134 COMMISSARIAT ARRANGEMENTS. 



various obstacles to be encountered in so wild a country. The head-meo 

 had all been there before, but no European, as the former Kheddah Superin- 

 tendents seldom went beyond Rungamuttea, the most advanced civilised 

 outpost in that direction. As to the maps available, the chief points and 

 general lie of the country only had been settled by triangulation. Regard- 

 ing details it was stated, " Nearly all the hills in this district are covered 

 with impenetrable jungle ; the subordinate streams and hill-features have 

 therefore been sketched." 



I was determined to explore the country in person, as the chance of 

 being first into a new field is one seldom to be had nowadays, and is cer- 

 tainly not to be neglected ; and the inability to obtain any exact account of 

 what was before us added considerably to the pleasure of the expedition 

 from my point of view. All accounts agreed as to the Chengree and 

 Myanee being accessible to small dug-out boats nearly to their sources, 

 some two hundred miles from Chittagong following their courses ; and on 

 this means of transit I arranged our provisioning. The boats, or canoes, 

 used for conveying the rice, salt fish, &c., required for the people, were pro- 

 cured in Chittagong, and carried about seven hundredweights each. They 

 drew eight inches of water when loaded, and could be dragged over shal- 

 lows and fallen trees conveniently. I engaged sixty, with three men to 

 each, at 24 rupees each boat and crew per mensem, and free rations to the 

 men. This flotilla proceeded up the Kurnafoolie to Rungamuttea, the 

 frontier police station. I visited this place, making a pleasant trip in a 

 small paddle-steamer obligingly placed at my disposal by the Commissioner 

 of Chittagong, and arranged a depot there, and had it stocked with two 

 months' provisions. I placed this under a European named Wilson, a clerk 

 in my office. He remained at the Rungamuttea depot during our trip 

 into the wilds beyond, and carried out the very arduous duty of keeping 

 us duly provisioned, and maintaining communications, most satisfactorily. 

 The amount of provisions required for the two kheddah parties and tame 

 elephants' attendants was a little over seventeen hundredweights per diem, 

 so that the commissariat arrangements required no little attention and 

 forethought. 



The two jemadars did not recommend that the hunting parties should 

 proceed to their ground by the same course as the stores — the rivers — but 

 proposed that we should march across the hills from Chittagong until we 

 struck the Chengree, where one party might await the arrival of boats 

 from Rungamuttea, and work in the valley of the Chengree, whilst the other 

 crossed the watershed into the Myanee valley, to be similarly supplied by 

 boats up the Myanee. Having ascertained that a place called Rajamaka- 



