Page:The People of India — a series of photographic illustrations, with descriptive letterpress, of the races and tribes of Hindustan Vol 1.djvu/122

Rh was in a very flourishing state: it was prettily situated near the banks of the Dehong river, and they had established a friendly intercourse with the Abors and Mishmees of that frontier; this tribe of the Shans appearing to possess a natural tact for carrying on the business of Dewarpals, or people entrusted with the keeping and care of a frontier. They were unfortunately, however, drawn into the vortex of ruin which followed the insurrection of the Khamptie Gohains at Suddyah, but the Kanyangs were not implicated in any way in the rebellion against the British Government. Abandoning their village on the afternoon previous to the night attack on the Suddyah cantonment, they proceeded down the Burrumpooter, and located themselves on the south bank of that river, at a place called Kherwah, where during the season of 1839 they suffered much from cholera and small-pox, and the privations attending the loss of all then- sources of subsistence. After remaining for several years unsettled, they have at length taken up the site of a village within the Dehong river in the vicinity of the Abors; and, if encouraged, they are likely to prove a useful means of keeping up friendly intercourse with the people of the Dehong valley, which, by traffic and established trade, may in the end lead to obtaining an intercourse with southeastern Tibet