Page:Provincial geographies of India (Volume 2).djvu/24

I] more above one's head, and there is a luxuriant undergrowth of matted cane brakes, bamboo thickets, etc. Further into the plains the forest growth is replaced by savannahs, reedy flats and grassy plains with grass growing 20 feet high, through which one can scarcely force one's way unless on an elephant.

In Jalpaiguri this Tarai country is known as the Duārs,

or more strictly the Western Duārs, as it is the western portion of the Bhutān Duārs, or doors of Bhutān, a tract that was annexed from Bhutān in 1865. This sub-montane region has an average breadth of 22 miles and a total area of nearly 2000 square miles, of which a quarter is still under forest. In the north a series of wooded plateaux, rising to between 1200 and 1500 feet high, form a connecting link between the hills and the plains. Their