1847.] Periplns of the Erythrean Sea, fyc. 51 



position given to the Montes Comedorum to the north-east of Bactria, 

 that it was a station near one of those Topes or lofty towers, which are 

 to he seen in the kingdom of Cabul. No itinerary appears to have 

 been kept of the route from this place to the frontier of S erica, but 

 from the account which is given of it, and of the difficulties that occur- 

 red in travelling through the intervening country, it seems to have been 

 identical with that mentioned by Arrian from Thina to Bactria, or with 

 the route from Bootan to Cabul and thence to Balk, which is described 

 by Tavernier, as extending " over deserts and mountains covered with 

 snow, tedious and troublesome as far as Cabul, where the caravans part, 

 some for great Tartary, others for Balk." 



It would appear that the merchants, who traded with the Seres, were 

 not allowed to enter the country of the latter, but that they carried on 

 traffic with them at an opening or pass in the mountain Imaus. This 

 evidently refers to one of the duwars or mountain passes into Assam, 

 where the merchants from Bhotan and Thibet formerly assembled to 

 traffic. The circumstance of strangers having been prohibited from en- 

 tering Serica has been regarded as an indubitable proof of the identity 

 of that country with China, but the same jealousy of foreigners, it may 

 be remarked, existed among the Assamese, and led to their exclusion 

 from their territory. Dr. Buchanan remarks that in former times the 

 only communication that was permitted by the Assamese between their 

 own country and Bengal, was by the pass of Luckhah, eighteen miles 

 north of Sylhet, and that of Bookool in Cachar, all access by the 

 Brahmaputra having been strictly prohibited. Dr. Wade also states, 

 "strangers of every description and country were scrupulously denied 

 admission into Assam."* The same prohibition was enforced against the 

 admission of strangers through the duwars or passes leading into it from 

 Bootan and Thibet, and it appears, therefore, to have been at one of 

 these passes, described as an opening in Imaus, that the agents of Ti- 

 tanius carried on their trade with the Sinse, Seres, or Assamese, There 

 are two routes from Bootan and Thibet to Assam, by which a commercial 

 intercourse is carried on in the present day. That from Bootan is by 

 the valley of the Monas, via Tassgong and Dewangiri : the other does 

 not enter any part of the Deb and Dhurma Rajah's dominions, but ex- 

 tends through a tract of country dependent on Lassa, from Towung to 



* Martin's Eastern India. Vol. 3. p. G26. 



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