April 24, 1890] 



NA TURE 



Now let us see what Dr. Bonavia says. He has the speci- 

 men soil collected by Mr. Brownlovv analyzed by a trust- 

 worthy chemist, who finds no lime in it. Dr. Bonavia 

 argues (p. 94) " that either Mr. Brownlow took his sample 

 from one particular spot, or did not reach the calcareous 

 soil." " Orange wood requires considerable lime. In 

 Chela oranges grow very well ; therefore the soil of Chela 

 contains lime. Moreover, it is incredible as the district 

 exports lime that no lime detritus is ever washed down 

 by the floods which flood the orange-groves of Chela to 

 the depth of 6 feet." 



Nothing can be wider of the mark. Mr. Brownlow 

 would have had to go very deep into the Sylhet trap, a 

 very hard rock, to get any lime. It is true that there is 

 limestone at Mamloo, and that the water that comes down 

 has some lime in it— but very little. The floods at Chela 

 rise sometimes 60 feet (instead of 6), but they cannot in- 

 undate even then much of the orange groves which run 

 up to 2000 feet. Perhaps the most extraordinary state- 

 ment in Mr. Brownlow's description is that (above Chela) 

 " no vacancies are left in the planting of the orange-trees." 

 The trap boulders are as big as cottages all over the 

 valley. 



We turn to the second source of information — the 

 Deputy-Commissioner of Sylhet. Fifty years ago 

 ^' Khasia " was attached to Sylhet, and known as North 

 Sylhet ; and the oranges are still known as Sylhet 

 oranges. Dr. Bonavia applies, therefore, to the Deputy- 

 Commissioner not of the Khasi Hills, but of Sylhet. The 

 Deputy-Commissioner cannot possibly leave his own 

 Sylhet government and his own station ; but, being a very 

 amiable man, he sends Juggaish Babu, Deputy-Magistrate 

 of Chunamgunj, to collect the information for Dr. 

 Bonavia. This gentleman commences his report, " I met 

 with the greatest difficulty in compiling these statistics. 

 The Khasis received my inquiries with suspicion, and 

 tried to mislead me as much as possible." The Khasis 

 would doubtless be most hostile to a Bengali Babu from 

 Sylhet. But a BengaH Babu is not exactly the man to 

 collect scientific information anywhere. Juggaish Babu 

 commences, " The soil must be sandy." " The gardens 

 being situated on river-sides, their soil naturally retains 

 some moisture even in the dry season. Hence, perhaps, 

 artificial irrigation becomes unnecessary." How the idea 

 of the possibility of artificially irrigating the Chela valley 

 can have occurred to the Babu's mind is marvellous ; 

 unless his report is in reply to some leading question by 

 Dr. Bonavia. 



" The garden is never hoed or harrowed before receiving 

 the orange plants." It would not be possible to harrow 

 such a country at any season. The Babu finally speaks 

 of the land tenure. He does not mention the fact that 

 Chela and its 12 associated villages form a republic under 

 the protection of the English Government ; their ad- 

 ministrative Government consists of 4 councillors elected 

 for four years by universal manhood suffrage. This 

 constitution was established half a century ago by a 

 Bengal civilian, and is unique. 



We now turn to the third source of information to Dr. 

 Bonavia, viz. the Rev. Jerman Jones, a missionary who 

 has been in Khasia more than 25 years, and could have 

 told much. But he appears only to have been consulted 

 about the names of oranges in Khasi, and he replied that 



the name (for the Khasi Mandarin) is U soh niam-tra ; 

 which Dr. Bonavia writes Usoh niamtra ; and states (p. 

 228) that Usoh is the generic Khasi name for oranges. 

 [In a footnote, backed up by an appendix, No. 43, Dr. 

 Bonavia carefully and amusingly notes that the word he 

 got from the Deputy-Commissioner of Sylhet was santra, 

 not niavitra. Dr. Bonavia evidently thinks the testimony 

 of a missionary doubtful as against that of a Deputy- 

 Commissioner. But the excellent Deputy-Commissioner 

 in question has an extremely limited knowledge of Khasi, 

 and would certainly not set himself up against Mr. Jerman 

 Jones.] 



Dr. Bonavia having got the word tisoh for orange in 

 Khasi, goes on to connect it with the Amboina words 

 aussi and iissi. He proceeds (in tracing the origin of 

 the Mandarin), p. 229 : — 



" We have here, I think, something tangible to go by. 

 The community of the generic name usoh^ ussi, or usse 

 to the Khasi Hills and the Malay Archipelago indicates, 

 &c., &c." 



In Appendix No. 58, the afHnity of usoh is pushed 

 further with the aid of Prof. Dr. T. de Lacouperie. 



Now we come to the smash of the whole. Soh means 

 " fruit " in Khasi, as see Hooker, "Himalayan Journal," 

 vol. ii. p. 268, in note ; in which language every noun 

 must have the article prefixed, and soh being masculine, 

 takes the masculine article U. Throughout Khasia, usoh 

 so far from being the generic term for orange, would be 

 understood to he potatoes. It is probable that, at Chela, 

 if an Englishman pointed at a basket of oranges and said 

 " usoh," they would guess which fruit he meant ; but it is 

 not Khasi. (Not the least ciriosity in this book is that 

 Mr. Jerman Jones should say that he had never found a 

 Khasi who could offer the remotest suggestion as to the 

 derivation or meaning of niam-tra. Some Khasis have 

 an explanation ; it might be worth Dr. Bonavia's while 

 to ask Mr. Stevens of Chela, or Mr. Roberts of Nongsow- 

 lia, about it before publishing the corrected edition.) 



The sum of the matter is that, if Dr. Bonavia had con- 

 fined his book to his own observations and his own part 

 of the country, with half a dozen plates showing properly 

 the main types of Indian oranges, it would have been a 

 handy inexpensive book of 200 pages at most. But, un- 

 fortunately, in Indian style. Dr. Bonavia's ambition has 

 been to include all India in his book, to put forward his 

 own extremely peculiar views of morphology, and to revel 

 in linguistic and ethnological speculations, some of which 

 are absolutely bad, and many of which can be but of 

 little use. On top of the book thus weighted come the 

 120 pages of appendix, with the final result that the 

 work bears a painful resemblance to the ordinary Secret- 

 arial Report, though it possesses really an amount of 

 original observation and experience which such Reports 

 often entirely want. 



In one respect, Dr. Bonavia hardly comes up to the 

 Secretarial Report : he spells, on one page, Shalla, 

 Mhowmloo, Mostock, though those words were correctly 

 spelt Chela, Mamloo, Mousto, as long ago as iS54by 

 Sir J. D. Hooker ; or Dr. Bonavia might have referred 

 to the fine map of the district by Godwin-Austen. 

 Similarly, Dr. Bonavia states (p. 30), "The Bengalis 

 have no v in their language." It is true that in vulgar 



