1873.] H. Biochmann —Geography and History of Bengal. 239 
wild districts of western Orisa, Chutia Nagpur, and the eastern portions of 
the Central Provinces, of which Batanpur, Bastar, and Sirguja are also 
mentioned in the Ain as hunting places for wild elephants. But it is 
remarkable that Barani, in relating Balban’s expedition, places Jajnagar 
70 kos beyond Sunnargaon, whilst in his account of Tughluq Shah’s reign 
he gives the same name to a district near Talinga ; and we are forced either 
to believe that there were two Jajnagars, one famous for elephants near 
south-western Bengal (Tabaqat i Naqiri, Barani, Firuzshalii, Ain), and 
another in Tiparah or south-eastern Bengal (on the testimony of a single 
passage in Barani) ; or to assume that there was in reality only one 
Jajnagar, bordering on south-western Bengal, and that Barani in the above 
single passage wrote Sunnargaon by mistake for Satgaon,* which would 
remove all difficulties. 
The Northern Frontier. 
From Bhitarhand, near the bend of the Brahmaputra, and in later 
times from Gauliatti in Kamrup over K’hontag’hat, the frontier passed along 
the southern portions of Koch Bihar to Mahall Patgaon, or Patgram (west 
of Koch Bihar), which is mentioned by Mughul historians as the frontier- 
town in the extreme north, and from there along the foot of the hills and 
forests of Sikkim and Nepal to the northern portions of Purniah District. 
Thus by far the greater portion of what is now-a-days called the Koch Bihar 
Division, did not belong to Bengal. 
The Sirkars along the northern frontier were G’horag’hat, Panjrah, 
Tajpur, and Purniah. 
The inhabitants of northern Bengal according to the Tabaqat i Naciri 
were the Koch, Mech, and Tharu tribes, whose Mongolian features struck 
the first invaders as peculiar.f 
The Bajalis of Northern Bengal were powerful enough to preserve a 
semi-independence in spite of the numerous invasions from the time of 
Bakhtyar Khilji, when Debkot, near Dinajpur, was looked upon as the most 
important military station towards the north. 
During the fifteenth century, the tract north of Bangpur was in the 
hands of the Bajahs of K am at a (U/cB), to which country passing allusion 
was made above. The kingdom is prominently marked as ‘ Beino de Comotah,’ 
or Comotay, on the maps of De Barros and Blaev (PI. IV). The town of 
* Barani’s statement of the distance of 70 kos would admirably suit Satgaon; 
it would bring us to Mayurbhanj and western Chutia Nagpur. 
f For ‘ Tharu’ Stewart has Neharu, but there can be no doubt that the author 
of the Tabaqat means the Tharus of Mithila. Vide Dalton, Ethnology of Bengal, p. 
126 ; J. A. S. B., 1872, Part I, p. 66. 
The Pddishdhndmah says of the Asamese also that they resemble in features tho 
Qaraqalpaks of southern Siberia. 
