The Khasis | Page 9

power, brave in action, and have an aversion to falsehood."
Khasis of the interior who have adopted Christianity are generally
cleaner in their persons than the non-Christians, and their women dress
better than the latter and have an air of self-respect about them. The
houses in a Christian village are also far superior, especially where
there are resident European missionaries. Khasis who have become
Christians often take to religion with much earnestness (witness the
recent religious revival in these hills, which is estimated by the Welsh
missionaries to have added between 4,000 and 5,000 converts to
Christianity), and are model Sabbatarians, it being a pleasing sight to
see men, women, and children trooping to church on a Sunday dressed
in their best, and with quite the Sunday expression on their faces one
sees in England. It is a pleasure to hear the sound of the distant church
bell on the hill-side on a Sunday evening, soon to be succeeded by the
beautiful Welsh hymn tunes which, when wafted across the valleys,

carry one's thoughts far away. The Welsh missionaries have done, and
continue to do, an immense amount of good amongst these people. It
would be an evil day for the Khasis if anything should occur to arrest
the progress of the mission work in the Khasi Hills.
Geographical Distribution.
The Khasis inhabit the Khasi and Jaintia Hills, although there are a few
Khasi settlers in the neighbouring plains districts. The Census Report
of 1901 gives the following figures of Khasi residents in the plains:
Cachar 333 Sylbet 3,083 Goalpara 4 Kamrup 191 Darrong 90
Nowgong 29 Sibnagar 62 Lakhimpur 22 Lushai Hills 77 North Cachar
32 Naga Hills 82 Garo Hills 117 Manipur 69
Total 4,091 [11]
The following information regarding the general aspect of the Khasi
and Jaintia Hills district, with some additions, is derived from Sir
William Hunter's Statistical Account of Assam. The district consists
almost entirely of hills, only a very small portion lying in the plains.
The slope of the hills on the southern side is very steep until a
table-land is met with at an elevation of about 4,000 feet at Cherrapunji.
Higher up there is another plateau at Mawphlang. This is the highest
portion of the hills, some villages being found at as high an elevation as
close on 6,000 feet above see level. Fifteen miles to the east of
Mawphlang, and in the same range, is situated the civil station of
Shillong, at an average elevation of about 4,900 feet. The elevation of
the Shillong Peak, the highest hill in the district, is 6,450 feet above sea
level. On the northern side of the hills are two plateaux, one between
1,000 and 2,000 feet below the level of Shillong, and another at an
elevation of about 2,000 feet above sea level. In general features all
these plateaux are much alike, and consist of a succession of undulating
downs, broken here and there by the valleys of the larger hill streams.
In the higher ranges, where the hills have been denuded of forest, the
country is covered with short grass, which becomes longer and more
rank in the lower elevations. This denudation of forest has been largely
due to the wood being used by the Khasis for fuel for iron smelting in

days gone by. The Government, however, has taken steps to protect the
remaining forests from further spoliation. A remarkable feature is the
presence of numerous sacred groves situated generally just below the
brows of the hills. In these woods are to be found principally oak and
rhododendron trees. The fir-tree (Pinus Khasia) is first met with on the
road from Gauhati to Shillong, at Umsning, at an elevation of about
2,500 feet. In the neighbourhood of Shillong the fir grows profusely,
but the finest fir-trees are to be seen in the Jowai sub-division. In the
vicinity of Nongpoh is observed the beautiful nahor or nageswar, the
iron-wood tree. The latter is also to be found on the southern slopes of
the hills in the Jowai sub-division. There are some sal forests to the
west and south of Nongpoh, where the sal trees are almost as large as
those to be found in the Garo Hills. Between Shillong and Jowai there
are forests of oak, the country being beautifully wooded. Chestnuts and
birches are also fairly common. The low hills on the northern and
western sides of the district are clad with dense forests of bamboo, of
which there are many varieties. The Pandanus or screw-pine is to be
met with on the southern slopes. Regarding the geological formation of
the hills, I extract a few general remarks from the Physical and Political
Geography of Assam. The Shillong plateau consists of a great mass of
gneiss, bare on the northern border, where it is