83 
1872.] H. Blochmann — Koch TSihar and A'sam. 
party given by the Nawab ; and Basrni Beg, who received the pand.in, told 
me the same. 
The Muslims whom we met in A'sam, ar.e Asamese in their habits, and 
Muhammadans but in name. In fact they liked the Asamese better than 
us. A few Musalman strangers that had settled there, kept up prayers and 
fasts ; but they were forbidden to chant the azan and read the word of God 
in public. 
The town of Ghargaon has four gates built of stone and mortar, the 
distance of each of which from the palace of the Rajah is three /cos. A 
high and wide al, veiy sti'ong, has been made for the traffic > 
and round about the town, instead of fortifications, there are circular bushes 
of bamboos, about two /cos in diameter. But the town is not like other towns, 
the huts of the inhabitants being within the bamboo bushes near the A’l. 
Each man has his garden or field before his house, so that one side of the 
field touches the Al, and the other the house. Near the Rajah’s palace, to 
both sides of the Dik’lio River, are large houses. The bazar road is narrow, 
and is only occupied by ym«-sellers. Eatables are not sold as in our markets ; 
but each man keeps in his house stores for a year, and no one either sells or 
buys. The town looks large, being a cluster of several villages. Round 
about the palace, an Al has been thrown up, the top of which is fortified by a 
bamboo palisade instead of by walls, and along the sides of it a ditch runs, the 
depth of which exceeds a man’s height. It is always full of water. The 
circumference is 1 /cos, 14 j arils. Inside are high and spacious chhappars. 
The Diwankhanah of the Rajah, which is called so/ang, is one hundred 
and twenty cubits in length and thirty wide inside. It has sixty-six 
pillars, each about four cubits in circumference. The pillars, though so 
large, are quite smooth, so that at the first glance you take them to be 
planed Now though the Asamese understand planing, yet you 
cannot believe that they did smoothen the pillars in this way. The orna- 
ments and curiosities with which the whole woodwork of the house is filled, 
defies all description: nowhere in the whole inhabited world, will you 
find a house equal to it in strength, ornamentation, and pictures. The 
sides of this palace are embellished by extraordinary wooden trellice work. 
Inside there are large brass mirrors highly polished, and if the sun shines 
°n one of them, the eyes of the by-standers arc perfectly dazzled. Twelve 
thousand workmen arc said to have erected the building in the course of 
one year. At one end of the hall, rings are fastened on four pillars op- 
posite to each other, each pillar having nine rings. When the Rajah takes 
his seat in the hall, they put a dais in the middle of these four pillars, and 
nine canopies of various stuffs are fastened above it to the rings. The Rajah 
then sits on the dais below the canopies. The naqqurac/ns (drummers) 
strike the drum and the eland. The latter instrument is round and 
