146 BOTANICAL INFORMATION. 



acquaintances, who have traversed this route. It is therefore 

 important for vis to look well to our Eastern frontier, on ac- 

 count of our capability to extend our Tea cultivation in that 

 direction. England alone consumes 31,829,620 lbs., nearly 

 four laks of maunds, annually. To supply so vast a quantity 

 of Tea, it will be necessary to cultivate all the hills and val- 

 leys of Assam ; and on this very account a post at Ningrew 

 becomes doubly necessary. A few years hence, it may be 

 found expedient to advance this frontier post to the top of 

 the Patkai hill, the boundary line of our eastern frontier. 

 Any rupture with Burtiiah would add to our Tea trade, by 

 taking from them Hookmn and Munkoom, and having the 

 Irravvaddy as our boundary line. These countries are nomi- 

 nally under the Burmese, as tliey pay a small annual tribute; 

 but this can never be collected without sendinjr an armed 

 force. They are said to be thinly inhabited, the population 

 being kept down by the constant broils and wars, which one 

 petty place makes upon another for the sake of plunder. Ail 

 the inhabitants drink Tea, but it is not manuftictured in our 

 way; few, it is said, cultivate the plant. I have for years 

 been trying to get some seeds or plants from them, but have 

 never succeeded, on account of the disturbed state in which 

 they live. The leaves of their Tea plants have always been 

 represented to me as being much smaller than ours. 



^^Muttuck is a country that abounds in Tea, and it might be 

 made one extensive, beautiful Tea garden. We have many 

 cultivated experimental tracts in it ; we know of numer- 

 ous extensive uncultivated tracts, and it appears to me that 

 we are only in the infancy of our discoveries as yet. Our 

 Tea, however, is insecure here. It was but a month or two 

 ago that so great an alarm was created, that my people had 

 to retire from our Tea gardens and manufacture at Deenjoy 

 and Chubwa, which will account for the deficiency of this 

 year's crop. Things must continue in this state until the 

 government of the country is finally settled; for we are at 

 present obliged, in order to follow a peaceful occupation, to 

 have the means of defending ourselves from a sudden attack, 



