ascending, with four or five beautiful cascades rolling over the
table top of the hills, broken into silvery foam as they leapt from
ledge to ledge of the horizontally stratified precipice, and throwing
a veil of silver gauze over the gulf of emerald green vegetation,
2000 feet below. The views of the many cataracts of the first class
that are thus precipitated over the bare table-land on which Churra
stands, into the valleys on either side, surpass anything of the kind
that I have elsewhere seen, though in many respects vividly recalling
the scenery around Rio de Janeiro: nor do I know any spot in the
world more calculated to fascinate the naturalist who, while
appreciating the elements of which a landscape is composed, is also
keenly alive to the beauty and grandeur of tropical scenery.

Illustration--"LIVING BRIDGE" FORMED BY THE AERIAL ROOTS OF THE
INDIA-RUBBER AND OTHER KINDS OF FIGS.

At the point where this view opens, a bleak stony region commences,
bearing numberless plants of a temperate flora and of European
genera, at a comparatively low elevation; features which continue to
the top of the flat on which the station is built, 4000 feet above
the sea.

Illustration--DEWAN'S EAR-RING.


CHAPTER XXVIII.

Churra, English station of -- Khasia people -- Garrow people --
Houses -- Habits -- Dress -- Arms -- Dialects -- Marriages -- Food --
Funerals -- Superstitions -- Flat of Churra -- Scenery -- Lime and