resources of the Kulta Raja are stated to exceed by far those of Asam, under its most flourshing circumstances, and in former times a communication appears to have been kept up between the estates, now long discontinued. To this nation are attributed the implements of husbandry and domestic life, washed down by the flood of the Dihong before mentioned. Of their peculiar habits and religion, nothing is known, though they are considered to be Hindus, a circumstance which from their locality I think most unlikely, and in all probabi- lity arising merely from some fancied analogy of sound, the word Kalita being used in Asamese to signify the Khaet caste. There is said to be an entrance to this country from upper Asam by a natural tunnel under the mountains; but such is obviously fabulous, at least to the assumed extent, All accounts agree in stating, that a colony of Asamese, under two sons of a Bara Gohain about eight generations back, took refuge in the country of the Kolitas, on the banks of the Sri Lohit, whence, till within about two hundred years, they at intervals, maintained a correspondence with the parent state. They were hospitably received by the Kulta Raja, who assigned lands to them for a settlement, and they had naturalised and intermarried with the inhabi- tants. Since that period, however, no trace either of them or of the Kultas had been found until the flood of Dihong exhibited marks of their existence, or of that of à nation resembling them in an acquaintance with the useful arts. The plains to the eastward of the Kulta
