ASAM AND THE NEIGHBOURING COUNTRIES. 421 



but a little blister is soon after seen, filled with extravasated blood, and 

 the itching becomes so intolerable that it defies the utmost exertion of 

 patience. Our friends, with the " bottomless breeks," were infinitely 

 worse off than we were, whose hands and feet only were exposed, and 

 indeed those of the plains were, in a few days, almost disabled, by the 

 inveterate sores caused by these abominable pests. I had seen them before 

 in the Mishmi hills, but it was then cold weather, and the annoyance was 

 not to be compared with what we now found it. 



On the 4th May we left the Diking entirely, ascending the hill 

 immediately on starting. Our guides trusting too much to themselves, on 

 first entering the jungle, soon betrayed signs of doubt, and informed us 

 that they had missed the way and must search back for their notches. 

 In this search they were occupied two good hours, and a most unpleasant 

 anticipation it gave us of what we might expect when fairly advanced 

 into the wilderness, but our guides received the occurrence as a lesson, 

 and invariably afterwards proceeded with the utmost caution. We had 

 either tree or bamboo jungle the whole way, in which the leeches are 

 innumerable, every ten minutes a cluster of eight or ten might be knocked 

 off from each ancle. The direction was nearly north-east, and we were 

 proceeding obliquely across spurs of a high range, the summit of which 

 lay to our north : we were for ever ascending or descending, and at our 

 halting place the barometer indicated an elevation gained in the course 

 of the day, above the level of the Diking, of two thousand eight hundred 

 and twenty-one feet. 



The temperature, at sunrise the next morning, was much lower, 



being only fifty-seven degrees. The men lent us from Tumong Tikrang to 



carry rice, now took their leave. We could not induce them by any offer 



to proceed further into the hills : two of Lieutenant Burlton's men 



were attacked with fevers, and we very anxiously endeavored to 



m 3 



