Himalayan Journals — Volume 1: Or, Notes of a Naturalist in Bengal, the Sikkim and Nepal Himalayas, the Khasia Mountains, etc.Hooker, Joseph Dalton
History
Himalayan Journals — Volume 1: 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 degrees 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,
(72 degrees) 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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