38 S. E. Peal— JVofes of a trip up the Diking. [No. 1, 



called Song san Bum. There are now no villages between Dapha Pani and 

 Kbomong as there were in the year 1827, though the sites are known ; at the 

 same time Wilcox's names are not always spelt correctly, for instance, his 

 Koom koor, I saw the site of and it is Kum ku. (Ku is hill in Singphu.) 

 Kum ku was in fact the name of one of my men, who had been born here, 

 ere the village was removed to the Kam lang, and part of this village I 

 hear is about to return to its old site again, under the old chief's son, 

 (whom we had met with the five Mishmis, near the Dungan). Again 

 Willcox's " Puseelah" just east of the Dapha muk, is intended for " Bisa 

 la." (= Secondary Bisa), Oglok is correct but the village gone. 



His " Insoong" is intended for Nchong. There are also no large villages 

 of the Muluk tribe where he has them unless it be the one of Khomong 

 Singphus. Next day I determined to shift camp to the western side of 

 the valley ere returning via the Nchong Bum route, so as to avoid the 

 gorge. We therefore packed up in the morning after breakfast, and I 

 directed the men to go about four miles up the valley and camp on the 

 west side, while I and the guide, Nden gam and Uren nong, started up the 

 Dihing for a mile or so and proposed crossing the Mbong yang plateau, 

 coming down by the only outlet known, and so across to camp, in the after- 

 noon. After seeing all the loads tied up, we waded the Dapha — not a nice 

 job at the mouth where the stream was strong and the stones large ; the 

 Singphus were up to their waists, so I selected a place where there appear- 

 ed to be a line of big stones and stepped from one to the other, to reach 

 each, however I had to make the attempt to step a foot too far up-stream, 

 even then I was up to the hips, at last one of the boulders rolled over, 

 and I went in, but was out again ere my note book got wet inside. 

 About half a mile up-stream, we spied some Singphu rubber-cutters, on 

 the off-bank, and saw another trophy and remains of elephant and deer, tied 

 to it ; Nden gam here pointed out the mahseer, literally and truly paving 

 the bottom of the river, there must have been hundreds, (probably thou- 

 sands,) from two to three feet long, though obliquely through the water 

 they seemed only about a couple of inches deep. 



In about half an hour after we ascended where a great rock barred our 

 passage on the north side (or Bank of Diyun) and reached the top of 

 the plateau after a little roundabout climbing and over undulating land. 



Once on the top we found it remarkably flat, and tolerably free from 

 jungle; it had been largely trampled down by elephants. The forest 

 was very second-rate, few or no large timbers or straight. Some way in 

 we came across two small burial mounds that belonged to the former 

 village of " Bisa la ;" the course lay on straight for the upper end of the 

 Dapha valley, and as far as I could see the land everywhere was practically 

 quite flat and had large rounded boulders embedded. At last we saw light 



