Geography of' the Burrampooter and Sanpoo Rivers. 305 



that perhaps the whole of my theory may be described as 

 confined to the four following points. 



1st, I consider the Burrampooter of Assam and Bengal to 

 be quite distinct from the river of Tibet, known in our maps 

 by the name of Burrampooter and Sanpoo, and to have 

 its rise from Brahmakoond, among the mountains to the 

 E. N. E. of Assam, nearly in the same situation as laid down 

 by Lieutenant Burlton ; — and that point I have taken the li- 

 berty of marking on your Sketch with a red pencil cross. 



2rf, I am induced to suppose that Major Rennel was led to 

 mistake for the Sanpoo bending N. towards Tibet, either the 

 northern Assamese branch of the Burrampooter, called the 

 Sobunsirree or Khobunkhirree, or that named the Dhekrung, 

 one or the other of which, or perhaps the Somderree, I am 

 inclined to think, may have their origin in the great lake 

 Jamdro-palte ; but I consider the Burrampooter to be chiefly 

 indebted for the great magnitude of its channel in Bengal 

 to the copious supplies it receives from the many consi- 

 derable rivers which pour their waters into it within a very 

 short distance of each other on the N. E. frontier of that pro- 

 vince, assisted by the extraordinary abundance and protract- 

 ed duration of the rains in that quarter ; before being recruit- 

 ed by which the Burrampooter, compared with the Ganges, 

 can be considered little more than a mountain torrent! — 



Sd, The Sanpoo of Tibet I consider to be altogether dis- 

 tinct from the Burrampooter, though apparently known to 

 the Nepalese by the same name, and I suppose it to take a 

 southerly course from Tibet into the Ava territory, some 

 distance to the eastward of the sources of the Burrampooter, 

 and ultimately become the great Burmese river, the Irrawad- 

 dy. While, 



4/7*, I consider the chief source of the Kienduan or minor 

 western arm of the Irrawaddy, to lie among the mountains 

 in the immediate vicinity of Brahmakoond, and to flow from 

 them in a southerly direction under the different appellations 

 of Sanpoo or Shanpoo, Borolooit, Boodalooit, and Burma- 

 looit, until it progressively changes to Kienduan, and falls in- 

 to the Irrawaddy under that name ; and that it was this di- 

 versity of name, united with the puzzling mythological ori- 



VOL. iv. no. II. apiut. 1826- v 



