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and that the result is to be traced to economic laws, 

 and not to any laws of the land, we have only to 

 turn our attention to Assam and Cachar, provinces 

 which, in consequence of the impenetrable jungle 

 and rank vegetation with which they are over- 

 gTown and begirt, and the deadly and noxious 

 miasma and malaria generated thereby, have always 

 been looked upon as the penal settlements of 

 Bengal. The rules under which land was offered 

 to the public in these provinces, were not more 

 favourable than those promulgated for Arracan, 

 Pegu, the Tenasserim Provinces, and other places. 

 On the contrary, instead of a twenty and thirt} r - 

 four years' rent-free tenure, in Assam and Cachar 

 only a fifteen years' rent-free hold was granted ; 

 and at Darjeeling, the very high price of 1. an 

 acre was demanded. Yet, for the last six years, 

 developers and their agents have been hurrying 

 to these places crowding into them so fast that, 

 as before mentioned, Government could not de- 

 marcate and survey grants of land as quick as 

 they were willing to take them up.* Nothing then 

 can be more clearly demonstrated than, that previous 



* Since the above was written, from a variety of causes, 

 some within and some beyond the control of Grovernment, the 

 tea interests of Bengal have been ruined, or so nearly ruined 

 that people are now hurrying out of the tea districts as fast 

 as they before crowded into them ; and the large wastes 

 reclaimed by them are fast relapsing again into jungle. Those 

 who wish to know more of this subject may refer to my 

 Memorandum written after a tour in Assam in 1864-65 

 January, 1867. 



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