66 Lieutenant Wilcox's Survey of the North-east of Assam. 



ported on posts, thus forming a spacious ground floor, which 

 is given up to hogs and fowls. 



The Meeseemees feed on Indian corn, and a small grain 

 termed bubissia ; they also cultivate in small quantities a fine 

 white rice. They wear a thick coarse cloth of cotton, but 

 have no idea of either shaping, or sewing together a garment ; 

 and all their better articles of clothing are from Thibet or 

 from Assam. 



They work rudely in iron and brass. They are excessively 

 dirty, not being at all in the habit, I understood, of using 

 water for ablution. 



The men of rank (wealth) have stalled up for eating the 

 chowr-tailed ox of Thibet, their own hill cattle Mithoous, hogs, 

 and small cattle of Assam, procured in barter for copper. 

 Young dogs are also esteemed. A continual round of feasting 

 is kept up by the chiefs, each slaying a beast every ten or 

 twelve days, and inviting his neighbours. They blacken, and 

 bang in rows to ornament the interior of their houses, the 

 skulls of those slain in battle ; and on the death of the head of 

 a family, these trophies of his last wealth are heaped upon his 

 grave, and enclosed in with stakes. 



A deep soil covered the hill, and the strata could not be ob- 

 served. I found fragments of gneiss near the summit ; and 

 in the water-ways and nullahs, below a variety of standstones, 

 quartz, rock, and a porphyry, having febpar imbedded. The 

 hills are clothed with noble forest trees and some brushwood. 



It is said that the fir is found in plenty on the Deebong, 

 also on the Langtan range. I have not met with it. 



The south-eastern portion of the Langtan snowy moun- 

 tains is occasionally visible from Suddeeya ; and I have taken 

 bearings on some of the peaks, but their immense distance 

 and their direction preclude the possibility of ascertaining 

 their exact position by means of any base hitherto measured. 

 After the south-easterly bend, in which the range nearly 

 reaches the Irrawaddy, it tuins again to the south, and is the 

 Koongmoongboom of the Singfohs, running parallel with that 

 river nearly to Rhanmoh. 



Bor Khamtee is a province of Moonkong, (Magnon,) and, 

 while governed by a native Rajah, pays tribute to the Burh- 



