The Khasiya are commonly classed with the neighbouring Synting, Garo, Naga, Kachari, etc., as a subdivision of the Indo-Chinese branch of the human family. The British stations, Shillong, Cherrapunji, and Jowai are the only large places in the Khassya and Jaintia Hills.
The ashes of a tribe are deposited under one vault or in one burial-ground. The remains of man and wife are never mingled, because they belong to different tribes. A husband is there fore in death separated from his wife and children, as the latter belong to the tribe of the mother, and their ashes are deposited with hers.
The climate of Khassya is remarkable for the excessive rainfall. Major Yule stated that in the month of August 1841, 264 inches fell, or 22 feet, and that during five successive days, 30 inches fell in every 24 hours ! Dr. Thomson and Dr. Hooker also recorded 30 inches in one day and night, and during seven months of Dr. Hooker's stay at Cherrapunji, upwards of 500 inches fell, so that the total annual fall perhaps greatly exceeded 600 inches, or 50 feet. From April 1849 to April 1850, 502 inches, or 42 feet, fell. It is reported that in 1861 the total fall at Cherrapunji was 805 inches, 366 of them in July. This unparalleled amount is attributable to the abruptness of the mountains which face the Bay of Bengal, from which they are separated by 200 miles of jhils and sunderbans.
At 4000 to 5000 feet elevation in the Khassya, Dr. Hooker collected upwards of 50 species of Graminem alone, in an eight miles' walk, and 20 to 30 Orchidem. There is only one pine in the Khassya mountains, Pious Sinensis, which is not known as a native of the Himalaya. As in all very humid climates, orchids occur in very great abundance in the Khassya mountains, constituting at least a twelfth part of the vegetation, and being by far the largest natural order of flowering plants.
They are equally abundant at all elevations. There are upwards of twenty kinds of palm in the Khassya district, including Chamxrops, three species of Areca, two of Wallichia, Arenga, Caryota, three of Phoenix, Plectocornia, Licuala, and many species of Calamus. Besides these there are several kinds of Pandanus, and the Cycas pectinate.
Cherrapunji is a sanatorium in the Kbassya Hills, in lat. 15' 58" N., and long. 91° 46' 42" E., 4588 feet above the level of the sea. It is 40 miles north of Sylhet, and 60 miles south from Gowhatty.
The Jaintia Hills, on the other hand, are purely British territory, being a portion of the dominions of the raja of Jaintia annexed in 1835. The first treaty with Jaintia was concluded in 1824. The raja Rain Singh rendered no assistance during the Burmese war, but he agreed to acknowledge allegiance to the British, and his country was taken under protection. The population of the Jaintia and Khassya Hills is about 150,000.
The inhabitants of the Jaintia Hills, who call themselves Synting, have a less interestinghiktory than the Khasiya. They first became British subjects in 1835. In that year, the last rajabf Jaintia, Indra Singh, was deposed, on the charge of complicity with certain of his tribesmen who had carried off three Bengalis, and barbarously im molated them at a shrine of Kali.—Campbell, p. 149; Col. Yule in Bengal Asiatic Journal for 1844; Schlagentzveit's Geizeral Hypsometry of India, pp. 95-98 ; Hooker's Him. Jour. ii. p. 282 ; Lubbock, Origin of Civilisation, p. 21 ; Treaties and Sunnuds ; Dalton's Ethnology.