Page:A Comprehensive History of India Vol 1.djvu/45



the areca, and tlu; great fan-palm — a majestic tree, with a leaf of such extra- vegetaUou. ordinary dimensions that a dozen men could take shelter under it ; the babal tree, one of the most beautiful and useful of acacias ; the sandal-wood tree, valued in the East for the perfume, and in Europe for the dye which it fields; spice- bearing plants and trees, including among others the pepper- vine, which entwines among the cocoas and other palms of the Malabar coast, and forms a consider- able article of export ; the bread-fruit tree, the banana, and above all the mango, at once the finest and the most widely diffused of all the fruit-trees of which India can boast. Among the cultivated plants which are important as staple articles of food, are rice, maize, wheat, millet, barley, varieties of pulse, yams, sweet potatoes, &c. Among those most deserving of notice, from furnishing the raw materials of manufacture and export, are cotton, flax, hemp, indigo, and various dyes ; cardamoms and other spices, sugar-cane, tobacco, and opium.

The zoology of India is no less rich and varied than its botany. Among zuoiogy. quadrupeds the first place is imquestionably due to the ele})hant, which, besides living wild in herds, has from time immemorial been domesticated, and is usually (>mployed in all labours in which strength and singular sagacity are required. The buffalo and yak have also been domesticated ; and the camel is reared in considerable numbers in the west, particularly on the borders of the desert, which it is employed to traverse. Among the animals which have not been subjected to the dominion of man, the most remarkable for size and strength is the one- horned rhinoceros; for ferocity, the tiger, lion, leopard, panther, hyena, and jackal ; for forms often humbling to human pride, numerous species of monkeys ; and for swiftness, or some other property which singles them out for the chase, the argali, or wild sheep, the wild goat, the wild ass, the bear, the wild boar and wild hog, the chickara, or four-horned antelope, the great rusa stag, nearly as large as a horse, the saumer, or black rusa of Bengal, the hog-deer, the Nepal stag, and many other varieties of the cervine tribe. The birds include several species of the vidture and eagle, wild peacocks, pheasants, and in great profusion cockatoos, parrots, and paroquets, of gorgeous plumage or singular articulating powers. Though not a permanent resident anywhere, the gigantic stork makes its appearance in large flocks during the rains, and renders essential service by destroying snakes and other noxious reptiles, and by plying the trade of scavenger, for which nature evidently intended it. On passing to the lower orders of the animal kingdom, the transition is disagreeable, for it brings us to the hideous alligators, abundant in most streams, and more especially in those of the Indus and Ganges, and to large and venomous snakes which infest both the land and the water, and are so numerous that forty-three varieties, including the deadly cobra de rapello, have been described as of common occurrence. Hastening from these to the fishes, both the coasts and the rivers present us with numerous varieties, often in unlimited abundance and excellent for food. As particularly distinguished in the latter respect, it may suffice to notice the leopard