156 



JOURNAL TOWARDS ASSAM AND BOOTAN. 



the population abundant and flourishing. The cattle are, as 1 have 

 said, stalled and fed with paddy grass, quantities of boats being em- 

 ployed for its conveyance. Oplismenus stagninus appears less common 

 about here. 



Thursday, list. — Still among jheels ; our progress is necessarily 

 very slow ; we are indeed scarcely moving, there being no tracking 

 ground : jheels occur in every direction, although the hills are not 15 

 miles distant. Pelicans with white and black marked wings occur, 

 together with the slate-colored eagle with white tail, barred at tip 

 with black ; it is common in the low wooded places surrounded by 

 jheels. Black-bellied Tern occurs, but not that of Assam. 



Friday, 22nd. — Arundo and two species of Saccharum occur, among 

 which S. spontaneum, is very common and of large size. We 

 reached the Soorma river about 12 o'clock, 3 or 4 miles above Mr. 

 Inglis's house. 



I arrived at Chattuc on the 21st, which place I left for Pundoa the 

 following day. There are no mountains of this name as would seem 

 from the habitat of some plants given in Roxburgh's Flora Indica. The 

 mountains therein called Pundoa are the Khasya or Cossiah range ; 

 Pundoa, is the name of a village called by the natives Puddoa. 

 The jheels are for a great part under cultivation. The paddy cul- 

 tivation is of two kinds ; it is either sown in the jheels just at the 

 commencement of the inundation, or it is sown on higher portions, 

 and then transplanted into the jheels. Jarool, Lagerstrsemia Regina 

 is the chief timber, it comes from Kachar; it is a dear and not a 

 durable wood. 



Dalbergia bracteata, first appears, on low hills about Chattuc ; there 

 is also a Grimmia here on the river banks. 



Porpoises are often seen in the Soorma ; alligators or crocodiles, 

 very rarely. 



Jheels continue nearly to the foot of the mountains ; these last 

 are not wooded more than half way up ; the remaining wood being 

 confined to ravines, the ridges appearing as if covered with grass. 

 Here and there, scarped amphitheatres are visible, down which many 

 fine cascades may be seen to fall. 



Arrived at Mr. Inglis's Bungalow at Pundoa about 3 p. m., and 

 here regulated my thermometers ; temperature of boiling water taken 

 with the large thermometer 210J°, by means of the one in wooden 

 case 210J°, temperature of the air 92J°, red case thermometer indi- 

 cated the boiling point at 206° ! ! nor would the mercury rise higher. 



