1 PUNJAB. 129
2 tensive jungles, the luxuriance of their rank vegetation shewing
3 what the country could be made.” ‘« We pass over vast uncul-
4 tivated tracts, with here and there, in the centre of the bushy
5 jungle, a small village, with some rich, cultivated fields around.
6 Now and then, breaking up the monotony of the fiat plain, we
7 mect with the hillocks marking the sites of towns and villages
8 which are now no more, but of which the streets and houses
9 have left this memento of their former existence.”
10 The climate of the mountainous regions, Ladakh, Kashmir,
11 Bulti, Kulu, and Lahoul, is described in the respective notices
12 on those places ; that of the plain of the Punjab is in general
13 characterized by dryness and warmth. Little rain falls, except in
14 those parts extending along the southern base of the Himalaya,
15 and where the south-west monsoon is partially felt, diminishing
16 in its effect in proportion as it proceeds westward.8 According Mien eed
17 to the statement of Elphinstone, the rain ‘‘in the north of the Jacquemont, Voy.
18 Punjab exceeds that of Delhi; but in the south of the Punjab, Giumie 10.”
19 distant both from the sea and the hills, very little rain falls.” Still
20 the rains of the monsoon extend as far as Lahore,® and fall hea- 9 Osborne, Court
21 vily there in midsummer. In the more southern part of the pincer Sineh,
22 plain, the soil, where productive, is rendered so by irrigation.
23 In addition to the facilities offered by the rivers and canals, the
24 Persian wheel is employed to draw to the surface the water of
25 numerous wells. The winters are cool even to the feelings of a
26 European. Elphinstone * observes, in regard to, his residence in ' 2.
27 Mooltan, at the end of December : ‘“‘ The weather was delightful
28 during our stay} the thermometer, when at the lowest, was at
29 28° at sunrise; there were slight frosts in the night.” During
30 the march of the English army through this country in 1838,
31 thin ice was formed on the water at the end of December,? whilst 2 Hough, app. 68.
32 in the day the thermometer rose to 70°. At the end of December,
33 Elphinstone,? marching through the doab between the Chenaub °25.
34 and the Indus, found a very cold wind; but it does not appear
35 that snow falls in this part of the Punjab. Burnes‘ describes the ‘ Bokhara, i. 44.
36 ‘weather in the beginning of February as cold and bleak, fre-
37 quently rainy, and always cloudy. In January, 1839, the lowest
38 state of the thermometer was found, on different nights of the
39 month, to be respectively ® 34°, 37°, 38°, 44°. In the day the ‘ Hough, App.
40 thermometer, even in midwinter, is seldom below 70°, and in $02 49:
41 January generally reaches 80°, so that vegetation rapidly proceeds,
42 VOL. II. K