JHEEL. HIND. A marsh or lake. The jheels of Eastern Bengal owe their origin chiefly to the excessive rainfall of the Khassya and Sylhet Hills, and to the overflow of the Surma. They occupy an immense area, fully 200 miles in diameter from N.E. to S.W., which is almost entirely under water throughout the rainy season, and only partially dry in the winter months. They extend from the very base of the Khassya Hills and E. extremity of the Cachar district southward to the Tiperah Hills and Sunderbans, and westward to the Megna river and considerably beyond it, thus forming a fresh-water continuation of the Sunderbans, and affording a free water communi cation in every direction. The villages, and occasionally large towns, which are scattered over the surface of the jheels, generally occupy the banks of the principal rivers ; these have defined courses in the dry season, their banks always being several feet higher than the mean level of the inundated country. Extensive sandbanks, covered in winter with a short sward of creeping grasses and annual weeds, run along the banks of the largest streams, and shift their position with every flood. The remainder of the surface is occupied by grassy marshes, covered in winter with rice crops, and in summer with water, upon which immense floating islands of matted grasses and sedges are seen in every direction, gradually carried towards the sea by an almost imperceptible current. Near Churra, the common water plants
of the jheels are species of Vallisueria serrata, Damasonium, Myriophylla, Traps ; blue, white, purple, and scarlet water-lilies ; Hydrilla, Utricularia, Limnophila, Azolla, Salvinia, Cerato pteris, and floating grasses. The Pakhal Lake in the Nizam's dominions, to the east of Hyder abad, is said to be the work of a Hindu dynasty, and to be the largest piece of water in India. In the Bengal Presidency, swamps, expanded or con tracted according to the seasons, take the place of lakes, except when the latter are formed by old beds of rivers of an oblong character. But the Bhandara district in the Central Provinces has equal or greater storage of water, in jbeels and tanks numbered by thousands, though no one of them singly may equal the dimensions of the and Thomson; Hooker, Him. Jour. ii. p. 309.