ASAM AND THE NEIGHBOURING COUNTRIES. 365 



makes a reiterated whizzing like the sound of some vast fly-wheel buffet- 

 ting the air at every revolution. Tigers are numerous. 



The further preparations necessary at Challa, were to give intimation 

 of our intended visit to the friendly Tain tribe beyond the Kund, to prepare 

 baskets for carrying within the hills, and to get ready for the journey 

 the Gam of the Mishmis of the village, and two or three of his people, who 

 were to go with us as interpreters — I had observations for latitude which 

 gave for my house, in the centre of the village, 27° 48'. 



From the Tains we received an answer, expressing their pleasure 

 at our approach, and by the 19th October, we were ready to set out, hav- 

 ing completed for each man a small basket, made flat to fit the back, with 

 a small supporter of wood for the shoulders, and we had a stock of twelve 

 days' provisions. The only instruments that I carried were, a sextant and 

 false horizon, a good compass, a Woollaston's thermometric barometer, 

 and a barometer of the common kind; the former of these two I found 

 had its thread divided, by inverting it in carriage, and consequently it 

 would not give the difference of height from Sadiya, and, though I after- 

 wards enjoined the utmost care to the man whose business it was to 

 carry it, invariably found on my arrival at a new station, that some 

 unlucky inversion, in the course of the journey, had similarly deranged 

 it, nor can this be wondered at, seeing that all a man's care was employed 

 in preserving his own limbs from injury by a fall from the rugged precipices 

 we occasionally clambered over. The tube of the other barometer lasted 

 a very few days. 



The first night we halted in the bed of the La'it rivulet, of little 

 breadth, yet violent enough to bring down stones of enormous bulk. 



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