474 Description of the Tomb of an Ahom Noble. [Jifne, 



to render it difficult to say what they had formerly been. The only 

 other articles taken out of this tomb were two or three small iron 

 hatchets of the common Assamese pattern, and as a guard was kept 

 over the place from the time it was practicable until I searched every 

 part of it, I am convinced that nothing was taken out clandestinely. 

 The most valuable article found in the coffin was a small gold vessel for 

 holding " chuna" or lime to be used with the beetle nut, and which I 

 have been told was afterwards purchased by Mr. Bedford. The tooth- 

 pick case was silver, and the gold ear-ornaments were deficient of the 

 usual ornamental stones at the ends. This tomb was, I am afraid, of too 

 recent a date to answer the purpose of comparison, for which you re- 

 quired the description. Robinson's " Assam" makes no mention of 

 the particular time or circumstances of this Burra Gohain's death ; but 

 I have met with two or three elderly men who stated they could re- 

 member it, and I am inclined to think that it must have taken place so 

 recently as 1810-11, during the reign of Chundra Kanta Singh. The 

 tradition regarding it is as follows : — Immediately after the accession of 

 Chundra Kanta the Burra Ghohain received private intimation that the 

 Rajah had joined in a plot against his life, and that the Bar Phukan 

 was a principal leader in it, he therefore used every means to get the latter 

 into his power, who however fled from Assam to Calcutta, and after- 

 wards to the Burmese Court, from whence he returned to Assam with 

 a powerful force, and on arriving within a few marches of Joorhath, he 

 is said to have addressed two letters, one to the Rajah, stating amongst 

 other matters, that he had already prepared instruments of torture for 

 the purpose of putting to death his old enemy the Burra Gohain ; and 

 the second addressed to the Burra Gohain in terms of the greatest 

 friendship for the purpose of getting him into his power ; — the letters 

 by some accident were exchanged, that to the Rajah falling into the 

 hands of the Burra Gohain, who despairing of escape, suffocated him- 

 self by swallowing a large daimond. 1 trust you will excuse my 

 troubling you with this digression, but I have thought that however 

 exaggerated, there was probably some little truth in the leading points of 

 the story ; and if so, the position of the Burra Gohain at the time, to- 

 gether with the troubled state of the country, will account for the 

 apparently rough way in which so great an officer was interred, and the 

 trifling articles of value that were found with him. 



