NOTES. 
263 
dâk bungalows in the various villages, but all furniture and provisions 
must be carried from Shillong, except to Cherrapunji. 
The voyage up the Brahmaputra is interesting, but the vegetation 
somewhat monotonous ; the river flows among broad sandy islands and 
low banks covered with tall reeds, forest being only visible in the far 
distance on the higher lands out of reach of the floods. The country 
between Gauhati and Shillong is very interesting, but is said to be 
very unhealthy, at least in the lower parts. The first portion of the 
64 miles drive is like the foothill country near Mirigama, and then the 
road passes into the jungle for many miles ; the general type of vege- 
tation is not unlike the Nalanda forests, but there are several unfamiliar 
forms. Linum trigynum is a beautiful sight along the banks at the 
roadside. These foothill jungles are very rich, and contain manj’^ 
interesting forms, such as Dipteris Wallichii. Their unhealthiness may 
be avoided by living in the hills above and making occasional descents 
into them. At about 3,000 feet the scenery changes to open rolling 
patana country with strips of forest, and above 4,600 feet the forests 
in the more open valleys consist mainly of Pinus Khasiana, giving a 
very northern look to the vegetation and scenery, which is increased 
by the great number of familiar European genera to be seen among 
the patana plants, far more even than on Horton Plains or at similar 
elevations in the Sikkim Himalaya. 
Shillong is near the culminating point of the hills, and is a pleasant 
little sanitarium, commanding beautiful views of the Himalaya. The 
country to the south, towards Cherrapunji, is a level-looking plateau 
at first glance, but further acquaintance with it discloses the fact that 
it is intersected in all directions by extremely abrupt and deep valleys, 
which ultimately debouch into the plains of the great Surma Yalley 
below Cherrapunji. The latter place stands on a level plain, which at 
the edges (drops suddenly into splendid canon-like valieys about 4,000 
feet deep, with numerous beautiful waterfalls falling over their 
precipitous cliffs. The higher levels of the plateau are open grass 
country, but the valleys are mostly wooded, especially on their northern 
slopes, and the forests are both rich and interesting, while to the 
botanist from further south there is a great fascination in the many 
European-looking forms to be met with both in the jungles and on the 
patanas. Cherrapunji itself has long been famous as the locality of 
the greatest known annual rainfall. This, however, almost all falls 
between April and October, and the winter is cool and dry. The plain 
shows very clearly the effect of the enormous precipitation in its bleak 
stony aspect and its very scanty flora, while the valleys below are 
extremely rich. Probably, as Sir Joseph Hooker has pointed out, 
there is no place on the earth where so large a flora is to be found in 
so small an area, the Indian, Chinese, and Malayan floras meeting and 
mingling here, while, though the elevation of the Khasia Hills is small, 
the mountain flora is that of much higher elevations elsewhere. I 
