water, The situation is hotter and more unhealthy than that of other villages on the plateau, and though it lies close to the edge of the forest on the north slope of the hills, and is a good place for collecting, it is not at all a pleasant residence.
As it was still early I walked two or three miles down the old Gowhatty road which descends steeply just beyond the bungalow, and soon came into a wooded glen which has a thoroughly tropical vegetation. A fine tree fern, Cyathea spinulosa Hook, Pandanus, Areca triandra and other plants which are not found anywhere above Nunklow, here formed a conspicuous part of the vegetation, but pines on all the moie open knolls and ridges were also numerous, and became larger as one descended, giving a very peculiar aspect to this otherwise tropical jungle. There I also saw that splendid butterfly, Thaumantis diores, a large blue and black insect which haunts the densest undergrowth and flits along amongst the bushes in a way which makes it rather difficult to catch. Besides this and a species of Neptis new to me, I saw little, and I returned to the top of the hill before dark, getting on the way some fine plants which I thought might interest Clarke, who had not been there at that season before. Chirita pumila, C. acuminata, a huge white Hedychium with flower-spikes two feet long, and a fine mass of Dendrobium were amongst them.
Nunklow was one of the first posts occupied by our troops in the Khasia hills, and was the scene of a bloody massacre in 1829, when Lieutenants Burlton and Bedingfield with about fifty sepoys were surprised and murdered by a treacherous band of Khasias who had previously been on good terms with them. This led to the whole of the hills being annexed, and the power of the native chiefs broken by degrees, but a long period of harassing war was required before the country was thoroughly pacified. Though it is now many years since there has been any trouble in these hills, there was a serious outbreak in the Jaintra hills which join them on the east as recently as 1862.
On September 14th we breakfasted early, and set off for the bridge over the Khiri river (erroneously called Borpani in Hooker’s Himalayan Journals). This lies about six miles down the old Assam road, and is at least 2,000 feet below Nunklow. The morning was hot but soon became cloudy, and about noon turned out very wet. Clarke had always had bad weather during his visits here, and thought the place must be as much wetter as it certainly was hotter and more unhealthy than Shillong. The look and smell of the jungle towards the bottom of the descent gave one the impression of a most feverish place, and it is considered most dangerous to sleep down there at any time between March and November. Partly on this account and partly because of the new road being open, this route to Gowhatty was then little used, and the country for some distance seemed very nearly deserted, though a few jhooms were seen in the forest; it is said that villages formerly existed on the low grass-covered hills on the other side of the Khiri which have to be crossed before the final descent into Assam. Near the bottom of the descent I heard the curious cry of the great howling monkeys, a large flock of which were feeding in the trees; they rushed off in a great fright when I surprised them, though they managed to keep very much out of sight in the dense
