cal charge of the district, including
the former dominions in the hills of the Raja of Jaintia, which he
voluntarily relinquished in 1835 on the confiscation of his territory
in the plains.

Cherrapunji, celebrated as the place which has the greatest measured
rainfall on the globe, became a popular station, and the discovery
of coal there, and at several other places in the hills, attracted
to it many visitors, some of whom published accounts of the country
and people. The first detailed description was apparently that of the
Rev. W. Lish, a Baptist missionary, which appeared in a missionary
journal in 1838. In 1840 Capt. Fisher, an officer of the Survey
Department, published in the Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal
[7] an account which showed that the leading characteristics of the
Khasi race had already been apprehended; he mentions the prevalence of
matriarchy or mother-kinship, notes the absence of polyandry, except
in so far as its place was taken by facile divorce, describes the
religion as a worship of gods of valleys and hills, draws attention to
the system of augury used to ascertain the will of the gods, and gives
an account of the remarkable megalithic monuments which everywhere
stud the higher plateaus. He also recognizes the fact that the Khasis
as a race are totally distinct from the neighbouring hill tribes. In
1841 Mr. W. Robinson, Inspector of Schools in Assam, included an
account of the Khasis in a volume on that province which was printed
at Calcutta. In 1844 Lieut. Yule (afterwards Sir Henry Yule) published
in the Journal of the Bengal Asiatic Society [8] a much more detailed
description of the hills and their inhabitants than had been given
by Fisher. This formed the basis of many subsequent descriptions, the
best known of which is the attractive account contained in the second
volume of Sir Joseph Hooker's _Himalayan Journals_ [9] published
in London in 1854. Sir Joseph visited Cherrapunji in June 1850,
and stayed in the hills until the middle of the following November.

Meanwhile the Welsh Calvinistic Methodist Mission, originally
located at Sylhet, had extended their operations to Cherrapunji,
and in 1842 established a branch there. They applied themselves to
the study of the Khasi language, for which, after a trial of the
Bengali, they resolved to adopt the Roman character. Their system of
expressing the sounds of Khasi has since that time continued in use,
and after sixty years' prescr