1904.] W. N. Edwards & H. H. Mann —Assamese Fortification. 255 
“ About a mile higher up, there is a cave on the left bank of tho 
river, which is said to have been constructed by the king for devotional 
purposes. The river having forced its way into this cave, has carried 
away a considerable portion of it, and its appearance is doubtless very 
much altered from what it was; but in its present condition, there is 
no reason for supposing it to be a work of art. 
“Above this again, at a considerable elevation on the side of the 
mountain, there is a natural niche in the bare rock, and above it a mass 
which from the river appears to the naked eye to be a group of figures 
with as much resemblance to humanity as idols generally possess. The 
only people now frequenting this region—the gold-washers—believe 
them to be gods, and worship them as such; and being in view of the 
cave, if the latter ever was used as a place of worship, it may have 
been for the adoration of these gigantic figures. A telescope dissolves 
the illusion of their bearing any resemblance to gods or mortals, and of 
course a closer inspection would do the same. But no one has ever 
ventured to approach the-phenomenon, and if they did, they would 
consider the reality as the illusion, and report with some truth that the 
mysterious figure blended into the mass of rock as they approached, 
and consequently that a closer inspection of their awful forms than that 
obtained from the view at the cave, was not given to mortal eyes.” 
After their discovery by Captain Dalton, the knowledge of the 
existence of these forts had wholly disappeared among the local plan¬ 
ters, and even among the Assamese, and it was not until one of the 
authors, while shooting in the forest near the Buroi river, was fortunate 
enough to stumble across them, that any knowledge of them existed in 
the district. As we have been able to bring a considerable amount of 
new information to light, both as regards the fortifications themselves, 
and as to the legends relating to them, it has seemed worth while to 
bring the whole information on the matter together. 
The River Buroi is a short river draining a portion of the lower 
Himalayas in the district of Darrang in Assam, and while still in the 
hills passes through country inhabited by the Mongolian tribe of 
Daphlas. It finally enters the Brahmaputra, a little to the east of 
Behali Mukh. For the greater part of the year the upper river is only 
approachable by a road which runs right back from tbe river at Gomiri 
Ghat to the hills, and then by a path along their base through the Singli 
Tea Estate. This path is shown as the “ Singli Path ” in the rough 
sketch in Fig. 1. During the greater part of the early months of 
the year it is however also possible to approach this part of the river 
by elephant along the banks of the river, and also with some difficulty 
on horseback. 
