ON THE ROUTE FROM ASSAM TO AVA. 



117 



Kamptee village the average number of people to each house cannot 

 exceed five. Another small Singpho village exists on the Namroop, 

 about 3 miles from Namroop Puthar, and not far from the site of the 

 coal mine. 



Capabilities of the Country. — These are of the usual description. 

 The soil is productive enough, but the labour of clearing the drier 

 spots is excessive. Excellent rice grounds exist in abundance between 

 Beesa Lacoom and Namroop Puthar, but the cultivation of this, as 

 well as of all the other necessaries, is limited to the quantity abso- 

 lutely required. Scarcities of grain are of frequent, indeed almost 

 of annual, occurrence ; and this is chiefly owing to the pernicious 

 influence of opium or Kanee, to which all our Singphos are im- 

 moderately attached. Of the Mineral Productions, coal and petroleum 

 were the only ones we met with. 



The coal occupies the greater portion of a precipitous part of the 

 sandstone composing the left bank of the river Namroop. Three 

 large veins have been completely exposed by the cutting away of the 

 bank. The coal is I believe of good quality. The river immedi- 

 ately under the veins is very deep, and were it not for the rapids 

 which intervene between the site of the mineral and the Booree 

 Dihing, it would be difficult to conceive a spot affording similar 

 facilities for the transmission of the mineral. I must however, ob- 

 serve, that even in the dry season the river is navigable for small 

 canoes as far as the site alluded to. During the rains no difficulty 

 whatever would be experienced in the carriage, as rafts might be 

 made on the spot. No use is made of the coal by the natives, nor 

 did they seem to be aware of its nature. 



Of the Petroleum* no use whatever is made, although we have 

 ample experience from its universal use by the Burmese, that it is a 

 valuable product both as affording light, and preserving in a very 

 great degree all wooden structures from rot and insects. The springs 

 occur in four different places, all close to the Puthar : of these three 

 occur on the low hill which bounds the Puthar to the southern side, 

 and one on the Puthar itself, at the foot of the range alluded to. 

 The springs are either solitary, as in that of the Puthar, or grouped, 

 a number together; the discharge varies extremely from a thin 

 greenish aqueous fluid to a bluish grey opaque one, of rather a thick 

 consistence : the quantity poured out by these latter springs is very 



* The existence of Petroleum is of value as connected with the solution of 

 Caoutchouc. 



