444 MEMOIR OF A SURVEY OF 



require it to break through the most elevated ground in that quarter, and, 

 in fact, the want of room. 



Curiosity led us to he present at one of the weekly markets, which 

 are regularly held on the plain outside the gate of the Stockade, and we 

 were much pleased at the orderly manner in which the business was con- 

 ducted, without any of the haggling and din of a bazar in Hindustan. We 

 found two hundred or three hundred buyers and sellers assembled in a 

 crowd, but separated into groups, for the sale of each particular article, 

 so that a buyer could readily take his choice from all of the kind exposed. 

 The currency of the country is the thin iron da, manufactured by the 

 Khanungs : for some of these each comer exchanges his uncoined silver, 

 weighing it carefully in little scales which he brings with him, and the 

 das he again exchanges for the articles required. We observed for sale, 

 dried fish, salt, fowls, eggs, pigs, ginger, onions, tobacco, lead, das manu- 

 factured from the former kind for use, and some few things more. The 

 salt was of good quality, but excessively dear — about half a seer for a 

 rupee's weight of silver. 



On the 25th May, I paid a visit to the Bum Raja, to talk of our 

 return, and was instantly promised a supply of rice and whatever else 

 they could furnish for our journey. He smiled at my offer of payment, 

 and answered, that he should be heartily ashamed to accept an equivalent 

 for such trifles. His good will did not lead him to oblige so readily in 

 another affair which we had to discuss with him. We had been given to 

 understand, principally by our young friend, Chow Nan, that the upper 

 road to the Phungan pass would be far preferable for us on the return, as 

 it would save at least two days' journey, by avoiding the deep bend of the 

 Namlang to the south, and present no more difficulty than the one we 

 came, excepting that the trouble would have to be incurred again of 

 opening a path through the jungles of the low ground, but that would be 



