Chittagong

“ As we get within ten yards of the shore six of our Chittagong crew plunge into the glittering water with a light rope, and are ashore in a minute and are hauling in our wire hawser; the setting sun striking their wet bodies, makes them almost like ruddy gold, and their black trousers cling to their legs. It seems an elementary way of taking a line ashore; I think that with a little practise two men in a dinghy would be quicker and would look more seamanlike—but probably it was the way in the Ark, so the custom remains. ”

“ The climate is comparatively cool, owing to the sea breeze which prevails during the day; but for the same reason, the atmosphere is very moist, with heavy dews at night and fogs. Chittagong was ceded to the East India Company by Nawab Mir Kasim in 1760. The northern portion of the district is traversed by the Assam-Bengal railway. Tea cultivation is moderately successful.
The Chittagong Hill Tracts formed an independent district from 1860 to 1891, were then reduced to the status of a sub-division, but were again created a district in 1900. ”

“ Chittagong.—Hindú elements now increase. Even in Arakhan, Buddhism had ceased to be the only creed of western origin. There were Mahometans who spoke a mixed dialect called the Ruinga; [27] and Brahminical Hindús who spoke another called the Rosawn. In Chittagong, then, we must look about us for the aborigines; so intrusive have become the Hindú elements. Intrusive, however, they are, and intrusive they will be for some time to come.
The foot of the hill, and the hill itself, are important points of difference in Indian ethnology. ”

“ I have never seen but one garden in a valley that fulfils all these conditions exactly. It is in Chittagong; the soil is good, labour plentiful, and manure abundant. It ought to do great things, for the possibility of irrigating plants in the dry season (which, as observed, is very trying in Chittagong) will give several extra flushes in the year. ”

“ The commissioner stepped into the bungalow. The music ceased and the player followed her husband out onto the veranda.
“This,” he said, spreading out a chart he carried, “is the latest map of the region. You mustn’t suppose, as many people do, that all India has been explored and charted. You see for yourselves that there is nothing between Chittagong and the Irawaddy but a few wavy lines to represent mountain ranges. That’s all any map shows and all any civilized man knows of that section. Bah! Your scheme is idiotic. You might as well try to walk to Lhassa.” ”

“ The Yokwas do not march with the Klanklangs, neither are they friendly with them. (10) The Klanklangs, finding themselves at the beginning of the year between the Burma and Chittagong Columns, made haste to submit to the troops entering their country, and readily agreed to easy terms imposed. (11) The settlement with the Klanklangs and their chief, Ya Hnit—whom, to suit the convenience of the Chittagong officials, we are now agreed to call 'Jahoota'—was very rightly left to me as the representative of the local Government of Burma. ”

“ The total breadth of the delta is 260 miles, from Chittagong to the mouth of the Hoogly, divided longitudinally by the Megna: all to the west of that river presents a luxuriant vegetation, while to the east is a bare muddy expanse, with no trees or shrubs but what are planted On the west coast the tides rise twelve or thirteen feet, on the east, from forty to eighty. On the west, the water is salt enough for mangroves to grow for fifty miles up the Hoogly; on the east, the sea coast is too fresh for that plant for ten miles south of Chittagong. ”

“ The mischief is greater on stiff than on sandy soils, for on the former the earth is detached in great pieces and carried down the hill. I know one garden in Chittagong, a large one, where the evil is so great, that the sooner the cultivation is abandoned the better for the owners.
A great many gardens in India, indeed the majority, are on slopes; a few in Assam, the greater number in Cachar, some in Chittagong, and almost all the Himalayan plantations. ”

“ The climate is very healthy, which is not remarkable, considering how closely it approximates in character to that of Silhet and other places in Eastern Bengal, but very extraordinary, if it be compared with Arracan, only 200 miles further south, which is extremely unhealthy. The prominent difference between the physical features of Chittagong and Arracan, is the presence of mangrove swamps at the latter place, for which the water is too fresh at the former. ”

“ The hills about the station are not more than 150 or 200 feet high, and are formed of stratified gravel, sand, and clay, that often becomes nodular, and is interstratified with slag-like iron clay. Fossil wood is found; and some of the old buildings about Chittagong contain nummulitic limestone, probably imported from Silhet or the peninsula of India, with which countries there is no such trade now. ”

“ This Parāgal Khān was a general of Husen Sāhā, deputed by him to conquer Chittagong. Frequent references are found in old Bengali literature, indicating the esteem and trust in which Emperor Husen Sāhā was held by the Hindus. [15] Kavindra Parameçwar had translated the Mahābhārata upto the Striparva, and Chhuti Khān son of Parāgal Khān, who had succeeded his father in the governorship of Chittagong, employed another poet named Çrīkaraṅa Nandī for translating the Açvamedh Parva of that epic. Çrīkaraṅ Nandī's translation has lately been published by the Sāhitya Parisada of Calcutta. ”

“ Departing from Sundeep we came to Chittagong, by which time a peace or truce had been agreed upon between the Portuguese and the chiefs of the city, under condition that the Portuguese captain should depart with his ship without any lading. At this time there were 18 Portuguese ships of different sizes at that port, and the captain being a gentleman and a brave man, was contented to depart in this manner, to his material injury, rather than hinder so many of his friends and countrymen who were there, and likewise because, the season for going to Western India was now past. ”

“ The forest tribes of Chittagong are much higher in the scale than the Andamanese, but they are nevertheless savages of a low type. Captain Lewin says: "The men wear scarcely any clothing, and the petticoat of the women is scanty, reaching only to the knee; they worship the terrene elements, and have vague and undefined ideas of some divine power which overshadows all. They were born and they die for ends to them as incomputable as the path of a cannon-shot fired into the darkness. They are cruel, and attach but little value to life. ”

“ In Chittagong, when a woman cannot bring her child to the birth, the midwife gives orders to throw all doors and windows wide open, to uncork all bottles, to remove the bungs from all casks, to unloose the cows in the stall, the horses in the stable, the watchdog in his kennel, to set free sheep, fowls, ducks, and so forth. ”

“ It is bounded on the north by the Province of Chittagong, on the east by the Burman empire, and on the south and west by the Bay of Bengal. An extensive range of mountains is the boundary between Arracan and Burmah, over which are several passes—one to Ava, one to Prome, another to Bassein, &c. Only the first is very much travelled. By this we are only six or eight days' journey from Ava. A good deal of this province is mountainous, and much of the rest is jungle or uncultivated land. The people live in small villages, which are scattered over the whole province. ”

“ The Chin Hills on the north-west, adjoining Assam, Manipur and Chittagong, are administered as a district of the Sagaing division by a Deputy Commissioner whose headquarters are at Falam, with assistants at Tiddim, Haka and Lotaw. The Chin chiefs, headmen of villages and groups of villages, enjoy a large measure of independence and there is as little interference as possible with local customs. ”

“ Happily, our troops, though woefully reduced in numbers, were now fast recovering their health and strength; and two fresh British regiments, some battalions of native infantry, a regiment of cavalry, and a troop of horse artillery arrived from Calcutta and Madras, together with some admirable trotting cattle of the true Mysore breed. Five hundred native boatmen came round from Chittagong, and were busily employed in preparing boats for river service. ”

“ This district was under British rule, and refugees from the cruel despotism of Burmah had taken shelter there. The Burman monarch insisted that his victims should be arrested by the English authorities and handed over to him. Besides, he felt that Chittagong belonged naturally to Burmah. And such was his pride and his contempt for British prowess, that he deemed it quite possible for him not only to recover this territory, but even to conquer the whole of Bengal.
When war actually broke out, suspicion fell at once on all the white foreigners residing in Ava. ”

“ Nine miles from Demagri, on the Lungleh road, the traveller has to cross the Tui-chong river, one of the largest tributaries of the Kurnaphuli, on which Chittagong stands. This river, according to the Lushais, owes its origin to the self-denial of a girl called Tui-chongi, who, with her little sister Nuengi, was walking on the hills whence the river rises. It was April, and the sun blazed down on them. Nuengi began to cry for water. “How can I get you water on the top of a hill? Don’t you know that all the springs are dry, for are not the jhums ready to be burnt?” ”

“ As we went the anchor chains were unshackled and overhauled to get the twists out of them; and both anchors and chains were bright as silver from their rude polishing in the sand.
It is perishingly cold at Chittagong, i.e., in shade in the early morning, but it is bracing, A.1. weather for doing things. Last night I had three blankets and two sleeping suits and felt cold at that. The sides and windows of our cabin being made of open lattice woodwork we fix up some newspapers and a mat or two we have over these, which makes all the difference. ”

“ This religion will spread of itself. The emperor can not stop it.” The heroism of the disciples prevailed to keep the teacher in Rangoon.
It was thought best, however, that Mr. Colman and his wife should go to Chittagong [26] and gather together the few converts left there by the English Baptists, and to preach the Gospel to the Arracanese. Thus Chittagong might 164prove an asylum for the Judsons and their Burman converts if they should be hunted out of Rangoon. ”

“ In 1795 the Burmese were involved in a dispute with the British in India, in consequence of their troops, to the amount of 5000 men, entering the district of Chittagong in pursuit of three robbers who had fled from justice across the frontier. Explanations being made and terms of accommodation offered by General Erskine, the commanding officer, the Burmese commander retired from the British territories, when the fugitives were restored, and all differences for the time amicably arranged. ”

“ At Sidhee, about twenty-five miles from Chittagong, it contracts, and spurs from the hills on either flank project into the middle: they are 200 to 300 feet high, formed of red clay, and covered with brushwood. At Kajee-ke-hath, the most northern point we reached, we were quite amongst these hills, and in an extremely picturesque country, intersected by long winding flat valleys, that join one another: some are full of copsewood, while others present the most beautiful park-like scenery, and a third class expand into grassy marshes or lake-beds, with wooded islets rising out of them. ”

“ In the south-east, near Chittagong, corruption has gone even further, and the local dialect, which is practically a new language, is unintelligible to a man from Western Bengal. Throughout the eastern districts there is a strong tendency to epenthesis, e.g. ”

“ A bar of music is always played first, and at the end the spectators applaud with two short shouts. Their ear for music, and the nature of their dance, are as Tibetan as their countenances, and different from those of the Indo-Chinese tribes of the frontier.
We had the pleasure of meeting Lieutenant Raban at Silchar, and of making several excursions in the neighbourhood with him; for which Colonel Lister here, as at Churra, afforded us every facility of elephants and men. Had we had time, it was our intention to have visited Munnipore, but we were anxious to proceed to Chittagong. ”

“ Dark night had fallen when we alighted at Chittagong. A babu agent awaited us, telegram in hand. Luckily, his superior, an Englishman, had retired to his bungalow. The Hindu led the way to a lighted window and read the message aloud. It was a curt order to 372collect three fares, with never a hint of the unimportant detail we had confided to the superintendent.
The agent, of course, would not be convinced of our indigency. To our every protest he replied unmoved:—
“But you must pay, sahibs.”
“You bloody fool!” shrieked Rice, “How can we pay when we’re busted?” ”

“ It was probably "Khodābakhsh Khān." His territory must have been south of Chittagong, for one of his towns was Chacuriá, still known as Chakirīa on the Chittagong and Arakan Road, in lat. 21° 45′. (See Barros, IV. ii. 8. and IV. ix. 1; and Couto, IV. iv. 10; also Correa, iii. 264–266, and again as below) :—
1533.—"But in the city there was the Rumi whose foist had been seized by Dimião Bernaldes; being a soldier (lascarym) of the King's, and seeing the present (offered by the Portuguese) he said: My lord, these are crafty robbers ”