1848.] Observations made on a Botanical Excursion. 401 



nodules of coal are said to be washed down here from the coal bed of 

 Burdee, a good deal higher up, but we saw none. 



The cliffs come close to the river on the opposite side, their bases 

 wooded and teeming with birds. The soil is richer and individual trees, 

 especially of Bombax, Pentapteris and Mahoiva, very fine ; one tree 

 of the Hardwickia, about 120 feet high, was as handsome a monarch 

 of the forest as I ever saw, and it is not often that one sees trees in 

 the tropics, which for a combination of beauty in outline, harmony of 

 color, and arrangement of branches and foliage, would form so striking 

 an addition to an English park. 



There is a large break in the Kymaon hills here, through which our 

 route lay to Bidgegurh and the Ganges at Mirzapore, the cliffs leav- 

 ing the river and trending to the N. in a continuous escarpment 

 flanked with low ranges of rounded hills and terminating in an abrupt 

 spur (Mungeza Peak) whose summit was covered with a ragged forest. 

 Kunch, the village at which we halted is elevated 556 feet above the 

 sea ; four alligators basked in the river, like logs of wood at a distance, 

 all of the short-nosed or Mager kind, dreaded by man and beast ; I saw 

 none of the sharp-snouted or Gharial, so common on the Ganges, where 

 their long bills, with a garniture of teeth and prominent eyes peeping 

 out the water, remind one of geological lectures and visions of Ichthyo- 

 sauri. 



Botanized over the ridges near the river, but found little novelty. 

 The Mahowa, Ehretia, Hardivickia, Gmelina, and especially Biospyros 

 and Terminalia are the prevailing timber ; the Cochlospermum on the 

 very hottest and driest ridges, imitating the Cistus in habit ; (and like 

 the C. Lada?ium,) it is streaming with gum as was the Mahoowa and 

 Olibanum. Catechu and Rhamnece are ever present and ever trouble- 

 some to the pedestrian. Phcenix acaulis frequent, and in some places 

 the woods appeared on fire from the bushes of Butea frondosa in full 

 flower. 



March 1st. — Left the Soane and struck inland over a rough hilly 

 country, covered with forest, good 1000 feet below the tops of the 

 Kymaon table-land, which, as I stated above, here recedes from the 

 river and surrounds an undulating plain, some ten miles either way, 

 facing the south. With nothing but narrow paths much contrivance 

 and labour were required to get the carts on. In one place I descend- 



