Page:Picturesque Nepal.djvu/95

 suddenness, the road closes in, the open landscape disappears, the sky is shut out by over-hanging trees, the balmy breeze changes into a hot oppressive stillness, and a strange heavy feeling seems to come over all. We have entered the forest of the far-famed Terai. The mention of this region conjures up from the shades of the past the holy spirit of Gautama Buddha, Nana Sahib of execrated memory, and the spectre of that mighty hunter, Jung Bahadur, with an accompaniment of tigers, rogue elephants, and malaria; and all around jungle—deep impenetrable jungle. In the neighbourhood of the high road, however, the general appearance of the Terai is somewhat commonplace, being composed of low trees and thick scrub, and, mainly owing to the traffic which is constantly moving to and fro, game, both large and small, has been driven into the denser parts of the forest. But this thick belt of jungle represents the first line of natural outworks, averaging in depth about twenty miles, which defends Nepal along the main part of its southern border. And the great natural feature of this defence is the extremely