1883.] S. E. Peal— JSTofes of a trip up the Billing. 33 



the ulu grass, on one of the many flats on which here and there a few small 

 trees grew, but our course all the time was northward up the valley, and 

 parallel to the river, which in an endless series of roaring rapids, winds and 

 twists down the eastern side of the valley at, or near, the peculiar cliff 

 that borders it all along, on the east. At the mouth, the Dapha Pani 

 valley may be a mile and half wide, and the length 7 or 8, the entire floor 

 being a flat, covered by ulu grass, and a few scattered trees, among which 

 water channels, lined with rounded boulders and stones, meander. One could 

 gallop on horseback almost anywhere, as far at least as the jungle was 

 concerned, though the great (and small) rounded boulders projecting from 

 the burnt turf, and in the grass, would not be nice to fall on. After going 

 about five miles and still not coming to the end of the east clifl"! sat down, 

 and had a good look at it all along, with the binoculars, at the distance of 

 about half a mile. From what Kumku nong said, there is only one passage 

 up to the plateau above, in the whole length of about seven miles, and the 

 top is perfectly flat and level to the foot of the second cliff, and thence 

 flat again for a long way in, the entire plateau being called the " Mbong 

 Yang." The edge of the cliff being perfectly level and straight for such 

 a distance gives an extraordinary importance to it in the view, even though 

 it is wooded all along the edge at the top and for part of the way up from 

 below, all over the talus, which extends the whole way also. The upper 

 half is precipitous and though here and there ferns and creepers hold on, 

 large portions are quite bare and red, showing the clay and rounded boulders 

 of which it is composed (for the upper half at least). Towards our camp 

 where the river is cutting the base of this cliff, the lower third of the 

 height is of vertically bedded clay slate and shale, the upper part as before 

 of clay with bedded rolled boulders. 



The height of the cliff I here estimated at 200 feet. We returned 

 along the western edge of the valley where the land seems to rise a little 

 in wide flat benches, five or six feet at a time, towards the range along the 

 western flank, which is tolerably level in the main, but not so conspicuously 

 so ; at the east cliff the benches also are not regular, altogether it looks as 

 though the land had once been continuous between the western spur and 

 crest of the east cliff, and that the whole Dapha Pani valley had been slowly 

 cut out to its present depth. Among the boulders as we returned I found 

 a fine rounded block of hornblend porphyry weighing about lOOlhs. and 

 had great difficulty in breaking it, so as to get a specimen. Though the 

 Singphus and Mishmis see so many thousands every day, they all declared 

 they had never seen that kind of stone before. One feature of the Dapha 

 Pani that struck me, was, the great variety of colour, in the bed, due to 

 the extremely clear water ; the natural colour of the rocks (all more or less 

 smooth and rolled) was brought out conspicuously as though they were 

 5 



