1840.] Memoir of Sylhet, Kachar, ^ adjacent Districts. 819 



the hills, copious supplies of rain, with immunity from excessive inun- 

 dation, are among the advantages enjoyed by this favoured tract. The 

 character too of the scenery here becomes peculiar, and is sufficiently 

 marked to call for its separation from that of India generally. Vast 

 sheets of cultivation, extending for miles along the banks of the Surma 

 and other streams, intersected by splendid groves of trees and bamboos, 

 forniing shelter for extensive villages, and occasionally by low ranges 

 of wooded hills, and backed always by mountains either near or 

 distant, form an endless succession of gratifying scenes, on which the 

 eye rests with pleasure, and which, whether beheld by the agricultural 

 economist estimating the resources of the land, by the philanthrophist 

 rejoicing in the welfare of his fellow men, or by the lover of the pic- 

 turesque, must always excite the most pleasurable emotions. But I 

 must not wander from the simple account which I proposed to furnish 

 in this paper. 



The ploughing season here begins in the middle of January, when 

 the lower descriptions of land destined for the Aumun crop are first 

 broken up ; the higher soon follow, though it is usual to reserve such, 

 on account of the hardness of the soil, until the first showers which 

 fall in February. Before the end of March all the lands are sown, and 

 in July or August the first crop is reaped from the higher lands alone, 

 which are again ploughed and sown for an autumnal crop in November 

 and December. It will readily be understood, that the aumun lands 

 are subject to inundation, though not commonly to the extent which 

 would endanger the crop, and I must here more particularly explain 

 their position, which may else seem not very reconcilable with parts 

 of the foregoing description. I have said that the western division 

 is subject to excessive inundation, — may be marked by a line running 

 southward from the neighbourhood of Chattak ; and this is true gener- 

 ally, though a few considerable gulfs cut into the eastern quarter, 

 running up for some miles, more especially between the courses of 

 the great rivers, and form petty jhils of great depth, which are un- 

 culturable. The aumun lands are situated on the sides of these and 

 similar jhils, but their cultivation is very different from that of the 

 Bhatta country, the crop in them remaining on the ground throughout 

 the rainy season, and being in consequence very abundant and rich, 

 while that of the Bhatta, grown only in the winter, is both scanty and of 



