TOPOGRAPHICAL SURVEYS. 77 



During 1879-80 and 1880-81 Major Baclgley found it very 

 difficult to get coolies, while work was further retarded by the 

 difficult ground, consisting principally of hills, forest, and swamp. 

 One of these swamps called Hakaluki Howhar is about 20 miles 

 long by 9 miles broad during the rains. Major Badgley says that 

 he had to cross it once during winter, and was up to his waist in 

 water and weeds in it from eight o'clock in the morning till past 

 10 at night. In the following season the country under survey lay 

 further to the west, about the lower spurs of the Tipperah hills, 

 running northwards past the British boundary into the plains of 

 South Sylbet, as well as the isolated groups of low hills lying 

 between Fenchugunj and the Manu river. These tracts of country 

 up to that time described on the maps as " hills covered with 

 " impenetrable jungle " were rapidly becoming very valuable, as they 

 were being taken up and opened out for tea cultivation. Lieutenant- 

 Colonel Woodthorpe, who was in charge of the party, remarks on 

 the beauty of South Sylbet. The following graphic description 

 from his pen is worth quoting : — 



" At four o'clock in the afternoon I am standing on a cleared hill just above a large 

 tea garden. The air is beautifully soft and balniy, and looking to the east I see below 

 me the gentle undulations and flat ground under tea cultivation, the rich dark green 

 bushes standing out in bold contrast on the red-brown soil. Among the bushes the 

 busy coolies are at work, the women adding brightness to the scene with their 

 brilliantly coloured robes. In the midst of the cultivation on the banks of a clear 

 stream, in a small, well-kept enclosure with a pretty tank, stands the manager's 

 bungalow, a large commodious house, with white-washed walls and lofty thatched roof, 

 slightly hidden by tall plaintain trees. Rosebushes and other shrubs flourish in the 

 garden, in which from my elevated standpoint I can see that the useful is not over- 

 looked in the culture of the beautiful, as testified by a corner where many tempting- 

 looking vegetables are growing. With the orange glow of the afternoon sun upon 

 it, the bungalow, with its garden, looks, as indeed I find it, a very haven of rest, 

 comfort, and hospitality. I hear voices behind the bungalow near some large, neat 

 tea-houses, and, looking, I see an excellent tennis court, where an exciting contest is 

 being carried on between the young planters of this and a neighbouring garden. 

 Beyond, the view due south is closed by the virgin forest of dark trees and feathery 

 bamboos, the greater portion of which will soon, by the enterprise of the planters 

 and the extension of the tea gardens, disappear. To the south-west and west the eye 

 wanders over the plains of South Sylbet, bounded on the south by the jungle-clad 

 hills of Tipperah, purple now and indistinct. The flat green fields, above which, as 

 the sun sinks, soft mist wreaths float, are broken up by frequent clumps of mighty 

 bamboos or fine old banian trees, amid whose dark recesses a few glimpses of reddish 

 roofs and the light blue smoke curling upwards denote the presence of villages. 

 Beyond these to the west and north lie open expanses of what at this season is dry, 

 or at the worst, only damp ground, but which a few of the March and April storms 



