26 H. L. Tlmillier — On tJie connection oftlie Brahmainttra and Smipii. [Jan. 



cipitous mountains. The " red lamas are veiy numerous there, robbers 

 still more so, and they often make expeditions beyond their own boundaries. 

 Leprosy is said to be very common. Po-yul has as a neighbour on the 

 west the Tibetan tribe known under the name of Kong-ba, of which Kiam- 

 da is the principal town or city. This country stretches almost as far as 

 Lhassa, it is said to be very populous and fairly rich, but the inhabitants are 

 very much stricken with leprosy. Another rather singular peculiarity of 

 this country is that the proportion of girls is very much larger than that 

 of boys in the statistics of births. 



" The country of Po-yul (Po-mi) does not touch, to the south, the chain 

 of the Himalayas and the country of the wild tribes, from which it is separa- 

 ted by a band of country governed by Lhassa. 



" The names of the different Tibetan districts of this zone going from 

 east to west are as follows. Hia-yul, to the north of the Lhopas (Abors), 

 Tse-tang, Sang-ye, Meun-pa, these, I believe, are situated to the north of 

 Sikkim and Bhutan, but for these last names I must get further informa- 

 tion. I only mention them with all reserve. 



" The eastern limit of Po-yul is the western slope of the chain of moun- 

 tains which comes down from north to south on the right bank of the Lu- 

 tse-kiang. When I passed along to Pomda and Zo-gong on the Du-kio, in 

 1862, every one pointed out to me the west, beyond the chain I have just 

 mentioned, as being the true position of Poyul." 



Major- GrENEEAL Thuillier said : — The extracts we have just heard 

 read from the French Geographical Society's Journal were of particular 

 interest at the present moment, as to the identity of the great Thibetan river 

 Sanpti, or Yarn, and its connection with the Brahmaputra in Upper Assam, 

 because that still pending problem was receiving great attention by the offi- 

 cers of the Great Trigonometrical and Topographical Surveys, Lieuts. Har- 

 man and Woodthorpe, R. E., who were just now exploring the course of the 

 Subansiri river in north Lakhimpur, and endeavouring to push up beyond the 

 course as laid down by Major Godwin- Austen, when employed with the 

 Daphla military expedition in 1874-5, to see if there was any possibility of 

 the Sanpu breaking through the high range of mountains in that direction 

 and so falling, through the Subansiri, into the Brahmaputra about the meridian 

 of 94° E. Longitude, or near Lakhimpur in Assam. It may be remembered 

 that the Trigonometrical Survey native explorer " Nain Sing" came down 

 from Lhassa, through Butan due south, and entered Assam at a place called 

 Udalguri almost on the meridian of Gauhati. He traced the Sanpii, and it is 

 recorded in the latest map of Assam published at the Surveyor General's 

 Office, down to the parallel of about 29° Latitude, which, it will be observed 

 from the map on the table, is in close proximity to the supposed continu- 

 ation of the course of the Subansiri, as seen by Godwin- Austen from the 

 highest elevation from which he observed in the Daphla country. 



