CHAPTER XII 
JOURNEY TO THE KYMORE HILLS 
Travel to the Himalaya was still impossible for a couple of 
months ; the interval was employed in a botanical excursion 
to the little explored hills of south-west Bengal, which culminate 
in the Vindhya range further west, and to the valley of the 
-Soane, a southern tributary of the Ganges some 300 miles 
from Calcutta. This is reached by the Grand Trunk Road 
to Benares, seventy miles further on, which passes on its way 
from Calcutta the Burdwan coal-field and the sacred mountain 
Parasnath. 
Another coal-field was reported higher up the Soane river ; 
Mr. Wilhams, of the Geological Survey, was proceeding from 
Burdwan to investigate it. Hooker arranged to join his 
travelling camp on January 28, after a sixty hours' journey in a 
wearisome palkee, and from the upper Soane valley ^ traverse 
the Kymore or Bind Hills to Mirzapore, above Benares 
(March 8-15), then to take boat down the Ganges to Bhagulpore 
.(April 5-8), and finally by palkee from Caragola Ghat, some 
thirty miles further down the river, to Darjiling, some 140 
miles, which was reached on April 16. 
On the v/ay he collected everything that the dry season 
produced in an elevated district which surprised him by its 
signs of constant dryness. Even when sailing down the 
Ganges he experienced a gale and blinding dust-storm, swept 
up from the boundless alluvial plains of the river valley. 
So dry is the wind that drops of water vanish like magic. 
What Cryptogamiae could stand the transition from parching 
237 
