200 to 300 feet high, formed of red clay, and covered
with brushwood.
At Kajikehath, the most northern point we reached,
we were quite amongst these hills, and in an extremely
picturesque country, intersected by long winding flat
valleys; some full of copse-wood, others presenting
the most beautiful park-like scenery, and a third
class expanding into grassy marshes or lake-beds,
with wooded islets rising out of them. The hillsides
are clothed with low jungle, above which tower
magnificent Guijun trees (wood-oil). This is the most
superb tree we met with in the Indian forests;
it is conspicuous for its gigantic size, and for the
straightness and graceful form of its tall unbranched
pale grey trunk, and small symmetrical crown: many
individuals were upwards of 200 feet high, and fifteen
in girth. Its leaves are broad, glossy, and beautiful;
the flowers (then falling) are not conspicuous; the
wood is hard, close-grained, and durable, and a fragrant
oil exudes from the trunk, which is extremely valuable
as pitch and varnish, &c., besides being a useful
medicine. The natives procure it by cutting transverse
holes in the trunk, pointing downwards, and lighting
fires in them, which causes the oil to flow.
On the 8th of January we experienced a sharp earthquake
preceded by a dull thumping sound; it lasted
about twenty seconds, and seemed to come up from
the southward; the water of a tank by which we were
seated was smartly agitated. The same shock was felt
at Mymensing and at Dacca, 110 miles north-west of
this place.
We crossed the dividing ridge of the littoral range,
on the 9th, and descended to Seetakoond bungalow, on
the high road from Chittagong to Comilla. The
forests at the foot of the range were very extensive, and
GURJTJN TEEE.
swarmed with large red ants that proved very irritating:
they build immense pendulous nests of dead and living