Page:Narratives of the mission of George Bogle to Tibet.djvu/194

18 upper part paved with stones of bastard marble, put together like ill-formed steps. Midday, cold and chilly; very high precipices but not frightful, because covered with trees. Indulged in the pleasure of tumbling down stones.

The road led almost to the top of the mountain, and before we crossed it I turned to take another look at Bengal. It is impossible to conceive any change of country more abrupt, or any contrast more striking. To the southward the atmosphere was clear. The eye stretched over a vast tract of land, and the view was bounded only by the circular horizon. This part of the view, however, is striking only because it is extensive. There are no hills, spires, or other objects to distinguish it. The country—one continued flat—is marked only by its being cleared or woody, by the course of the rivers, or by some smoking villages. Whether it be that I am partial to hills or not, I beheld the opposite part of the prospect with much greater pleasure. The rapid descent, the deep glens, the hills covered with trees the most lofty and luxuriant, the town of Buxa-Dúar immediately below at a great distance, and behind nothing but mountains with their tops hid in the clouds. It was lucky for them, as I fancied them much higher than they really are. We were then on the top of one of the highest. What fine, baseless fabrics might not a cosmographer build on this situation, who, from a peat or an oyster-shell, can determine the different changes which volcanoes, inundations, and earthquakes have produced on the face of this globe. He would discover that the sea must once have covered Bengal, and washed the bottom of these mountains, which were placed as a barrier against its encroachments. But instead of following out these antediluvian reveries, which make the head giddy, one had better see to what uses nature now puts them, and how she fits the inhabitants for their respective situations. The natives of Bengal, weak and thin-skinned, are ill suited to bear fatigue or cold. Their country is cut through with rivers and creeks to carry their goods for them. The earth produces its fruits with an ease almost spontaneous, and every puddle is full of fish. The Bhutanese, of a constitution more robust and hardy, inhabit a country where strength is required. They have everything to transport on their backs; they are obliged to make terraces, and conduct little streams of water into them, in order to cover their rice fields,