FLORA OF THE SUNDRIBUNS. 
J38 
' . . . 
Haringhata. With the Bhola on the west it is connected by the 
Jeodhara, the Chipa Bin, the Daunsigar, the Saronkhola, the Sapala ; 
its eastern effluents or affluents, permeating the eastern Sundribuns, 
are the Kocha, the Haltua, the Bishkhali. 
These rivers of the central and eastern Sundribuns, being directly 
connected with the Ganges, bring down an enormous volume of fresh 
water, especially during the rains. Their" streams are thus less 
brackish than those of the western rivers, and the character of the 
vegetation in these divisions of the Sundribuns is thus markedly 
affected, ' 
The area of this region of interlacing rivers and creeks is about 
7,000 square miles ; the various water-channels constitute almost one- 
fourth of the whole, the remaining three-fourths being composed of 
the low-lying swampy islands which these channels surround. These 
islands in the eastern or Backerganj Sundribuns are, where not 
cleared for cultivation, largely occupied by grassy or sedgy savan- 
nahs ; in the western and central Sundribuns they are mainly forest- 
clad. The islands are, as a rule, rather higher along the river-banks 
than they are elsewhere, with somewhat lower and more swampy 
land inside ; as the banks at intervals are cut, and the whole of the 
interior penetrated and permeated by numberless small creeks, the 
entire surface of the soil, during the rains and when the rivers are 
full, is practically under water at every high tide. At low- water 
during the same season the whole surface is a sheet of somewhat 
adhesive mud interspersed with shallow pools of standing water. 
During the cold^season, when the body of water in the rivers is 
smaller, riiany of the islands become quite dry, and the superficial mud, 
which is soft and adhesive when wet, hardens and cakes and cracks on 
the surface. 
This mud is composed of a rather tenacious loam, mixed with 
a certain proportion of fine sand ; the whole, owing to the presence of 
much humus, is of a bluish-grey tint. The surface of this mud has 
everywhere a thin coating of river-slime. Near and at the sea-face this 
mud is at times continued under the lowest tide-level ; at times, 
owing to the action of the waves the slime entirely, and the humus and 
loam largely, disappear, only the fine sand remaining. The subsoil, as 
seen at low tide alonar steep river-banks where erosion is in progress, is 
also loamy, with here and there patches of almost pure sand — vestiges 
usually of old sand-banks and river-churs, though doubtless sometimes 
the remains of a former sea face. Less often smaller pockets of a 
darker and more tenacious loam, approaching in appearance and 
consistence though not in composition to a clay, are interspersed 
