Notes on the Military Stations, health of Troops, fyc. 191 



coral or of coralline limestone, are washed by the Bay of 

 Bengal. 



The nature of the soil varies much : — in some places it is 

 low, marshy, and overrun with jungle, in some sandy, and in 

 others a rich loam. 



The whole of the district is hilly and wooded, and broken 

 up by sandstone ridges frequently containing traces of coal, 

 and in some instances crowned by mud volcanoes,* which 

 are generally quiescent, but with occasional seasons of activi- 

 ty, and are the most distant off-shoots of the volcanic chain 

 of the Moluccas. The country is every where intersected by 

 salt water nullahs and j heels, and in most places covered with 

 luxuriant vegetation. The chief rivers are the Myhoo, Kala- 

 dyne and Lemroo, the Aeng, and the Sandoway : most of 

 them wind their way into the sea through innumerable swampy 

 islands and the densest forests of mangrove : and their banks 

 near their mouths are covered with a rankness of vegetation 

 which can scarcely be imagined, by those who have not seen 

 the Sunderbuns, or the mouths of other tropical rivers. They 

 are all greatly under the influence of the tides, and their banks, 

 and those of the nullahs connected with them, are low and 

 shelving, and covered with mud, which is exposed at low 

 water. 



There are numerous hilly islands, of which Ramree and 



Cheduba are the chief of the larger, and 



Akyab and Juggoo of the smaller class. They 



are all however very close to the main land, and Cheduba 



alone can be regarded as possessing in any degree an insular 



climate. 



Yet at the close of the Burmese war, when from the 

 healthiness of a detachment of the 40th N. I. long stationed 

 on it, it had acquired a character for salubrity, at least 200 



* The mud volcanoes are generally surrounded by casuarina trees, though 



there may be no others in the neighbourhood. 



2 c 



