A History of Assam c24.3

c24.3

DURING the century for which Assam has been under British rule and enjoyed the blessings of a settled Government, its material prosperity has increased rapidly. Its trade has grown, and its exports of mustard seed, potatoes (introduced in the Khāsi hills by David Scott), silk and other local produce have increased greatly, both in quantity and value. A large part of the lime used in Bengal is supplied from the quarries on the southern face of the Khāsi hills. Coal has been discovered and worked in various parts, especially in the neighbourhood of Mākum in the Lakhimpur district; and mineral oil has been found at Digboi in the same district, where wells have been sunk for its extraction. But by far the most important factor in the growing prosperity and commercial importance of the province has been the remarkable expansion of the tea industry. The discovery that the tea plant grows wild in the upper part of the Brahmaputra valley was made by Mr. Robert Bruce, who has already been mentioned as an agent, first of Purandar Singh, and afterwards of his rival Chandrakānt. He visited Garhgaon for trading purposes in 1823 and there learnt of its existence from a Singpho chief, who promised to obtain some specimens for him. In the following year, these were made over to his brother, Mr. C. A. Bruce, who had left England in 1809 as a midshipman on a ship belonging to the East India Company, and who, on the outbreak of the Burmese war, volunteered for service and was sent up to Sadiya in command of a division of gun boats. Some of the plants thus obtained were submitted to David Scott, by whom they were forwarded to the Superintendent of the Botanical Gardens, Calcutta, for examination. They were pronounced to be of the same family, but not the same species, as the plant from which the Chinese manufacture their tea.