The lands along, on both sides the road, over which we are come, are scantily cultivated, but well studded with good trees, where the soil is good for them.

A good deal of it is, however, the poor oosur soil, the rest muteear, of various degrees of fertility.
The territory of Oude, as I have said above, must once have formed part of the bed of a lake,* which contained a vast fund of soluble salts.

Through this bed, as the waters flowed off, the rivers from the northern range of hills, which had before fed the lake, cut their way to join the larger stream of the Ganges; and the smaller streams, which have their sources in the dense forest of the Tarae, which now extends along the southern border of that range, have since cut their way through this bed in the same manner to the larger rivers.

The waters from these rivers percolate through the bed; and, as they rise to the surface, by the laws of capillary attraction, they carry with them these salts in solution.

As they reach the surface in dry weather, they give off by evaporation pure water; and the salts, which they held in solution, remain behind in the upper surface.