1872.] H. Bloehmarm — Koch Bihdr and Asam. 81 
They eat pan in large quantities with unripe supdri, unshelled. They 
weave excellent flowered silk, velvet, tatbands, and other silks. Boxes, trays, 
stools, chairs, are cleverly and neatly made of one piece of wood. I saw 
several stools belonging to the Rajah, two cubits broad ; even the feet were 
cut out of the same piece, and not merely joined to it. 
Their war-sloops resemble the Bengali kosahs. They call them 
bacharis. The difference is only this that at the poop and the stern, 
the kosah has two planks (£U, pr. branches) ; but the poop (sar) and 
the keel ( u j) of the bacharis are made of one flattened plank. They 
are slower than kosahs. The shipping traffic may be estimated from 
remarks taken from the reports of the Waqi'ahnawis of Gawahatti lor Rama- 
zan last. He says that, up to the present time, no less than 32,000 boats, 
bacharis and kosahs, have arrived here. The number of ships engaged for the 
army, and those belonging to the Asamese which accompanied the army on 
its return, must certainly have been larger ; and it is probable that more than 
one half belonged to Asamese. The ships are built of chambal wood ( 
MS. J-Aa.) ; and a ship built of such wood, no matter how full it is, will 
never, on sinking, remain at the bottom of the water. This fact was examined 
by many, and by me, too. Their matchlocks and bavhaluldr guns are well 
oast, and the people show much expertness in the manufacture. Them powder 
is of several kinds ; for the best kind they import the components from his 
Majesty’s country. 
With the exception of the gates of Ghargaon and some idol temples, 
houses in Asam are not built of bricks or stones and mortar. Rich and poor 
build then' houses of wood or bamboo or grass. 
The ancient inhabitants of this country belong to two nations, the 
Asamese and the Kulita (UH).* The latter, in all things, are superior to 
the former, except where fatigues are to be undergone, and in warlike expedi- 
* “ The Kolitas are the only pure descendants of the Aryans who first colonized 
Asam. They were dominant there for many centuries, and had evidently arrived 
at a high state of civilization when the inroads of the Mongolians commenced. There 
was a Hindu Pal dynasty in the upper portion of the valley with their head quarters 
at Sadiah, who succumbed to a Chutia or Kachari invasion, probably about the same 
time that the Kamrap Hindu dynasty was subverted by the Koch. Afterwards the 
Shans conquered the valley from Sadiah to Kiimrup, and on the retreat of the Muham- 
madans invaded and took possession of Kiimrup. These Shans after their first 
successes called themselves the ‘ Ahom,’ or ‘ the non-equalled people,’ and henco 
the name of Asam.” Vide Col. Dalton’s Ethnology of Bengal, Group II, Sect. I. 
The interchange of s and h is very common in Asamese ; several other examples 
will be found below. It is curious that the same interchange of h and s should be 
found in Asam, the farthest east, and in Sindh, the farthest west ; for it is Sindh, country 
and river, which, in its pronunciation hind, induced the Greeks to call the whole country 
India. 
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