1838.3 



and Boad Zemmdaries, 



409 



hills to the river. The timber trees are of lower growth than in the 

 mountain valleys, and mingled with thorny underwood. 



Considerable tracts of this expanse are cultivated with wet and dry 

 grains. The soil is a varied assortment of alluvial clays and gravels. 



The bed of the Mahanuddy at Boad is from a mile to a mile and a 

 furlong in breadth. 



In March the stream lay under the left bank two furlongs wide, now 

 running with a clear and rapid current over white gravel, now forming 

 chains of deep still pools. It was fordable but at one point four feet 

 deep in the centre, and rendered difficult by quicksands. Below Boad 

 the river is divided by the long wooded island of Murjacole. Its con- 

 tracted channel is here laid bare by the swift stream, exposing a bed 

 of large round backed variegated masses of porphyritic gneiss. 



The banks are of clay, 30 or 40 feet in height, every where precipit- 

 ous, and fringed with single trees and masses of dark wood. 



From Boad I performed a rapid circuit of 80 miles through the 

 Autmullick and Rbadacole zemindaries beyond the Mahanuddy; —to 

 view a region rarely penetrated; to ascertain at what point the Khond 

 people is in this quarter replaced by the Cole race ; and to observe 

 the tract from which the iron of commerce of this part of India is 

 almost exclusively derived. 



Low parallel ranges of undulating hills of sandstone and shale, 

 among which rose insulated and picturesque summits apparently of 

 gneiss, gave a new character to the physiognomy of the country. The 

 forest, chiefly of saul, seemed less rich and various than that of Goom- 

 sur; the open woodland tracts as frequent, clearer, and less embellish- 

 ed. The drainage of the country did not flow south towards the 

 Boad reach of the Mahanuddy, but westward to join its northern bend 

 between Sohnpore and Sumbhulpore. The iron, as will elsewhere be 

 noticed, is yielded by extensive beds of argillaceous ironstone, the ore 

 being identical in character with that of the district which supplies 

 the great Carron foundery in Scotland. 



The chief products of this forest besides wax and dammer, are two 

 species of lac collected in great quantity. One species is derived from 

 the lowha-pulsa-tree. It exudes over the young leaf shoots in the 

 rainy season, when they are gathered, and the resin extracted by 

 bruising. 



From the koosum-tree is derived a more valuable lac, said to be 

 principally employed in Calcutta in the process of sharpening or po- 

 lishing steel. It is likewise formed in the rains on the young sprigs, 

 which are collected and sold with the resin unseparated. 



