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Assam, Arakan, and the Tenasserim provinces were ceded to the company, whose protectorate was also recognised over other territories upon the course of the Brahmaputra. It was not until February, 1826, that the King of Ava could be induced to sign the treaty embodying these cessions, and many years were to elapse before the port of Rangoon was opened to British commerce.
There are to be found not only nomads, but also settled people, dwelling in small villages of stone huts in the deeper river valleys, especially that of the Brahmaputra, and cultivating barley. A few towns also exist here; they are all small, the largest being Lhasa and Shigatse.
I believe there are very few tigers to be found at the present time in the islands or "churs" of the Brahmaputra, and although I never had the good fortune to know the country when it was described to me as "crawling" with these animals, I look back with some pleasure to my visit in 1885, when through the kindness of Mr.
Her voice shook so as she said this name that Monsieur Vulfran's attention was attracted. "What's the matter?" he said. "Why are you trembling?" "I don't know," she said, timidly; "perhaps I am nervous." "I told you not to mind," he chided. "You are doing very much better than I thought." She read the cables from Dacca which mentioned a gathering of jute along the shores of the Brahmaputra.
Lamaists believe, then, in the transmigration of souls, and the end, the fullest perfection, is peace in Nirvana. There are many monasteries and nunneries in the upper Brahmaputra valley. The temple halls are adorned with images of the gods in metal or gilded clay, and butter lamps burn day and night in front of them.
After a march in the hot sun, it was delightful to bathe in the deep stream of the Brahmaputra, and the mighty forms splashed and disported themselves, sometimes totally submerged, with the drivers standing ankle-deep upon their hidden backs, which gave them the appearance of walking upon the surface.
I was glad to be the first white man to visit both sources of the Brahmaputra River. Dreary as this period of captivity was, yet it was instructive. As we went along, I got the soldiers to teach me several Tibetan songs, and from the less ill-natured men of our guard I picked up, by judicious questioning, a considerable amount of information.
There were four hours' train on the broad-gauge railway, an hour's steamer to cross the Ganges, ten hours' train on a narrow-gauge railway, three hours' propelling by poles in a native house-boat down a branch of the Brahmaputra, six miles of swamp to traverse on elephants, thirty miles to travel on the Maharajah's private two-and-a-half-feet-gauge toy railway, and, to conclude with, a twenty-five-mile drive.
Innumerable are the images of Buddha to be found in the temples of eastern Asia, and he himself has been called the "Light of Asia." After we leave Benares the railway turns south-eastwards to the wide delta country where the Ganges and the Brahmaputra meet, and where Calcutta, the capital of India, stands on one of the arms of the river.
Borings have been made at Calcutta, beginning not many feet above the sea-level, to the depth of 300 and 400 feet; and wherever organic remains were found in the strata pierced through they were of a fluviatile or terrestrial character, implying that during a long and gradual subsidence of the country the sediment thrown down by the Ganges and Brahmaputra had accumulated at a sufficient rate to prevent the sea from invading that region.
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