It is very singular that the elevation of this table-land (1,100 feet at Shahgunj) should coincide with that of the granite range of Upper Bengal, where crossed by the grand trunk road, though they have no feature but the presence of alluvium in common. Scarce a hillock varies the surface here, and the agricultural produce of the two is widely different. Here the flat ledges of sandstone retain the moisture, and give rise to none of those impetuous torrents which sweep it off the inclined beds of gneiss, or splintered quartz. Nor is there here any of the effloresced salts so forbidding to vegetation where they occur. Wherever the alluvium is deep on these hills, neither _Catechu, Olibanum, Butea, Terminalia, Diospyros,_ dwarf-palm, or any of those plants are to be met with, which abound wherever the rock is superficial, and irrespectively of its mineral characters. The gum-arabic _Acacia_ is abundant here, though not seen below, and very rare to the eastward of this meridian, for I saw but little of it in Behar. It is a plant partial to a dry climate, and rather prefers a good soil. In its distribution it in some degree follows the range of the camel, which is its constant companion over thousands of leagues. In the valley of the Ganges I was told that neither the animal nor plant flourish east of the Soane, where I experienced a marked change in the humidity of the atmosphere on my passage down the Ganges. It was a circumstance I was interested in, having first met with the camel at Teneriffe and the Cape Verd Islands, the westernmost limit of its distribution; imported thither, however, as it now is into Australia, where, though there is no _Acacia Arabica,_ four hundred other species of the genus are known. The mango, which is certainly _the_ fruit of India, (as the pine-apple is of the Eastern Islands, and the orange of the West,) was now blossoming, and a superb sight. The young leaves are purplish-green, and form a curious contrast to the deep lurid hue of the older foliage; especially when the tree is (which often occurs) dimidiate, one half the green, and the other the red shades of colours; when in full blossom, all forms a mass of yellow, diffusing a fragrance rather too strong and peculiar to be pleasant.