1869.] Proceedings of the Asiatic Society. 73 



That Bengalis have not settled to any extent in the province, is no 

 doubt a good deal owing to the illiberal policy of Government with 

 respect to the selling or leaving of wastelands, but it is also in part 

 owing to the fact that the climate does not suit most Bengalis on 

 their first arrival in the province. If Assam is to be re-populated, 

 it will be from the East. That the existing population has been 

 mainly derived from this quarter, is shewn by the language, customs, 

 and physical appearance of the people. At the present time, the 

 Phakial Dooanniah and Singfoo population is increased annually to 

 a small extent by the influx of emigrants from Hookoong and the 

 Shan states. That people do not come in greater numbers is, I believe, 

 entirely owing to the hardships that persons, reared in a cultivated 

 country and unaccustomed to the jungles, must encounter on the road. 

 It is said that numbers of persons who leave Hookoong for Assam 

 never arrive here. They lose the path and wandering about in the 

 jungles starve to death, or are killed by wild animals. I do not know 

 what difficulties there would be in obtaining a right of way from the 

 Burmese government, but through considerably more than half the 

 distance the road would lie in British territory, and the opening up 

 of a road only as far as the watershed of the Patkoi would prove of 

 no small value to the province. 

 Debrooghur, 12th January, 1869. 



The Chairman said, Mr. Jenkins' notes just read, were very 

 interesting and valuable, as bearing on the geography of a part of 

 a country, almost entirely unknown. Even so lately as last year, 

 Mr. Cooper, whose adventurous journey in China they had all been 

 interested in, when speaking of the routes leading to Assam, &c, from 

 the western part of China, notices this Patkoi range, as being something 

 very difficult to cross, and as being still a great barrier to be over- 

 come, supposing the intervening country had been passed. Mr. 

 Jenkins now shows that in a trip of only a few days, and without 

 any real difficulty or danger, and without a greater ascent than 

 (by estimation) 3,000 feet, he had been able to cross the same Patkoi 

 range, and to get down on the Burmese or Chinese slope. Mr. 

 Jenkins also thinks that if a path or road were opened out, it would 

 not be necessary to go over greater elevation, than probably 2,000 

 feet. The question of the source from which a removal of the popula- 

 tion of Assam is to be sought, is a not unimportant one ; and it does 



