78 TOPOGRAPHICAL SURVEYS. 



will speedily convert into swamp?, and even lakes. A thin dark line appearing here 

 and there marks the course of a river, its waters now very low and hidden by the high 

 banks, above which the masts of country boats and the smoke from the funnel of a 

 steamer, just about to anchor for the night, are visible. Far away to the north 

 beyond the plain, the trees, the villages, and the station of Sylhet itself, rises the 

 long, level outline of the Khasia hills, faintly glowing in the sunset. A hum of 

 voices ascends from the villages below, cows wend their way homewards through the 

 deepening gloom, and as the sun sinks in the brown obscurity of the distant horizon, 

 I shut up my theodolite, and running down the hillside, soon find myself at the 

 bungalow, where a hearty welcome and an excellent dinner await me." 



Colonel Woodthorpe takes occasion to record in his report the 

 very great assistance and hospitality rendered to him and to his 

 followers by the planters, who in several places are making good 

 roads themselves, and so actively helping to open up the country. 



Mr. A. "W". Chennell, an energetic and valued member of this 

 party, died in Bombay Harbour on the 5th October 1883. The 

 disease to which he succumbed had originated in an accident lie 

 met with during the previous season while traversing a stream in 

 the Tipperah hills. He had always been mentioned in the highest 

 terms by the officers under whom he served during the 19 years 

 he had been in the Department, and he was one of the surveyors who 

 were specially selected for service in Afghanistan during the late war. 



The season of 1883-84 was to have been occupied in the 

 survey of the Noa Dihing valley and the hitherto unexplored 

 portions of the Patkoi range on the extreme north-eastern frontier 

 of Assam, but owing to the Aka raid on Balipur, the work was 

 postponed, and the survey party, in accordance with the wishes of 

 the Chief Commissioner of Assam, was ordered to accompany the 

 military force which was sent into the hills to rescue British 

 captives. The topographical results appear to have been meagre, 

 as the military authorities did not permit Colonel Woodthorpe to 

 visit much of the Aka country. He and Mr. Ogle subsequently 

 explored some of the Daphla hills, discovering in the course of 

 their work a branch of the Bhoroli named Kameng, of which large 

 stream no one had ever heard. The weather was, however, 

 exceptionally bad, and Colonel "Woodthorpe considers that on the 

 north bank of the Brahmaputra the higher ranges are seldom free 

 from cloud and rain after November. 



The season 1S>4— So was devoted to work on the extreme north- 

 eastern frontier of Assam, where a knowledge of the mountainous 

 region between the head of the Assam valley and the upper waters 



