These landholders reside in the Khyrabad district, which adjoins that of Mahomdee, near our present camp.
The people everywhere praise the climate--they appear robust and energetic, and no sickness prevails, though many of the villages are very near the forest.

The land on which the forest stands contains, in the ruins of well-built towns and fortresses, unquestionable signs of having once been well cultivated and thickly peopled: and it would soon become so again under good government.

There is nothing in the soil to produce sickness; and, I believe, the same soil prevails up through the forest to the hills.

Sickness would, no doubt, prevail for some years, till the underwood and all the putrid leaves should be removed.

The water that stagnates over them, and percolates through the soil into the wells, from which the people drink, and the exhalations which arise from them and taint the air, confined by the dense mass of forest trees, underwood, and high grass, are, I believe, the chief cause of the diseases which prevail in this belt of jungle.
It is however remarkable, that there are two unhealthy seasons in the year in this forest--one at the latter end of the rains in August, September, and October, and the other before the rains begin to fall in the latter part of April, the whole of May, and part of June.