GEOGRAPHICAL SURVEYS AND EXPLORATIONS. 165 



are great hunters, and shoot either with bows and arrows or with 

 matchlocks the bison and other game which is found in plenty on 

 the mountain slopes. The Padams at the lowest portion of the 



Sanpo reached by K p are known to us, on the authority of 



Mr. Needham, as Abors. 



An important piece of geographical discovery in connexion with 

 the course of the great river of Tibet, the Sanpo, was accomplisbed, 

 in 1878, by a Sikkim Bhutia G — m — n, who had been trained by 

 Lieutenant Harman, R.E., in the use of the prismatic compass, in 

 plotting his work, in the use of a boiling-point thermometer, and 

 the reading of a sextant. This traveller followed the course of the 

 river from Chetang, a village visited by the Pundit Nam Singh, in 

 an easterly direction to the Chamkar monastery (Tchamca of 

 D'Anville), beyond which the river makes an acute bend and flows 

 south past G-yala Syndong (the furthest point reached by G — m — n) 

 and the Girauchen country into a country which the natives say is 

 " ruled by the British." This journey thus threw considerable light 

 on the further course of the Sanpo and (assuming it to be one and the 

 same as the Dihong of Upper Assam) reduced the unknown section 

 of the river to about 100 miles, a distance which was eventually 

 diminished still further by the journey of K. P. in 1886-87 (see 

 preceding page), which may be considered as the complement of 

 G — m — n's exploration. The latter traveller also brought back 

 particulars of various places in the valley of the Sanpo which are 

 to be identified with names of DAnville's map. He also visited the 

 Yamdok-tso or " Palti lake" of DAnville and furnished an 

 interesting description, with sketches of the great iron suspension 

 bridge at Chazumtuka or Chagsum by which travellers bound for 

 Lhasa from the south-west cross over the Sanpo river. 



Burma and Assam Frontier. — The opening up of the Assam frontier 

 was pressed on the attention of the Secretary of State even before 

 the annexation of Upper Burmah. On the 31st July 1878, a deputa- 

 tion, headed by the late Mr. W. E. Porster and Sir R. Alcock, and 

 comprising Col. Godwin- Austen and various gentlemen interested in 

 Assam and its tea-trade, waited on Lord Cranbrook at the India Office 

 with a memorial praying for the improvement of the communication 

 between Calcutta, Assam, and China, and for preliminary exploration 

 along the connecting route across the mountains. The matter was 

 commended to the notice of the Government of India on the 

 29th August 1878 (Despatch No. 46 (Geographical)). The papers 



