1849.] Visit to Dewangari. 67 



gorge of the hills through which the Dia, now a small stream, but a 

 large and very mischievous one in the rains, emerges on the plains, we 

 found the Bootia Chokey. This consisted of two or three huts only, 

 but nearly as many hundreds of people, men, women and children, were 

 here awaiting a favorable phase of the moon to proceed on their journey 

 to the plains. There were besides these a considerable number of Boots 

 and Bootnis, who make this their dwelling place whilst the intercourse 

 with the plains is open, attending upon an official styling himself in 

 parlance with me, the Deka Rajah, who sits here at the receipt of 

 customs, levying tolls on the merchants, and assess from our ryots for 

 cutting wood in, taking potter's earth from, fishing, or cultivating cotton 

 in the Bootia territory. The Deka Raja was respectably dressed and 

 very polite. He invited me to come up and sit in his office, which is 

 a snug little boarded apartment looking out on the river. I had no 

 time to spare, but I sat with him a few minutes to recompense him for 

 the trouble he had taken in preparing a seat for me, a little platform 

 covered with red cloth. He looked like a Chinaman without a tail, his 

 head being close shaven. The road now lay up the rocky bed of the 

 Dia, in crossing which I made use of an Assamese dola or trugon, which 

 on the shoulders of Cachari bearers I found a very convenient vehicle 

 for hill travelling, though I only mounted it when I should otherwise 

 have been obliged to wait, as I could proceed more rapidly on foot. 

 The river flows through a very narrow ravine, sometimes a mere chasm 

 in the rocks, which rise precipitously on both sides. The descent is 

 rapid, bringing down large boulders which considerably obstruct the 

 road, but for a north bank hill highway I did not consider it a difficult 

 one. The hills in the vicinity of the river are nearly destitute of fine 

 timber trees, being mostly covered with grass, bamboos, and low shrubs. 

 The pine apple tree (I forget the proper name of it) which I found in 

 such luxuriance in the valley of the Soobunskeri is also here a leading 

 feature in the landscape, and there are other palms. Leaving the main 

 stream of the Dia to our left, we continued our march up the bed of 

 its most easterly affluent. Its passage between the rocks was in some 

 places only two or three feet in width, and the hills noV rising high 

 above us on both sides, keep this little dell in almost perpetual shade. 

 About half the march was up this stream s and it is the worst part of 

 the road. For the remainder, though the ascent is severer, the path 



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