12 
BENGAL. 
The situation of this district exhibits a melancholy proof of dif¬ 
ferent facts too frequently united, the great facility of obtaining food, 
and, at the same time, the wretched indigence of the lower order of 
inhabitants. 
At six o’clock on the morning of the 11th of May, we departed from 
Gooch Bahar, and travelled near the banks of the river Toorsha, for 
upwards of three miles. The land was low and marshy, interspersed 
with thick woods, and with many nullahs, or rivulets, having not more 
than three feet depth of water. The whole face of the country was 
dreary and unpleasant, being thinly inhabited, and sparingly culti¬ 
vated. No animals appeared to enliven and cheer the scene, except 
here and there a solitary hargheela", or maunukjoor 0 . The vegetation 
was coarse; the ground being almost every where clothed with rank 
grass, reeds, and fern. We crossed some creeks, whose water was 
chin deep; a rainy day would have rendered them absolutely un- 
fordable. We now entered the dreary region which divides the district 
of Gooch Bahar, the present frontier of Bengal, from the country of 
Bootan, and which, from its inaptitude to supply the wants, or faci¬ 
litate the functions, of human life, may be considered as appertaining 
properly to neither. Its extent, from the foot of the chain of moun¬ 
tains, with which the district or principality of Bootan commences, is 
little less than twenty-five miles. 
We passed through a wood called the Pistajar-wood, in which many 
n A bird, the largest species of the crane kind, which feeds only on putrid flesh, 
snakes, and frogs. It is commonly called by the English in Bengal, Adjutant. 
° A water fowl of the crane species. 
