The trees are of little value, except the Gurjun, and "Kistooma," a species of _Bradleia,_ which was stacked extensively, being used for building purposes. The papaw* [The Papaw tree is said to have the curious property of rendering tough meat tender, when hung under its leaves, or touched with the juice; this hastening the process of decay. With this fact, well-known in the West Indies, I never found a person in the East acquainted.] is abundantly cultivated, and its great gourd-like fruit is eaten (called "Papita" or "Chinaman"); the flavour is that of a bad melon, and a white juice exudes from the rind. The _Hodgsonia heteroclita_ (_Trichosanthes_ of Roxburgh), a magnificent Cucurbitaceous climber, grows in these forests; it is the same species as the Sikkim one (see chapter xviii). The long stem bleeds copiously when cut, and like almost all woody climbers, is full of large vessels; the juice does not, however, exude from these great tubes, which hold air, but from the close woody fibres. A climbing _Apocyneous_ plant grows in these forests, the milk of which flows in a continuous stream, resembling caoutchouc (it is probably the _Urceola elastica,_ which yields Indian-rubber). The subject of bleeding is involved in great obscurity, and the systematic examination of the motions in the juices of tropical climbers by resident observers, offers a fertile field to the naturalist. I have often remarked that if a climbing stem, in which the circulation is vigorous, be cut across, it bleeds freely from both ends, and most copiously from the lower, if it be turned downwards; but that if a truncheon be severed, there will be no flow from either of its extremities. This is the case with all the Indian watery-juiced climbers, at whatever season they may be cut. When, however, the circulation in the plant is feeble, neither end of a simple cut will bleed much, but if a truncheon be taken from it, both the extremities will. The ascent of the hills, which are densely wooded, was along spurs, and over knolls of clay; the rocks were sandy and slaty (dip north-east 60 degrees. The road was good, but always through bamboo jungle, and it wound amongst the low spurs, so that there was no defined crest or top of the pass, which is about 800 feet high. There were no tall palms, tree-ferns, or plantains, no _Hymenophylla_ or _Lycopodia,_ and altogether the forest was smaller and poorer in plants than we had expected. The only palms (except a few rattans) were two kinds of _Wallichia._ From the summit we obtained a very extensive and singular view. At our feet was a broad, low, grassy, alluvial plain, intersected by creeks, bounding a black expanse of mud which (the tide being out) appeared to stretch almost continuously to Sundeep Island, thirty miles distant; while beyond, the blue hills of Tipperah rose on the north-west horizon. The rocks yielded a dry poor soil, on which grew dwarf _Phoenix_ and cycas-palm (_Cycas circinalis_ or _pectinata_).