A Descriptive Account of Asam: with a Sketch of the Local Geography, and a Concise History of the Tea-Plant of Asam: to which is added, a Short Account of the Neighbouring Tribes, exhibiting their History, Manners, and Customs.
Year: 1841
Edition: First edition
Publisher: Calcutta; Ostell and Lepage
Category: Asia
Blue cloth slipcase containing the text volume, 8vo., pp. xv, 421 and a custom made solander box containing four maps. Both the text volume and the solander box bound in matching blue morocco gilt. The spines divided in six compartments by five raised, gilt bands with the titles in the second and third compartments. The other compartments richly decorated in gilt.
Though rebound in modern blue morocco a beautiful copy of an extremely rare publication.
The text volume deals with such matters as the climate of Assam, its natural geography, botany and zoology. There is an ample description of the teaplant, its history and its civil and social state. The various tribes in this region are described, such as the Butias, Akas, Duphlas, Miris, the Naga tribes, etc. etc.
The four large maps originally were bound within the text, but, due to their size, varying from approx. 46 x 60 cm up to 60 x 80 cm, have been placed in the matching solander box. They have been laid down on archival tissue and the folds have been strengthened with linen.
One map is a general map of Assam, the other three maps cover the Zilla of Kamroop, the Zilla of Durrung and Nowgong.
The historian William Robinson is the author of A Grammar of Assamese Language (1839). William Robinson mastered the Mising Language and the Dafla language too. He wrote Notes on the Daflas and the Peculiarities of Their Language and was the first man to attempt to write a grammar on the Mising Language for institutional purpose. His A short outline of Miri (Mising) grammar was published in the March issue of Journal of Asiatic Society of Bengal in 1849.
Both the text volume and the map volume are crisp and clean.
Extremely rare with just one record in ABPC and RBH (our copy).
Yakushi (1994) R267.
Click on a picture to enlarge.
