and therefore able to educate him, enjoyed less than the usual advantages of teaching, during his youth, for owing to the death of his father, when Hem Chandra was quite young, the boy's education received an abrupt check and Hem Chandra was removed by his Uncle Lakhinath Barua, who was then the head of the Deputy Commissioner's Revenue office at Sibsagar, to that place where he was entered at once as an apprentice in the Deputy Commissioner's office on Rs. 4 per month. Had it not been for the kindness of Captain Brodie, Deputy Commissioner of Sibsagar and the Missionaries, the education of Hem Chandra would have stopped altogether but as it was, he was able to pick up a fair knowledge of English and be became a regular contributor to the Missionary weekly illustrated paper "Arunodai” which in those days appeared there. Hem Chandra held various appointments at Sibsagar till 1862 when Major-General Agnew (then Major Agnew), the Judicial Commissioner of the Assam Valley, look a fancy to him and made him translator in his office at Gauhati. By dint of hard work and steady perseverance Hem Chandra rose to be Superintendent of the Judicial Commissioner's office on a salary of Rs. 250 per month and continued in that capacity till 1881 when the post was abolished. Hem Chandra Barua, it is said, was twice offered the appointment of Extra Assistant Commissioner but he refused on each occasion not wishing for an officiating post. Hem Chandra retired from the Service of Government in 1882, but he enjoyed his pension till 1896 when he died. Hem Chandra first acquired a taste for writing in Assamese in connection with the paper Arunodai, already mentioned. His first literary work of value was an Assamese grammar which he published as far back as 1860. In 1873 he wrote a first Primer of the Assamese language for which he obtained a reward of Rs. 500. In all he is said to have obtained no less than Rs. 1,100 in rewards from the Assam Administration for various literary works. He was the author of a book on Assamese Marriage customs and of two farcical plays, the “Kania Kirtan,” which exposed the vice of excessive opium eating, and “Bahire rang sang bhitare koabhatoori,” which was a satire on the then Assamese Society. Hem Chandra also for some time edited the “Assam News” at Gauhati. Considering that Hem Chandra was practically self-taught and that he
