390 



Captain H ami ay's Route 



[Oct. 



3. — Abstract of the Journal of a Route travelled by Captain 

 S. F. Hannay, of the 40th Regiment Native Infantry, from the 

 Capital of Ava to the Amber Mines of the Hukong valley on the 

 South-east frontier of Assam. — By Captain R. Boileau Pem- 

 berton, 44th Regiment. N. /.* 



From the termination of the Burmese war to the present period 

 the spirit of inquiry has never slept, and the most strenuous exertions 

 have been made by the officers employed on the eastern frontier to 

 extend our geographical knowledge to countries scarcely known but 

 by name, and to acquire some accurate information regarding the 

 manners, customs, and languages of the various races of men by whom 

 they are inhabited. 



The researches of Captains Bedford, "Wilcox, and Neufville, and 

 of Lieut. Burltoiv in Assam, dispelled the mist which had previously 

 rested on the whole of the eastern portion of that magnificent valley ; 

 and the general direction and aspect of its mountain barriers, the 

 courses and relative size of its rivers, the habits of the innumerable 

 tribes who dwell on the rugged summits of its mountains, or on the 

 alluvial plains at their base, were then first made the subject of de- 

 scription, founded, not on the vague reports of half-civilized savages, 

 but on the personal investigations of men, whose scientific attainments 

 enabled them to fix with precision the geographical site of every 

 locality they visited. The journey of Wilcox and Burlton to the 

 sources of the Irawadi river had proved the absence of communi- 

 cation between it and the great Tsanpo of Thibet-, but they were 

 unable to prosecute their examination further east; and though their 

 researches had extended to a point not more than twenty miles dis- 

 tant from the meridian on which the labors of the Jesuit Mission- 

 aries in Yunan had been abruptly terminated, the intervening space, 

 and great valley of the Irawadi still remained closed against them, 

 and every attempt to enter either, from Assam or Manipur, was de- 

 feated by the jealous vigilance of the Burmese authorities. 



It is generally known that the course of the lower portion of the 



• Attention has been forcibly drawn, within the last few years, to the countries situ* 

 ated to the north-east of our Indian empire ; both on account of the interest and im- 

 portance of the discovery of indigenous tea plants in Assam, and for the political conse- 

 quence which these regions possess, from their vicinity to, and relationship with, the 

 great empires of China and Ava. We introduce, therefore, the above paper as a narra- 

 tive of the most novel and interesting expedition of recent times as regards the East. 

 A route map accompanies the article in the Bengal Journal ; but the reader will be able 

 to follow the traveller with the published maps of the country, and to note down pretty 

 correctly the newly described places. —Editor Madras Journal. 



