to 

 bottom with slate-pebbles. We followed the river to its 

 junction with the Teesta, along a flat, broad gulley, bounded 

 by densely-wooded, steep banks of clay-slate on the north, 

 and the lofty bank on the south : between these the bed 

 was strewed with great boulders of gneiss and other rocks, 

 luxuriantly clothed with long grass, and trees of wild 

 plantain, Erytlirina and Bauhinia, the latter gorgeously 

 in flower. 



The Sal bank formed a very fine object : it was quite 

 perpendicular, and beautifully stratified with various 

 coloured sands and gravel : it tailed off abruptly at the 

 junction of the rivers, and then trended away south-west, 

 forming the west bank of the Teesta. The latter river is at 

 its outlet a broad and rapid, but hardly impetuous stream, 

 now fifty yards across, gushing from between two low, 

 forest-clad spurs : it appeared about five feet deep, and was 

 beautifully fringed on both sides with green Sissoo. 



Some canoes were here w T aiting for us, formed of hol- 

 lowed trunks of trees, thirty feet long : two were lashed 

 together with bamboos, and the boatmen sat one at the 

 head and one at the stern of each : we lay along the 



