120 
MINUTES OP PROCEEDINGS OF 
I was about to join had left Cherrapoonjie, and that my best plan was to 
proceed to Assam. Two of the bases of operation, Goolpara and Gowhatty, 
being in that country and on the Brahmapootra. 
Having received orders to proceed to Assam, by the steamer “Koladyne,” 
I embarked with several other officers similarly bound, the steamer having 
two other craft filled with stores and ammunition, for the necessities of the 
campaign. 
The vessels used on the Ganges and Brahmapootra must be of low 
draught, and hence it is necessary that the cargo should be carried in boats, 
called flats, as the machinery and coal are found to sink the steamer itself to 
the fullest maximum draught of five feet. These flats are fastened on either 
side of the steamer, and by this means we were enabled to pass over the 
numerous sand banks that render the navigation of these great rivers so 
dangerous, and besides to carry a very large cargo. When moving troops 
along points accessible from the river, they can be carried on board these 
flats, two decks being built for such a contingency. In the present case we 
had on board a company of native sappers and miners, under Lieutenant 
Urquhart, and some 200 coolies, intended for the carrying of the future 
sick and wounded. 
It was subsequently discovered by the passengers, that they might have 
been saved the inconvenience and expense of ten days' voyage in the steamer, 
as at the lapse of that time we came to a town on the Ganges, called Koostia, 
where the Eastern Bengal Bailway has its terminus. This place is reached 
in four hours by rail from Calcutta, whereas, we had taken ten days by 
water, having had to pass through the elaborate winding passages of the 
Sunderbunds, the delta of the mighty rivers, Ganges and Brahmapootra, a 
stretch of country, well known for its deadly climate. 
A few more days saw us on the waters of the Brahmapootra, which we had 
entered by a connecting and natural channel from the Ganges; but the 
scenery presented the same monotonous continuance of low sand banks and 
paddy fields; and it was not until we approached Assam that the dead level 
of the horizon was broken by the rising up of the Garrow hills on the left 
bank. 
The days had been hot and the clouds of sand blown from the banks, 
whenever the wind arose, had made our journey a rather trying one. At 
night musquitoes would occasionally attack us savagely, should we have 
stopped in the neighbourhood of their haunts : for so intricate and dangerous 
is the course of this river to ships, that it is necessary to anchor at sunset 
every night. If near the bank, the native soldiers were permitted to land 
and cook their dinner, their creed forbidding the cooking of food on board 
ship; they are thus obliged to subsist upon parched grain during the voyage. 
The frugality and abstemiousness of the native soldier makes him doubly 
valuable in a campaign of the nature we were about to enter upon, as the 
commissariat arrangement for his diet and comfort are far more simple than 
those necessary for British soldiers.. 
The passengers consisted, as I before mentioned, of officers, bound to join 
the Bhootan expedition, and among them was a Captain Austin, one of the 
mission under the Hon. Ashley Eden, who had gone to the Bhootan capital of 
Poonakha the previous year, and whose ill-treatment had brought about this 
the latest of England's little wars. 
