A History of Assam c12.152

c12.152

"In all the past ages no foreign king could lay the hand of conquest on the skirt of this country, and no foreigner could treat it with the foot of invasion. Narrow are the gates by which outsiders can enter or issue from this country, and lame are the feet on which its natives can go to other countries. Their kings neither allow foreigners to enter their land, nor permit any of their own subjects to go out of it. Formerly once a year, by order of the Raja, a party used to go for trade to their frontier near Gauhāti; they gave gold, musk, aloe wood, pepper, spikenard and silk cloth in exchange for salt, saltpetre, sulphur and certain other products of India which the people of Gauhāti used to take thither. In short every army that entered this country made its exits from the realm of life; every caravan that set foot on this land deposited its baggage of residence in the halting place of death. In former times whenever an army turned towards this country for raid and conquest, as soon as it reached the frontier, the wretches made night attacks on it. If success did not dawn on the night of their enterprise, they used to drive away to the hills the peasantry along the route of invasion, leaving not a man to inhabit a house or kindle a fire in that tract. The invaders neglecting caution and watchfulness, reached the centre of the country after passing unobstructed roads full of danger, raging torrents and frightful valleys covered with deadly forests. And by reason of the distance, the winter expired on the way and the rainy season began. The wretches, descending from the hill tops like a flood, invested the army on all sides. As the saying is, "to mud tear drops are abundance of water," if two drops of rain fall on this moist land, movement becomes impossible. So that imprudent army on being besieged, has no power left to confront and repel the enemy, and grows weaker through failure to procure supplies of food, and is soon exterminated or taken prisoner.