ROYAL ARTILLERY INSTITUTION. 
129 
During the time our force halted at Sidlee to await the arrival of Major- 
General Mulcaster, shooting parties pushed in all directions, always finding 
the same wide-spreading plains of waving grass, and to the east and south 
an occasional village of Mechees and Garrows. These two tribes are the 
only human beings who can, however feebly, withstand the terrible nature 
of the climate of the dooars at its worst periods, and the entire absence of 
an aged or grey-headed man shows how dearly even they pay for the 
possession of the soil, sharing the produce with the wild animals of the 
forest and the still more insatiate tax-gatherers of Bhootan. By the sweat 
of their brow and in terror of their lives do they till the soil and share its 
teeming fruits, for so rich is the land that the world cannot show a tract to 
excel these dooars in richness and luxuriance. 
When the dense masses of jungle, the wild fields of rank vegetation, are 
cleared—when the rains are led off the soil and not allowed to form death¬ 
giving marches, then most assuredly will this country be a by-word in the 
east; the land being canalled by rivers, which would bear the produce to the 
banks of the mighty Brahmapootra, while forests of the most valuable timber 
cover large surfaces of land. A comparative fresh climate can be found 
in the low mountains that rise from the plain, and the high slopes of the 
Himalayas, with a climate unsurpassed by any on earth, are in the very view 
of the plains. Tea already gives large profits in the kindred district of 
Assam, whose only drawback is the inaccessibility of the hills; we hold the 
passes into these in our hands-—surely no government will throw away the 
prize now in its very grasp, a prize that will bring millions of rupees into 
its treasury, open out a valuable and new district to English enterprise, 
and permit the reward of those who have toiled long and stoutly in her 
service. 
The Mechees are a gentle, unwarlike race, easily satisfied with what 
supports life and scantily clothes their bodies; so are the Garrow tribes 
who come from the Garrow hills on the south and east banks of the Brahma¬ 
pootra, but alas these inoffensive colonists have been but too often obliged 
to forsake their homes and fields owing to the intolerant oppression of the 
Bhootea; I saw many and many a deserted hamlet as I marched through the 
dooars, with every mark of having been but lately inhabited, while at times 
the surface of the ground showed spots which had once been squared out with 
cultivation, but where the site of the village was lost in jungle. The 
revenue paid by these villages varies considerably in different districts, and 
I take it that those nearest the hills suffered the most from the marauder, 
as it was in their neighbourhood that most of those deserted were seen. 
Mr Metcalf (the deputy commissioner attached to one of the columns) 
affirmed one day that the revenue paid by certain of the villages to Bhootan 
will be less than what is to be demanded by the Bengal government now; 
but one important item must be carried in mind, that the revenue is the 
only tax with us, while the supplies, presents, and bribes to Bhootea 
collectors formed not an unimportant item before. In the eastern districts 
of the dooars, the Mechees and Garrows complain of no outrages from their 
mountain masters, the slave-drivings and robberies appear to have been of 
late years directed chiefly against the petty raja-dom of Coorh Behar, but 
if these statements were believed, then in the Sidlee, Bijnee, and Rephoo 
dooars, the desertion of villages—especially that of the once large town of 
