502 WILD SPORTS OF BURMA AND ASSAM 



one ! When I went there a year afterwards without tackle 

 the pools were full of them. The Cossyahs said their gods 

 had sent the fish away to prevent our catching them. 



To console ourselves we shot a lot of snipe. The road to 

 Cachar and Nowgong was visible a long way winding over 

 the hills ; and on it, a year or two afterwards, I killed the 

 only two gayal I ever bagged, though I had seen numbers 

 dead of the rinderpest. Our elevation was 4300 feet. We 

 got coolies together to start for the river Durrung next 

 morning. 



October 30. Our route to-day lay over the most beautiful 

 scenery possible, high table-land, well wooded and with three 

 fair-sized rivers running through it. One of these rivers, the 

 largest, was spanned by a wooden trestle bridge, the others 

 by huge stone slabs supported by upright slabs. The sholas 

 or ravines reminded me very much of the Neilgherry Hills ; 

 one plateau was particularly lovely, very nearly flat, with an 

 elevation of 5700 feet, with a river to the south and one to 

 the north ; and looking down we could see hundreds of fish 

 which we took to be mahseer, but some were spotted like 

 trout. The marshy woods had woodcock in them and we 

 disturbed several, but got no shot. I think this place would 

 have made a better military and civil station than Shillong, 

 as water-carriage is nearer. We halted at Jarain, where there 

 is a very good bungalow. On a clear day Cherra is visible, 

 but we did not see it, as it was very misty. 



October 31. The Durrung is still a good eighteen or 

 twenty miles ofT. We started at daybreak, but found the 

 road so bad that we had to dismount and walk, and to send 

 our ponies back with orders to go on to Jynteeapore and wait 

 there for our arrival. We could not find a drop of water 

 anywhere, and had a weary trudge of it till 3 p.m., when we 

 reached the village of Sankar. Here we rested awhile, and 

 had a good drink of water ; but our destination, though not 

 far ofT, was not at all easy to get to. We had to go down 

 a nearly perpendicular bank, by means of steps cut out, or 

 by springing from rock to rock. We reached the Cossyah 

 village at last, but found the hut built for us in the heart of 

 the village ; there was no privacy, and the odours were not 



