16 History of Cooch Behdr. [Jan. 



reigning prince. By the natives he is considered as a very pious per- 

 son, for he pays no attention to business, but passes the whole of his 

 time in retirement and as is supposed, much of it in prayers ; and as he 

 lays out much money in supporting men dedicated to a religious life, of 

 course his temporal affairs are not flourishing, and his people would 

 probably suffer less, were he more attentive to their government ; for he 

 is said to be desirous of rendering justice. At present the whole 

 management of the country is left to strangers, who are alleged to be 

 mere sharks, but all the chiefs of the Rajbongsis are like their prince ; 

 no one is said to be either able or willing to attend to business. It is 

 supposed by the natives that the gods have bestowed an extraordinary 

 reward on the virtue of the raja. He has 50 wives, and it is commonly 

 reported, and gravely asserted to be believed, that all these ladies have 

 often, in the course of one day, received the most intimate proof of the 

 raja's affection and extraordinary vigour. The accounts which I have 

 heard of this chief from Europeans, who were all acquainted with him, 

 differ a good deal from the above, and represent him as a poor creature 

 exhausted by drunkenness and debauchery. 



The Vihar rajas reckon by the era of their ancestor Vis wo, and sup- 

 pose that he began in the Bengal year 916 or A. D. 1509. This is 

 scarcely reconcilable with the supposition that Hoseyn Shah destroyed 

 Komotapur after a long siege, as he began about 1496 ; especially if 

 we suppose, that a long anarchy took place between the governments of 

 Nilambor and Viswo. I can only suppose that Hajo immediately af- 

 ter the retreat of the Moslems began to acquire great power, and that 

 the era begins with the independence of the country, in place of being 

 reckoned from the reign of Viswo, the impure Hajo being considered 

 by the descendants of the gods as an unworthy connection. It must far- 

 ther be observed, that from an inscription on a temple erected by Pran 

 Na rayon, the great-grandson of Viswo, that prince was alive in the 

 year of Sakadityo 1587 or A. D. 1665, so that five reigns according to 

 the era of Viswo, occupied 156 years while the thirteen following reigns 

 have only occupied 144 years. It must be also observed, that the era of 

 Viswo does not appear to have been in use in the year 1665, and is a 

 recent invention which can have no great authority ; yet I do not think 

 it much antedated, as the government of Porikhyit, a great-grandson 

 of Viswo, was destroyed in the year 1603. 



After the division of their territory into two principalities, the Koch, 

 sensible of their weakness, are said to have erected a line of fortifications 

 along their southern frontier. This still remains, and is attributed to 

 Mod, the 5th prince of Vihar, but it proved an effectual protection to 



