1855.] Notes on Northern Cachar. 585 



of gun-powder would, however, soon clear a road through them, and 

 a greater outlay might also, I think, serve to open out the navi- 

 gation of the river itself to rafts, by means of which the fine timbers 

 growing in the valley might be floated down to market during the 

 rainy months. Two days' journey up the river, brings us to a wide 

 portion of the valley covered with forest, and abounding in fine 

 Jharul timber of great value. The valley in the neighbourhood of this 

 spot, which is called the Megpur forest is thickly interspersed with 

 Cacharee and Kookie villages, and it is pitiful to see the ruthless 

 spoliation which the noble trees are undergoing at the hands of 

 these people ; the timber after being cut down, being left to rot 

 or burned for the purpose of enriching the soil. 



The scenery on this route is a great improvement on that via 

 Oodharbund, the river forming an ever-varying and pleasant fea- 

 ture. The banks are, in some places, abrupt and rocky, rising to the 

 height of many feet ; in other places, such as the Megpur forest, 

 the valley widens and forest scenery comes into play. 



The third route from Cachar is one seldom or never used, al- 

 though I have penetrated into the country by it myself. It is 

 much longer than the other two, occupying, at the least, and 

 under favourable circumstances, five days. It proceeds via Lukhi- 

 pur, a village in the plains some sixteen miles east of Silchar, 

 and on reaching a low range of hills called the Hoorung, skirts 

 along them in a northerly direction, until it arrives at the banks of 

 the river Chinam, along the bed of which it proceeds until it reaches 

 the hill on which Baladhun (a large Naga village) is situated, when 

 it branches off up the bed of one of its tributaries, and pursuing 

 its course up to its very source on the summits of the Burrail, de- 

 scends through a gorge, right down upon Apaioo itself. 



Miles of this road, when traversing the low lands in the neigh- 

 bourhood of the Hoorung range, lie across large morasses of thick 

 alluvial mud: here footing is obtained by means of what are 

 called paddy-bridges, which consist of a series of bamboos lashed 

 two and two together, in the form of an * and planted firmly in 

 the ground: these again are connected at their junctions by other 

 bamboos laid across, and lashed thereto, along which the traveller 

 must poise himself, as best he can. It is astonishing to see how 



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