In the N.W. Himalaya the timbers used for ordi nary wooden bridges are Alnus, sp., Bombay heptaphyllum, Cedrela toona, C. serrata, Phoenix dactylifera, P. sylvestris, and Salix alba. For swing bridges, Andropogon involuta, Betula bhoj putra, Cotoneaster obtusa, Indigofera heterantha, Olea Europsea, Parrotia Jacquemontiana, and Salix alba.
A writer in the Bengal Asiatic Society's Journal (vol. xiii. p. 614) mentions that he had seen half a dozen bridges, within as many miles of Cherra, made by intertwining the growing india-rubber tree. The rope bridges of the Panjab Himalaya, made of the twigs of the Parrotia Jacquemontiana, Decaisne, have often a span of 300 feet. Lt. Wilcox, in 1825-28, described a bridge or sake near the Dihang river, consist ing of two strong canes stretched between stages of bamboo, which are secured in piles of the largest portable stones heaped up around them; the points of suspension were 80 yards distant. A cradle or long basket, in which a passenger may sit or lie, is hung on the canes by two loops, and two or three men pulled it across when loaded.
The three rivers of Western Yunnan are the Lan, Lu, and Lung. The suspension bridges, which are the pride of Yunnan, are all constructed on the same principle,—five or more chains, formed of oval links about 6 inches in the long diameter and inch thickness, are strained very tightly across, the ends being imbedded in rock or masonry. The way consists of planks laid on these, not suspended from them ; and two other chains, hung from massive gatehouses at both ends, form a protection and assistance to the passenger. In some cases the road chains are tied with bars. The bridges vibrate considerably, but the curve is not great.
It is mentioned in the Bengal Asiatic Society's Journal (xiii. 613), that on the top of a huge boulder by the river-side was growing a large india-rubber tree, clasping the stone in its multi tude of roots. Two or three of the long fibres, whilst still easily pliable, had been stretched across the stream, and their free ends fastened on the other bank. There they had struck firmly into the earth, and now formed a living bridge of great and yearly increasing strength. Two great roots run directly one over the other, and the secondary shoots from the upper have been bound round and grown into the lower, so that the former affords at once a hand-rail and suspending chain, the latter a footway. Other roots have been laced and twisted into a sort of ladder as an ascent from the bank to the bridge. The greatest thickness of the upper root is a foot, from which it tapers to six or eight inches. The length of the bridge is above eighty feet, and its height about twenty above the water in the dry season. One bridge measured•ninety feet in clear span. They were generally composed of the roots of two opposite trees (apparently planted for the pur pose) bound together in the middle.
On the Wa-lingtia, or larger branch of the river, were several other remarkable bridges. One on the suspension principle, across a precipitous gorge on the road between Cherra and Tringhai, was about 200 feet long. :It was composed of long rattans stretched between two trees, at a height of forty feet above the river in the dry season. The footway was a bundle of small canes lashed together, and connected with two large rattans forming hand-rails, but these so low and so far apart, that it must be difficult to grasp both to gether. The hill Kasias are afraid to trust them selves on it, but the War, or men of the valleys, cross it drunk or sober, light or laden, with in difference and security. Still further up the river, and near the little village of Nongpriang, im mediately under Cherra, is another specimen of Kasia engineering and ingenuity,—a bridge of about 80 feet span, composed entirely of strong bamboos, bent into a semicircular arch, affording a sound footing and firm rails for the hand.
The bridge has been metaphorically in use with many nations to indicate the means of passage of the soul of the dead. The Zoroastrians were devout believers in the immortality of the soul and a conscious future existence. They taught that immediately after death, the souls of men, both good and bad, proceeded together along an appointed path to the bridge of the gatherer, Chinvat-neretu (Ilaug). This was a narrow road conducting to heaven or paradise, over which the souls of the pious alone could pass, while the wicked fell from it into the gulf below, the place of punishment, in the kingdom of Angromanyus. The good soul was assisted across the bridge by the angel, 'the happy, well-formed, swift, tall, Serosh ;' and as he entered, the archangel Veis mano rose from his throne, greeting him with, How happy art thou who halt come here to us from the mortality to immortality.' Then the pious soul went joyfully on to paradise.
The modern Parsee has still the bridge Chinvat neretu that leads to heaven ; and on life departing, a dog is brought to gaze on the dead (Sag-did), that its passage over Chinvat may be secured. And the Mahomedan has the Pul-i-Sirat, across which the good walk easily, but it is as sharp as a razor for the wicked, whom it cuts in two. There is a bridge for the dead in Java, and in N. and S. America. In Polynesia, a canoe is the object typified, as with the Greeks and Romans, with whom a boat was the supposed means of trans port. The river Baitaram of Orissa is the Styx of the Ilindus.—Drew, The Northern Barrier; Turner ; Drs. Cleghorn, Stewart, and Mason; Jour. of Asia. Soc. xiii. p. 614 ; G. Rawl. ii. p. 339.