Himalayan Journals — Complete: Or, Notes of a Naturalist in Bengal, the Sikkim and Nepal Himalayas, the Khasia Mountains, etc.Hooker, Joseph Dalton
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Himalayan Journals — Complete: Or, Notes of a Naturalist in Bengal, the Sikkim and Nepal Himalayas, the Khasia Mountains, etc.
Hooker, Joseph Dalton
Himalaya Mountains -- Description and travel; Natural history -- Himalaya Mountains
Mirzapore is a straggling town, said to contain 100,000 inhabitants. It
flanks the river, and is built on an undulating alluvial bank, full of
kunker, elevated 360 feet above the sea, and from 50 to 80 above the
present level of the river. The vicinity of the Ganges and its green
bank, and the numbers of fine trees around, render it a pleasing,
though not a fine town. It presents the usual Asiatic contrast of
squalor and gaudiness; consisting of large squares and broad streets,
interspersed with acres of low huts and groves of trees. It is
celebrated for its manufactory of carpets, which are admirable in
appearance, and, save in durability, equal to the English. Indigo seed
from Bundelkund is also a most extensive article of commerce, the best
coming from the Doab. For cotton, lac, sugar, and saltpetre, it is one
of the greatest marts in India. The articles of native manufacture are
brass washing and cooking utensils, and stone deities worked out of the
sandstone.
There is little native vegetation, the country being covered with
cultivation and extensive groves of mango, and occasionally of guava.
English vegetables are abundant and excellent, and the strawberries,
which ripen in March, rival the European fruit in size, but hardly in
flavour.
During the few days spent at Mirzapore with my kind friend, Mr. C.
Hamilton, I was surprised to find the temperature of the day cooler by
nearly 4° than that of the hills above, or of the upper part of the
Soane valley; while on the other hand the nights were decidedly warmer.
The dewpoint again was even lower in proportion, (7·5°) and the climate
consequently drier. The atmosphere was extremely dry and electrical,
the hair constantly crackling when combed. Further west, where the
climate becomes still drier, the electricity of the air is even
greater. Mr. Griffith mentions in his journal that in filling barometer
tubes in Affghanistan, he constantly experienced a shock.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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