x.]

RIVER SYSTEMS OF ASIA.

139

length depends on the form of the land, but the most copious. Such is in fact the case. The Amoor, the Yang-tse-Kiang, and the Hoang-Ho in China, the Mekong in Cochin-China, the Irawadi in Burmah, and the Ganges and Brahmapútra in India and Assam, are the most important rivers that carry off the drainage of the monsoon rainfall and the melted snows of the southern and eastern mountains. In Northern Asia, the Obi with its tributaries, the Irtish, the Yenisei, and some smaller but still important streams, drain the northern slopes of the Altai, the Yablonoi and other chains, and carry off the winter snows of the great Siberian plains; and in the Western Central region, the Syr Daria, the Amú and the Oxus drain in like manner the snowy peaks of the Thian Shan, the Pamir, and the Hindu Kho, discharging their waters into the Sea of Aral and the Caspian. These last derive all, or nearly all their waters from the mountains, and like the Indus, described in Chapter IX., traverse, in their lower course, wide-spreading rainless plains which would be deserts but for their fertilising waters.

Between the head-waters of these several rivers, or rather the mountain ranges that give them birth, and in the very heart of the continent, lie the great desert of Gobi and the lofty table-land of Central and Western Tibet. These two are rainless, and the Tarim, which receives the rivers of Yárkand, Kashgar and Khotan, and the smaller streams fed by the glaciers of the mountains around, never reach the sea, but are either absorbed and swallowed up by the sands of the plain, or terminate in lakes with no outlet, and therefore salt. The largest of these lakes are Lake Lop in the Gobi desert, and the Tengri Lake in Tibet.

The aspects of the several divisions of Asia with respect to the presence or absence of verdure are not less diversified than their elevation and climate; for not only the quantity of the plants, but also the kinds that will grow in any region, depend on the warmth of the climate, on the humidity of the air, and on the quantity of rain that falls, as well as on the variations of these at different seasons of the year, and also on the elevation above the sea and the exposure of

140

TROPICAL VEGETATION.

[CHAP mountain slopes, even more than on the nature of the soil. Many tracts of plain which are now desert, only require the fertilising presence of water, to support vigorous crops and trees; as those of my readers who live in the Punjáb and the drier parts of Western India must be well aware. The richest and most luxuriant and varied vegetation is to be found where the rainfall is abundant and frequent at most seasons of the year, the air always moist, the temperature warm and equable, varying little between day and night, or between summer and winter. Such is especially the condition of islands in tropical seas, the Malay peninsula, the western and southern parts of Ceylon, and the Malabar coast of India. Here is especially the home of the palms, the plantains, bamboos, orchids, cycads, the screw-pines,1 and trees producing large and brilliant flowers. Among cultivated plants, the more delicate spices, nutmegs, cloves, allspice and cinnamon, are restricted to these regions. So also is the bread-fruit tree (closely allied to the Jack-fruit);2 and the useful cocoa-nut palm flourishes only within a short distance of a tropical sea. The low damp valleys of the eastern Himálaya, Assam, and Cachar are almost equally rich, enjoying a humid climate and a copious rainfall well distributed through the year; while neither the summer heat nor the winter cold are ever excessive. Some of the more delicate tropical plants indeed do not grow here. But no one who has ever roamed through the dense forests of these regions can have failed to be struck with the riotous wealth of their vegetation. Here the gigantic boles of tall umbrageous trees, Terminalias,3 Bauhinias, with their peculiar bilobed leaves, Bombax5 (tree-cotton), and numerous Leguminosa (pod-bearing trees), and the intricate tortuous

1 Example: Keori, Beng.; Thalay, Tam.

2 Kantal, Beng.; Pila, Tam.

3 The tree which bears the common country almond, the 'deshi badám,' (Nattoo vadamcottay, Tam.,) is a familiar example of this family.

4 Examples: Ban-ráj, Beng.; Chor anna Mandari, Mal.; Triviat putram, Tam.

5 Rakta shimúl, Beng.; Elávum, Tam.; Púr, Tel.

x.]

VEGETATION OF INDIA.

141

root-stems of the figs,' are almost concealed by a rich clothing of orchids, ferns, mosses, the smooth drooping leaves of the Pothos, and the closely embracing stems of gigantic creepers, that, high above the spectator's head, throw their twining branches from bough to bough and from tree to tree, binding them together with great rope-like festoons. And the ground is rendered impassable by the long thorny stems and feathery leaves of the rattan palm, by screw-pines, and dense growths of bamboo, intermingled with plants of the Ginger and Turmeric order, orchids, ferns, grasses, and the gaudy-flowered Bignonias and Acanthaceous creepers.2

On the drier plains of the interior of India, a totally different and less rich vegetation is met with. Forests are rare except in the neighbourhood of hills, and for the most part a low bushy scrub of jujube,3 (a vegetable luxury of the bears,) dwarf thorny acacias and the stemless date-palm,4 prevails; and among trees the useful babúl, the mahowa, tamarind, and sál, are conspicuous. Oleanders,5 with sweet scented flowers, grow on the margins of streams; and in dry places, the white-flowered madár, and the succulent prickly pear and (generally) leafless euphorbias,7 are common. Upper India, the tamarisk abounds, and forms dwarf forests yielding abundant fire-wood. The date-palm 9 and the tál are the only palms that flourish in these dry regions, and these are cultivated abundantly for the sake of their rapidly fermenting juice.

In

Examples: the Banyan; Bar, Bat, Beng.; Ala-maram, Tam.; and Pípal, Arásam-maram, Tam.; also, the India-rubber tree, Kasnir, Beng.

2

Many plants of these families are common in gardens as well as in the jungles. For a description of them the reader may refer to Oliver's "First Book of Indian Botany."

3 Kúl, Beng.; Elendie, Tam.

▲ Phænix acaulis. Chirúta ita, Tam.

5 Kaner, Hind.; Lal Khárabí, Beng.; Arali, Tam.

6 Akand, Beng.; Yercam, Tam.

7 Examples: Narasij, Hind.; Narshij, Beng.; Shadrai Kalli, Tam.; also Ptun, Hind.; Shij, Beng.; Elakalli, Tam.

8 Jahú, Beng.

9 Khajur, Beng.; Ichampánnai, Tam.

142

CULTIVATED PRODUCTS OF INDIA. [CHAP.

-8

Among cultivated plants the varieties of Sorghum known in Southern India as Cholum and Cumboo, in Northern India as Bajra and Jowari, and Millet (Rági), are important food grains. Rice is cultivated, not only on the swamps of the great river plains, and on flat terraces artificially irrigated from tanks, but sometimes as a dry crop on the lower mountain slopes. These and various pulses, Indian corn, in the hills, and in Northern India and a part of the Central Provinces, wheat and barley, are the staple food of the people. The sugar-cane, tobacco, the areca nut1 and betel pepper ; 2 oil-seeds such as mustard, rape, sesamum (til or gingeley), the ground-nut 3 and the Palma Christi (castor-oil bean); 4 fibrous plants, such as jute, flax,5 hemp, and cotton; dyeplants such as safflower,7 arnatto, indigo, and Indian madder; 9 and spices and condiments such as cardamoms,1o chilies, ginger, 12 and turmeric,13 are also among the more important articles of field and garden produce in India. On the hills of Southern India and Ceylon coffee is largely cultivated, but does not grow on the plains; and on the lower slopes of the Himálaya and the eastern hills of Bengal the tea-plant has now become an important and increasing article of produce. Its cultivation is, however, limited by the condition, that it requires more or less rain during the greater part of the year; and it will not thrive therefore on the hills of the interior of the peninsula, where it is exposed for some months to a dry, hot atmosphere and a burning unclouded sun.

II

1 Gúa, Beng.; Pák maram, Tam.

2

Pán, Beng.; Vettili, Tam.

3 Múng phulli, Hind.; Nelai cadalai, Tam.

4 Arend, Hind.; Bherenda, Beng.; Sittamanok, Tam.

5 Alsi, Hind.; Musina, Beng.; Alliverai, Tam.

6 Ganjar, Beng.; Ganja, Tam.

7 Kajira, Beng.; Kúsam, Hind.; Sendúrkam, Tam.

8 Gaopargi, Hind.; Kúragúmangjal, Tam.

9 Saya or Embúrel cheddi, Tam.

x.]

VEGETATION OF HIMALAYA.

143

Ascending the Himálaya, we gradually leave the tropical vegetation of the lower slopes, and, in Sikkim and Bhotan, at a height of 4,000 or 5,000 feet, we find ourselves in forests, the prevailing character of which resembles that of the forests of Southern Europe. Oaks, walnuts, chestnuts, and magnolias, with the useful toon, are among the commoner trees; and beneath them flourishes a bushy undergrowth, in which may be distinguished the wild raspberry and the Daphne, the bark of which furnishes the material for the tough paper largely manufactured in Nepál. Ferns are still abundant; the tree trunks are often clothed with thick tufts of white hair-like mosses; and beautifully tinted club mosses cover the exposed rock surfaces. Higher up, from 8,000 or 10,000 feet, this forest is replaced by rhododendrons; and in the interior of the hills, above the latter elevation, by pines, the most characteristic and conspicuous of Alpine trees. In the N.W. Himálaya, where the climate is drier than in Sikkim, the lower forests are less luxuriant and varied, and trees of the Pine family, including the beautiful and valuable Deodar, are more characteristic at lower levels. Wheat and barley are cultivated in the valleys up to a height of 15,000 feet, and most of the European fruits, apricots, apples, pears, peaches, grapes, cherries and walnuts, &c., flourish far better than in Sikkim, where the climate is too moist and the sky too cloudy to allow them to ripen. Above 15,000 feet vegetation of any kind is very scanty, although, as stated by Drs. Hooker and Thomson, plants may be gathered up to 19,000 feet, on the margins of rills formed by melting snow. These are small plants, chiefly annuals; all tree vegetation ceases at 12,000 feet, up to which certain fruit-trees are cultivated in the valleys, and a species of pine, which ranges from Sikkim to Kashmir, covers the mountains with sombre forests.1

Much of this description is quoted from Hooker and Thomson's Introductory Essay to the "Flora Indica," to which work, as well as to the delightful Himalayan Journals" of the former author, and the "Travels in Western Tibet" of the latter, the reader is referred for more ample information on the vegetation of the Himalaya.