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had attained a no small degree of civilization. But 

 the province had been subject to frequent inroads 

 from hostile neighbours and savage tribes, who 

 ravaged' the country, massacring thousands of the 

 inhabitants and carrying off their cattle. Imme- 

 diately preceding* the occupation of the country by 

 the British, it had been overrun by a Burmese army, 

 which it is said carried off 30,000 captives into 

 slavery. The whole province, therefore, though of 

 great natural fertility, through the annihilation of 

 its population and the plunder of their property, was 

 reduced to a state of gTeat prostration. The condi- 

 tion of things when the English first took posses- 

 sion of Assam, is thus described by Colonel Jenkins, 

 the late Governor-General's agent on the North- 

 Eastern Frontier : " When therefore we assumed 

 the charge of the country, nothing could possibly 

 be more unpromising than the state of the country. 

 The small remnant of the people had been so ha- 

 rassed and oppressed by the long civil and internal 

 wars that had followed the accession of Raja 

 Gourinath Sing in 1780 down to 1826, that they 

 had almost given up cultivation, and lived on jungle 

 roots and plants, and famine and pestilence carried 

 off thousands that had escaped the sword and cap- 

 tivity. All men of rank, the heads of the Great 

 Ahom and priestly families, had retired to one dis- 

 trict, Gowalparra, having, with little exception, lost 

 the whole of their property. With the nobility and 

 gentry retired a vast body of the lower classes ; the 



