30

INDIA

is called the “New Dominion,” or even on the Hindu
Kush, the line of perpetual snow is very much higher.
From the hills encircling Kabul it is not unusual in the
late summer and early autumn to look northward without
seeing snow at all. This is due to the comparatively
dry atmosphere of the Trans-Himalayan districts which
precludes the formation of snow in spite of the intense
severity of the cold. These regions are beyond monsoon
influences, as will be explained hereafter, and it is only
the southern slopes of the Himalayas, which face the
moisture-laden currents of the south-west monsoon, that
retain the snow to comparatively low altitudes.
Within the Himalayan region we have a subdivision
into districts which are directly under British administration,
 and districts which are under their own local rulers
called “ native states,” just as we have them in the plains
of the Indian peninsula. By far the greater part of the
Himalayas are, however, under independent government.
In Assam, on the extreme south-east, we only hold the
skirts of the hills south of Bhutan which is entirely
beyond our political control. We hold two military
posts, one at Buxa and the other at Dewangiri, which
were acquired by us at the close of the Bhutan campaign
in 1865, both of which are on the lower spurs of the
Himalayas and separated from the Brahmaputra by about
fifty miles of densely forest-clad plains called the Duars.
Assam itself consists of the long, narrow, sub-Himalayan
plains bordering the Brahmaputra, and of the irregular and
broken plateaux held by Khasias, Nagas, &amp;c., which extend
southwards for one hundred miles from the river. With
Bhutin we endeavoured to establish political relations
in 1863, but the attempt ended in failure, and a desul.
tory and unsatisfactory campaign followed, which suff
ciently proved the impossibility of moving a large armed
force through the uncertain tracks and byways which lead
from the plains to the capital of Bhutan at Punakha,
Since then Bhutin has been left alone. West of Bhutin
lies the small state of Sikkim, on the southern edge of

! Chinese Turkestan or Kashgaria.