yi8 
THE TRDWCWL AQWt3UT_TUR13T. [April i, 1890 
Buoh," and after a friendly ohat we ride back to 
Onononr, having considerably enjoyed my little out- 
ing. I myself oultivate fruit, and in my next will 
give some idea as to what can be done at this eleva- 
tion, and I shall have something to say about the 
terriblp inseot pests, the enemies alj over the world 
to cultivation. — M. Mail. 
THE EXPLOITATION OF ASSAM. 
Oranges and limes figured prominently in our 
reoent note on the oonoession made to the future 
Aspam-Chittagong Railway. We might have made 
mention of a commodity l^ss fragrant, indeed, 
and less suggestive of the golden gardens of (he 
Hesperi^es, but considerably more profitable. For 
it is said that the famous oranges of Cherrapoonji, 
as sweet and lusoioua as, but much larger than, 
the Tangerine oranges of European fruiterers) owe 
their qualities to the lime-impregnated soil in 
which they grow. All along the steep bluff which 
forms the pouthern face of the Cossyeh Hills runs 
a line of lime quarries, the stone from whioh is 
brought down in quaint, shallow, flat-bottomed 
boats (boats which are proving very useful for con- 
veying stores to the Caohar-Lushai force) and is 
landed on the river bank at and near the sub-divi- 
sional station of Sunamgunj. Some say, and the 
etymology does not seem too forced, that Sunam- 
gunj is truly Chunamgunj — the lime market. Here 
the stone is burned into lime of exoellent quality, 
the fuel used being the khag or reeds which grow 
abundantly in the surrounding marshes, famous 
as the resort of innumerable wildfowl, and per- 
haps the best duck-shooting ground in India. Time 
was when the lime trade of Sylhet was extremely 
profitable, when the oity of stucoo palaces was 
being built round the broad green maidan of Fort 
William, and Robert Lindsay ruled Sylhet under 
Warren Hastings, and made a handsome fortune 
by trading in lime and oranges. Those times have de- 
parted never to return ; but the new railway will 
doubtless use muoh lime in the construction of its 
buildings, and will in time afford new markets for 
Sunamgunj. 
The railway will bear not only lime, however, 
as its wagons rumble along the base of the Tipperah 
Hills. Tea will doubtless be diverted from the 
steamers, and the fragrant brown ohests stamped 
with odd superscriptions, the names of remote gar- 
dens, will find rapid carriage to the sea. Cher- 
rapoonji boasts not lime and oranges alone, but 
potatoes and honey, the latter holding imprisoned 
in its sweets the oloying fragrance of the orange 
blossom. Coal, too, will come from Upper Assam, 
and possibly also from the more limited pockets 
of the Cossyah Hills. The so-called " Dacca cheeses" 
of Sylhet will find a place on the tables of others 
than local epicures, and the wonderfully fine sital- 
patit, the " cool mats " of the same district, will 
reaoh remoter markets. Possibly the youth of Cal- 
cutta will find the rough strong silks of Assam 
more suitable material for hot weather raiments 
than the jharan suits which have erewhile been 
their delight. It is not easy to stop when the 
informed imagination runs riot among the pos- 
sible prizes that may be seized by a railway 
running through a region so fertile and hitherto 
bo remote. One important consequence it 
oan hardly fail to effect. It is well doubt- 
less to remember that railways in Burma 
have not brought immigrants swarming into the 
waste plaoes of a country at least as fertile as Assam. 
But in the oaae of Burma the sea has to be traversed, 
and the qualmish billows have to be faced before 
the Indian emigrant can buy his ticket at a 
Burmese railway station. Towards Assam the tide 
of migration has already beeun to flow. If any 
one thing has been established by the debates 
which have raged over the Assam Labour Laws, 
it it that migration into the province is rapidly 
increasing, and that it shows a tendency to eman- 
cipate itself from Government control and assistance. 
In truth the best assistance to the labour seeking 
planter which Government can possibly furnish, it 
the provipion of a cheap and rapid journey from 
Behar and Sonthalia. When once a return home is 
easy, and a yparly visit to the coolie's country be- 
comes practicable, the present difficulties of the 
labour traffio will in all probability vanish. The 
planter will find it as eaev to obtain labourers as 
the owner of jute mills at Naraingunj or Serajgunj, 
and Act I. of 1882 will probably die a natural death. 
What effeot the railway will have on the prosperity 
of the tea gardens in other respects, it is not easy 
to guess. At present the tea gardens of Assam 
enjoy very varying degrees of success, according 
to difference of soil and climate. The rich new 
gardens of Upper Assam, with their unexhausted 
undulating soil, stand on a very different footing 
from old gardens planted on barren rod slopes 
in less happy districts. Many of these gardens 
must be on the verge of extinction, and it 
is quite possible that coolies free to come 
and go by the railway may be able to demand 
better wages, and may thus furnish the last straw 
of expense. Tea garden coolies are at present 
paid a wage which in their native hovels in Behar 
or Ganjam would probably have been deemed a 
small fortune, and many individuals earn as good 
wages as an ordinary kerani. But the average wage 
is hardly so high as the average earnings of the 
indigenous population about them, and it is possible 
that the railway, by introducing an tra of free 
competition, and rendering it possible for Govern- 
ment to do away with the long term agreements 
of the present labour law, may, for a time at 
least, have the effect of raising wages. But this 
drawback will be attended by many obvious com- 
pensations, and though the mind of the well- 
regulated planter cannot view without regret the 
closing of any "billets" for for good fellows like 
himself, it is possible that the industry as a whole 
would flourish more vigorously were some of the 
more ill-chosen gardens to be closed. 
To the individual planter the railway will be an 
incalculable blessing. When fever blows hot and 
cold upon his aching limbs, what a blessing to be 
trundled comfortably to sea-breezes, and a complete 
change of air and scene. How surprising and 
delightful for the Sylhet planter to be able to accept 
a challenge to play polo next next week in far 
Lakhimpur. How much more social, more cosmo- 
politan should Assam grow, and how soon will the 
present tendency of men to see good only in their 
own district and its planting ways and traditions be 
broken down. One more daring glimpse into an 
agreeable futurity. Some day or another the rail- 
way will send its trains, puffing and shrieking, 
among the quiet glades of the Jatinga valley, and 
the sinuous line will run from Cachar to Nowgong 
at the base of great hills the summits of which are 
clothed with oaks and rhododendrons, growing in 
cool sweet air. Here may arise, on the site of some 
abandoned Kooki jhoom, the trim bungalows, the 
church and the club of a hill station, and the last 
new waltz may yet osuse the groves to resound 
whioh now hear only the wild ululations of the 
hooloole, or the shrill orow of the jungle cock. — 
Pioneer. 
