A LUCKY SHOT 493 



along with the express in hand, up the tiger got, and on the 

 impulse of the moment I took a snap-shot, and was lucky 

 enough to break its back another shot behind the ear killed 

 it ; it measured 9 feet I inch. I then, later on, got a bear, and 

 moved on to opposite Mooflong. At Nungklow there are a 

 good many pheasants and a few barking deer. There is also 

 a cinchona plantation, but the trees were not thriving. The 

 next stage, Myrung, has two deodars, but they are very stunted 

 quite unlike their kind in the Himalaya. There are also two 

 bushes of tea, originally planted by General Vetch ; they were 

 then trees 20 feet high. Mooflong is 6000 feet high. There is 

 any quantity of slate on these hills, and also coal of the best 

 quality and limestone, but the principal industry is potato 

 growing. 



From Mooflong the road descends by zigzags to the Kala 

 Panee, which we bridged like the Oomean. We collected 

 disused telegraph wires, twisted them into a cable of five 

 strands, stretched two across the river, and on them built up 

 the bridge. The former bridges were only cane ones, and had 

 to be renewed every year. Cherra Poonghie has the greatest 

 rainfall in the world, the average being 50 FEET per annum. 

 The hills rise abruptly out of the plains and attract the rain- 

 fall as the monsoons approach. The plateau is cut up into 

 crevasses or canons, many of them with sides like those of a 

 wall 2000 feet deep. Notwithstanding this deluge, the place 

 was very healthy, and all English flowers throve exceedingly. 

 Then the earth used to be washed away every monsoon, but 

 it was easily renewed from that of the valleys, and labour was 

 very cheap there ; the people would take down their loads of 

 potatoes and bring back goods from Terreah Ghat for two or 

 three annas. Coal cost under a rupee a ton lime was plenti- 

 ful, so were rubble stones ; the people were capital masons 

 and carpenters, and erected very good bungalows very 

 moderately. Living was cheap, and Cherra throve for many 

 years; but Rowlatt the Deputy Commissioner, a very able 

 man, in his wanderings discovered Shillong, where the rainfall 

 was not above 72 inches, so he persuaded the Government to 

 desert Cherra and to form a station near Shillong, not Shillong 

 itself, which had a bad name even amongst the Cossyahs, who 



