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exploration of a stretch of the Shiloi River; Naga Hills - Burma boundary |
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Halted and went down to the main river to see what I could of the north side of Shiloi-mol and to try and catch a fish. The latter was a failure, but I could see something of Shiloi-mol and the streams that come down from it. Going down I went over the spur on the Marami side and down in to the river from there - some five miles or more. Coming back I came up the Shiloi river - 1- and-a-half miles, probably two at the outside, but it took me 3 hours. This bit of the river is most extraordinarily difficult. There is more limestone in the rock, I think and one stream that falls into the Shiloi has encrusted all the rock and mosses over which it falls with a thick deposit of lime, but the blocks of stone strewn along the river up and down the ravine are of very slippery granite or some similar hard stone, and give no foothold at all. The sides of the stream are precipices for about a mile or so, hundreds of feet in height, if they do not run to four figures. In between these walls there is a stupendous barrage of enormous boulders, many as big as cottages, flung in anyhow jamming the passage and damming up the stream into a series of cascades and waterfalls of no great height separately, but so tumbled, dark, and roaring with such force, that the effect of the whole is awe-inspiring rather than beautiful, and as it lasts for a mile the difficulty of getting along it can be imagined. It must have taken us over two hours to get by and in one place, where it was necessary to scramble up the side of the wall and down again I thought I should never see camp again, as we had to cross a perpendicular slide of loose earth with nothing to hold on to and no foothold but a toe place or two scraped with a dao, and the rocks 60 feet or so below. My Khonoma dobashi went over carrying my gun and without turning a hair, so I had to follow for mere shame, but got red in the face. It was only two or three paces but exceedingly unpleasant ones. The Dobashi admitted afterwards that he had "eaten much fear" at that spot, but he didn't show it at the time. |
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There are three streams running north from the Shiloi-mol (Dazipfu) which might serve as a boundary with Burma - the Mashutsuti, the Betamtsiti, and the Tenyati, called by the Kukis Chalhangdung. Between the Patamtsiti and the Tenyati is a conical peak called Karitsang jutting up from the spur of Shiloi-mol which separates the stream. I fancy one of these two would make the best boundary with Burma, or possibly the tila from which the Karitsang peak juts up, but it is for the Burma authorities to decide. I understand that they have not yet notified the western boundary of the Somra Tract and the Assam Notification as drafted merely says "down the Ti-Ho (Nantaleik) till the Burma boundary is reached". If Burma when drafting their boundary mentioned the name of a stream rising on Shiloi-mol to the Nantaleik, there could be no confusion afterwards as to where exactly the boundary is. |
