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and savage tribes, who ravaged the country, 

 massacreing thousands of the inhabitants and carry- 

 ing off their cattle. Immediately 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 

 great prostration. The condition of things when the 

 English first took possession of Assam, is thus describ- 

 ed 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 harassed 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 cul- 

 tivation, and lived on jungle roots and plants, and 

 famine and pestilence carried off thousands that 

 had escaped the sword and captivity. All men of 

 rank, the heads of the Great Ahom and priestly 

 families, had retired to one District, 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 former mostly 

 returned to Assam after our occupation, but large 



