82 
H. Blochmann — Koch Bihar and A'sdm. 
[No. 1 
tions, in which the former are better. Six or'seven thousand Asamese guard 
the environs of the palace and the harem of the Rajah. The guards are called 
jauddngs ( ),* * * § and are the trusted and devoted servants and 
executioners of the Rajali. The arms used by the people are matchlocks, 
ramehangis, guns, arrows with ironpoints and without them, half swords, 
long lances, bamboo bows, and TaJchsh arrows. At the time of war, all 
trades people and well-to-do peasants, and farmers, with or without armour, 
have to serve, whether they will or not.f Like jackals, they will commence 
a tremendous howl, and will like foxes think that the noise frightens the 
lions of the bush. A small number of their fighting men may indeed 
checkmate thousands ; they are the agal Asamese ; but their number does not 
exceed 20,000. J They are given to night attacks, for which they especially 
believe the night of Tuesday to be auspicious. But the common people will 
run away, with or without fighting, and only think of throwing away their 
armours. 
They bury their dead with the head towards the East and the feet 
towards the West. The chiefs erect funeral vaults (<x*Ao) for their dead, kill 
the women and servants of the deceased, and put necessaries, <ftc., for several 
years, viz. elephants, gold and silver vessels, carpets, clothes, and food, into 
the vaults. They fix the head of the corpse rigidly with poles, and put a lamp 
with plenty of oil and a mash’alcM [torchbearer] alive into the vault, to look 
after the lamp. Ten such vaults were opened by order of the Nawab, and 
property worth about 90,000 Rupees was recovered. § In one vault in which 
the wife of a Rajah about 80 years ago had been buried, a golden pdnddn 
was found, and the pan in it was still fresh. This fact was related by 
Payandah Bog, Assistant Waqi’ahnawis, and by Shah Beg, at an evening 
* Tulgo Sowdangs. 
t Vide Robinson’s Descriptive Account of Asam, p. 200. Robinson’s work is a very 
valuable book. The author died in Asam of fever, and lies buried in Mr. Foster’s 
compound in Nazirah, Upper Asam. 
I “ What the Persian Historian says of the physical superiority of the Asamese 
over the Kolitds was, no doubt, quite true at the time; for the Asamese were then a 
hardy, meat-eating, beer-drinking, fighting race, and the Kolitas were offeminate 
subjected Hindus.” From a letter by Col. Dalton. Regarding the Kolitas, vide Col. 
Dalton’s Ethnology of Bengal, last group. 
§ “ The account of the burial of Ahom magnates is confirmed by more recent 
disclosures of desecrated graves. About twenty years ago, several mounds, known to 
be the graves of Ahom kings, were opened and were found to contain not only tho 
remains of the kings, but of slaves, male and female, and of animals that had been 
immolated to serve their masters in Hades ; also gold and silver vessels, food, rai- 
ment, arms, &c., were not wanting.” From a letter by Col. Dalton. 
An account of the opening of some of these tombs will be found in the Journal of 
this Society, Vol. xvii, Pt. I., p. 473, 
