The quest for a Sanatorium

The quest for a Sanatorium

 

There were two main reasons why the Company came to the Khasi Hills in the first place – one was the need to connect the Brahmaputra valley and the Surma valley by road, the other was to construct a Sanatorium for European troops and invalids.
The search for a Sanatorium started at Nongkhlow and then continued with Myrung, Moflong and finally Cherrapunji. Cherrapunji fulfilled this role for a period, however, its excessive rainfall finally got to the British.

Therefore attempts were made to set up the British Head Quarters in a centrally located place in the Khasi and Jaintia Hills. To prepare the ground for his plan, David Scott deputed a military expert, Lieutenant Thomas Fisher, on a reconnaissance tour of the Khasi highlands. Three spots had been named by competent observers, as likely to fulfil the several conditions required for a sanatary station[1] - of these, two had been particularly described by Fisher, in a letter to David Scott, dated 16 October 1830, in the following terms:

“Though many of the central parts (of the hills) are extremely well calculated for the purpose of cantoning three or four hundred European troops, there are two spots which appear to me, above all others, to deserve a preference. First, the fine plain extending from the hill Chillingdeo to Nongkreem, and which presents a surface of about four or five square miles, unbroken by any undulation, which could not be easily rendered practicable for wheeled carriages.

The total absence of jungle, and even trees, would indicate a poor soil; but the abundance of short rich grass proves; that it is very fit for the Support of cattle. The altitude is probably about 6,200 feet; in winter there are frosts, but it does not appear that snow ever falls.”

Thomas Campbell Robertson[2] (1831–1834) succeeded David Scott as Agent to the Governor General and Commissioner of Assam. In a letter dated 23 July 1832, after returning from a tour with Captain Lister, (who was soon to become the Political Agent), for the express purpose of examining the various sites which had been proposed for occupation by European troops and invalids for a Sanatorium, remarked:

"As the site of any future establishment in the interior, I give the preference to Myrung; Nungklow would perhaps be a better situation with reference to its bearing on Assam, but is liable to mists, does not appear to be very healthy, and is infested with annoying insects. 

There is a site to the eastward of Moleem, which possesses considerable advantages, both as to climate, and extent of table-ground; but it stands in a corner, and is therefore ill situated for a station for troops[3].

This in fact was Fisher's first site, lying between Chilling-deo and Nongkreem.

It was at this juncture in history, that the Welsh Missionaries first set foot in the Khasi Hills. On 22 June 1841, after staying a couple of months in Calcutta, Thomas Jones and Anne Jones of the Welsh Calvinistic Methodists Mission  arrived in Cherrapunjee.  This single event would have a profound effect in the lives of the people of the Khasi and Jaintia Hills.

Sir Henry Yule (1 May 1820 – 30 December 1889) was a Scottish Orientalist[4]. He joined the Bengal Engineers in 1840 and traversed the Khasi Hills in 1844. He noted that the finest view in the Khasia mountains, and perhaps a more extensive one than has ever before been described, was that from Chillong Hill, the culminant point of the range, about 6 miles north-east from the Mauflong bungalow. This hill, 6,660 feet above the sea, rose from an undulating grassy country, covered with scattered trees and occasional clumps of wood, the whole scenery about being park-like, and as little like that of India at so low an elevation as it is possible to be.
 

Less than 30 miles from Cherra Poonjee, east of the road which led from there into Assam, stood the peak of Shillong, the highest known point in the Kassiah and Jynteah Hills[5]. Its height, which had been accurately determined, was 6,449 feet. Sir Joseph Dalton Hooker was one of the greatest British botanists and explorers of the 19th century. Hooker was one of the founders of geographical botany, and Charles Darwin's closest friend. On 11 November 1847, Hooker left England for a three year long Himalayan expedition, which included the Khasi Hills. Hooker described it as probably the most extensive view in the world, embracing an area of not less than 30,000 square miles, from the Munneepoor Hills in the east to the Himalaya on the north and north-west, and far over the plains of Sylhet to the Tipperah Hills on the south.

Yule noted that below this peak to the north lay the plateau which had been recently chosen as part of the site for the new Head Quarter station in the hills[6]. Its general elevation was about 5,900 feet. Some 700 feet below, there was an easy descent to the plateau of Yeodo which formed the other part of the site. On both of these plateaus, and all down the hillside which led to the lower, were beautiful spots for building, and Yule predicted that in time this would be one of the finest hill stations in India. The supply of water was abundant, and it was stated that by merely damming up one of the streams, at a small expense, a lake could be made as large as that of Nynee Tal. The rainfall, which was the serious drawback in parts of these hills, was comparatively light and probably less by three-fourths than that at Cherra Poonjee.

Yule further described that further to the north were long tracts of rolling moorland[7], still diversified by river valleys. This was the general nature of the country about Shillong, and Yeodo was an instance of the flat-bottomed valley. On these moorlands one could often ride for miles without ascending or descending more than 100-200 feet. From Moflong (where about 18 miles from Cherra, the traveller first came across these wider plateaus) the road for 9 miles to Shillong lay over such a moorland and along it there was nowhere a dip of more than 60-70 feet.

Yule reported that the country afforded space for occupation which was not available in the hills on the North West frontier. He believed that it would provide admirable pasturage for sheep, as there were cattle in plenty in the finest and sleekest condition. Potatoes[8] and other edible roots were even then grown abundantly. The soil looked promising for cereals of all descriptions, and he looked forward to the time when smiling English homesteads (the little detached Kassiah villages on the slopes reminded him very much of small English farms) would rise along the gentle slopes, and when “the valleys shall stand so thick with corn that they shall laugh and sing”. 

Yule also noted that almost everywhere stone was easily workable and admirably suited for building purposes. Slate and limestone were abundant, as was coal which might profitably be brought to market. Two roads had already commenced from Shillong, one leading to Sylhet and one to Gowhatty in Assam, and everything promised fair for the new station.

By the middle of the 19th century, a number of Muslims from Sylhet inhabited the Shella-Cherrapunji. The earliest economically better-placed Muslim settlers of Cherrapunji were two businessmen - the father and son pair of Golam Hyder Mollah and Kasimuddin Mollah. They began their journey from the village of Janai in Hoogly district of Bengal, travelled over water route through Goalando (then a major interchange for trains and steamers, now in Bangladesh) and reached Chhatak, a sub-divisional town in northern Sylhet along the river Surma. From there, the duo trekked their way to Sohra around 1849. Hydar came in quest of business as a ‘Boxwallah’[9]. There they started their business concern on a small scale, dealing with various commodities of daily use[10].

Towards the end of Hooker’s expedition, while travelling in the Khasi Hills in 1850, he declared that the finest view in the Khasia mountains, and perhaps a more extensive one than has ever been described, was that from Chillong hill[11], the culmination point of the range, about 6 miles north-east from Moflong bungalow. This hill, 6,600 feet above the sea, rose from an undulating grassy country, covered with scattered trees and occasional clumps of wood, the whole scenery about being park-like.

Hooker visited Chillong in October 1850 with Lieutenant Cave (the Assistant Political Agent at Churra at that time), starting from Churra, and reaching the bungalow, 2 miles from its top, the same night, with 2 relays of ponies, which Cave had kindly provided. They were unfortunate in not obtaining a brilliant view of the snowy mountains, their tops being partially clouded. Northward, beyond the rolling Khasia Hills, lay the whole Assam valley, 70 miles broad, with the Burrampooter winding through it, 50 miles distant, reduced to a thread.

Beyond this, banks of hazy vapour obscured all but the dark range of the lower Himalaya, crested by peaks of frosted silver, at the immense distance of 100-220 miles from Chillong. All were below the horizon of the observer, yet so false was the perspective, that they seemed high in the air. The mountains occupied 60 degrees of the horizon, and stretched over 250 miles, comprising the greatest extent of snow visible from any point that Hooker was acquainted with.

Westward from Chillong the most distant Garo Hills visible were about 40 miles off, and eastwards those of Cachar, which were loftier and were about 70 miles away. To the south the view was limited by the Tipperah Hills, which to the south-west lay the sea like Gangetic delta, whose horizon, lifted by refraction, must have been fully 120 degrees. The extent of this view was therefore over 340 miles in one direction, and the visible horizon of the observer encircled an area of fully 30,000 square miles, which was greater than that of Ireland.

Hooker noted that scarlet-flowered rhododendron bushes covered the north side of Chillong, while the south was grassy and quite bare. The north side skirted a wood of prickly bamboo, in which grew fig, laurel, wild cinnamon and 3 kinds of oak.

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[1]Report on the Eastern Frontier of British India, Captain Robert Boileau Pemberton, Surveyor General's Department, Late Joint Commissioner in Muneepoor, Calcutta, 1 September 1835.

[2] Thomas Campbell Robertson (9 November 1789–6 July 1863) was a British civil servant of Bengal Civil Service in India. In 1825 he served as Agent to the Governor General in Arakan, Burma and in 1826 he was the British Political Officer there. In 1826 he was Civil Commissioner in Pegu and Ava when the Treaty of Yandaboo was signed on 24 February 1826. In 1832 he was the Agent to the Governor General on the North East Frontier Agency. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Campbell_Robertson.

[3]This is Captain Fisher's first site, lying between the Chillingdeo hill and Nongkreem.-Robert Baillieu Pamberton.

[4]In 1886, he co-authored Hobson-Jobson, a dictionary of Anglo-Indian colloquial phrases.

[5]The Calcutta Review, vol xxxviii, 1863, R.C. Lepage and Co., Calcutta, Pg.264. Notes on the Khasi Hills and People. By Lieutenant H. Yule, Bengal Engineers. “Journal of the Asiatic Society” No. CLII. 1844. Calcutta.

[6]The Calcutta Review, vol xxxviii, 1863. Henry Yule’s original article of 1844 must have been updated in 1863.

[7]Ibid.

[8]David Scott introduced the humble potato to the Khasi Hills in 1830.

[9]Boxwallahs were small-scale travelling merchant peddlers of the time in British India. They were known as boxwallahs because of the large boxes in which they carried their merchandise (usually clothes and costume jewelry), though the term has been known to be applied to any travelling peddler and also to people involved in business and commercial activities.

[10]Sengupta, Sutapa. & Dhar, Bibhash. & North-East India Council for Social Science Research.  2004,  Shillong : a tribal town in transition / editors, Sutapa Sengupta, Bibhas Dhar  Reliance Pub. House, New Delhi : Choudhury, J.N., The Khasi Canvas, cited in Saifun Nessa, p. 191.

[11]Himalayan Journals: or, Notes of a Natutalist in Bengal, The Sikkim and Nepal Himalayas, The Khasia Mountains, etc. By Joseph Dalton Hooker, Volume 2. John Murray, London, 1854.