JOURNAL 



OP 



THE ASIATIC SOCIETY. 



No. 65.— May, 1837. 



I. — Journal of a visit to the Mishmee hills in Assam. By Wm, Grif- 

 fith, M. D. Madras Medical Establishment. 



[In a letter to Captain F. Jenkins, Political Agent, N. E. Frontier; communi- 

 cated by Government to the Asiatic Society, the 5th April, 1837.] 



In pursuance of my intention of visiting the Mishmee hills, as soon 

 as the season was sufficiently advanced, I left this station on the 15th 

 October, and proceeded up the Brahmaputra, or Lohit, to the mouth 

 of the Karam Pdnee, which we reached on the third day. I thence 

 ascended this river, which is a mere mountain stream, for a similar 

 period, at the expiration of which I had reached its extreme navi- 

 gable point at that season of the year, even for the small boats which 

 I employed. At Chonpura the rapids of the Brahmaputra commence, 

 and thence they increase rapidly in frequency and violence ; so much 

 *o, that the river is only navigable for small boats one day's journey 

 above the mouth of the Karam. No villages exist on the great river, 

 the extreme banks of which are clothed with heavy tree jungle. It 

 is much subdivided by islets formed of accumulations of sand and 

 boulders : these islets being either scantily covered by coarse species 

 of sugar, or tree jungle, or grass and tree jungle. The Karam is a 

 considerable stream, consisting of a succession of rapids ; its banks 

 are clothed with very heavy tree jungle, among which the simul*, 

 itdalf, and a species of alder occupy conspicuous places. On the 

 second day of its ascent we reached the Kamptee village Palampan, 

 situated about a mile inland in a southerly direction ; it is small and 

 «f no consequence, although the Raja is of high rank. 



* Bombax heptaphyllum. t Sterculia sp. 



2 V 



