NOTES FROM A JOURNEY TO NEPAL. 
63 
BettiahtoKliatm^ndu one travelled thfOugh long grass for three days, 
and then met the forest near Parsua [vide L6vi, Le N^pal, i, p. 123). 
Kirkpatrick who in 1793 passed out of Nepdl by this road represents 
in his map the forest as ending near Simalbdsa and says (Account of 
Nepal, pr 30) “ Goor pussra stands very near the skirt of the great 
forest; the country all round the village is by no means bare 
of cultivation Gurparsua is a little south of Simalbdsa. Hamilton 
who followed him in 1802 found the edge of the forest ’*3 niiies 
beyond Gar pasara, at Simalbdsa. 
Kirkpatrick ingoing to Nepdl crossed the foot-hills by the Sakti- 
khola pass on the east of my route : he relates of it (p. 15) that 
the forest began just beyond Soopeah (Soophye), and this is about 
the spot where it begins now. 
The Nepalese wars of 1814 and 1815-16, and subsequent boundary 
survey, resulted in a map of the terai wherein the limit of the forest 
is given east and west of the roads that Kirkpatrick and Hamilton had 
taken (vide Prinsep's Transactions in India, 1813-1823, vol. if 1825, 
map facing p. 179). The military operations of 1814 had taken place 
along its edge. 
The “ bhavar or forest, it may be said, is neither much deeper nor 
much shallower than it was a century and a quarter ago. 
of forest south of the Bhavar ; no ground for assuming that 
they have been part of the Bhavar. 
South of the limits of the great forest persist small areas of poor 
forest, isolated by wide spreads of cultivation. There is one 
patch at Parsua and another within British territory on the bank of 
the Tiur nadi south of Chauraddna. It is probable that the latter 
represents the forest spoken of by Firishta in connection with the 
capture of Semraon in 1352. This is how Firishta describes the event. 
As the king (Tughluk Shdh) was passing near the hills of Tirhut, 
the Raja (of Semraon) appeared in arms, but was pursued into the 
woods. Finding his army could not penetrate them, the king alighted 
from his horse, called for a hatchet, and cut down one of the trees 
with his own hand. The troops on seeing this, applied themselves 
to work with such spirit that the forest seemed to vanish before them. 
They arrived at length at a fort surrounded by seven ditches full of 
water and a high wall. The king invested the place, filled up the 
ditches and destroyed the wall in three weeks. The Raja and his 
family were taken and great booty obtained. ** The forest encoun- 
tered by the Mohammedans may well have been more extensive than 
the line now persisting, but could hardly have been part of the great 
