BOTANICAL INFORMATION. 139 



country belonged to Raja Poorunda Sing, I could not ex- 

 amine it. J feel convinced the whole of the country is full of 

 Tea. 



" Again, in going further to the south-west, just before I 

 came to Gabrew hill, I found the small hills adjoining it to the 

 eastward, covered with Tea-plants. The flowers of the Tea 

 on these hills are of a pleasant delicate fragrance, unlike the 

 smell of our other Tea-plants; but the leaves and fruit ap- 

 pear the same. This would be a delightful place for the 

 manufacture of Tea, as the country is well populated, has 

 abundance of grain, and labour is cheap. There is a small 

 stream called the Jhangy river, at a distance of two hours' 

 walk : it is navigable, I am informed, all the year round for 

 small canoes, which could carry down the Tea, and the place 

 Js only one and a half day's journey from Jorehaut, the capi- 

 tal of Upper Assam. South-west of Gabrew Purhut (about 

 two days' journey) there is a village at the foot of the hill, 

 inhabited by a race called Norahs ; they are Shans, I believe, 

 as they came from the eastward, where Tea abounds. I had 

 long conversations with them, and the oldest man of the 

 village, who was also the head of it, informed me, that when 

 his father was a young man, he had emigrated with many 

 others, and settled at Tipum, opposite Jaipore, on account of 

 tile constant disturbances at Munkum, that they brought 

 the Tea-plant with them and planted it on the Tipum hill, 

 ^here it exists to this day ; and that when he was about six- 

 teen years of age, he was obliged to leave Tipum on account 

 of the wars and disturbances at that place, and take shelter 

 ^t the village where he now resides. This man said he was 

 now eighty years of age, and that his father died a very old 

 nian. How true this story is, I cannot say, and do not see 

 vvhat good it would do the old man to fabricate it. This 

 ^'as the only man I met with in my journeys about the coun- 

 try who could give any account of the Tea-plant, with the 

 exception of an Ahum, who declared to me that it was Sooka, 

 or the first Kacharry Rajah of Assam, who brought the Tea- 

 pJant from Mankum; he said it was written in his Putty ^ of 



