POPULATION OF ASAM. 34'5 



Asam, under its most flourishing circumstances, and in former times, a com« 

 munication appears to have been kept up between the states, now long discon- 

 tinued. 



To this nation are attributed the implements of husbandry and domes- 

 tic life, washed down by the flood of the Dihong before mentioned. Of their 

 peculiar habits and religion, nothing is known, though they are considered to 

 be Hindus, a circumstance which, from their locality, I think most unlikely, 

 and in all probability arising merely from some fancied analogy of sound, 

 the word Kolita being used in Assamese to signify the Khaet caste. There 

 is said to be an entrance to this country from upper Asam^ by a natural tunnel 

 under the mountains ; but such is obviously fabulous, at least to the assumed 

 extent. All accounts agree in stating, that a colony of Asamese, under two 

 sons of a Bara Gohein, about eight generations back, took refuge in the 

 country of the KoUtas, on the banks of the Sri Lohitf whence, till within 

 about two hundred years, they, at intervals, maintained a correspondence with 

 the parent state. They were hospitably received by the Kulta Raja, who 

 assigned lands to them for a settlement, and they had naturalized and inter- 

 married with the inhabitants. Since that period, however, no trace either 

 of them, or of the Kultas, had been found until the flood of the Dihong exhi- 

 bited marks of their existence, or of that of a nation resembling them in an 

 acquaintance with the useful arts. 



The plains to the eastward of the Kulta country, beyond the Mishmis, 

 is well known as the country of the Lama, or the Yam Sink Raja, a 

 nation also independant, and said to be frequently engaged in hostility with 

 Kiiltas. The inhabitants are described as a warlike equestrian race, clothed 

 something after the European manner, in trowsers and quilted jackets, and 

 celebrated for their breed of horses. There is a pass to the Lama country, 

 through the Mishmi hills, a little to the northward of the Brahmakund, a jour- 



