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The Noonpoong is situated in a lovely spot amidst fine forest. The hot water springs out of the ground, at a temperature of 112 degrees and fills a small pool. It is similar in taste to the waters of Aix-la-Chapelle, and is highly efficacious in skin diseases, being resorted to even for the cure of severe leech bites, which are easily obtained from the land leech infesting all the forests of Assam. Fortunately some of our cooking things, with chairs and a table arrived, also a mattress, but no bed and no tent. We waited till 9 P.M., and finding that no more elephants came up, I made up a bed for my wife on the ground under a table, to shelter her from the dew, but while sitting by the camp fire for a last warm, we heard the noise of an elephant, and saw one emerging from the forest. Fortunately he carried the tent which was quickly pitched, and we passed a comfortable night.
The hot springs are not the only attraction of the neighbourhood, as about two miles off in the forest, there is a very pretty waterfall, not high, but the volume of water is considerable, and it comes down with a thundering sound heard for some distance. The natives call it the “phutta hil,” literally “rent rock.” The Nambor forest is noted for its Nahor or Nagessur trees (Mesua Ferma) a handsome tree, the heart of which is a fine red wood, very hard and very heavy, and quite impervious to the attacks of white ants. Europeans call it the iron wood of Assam. It is very plentiful in parts of the forest between the Noonpoong and Golaghat, and also grows in the lowlands of Manipur.
The next morning we set out for Borpathar, a village with a fine sheet of cultivation on the banks of the Dunseree, and took up our quarters in the old blockhouse, which had been converted into a comfortable rest house. Here again we received a perfect ovation, the people, headed by my old friend Hova Ram, now promoted to a Mouzadar, coming in a body, with fruit and eggs, etc., to pay their respects. The population had sadly diminished since my early days, the people having in many cases fled the country for fear of Naga raids.
The march having been a short one, all our baggage had time to come up. In the evening the girls of the village entertained us with one of their national dances, a very pretty and interesting sight. After a good night’s rest we again started, our march lying through the noble forest, where buttressed trees formed an arch over the road, showing plainly that Gothic architecture was an adaptation from nature. I had never marched along the road since it was cleared; but I was there in 1862, in pursuit of some Naga raiders, when it would have been impassable, but for elephant and rhinoceros tracks. Even then I was struck by its great beauty, and now it was a fairly good cold weather track.
We halted at Deo Panee, then at Hurreo Jan, and Nowkatta, and on the fourth day reached Dimapur, where we found a comfortable rest house, on the banks of a fine tank about two hundred yards square. This, with many others near it, spoke of days of civilisation that had long since passed away, before the Naga drove the Cacharee from the hills he now inhabits, and from the rich valley of the Dunseree. Near Dimapur we passed a Meekir hut built on posts ten or twelve feet high, and with a notched log resting against it, at an angle of about seventy degrees by way of a staircase, up which a dog ran like a squirrel at our approach. The Meekirs occupy some low hill ranges between the Naga hills and the Burrhampooter.
The country round Dimapur is exceedingly rich, and everywhere bears the marks of having been thickly populated. It is well supplied with artificial square tanks, some much larger than the one already referred to, and on the opposite bank of the river we crossed to reach our halting place, are the remains of an old fortified city. Mounds containing broken pottery made with the wheel, abound, though the neighbouring tribes have forgotten its use. At Dimapur, in those days, there were three or four Government elephants and a few shops kept by “Khyahs,” an enterprising race of merchants from Western India.
The ruined city is worth describing. It was surrounded originally by solid brick walls twelve feet in height and six in thickness, the bricks admirably made and burned. The walls enclosed a space seven hundred yards square; it was entered by a Gothic archway, and not far off had a gap in the wall, said to have been made for cattle to enter by. Inside were tanks, some lined with brick walls, and with brick steps leading to the water. Though I carefully explored the interior, I never saw any other traces of brickwork, except perhaps a platform; but I found one or two sacrificial stones, for offerings of flowers, water and oil. One corner of the surrounding wall had been cut away by the river. The enclosure is covered with forest. Near the gateway are some huge monoliths, one eighteen feet in height. All are covered with sculpture, and some have deep grooves cut in the top, as if to receive beams. It is difficult to conjecture what they were brought there for, and how they were transported, as the nearest rocks from which they could have been cut, are at least ten miles away. If the Assam-Bengal Railway passes near Dimapur as is, I believe, arranged, this interesting old city wall will probably be used as a quarry for railway purposes, and soon none of it will remain. Alas, for Vandalism!
History tells us little about the origin of Dimapur, but probably it was once a centre of Cacharee civilisation, and as the Angami Nagas advanced, the city wall was built, so as to afford a place of refuge against sudden raids. It is a strange sight to see the relics of a forgotten civilisation, in the midst of a pathless forest.
On our march up, we frequently came upon the windings of the river Dunseree. At Nowkatta it runs parallel for a time with the road, and we took our evening walk on its dry sandbanks, finding many recent traces of tigers and wild elephants. From that time till we finally left the hills, the roar of tigers and the trumpeting of elephants were such common sounds, that we ceased to pay attention to them, and my wife, though naturally timid, became devoted to the wild solitude of our life.