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September
2004
COMMUNICATIONS
AND TRANSPORT
In more recent years visitors to the, tea districts of Assam gained the
impression that amongst the resident planting community there were
only two topics of conversation-motor cars and tea. The former did not
take precedence over the vital question of producing quality and
quantity, but to possess a car that would negotiate what roads did
exist was something worth talking about, for it meant neighbours
could be visited and the weekly club
day attended. Older residents of the more isolated gardens have painful
recollections of what it was to be marooned on their gardens for
months in the rains, through the roads being impassable for any means
of conveyance they possessed.
With the metalling
of roads throughout the Province this topic of conversation has tended
gradually to assume less importance, but it may be of interest to
remind those who know present-day means of transport only, of the
conditions which existed when tea was first put out.
The original Commission of Enquiry set up by Lord William Bentinck in
1834 to ascertain the possibilities of growing tea in Assam took, on
their voyage in 1835, about four and a half months to reach Sadiya
from Calcutta. The whole journey was made by country boat up the
Brahmaputra
.
But in those days, even, people spoke of some improvement having been
made in communications, though it was admitted that they were very bad
still.
The post from
Calcutta
was carried via Murshidabad, Malda, Dinapur, Rangpur to Dhubri, but this
route was almost impassable in the rains to the dak runners, even. The
only means of travel then was by river.
The journey down stream from Goalpara to Calcutta occupied from
25 to 30 days, and in the opposite direction eight days longer
probably, but to gain an idea of the time taken for heavier craft,
there is an account that at the time of the Burmese Wax in 1825, when
supplies for the army were urgently required, a fleet of commissariat
boats took 25 days to make their tedious way from Goalpara to Nagabera,
a distance of about 30 miles, and as the chonicler comments, "
there was no remarkable wind to impede their progress."
It is not recorded how long it took for the river journey only, or from
which station the first consignment of tea was despatched, but what is
regarded as the first shipment, that of eight chests comprising a
total of 350 lb., was forwarded from Assam on May 8, 1838, and was
sold in London on January 10, 1839.
Within the Province itself, in 1853, carts and carriages were unknown and
the roads were few and bad. The two great trunk roads which
run now east and west along both banks of the
Brahmaputra
had not at that time been commenced.
In 1859, when the
Jorehaut Company was formed, the only means of transport to and from
Assam
was by river
steamer.
It
was the necessity for accelerating the transport of troops and their
supplies, for there remained after the Burmese war much pacification
work for the military authorities to do, which caused Government to
establish, about 1847, a steamer service on the Brahmaputra. At first
these boats ran at very uncertain intervals and they did not proceed
beyond Gauhati. The Assam Company petitioned Government for an
improvement in this service, and they asked only that there should be
a regular monthly service to Gauhati, and in alternate months a
steamer to go the whole way to Dibrugarh.
This
service proved very soon to be wholly inadequate for the then small
but expanding needs of the industry_ The accommodation was inadequate
on the upward journey, particularly for the large numbers of urgently
needed coolies being imported then for work on the estates.
When Mr. William Roberts went out to
India
, in 1859, to take
over the newly-purchased properties of the Company, he reported to the
Board that he, in
collaboration with others who had
interests in
Assam
, were making efforts
to form, a " Steam Company " for the navigation of the
" Berhampooter ".
The
Calcutta
agent in a letter
to the Board dated September, 1860, reported that the India General
Steam Company had arranged to despatch a steamer and flat to Dibrugarh
every six weeks during the cold weather. This suggests that formerly
sailings in the cold weather months, when owing to lower water in the
river and consequent greater difficulty in navigation, the steamers
ran only at longer intervals. This reference to the India General
'Steam Navigation Co. Ltd., in 1860, does not date the inception of
that Company, its steamers had been operating in other parts of India
since about 1844. It does show, however, that this was the first
Steamer Company to cater for the tea industry's traffic on the
Brahmaputra
.
The Jorehaut Company possessed its own iron boats or flats. These were
used not only for shipment of tea from the garden to the ghat or
steamer station, but were taken in tow by the steamer to
Calcutta
. These boats would
appear to have been of very similar type to the flats used today,
though much smaller. Four new boats ordered in 1864 were 55 feet long
by 9 feet 6 inches wide and 3 feet 6 inches deep, with curved
corrugated iron roofs. One gathers something of their capacity from a
report from the
Calcutta
agent in 1862,
that he had received advice from Cinnamara of the despatch of 200
chests of tea by one of the Company's iron boats.
The
Company had its own iron boats at Numaligarh up to 1898, though it was
reported then that of the three existing boats one only was in fairly
good order, the second required constant repairs and the third was not
worth repairing. As it was decided to keep only the one
boat and sell the others, it is presumed that it was not long
afterwards that any boating that was necessary was arranged with local
boatmen.
The difficulties of
getting a season's crop transported then. compared with present-day
facilities, is seen from a letter written by the Superintendent in
April, 1863, to the Managing Director, in which he explains why, at
that date, there remained still at Oating some of the teas of 1862
season.
•• I regret to say that
owing to the shallowness of the
Dhanseerra and the difficulty of procuring small boats of which to make 'mahs' s ' a considerable portion of the
teas still remain at Oating, and it has been
thought advisable to
retain what had already reached Numaligarh so as to make one shipment of the whole, to prevent confusion. As we have had heavy rain since the Ist, the river will most likely have risen high enough to admit of the iron boat going up to Gola Ghat and that the ' Lucknow,'
advertised to leave Calcutta on the 9th instant will take all."
The
minute books do not give the necessary detail to follow up the final
disposal of Oating teas of 1862, but as the " Lucknow "
would have had to make the trip up to Dibrugarh and
back to Dhunsirimukh before picking up the consignment, it can be
presumed that after arrival at Calcutta, with a sea voyage to
undertake stilt of not less than three months by sailing ship via the
Cape, it could not have been much before August, 1863, that the teas
reached London !
Before
turning to other means of communication within the Company's
gardens, it is as well to recount all its connections with the river
service, that vital lifeline between the Province .and the world
outside. It was the Province's first line of communication and even
though other and more rapid lines have developed since, these have at
times broken down, but the river just goes rolling along. From the
earliest days how many planters have not blessed a trip on the river
for a day or a week or even more, to rid them of the aftermath of a
dose of malaria, or other evils to which their flesh is heir.
Until the advent of better means of conveyance to the more
salubrious climate of some far away hill station, the planter, after
sickness, had only the river and its service as a means of
recuperation.
What
planter has not experienced, after the heat and sweat of the daily
Kamjari on the garden in the rains, the enjoyment of a long sleever on
the deck of a river steamer, soothed back to renewed energy by the
cool breeze, the chug of the paddles and the sound of the leadsman's
" Tin bahm, milah nai ! " (Three fathoms and no bottom.) To
say nothing of the welcome change of food, and in earlier days the
luxury of an iced drink, which the commissariat department of the
steamers was able to provide.
There
would appear to have been competition for some years to secure the
industry's carrying business on the Brahmaputra, for in 1862 the
Calcutta Agent refers to a consignment of 150 chests of tea arriving
by the Cleghorn's steamer " Berhamputer ".
Although the India General Steam Navigation CO.
Ltd., was the first in the field, it
is to be noted that the Jorehaut Company made the first agreement for
the carriage of its teas and stores in 1869 with the River Steam
Navigation Co. Ltd. This
steamer company offered reduced rates in consideration of the whole
of the Jorehaut Company's goods being reserved for the boats of that
company, provided no delay occurs in the despatch of their steamers,
the agreement was for a period of two years.
The
Company's books do not mention the agreements that were made
subsequently until 1887. The Board had before them for consideration
two proposals-one emanating from a new steamer company lately formed
for building steamers and fiats and for establishing a new line of
steamers on the " Bramapooter " River-the other made by the
two associated steamer companies who have been. established for many
years. The Managing Director was authorised to sign an agreement
with the India General Steam Navigation Co. Ltd., and River Steam
Navigation Co. Ltd., for a period of five years from July 1, 1888.
Apart from showing that the Company supported then the two associated
lines which have today the monopoly of the industry's river traffic, '
it indicates that the two companies had come to that joint working
arrangement years previously to 1887, and that they had then and
continued to have for some years, competition from other companies.
One presumes that the
original and older steamers were the sternwheel paddle type, but
there were attempts at record-breaking nevertheless, for in a letter
dated June 22, 1861, from the Managing Director, when he was in
Calcutta, to the Board, he reports that the Steamer " Madras
" had returned from Assam, having accomplished the upward and
downward trip, presumably to Gauhati only, in 37 days, including
stoppages.
With a view to
accelerating their service the steamer companies, in 1863, made
Kooshtea the terminus for their
Assam
cargoes, the rest of
the journey to
Calcutta
being done by railway. This was not a successful arrangement, however,
for the rough handling the chests received in transhipment caused much
damage. The carriage of tea direct to
Calcutta
was reverted to in
May, 1864. This latter arrangement had the advantage that on occasion
consignments could be loaded direct from the inland steamer or fiat
into the sailing ship lying in the Hoogly at
Calcutta
.
In old letters there
is nothing to be found in confirmation of stories one has heard of the
lavish hospitality of the captains of these inland steamers, or of the
lucrative trading they did with the communities at the different
stations on the river. For many years after the formation of the
River Steamer Companies their vessels were commanded by European
skippers. In those days it would seem that the captain was responsible
for the proper handling of his cargos- for presumably there were no
stevedores at the main river stations or at the terminus. One gathers
this from complaints made by Mr. James McIntosh, the Superintendent in
1863, who blamed the commander of the '' Agra " for damage to his
chests, which damage he remarked did not occur on steamers commanded
by Captain Morton of the " Lucknow ".
Amongst
the property belonging to Cinnamara when the Company purchased it from
George Williamson, there was what is described as " Also, a plot
of land situated at the mouth of the Kokelah Nuddy, on the bank of the
' Berhampooter ' River, containing about three acres, held from
Government under the usual annual rent-paying pottah, or lease, with a
storehouse erected thereon." One
has to admire the vision displayed by George Williamson, senior, in
providing thus, some
ten miles from his garden, a depot for the unloading of his
stores inwards and for the collection of his invoices of tea outwards.
It would be interesting to know if this was the site of the
Kokilamukh
River
station today, but
knowing the vagaries of the banks of the
Brahmaputra
,
that land may not exist or
may be miles away from what is the station now.
Considering
the intricacies of navigating the hundreds of miles of the
Brahmaputra
it is remarkable that there were so few accidents. In the first 35
years of the Jorehaut Company's existence, only, three
losses are reported. The first was mentioned in the Agent's letter of
February 7, 1862
, that the fiat
" Mutlah " in tow of the steamer "
Madras
" struck
against the rocks seven miles above Gowhatty, there were on board 175
chests of Cinnamara and 12 chests of Kohabar teas.
Of these consignments 83 chests were salved and, although the
tea was partly damaged, it sold in
Calcutta
for nearly a rupee a pound. The insurance company in
London
settled the claim
eventually at about 2s. 6d. a pound.
In
1891 the fiat " Nizam " in tow of the steamer "
Mirzapore " was lost with about 8,000 chests of tea, of which 210
chests belonged to the Company. On this occasion the value of the loss
was recovered at about 1s. a pound.
The
third
occasion was in 1894, when the flat " Borendra " was totally
destroyed by fire when at Naraingunge---the Company lost 762 chests,
the value of which was recovered at about 1s. I 1/2d. per lb.
INTERNAL
COMMUNICATIONS
To
turn from the river itself to other means of communication and
transport between the Company's gardens and its neighbours, it is
necessary to go back to the original prospectus of the Company to find
what was provided in the way of stock-in-trade for the transport of
man and goods.
Cinnamara possessed three good elephants and two
elephant carts. At Numaligarh there were elephants, elephant carts,
bullocks, ponies and boats.
That such conveyances were not provided at Koliabar and
Oating is to be accounted for by the fact that the former garden has
at its door the river steamer station of Silghat and the latter relied
upon the
Dhunsiri
River
for the transport of its teas via Golaghat. Numaligarh was nearer to
the Dhunsiri than even Oating and eight miles only from Dhunsirimukh,
but its more varied complement of means of transport had been acquired
probably to deal with the cultivation of sugar which had been carried
on there previously.
Of the elephant carts there is no description, or a
statement of what was their capacity in chests of tea per trip, but at
the outset this was for Cinnamara the only means of getting tea to the
river for onward despatch to
Calcutta
and
London
.
It must have been a painfully
slow and cumbersome process to get an invoice to Kokilamukh -invoices
of 200 chests were not an uncommon size even in 1860. Elephant carts
were superseded by bullock carts, though elephants were used for
hauling timber out of the forests and were a part of an estate's
property for many years.
In 1896 the Superintendent reported that the Company's elephant "
]onakie " which was used for dragging logs for sawing purposes
had had to be destroyed.
In 1898 in reporting the death, which was presumed to be from
snake bite, of one of the other elephants belonging to the Company,
Mr. Showers proposed to replace it with another one if it could be
procured at a moderate price.
.
Good
elephants, however, were not available often, and this difficulty was
experienced as early as 1865. This is to be learnt from a letter to
the Board dated
October
17, 1865
,
from Mr. G. B. Stevens, the Superintendent this letter gives also a
hint of the transition to the use of bullock traction and to the
coming of the pony and buggy.
"
As I find it impossible to procure elephants, I purpose purchasing a
few pair of up-country bullocks, four pair I estimate will do the work
of one or two Cart Elephants, these will be then available for
bringing in timber and other purposes.
One cart as a 'muster' and wheels we shall require from
Calcutta, the other carts that may be wanted can be made up here, as
roads are opening out and getting more passable yearly, an extra cart
or two will always be useful in bringing in tea from the out
factories, charcoal, etc., etc.
"
The bullocks I shall be able to obtain, I think, at some of the melas
held in the neighbourhood of Rungpore in the cold weather.
"
I hope you will approve of this. In
a former letter you asked about two horses sent up by Mr. Williamson
some years ago, one was sent to Numalligarh, but I learn that soon
after its arrival there it went in the loins, was found useless and
was sold by Mr. Lumsden, the assistant at Numaligarh for Rs.l 00, this
sum was no doubt credited in the factory books; the other one died
there only the other day, for a long time, I understand, it had been
next to useless and both were old horses when sent up.
The roads and bridges being looked after and kept in better order than
formerly, horses and ponies are much more common in
Assam
than they used to
be,
and generally speaking, with moderate care and attention, stand the
climate very well. In the rains it is only along the high roads and
not always then, these animals can be used, across country an elephant
is absolutely indispensable."
Where
means of transport affected the Company's business there is some
reference to it in the minutes, but nothing is recorded about the mode
of employees' conveyance either for their convenience or for their
work on the garden. With the cutting of more roads throughout the
Province, though they were so often little better than mud tracks, the
bullock cart became for several years the chief and in many cases the
only means of transport of merchandise between the gardens and the
river, or the railway terminus, and on this account perhaps further
mention of it is not made. For
the second reason there is nothing mentioned of the pony and buggy
except in 1884, when the Company discontinued the practice of
supplying and maintaining horses and
granted their managers and assistants a horse allowance of Rs.30
monthly. It may have been this which fostered that friendly rivalry
between individuals to possess, when the very necessary commission
was forthcoming, the best horses in the district and. for the senior
men the best turn-out in which to visit neighbours and the Club.
Polo must have been introduced when ponies and horses
became general. The Company-has encouraged their members
always to take up this king of games and has done more to keep
it alive in recent years than many other proprietors. The advent of
the motor car, and those periods when there was not much commission
with which managers and assistants could buy ponies, threatened to
eliminate the game from the Province where it had found such favour
originally. The Company's scheme to advance money to their men for the
purchase of ponies has done good, not only for the sake of the game,
but for the physical well-being of the men themselves.
It is difficult to state, without fear of argument, when
the first motor car made its appearance in
Assam
,
who introduced it and what was the make of car. It has been said,
however, that the honour goes to Mr. Newton Gill, a planter then on
the North Bank, who in 1904--5 brought his Darracq to
Assam
.
Mr. Newton Gill gave up tea planting and became subsequently a local
agent with the Tea Districts Labour Association. The ubiquitous Ford
or " Tin Lizzie " was for a long time the only vehicle which
could negotiate the ruts and potholes of the soft
Assam
roads. Now, with metalled roads and pucca bridges over the innumerable
streams, any make of car or lorry practically can traverse the length
and breadth of the Province.
Before this advance in means of conveyance was attained,
however, there had appeared novelties on the roads of
Assam
,
even, which included the planter who had his coach and four. Whilst
there is the story of this Company's Superintendent who, to save time
and what probably appealed also to his Scotch ancestry, money, had
mattresses and his bedding put on a bullock cart and was driven all
night at a leisurely two miles an hour to his out-gardens. The story
is embellished by the report that one of his own assistants, driving
his car home from the club one night, met this entourage, which
refused to move to the side of the road to let him pass, so he got out
of his car, beat the driver for his insolence and drove the bullock
cart and all into the dhan-ket and drove on ? It was not until the
assistant arrived at his own bungalow that he discovered that the
bullock cart contained also his supply of soda-water. So for that
night. or what was left of it, he had to do without more "
belati-pani " with which
to quench his thirst!
****************************************
SHIPPING
An account of the development of communications, should
continue perhaps with that of the advent of the tramway and railways
in the Province, but as they were much later in point of date,
precedence should perhaps be given to the mention first of shipping
from Calcutta to London.
The factor which stands out most in comparing the early
days of tea with the present, is the matter of the time taken between
the date of making the tea and its arrival on the
London
market. One would be disposed at first to blame this to the long sea
voyage by sailing ship via the
Cape
.
A further examination of the facts shows, however, that delay was
occasioned chiefly by the garden's inability to make its boxes in
proportion to its rate of tea production-a garden was making a new
season's teas before it had finished packing the previous year's crop.
Transport to the despatching station on the river, of tea that had
been packed, was the next delaying factor.
These delays before the teas were put on board the sailing.
ship in the Hoogly, are appreciated best from the
Calcutta
agent's letter to the Managing Director of
February 18, 1862
,
in which he
advised that with a shipment he had made at that date there had been
completed the despatch of half the crop of season 1861. Writing on
July 11, 1863, the Superintendent advised that he had then shipped,
from Assam, the first of that season's crop, that is, tea made in
March-April, for in those days a larger proportion of the crop was
produced in the first flushing months of the. season. This, it is to
be noted, was an accelerated despatch, for in acknowledging his advice
the Managing Director remarked that this early despatch was of much
importance in many ways!As an indication of the total time taken, the
first invoices of the Company's teas of season 1862, a consignment of
605 chests, was sold in
London
on
May 5, 1863
.
About 14 months after the date of production
The average voyage by sailing ship from
Calcutta
to
London
,
via the
Cape
, took four
months. In a letter to the Superintendent in 1862, the Managing
Director advised that the " Areta " had arrived with 387
chests of tea after a long passage of nearly five months. In a letter
dated January 11, 1864, there is reported the arrival on November 23,
of the " City of Cashmere " with 100 chests, after a very
rapid voyage of a little over three months from the Sandheads.
There is no romance attached to these tea ships from
Calcutta
to
London
,
such as there was to the
China
tea clippers. The first
mention of an ocean steamer is in 1861, when a consignment of
corrugated iron was shipped by " screw steamer " to
Calcutta
this material was for rebuilding the Numaligarh factory which had been destroyed by
fire.
Steamers in those days were not so reliable as sailing
ships and accomplished the round voyage, via the
Cape
,
from
Calcutta
no faster. The s.s. " Jason " left
Calcutta
early in March, 1862, at about the same
time as the sailing ship "
Marlborough
,"
both. carrying some of the Company's teas. The "
Marlborough
" docked at
London
on July 4, and the s.s. " Jason " berthed at the Victoria
Docks on the 10th. It is to be noted, however, that the Managing
Director, in his letter to the agents of July 26, advising the arrival
of these teas, mentioned that the s.s. " Jason " was ashore
an the Western Coast of
Africa
and that there was likely to be an average statement.
The Jorehaut
Company were quick to take advantage of the opening of the Suez Canal
in November, 1869, as a means of getting their crops home earlier, and
on January 5, 1870, a cable was sent to the agents to " ship all
Jorehaut teas via Suez Canal, freight not exceeding four pounds."
To this the agents replied on January 18, asking that the necessary
insurance be effected on a consignment of 400 chests which they had
shipped in the s.s. "
India
" by that route.
Though this first shipment through the Canal was by
steamship, consigments continued to arrive by sail for some years
afterwards, for in 1870, and up to May, 1871, there is record of only
one other shipment, in addition to the above, by steamer and that was
238 chests in the s.s. " Hotspur."
The steamer was made more use of on the outward voyage for new
assistants. Dr. Stobie and Mr. Huttmann, when they event out to join
their respective appointments with the Company, sailed together in the
s.s. " Euphrates," on August 19, 1863, from Greenock, via the
Cape.
This ship was scheduled to reach
Calcutta
by the end of October -it did not arrive at that port, however, until
December.
Letters between
London
and
India
appear to have been very consistent in the time taken for the journey.
Many of the earlier letters in 1859 did take two months to reach
London, but in the early 1860's the average time for letters from
Calcutta to London was a month, and from Assam six or seven weeks.
Before the opening of the
Suez
Canal
there were two mails a month_ They went alternately, one
by P. & O. steamer from
Calcutta
to
Suez
,
from there by rail to
Alexandria
,
where they were transhipped to a steamer for
London
.
The other went by railway from
Calcutta
to
Bombay
and from the latter port by steamer to
Suez
and then onwards. The railway had not then been completed across the
whole of
India
.
On the
Calcutta
side it had been built as far as
Nagpur
,
from whence the mails were taken by dak runner over the 150 mile break
to the terminus for their onward carriage to
Bombay
by rail.
Delays
in the arrival of letters by this route were due, it would appear,
more to the defects of the steamers than to the hazards of the journey
performed by the dak runners and the railway across
India
.
Writing on
January
5, 1864
, the agents reported that owing to the steamer with the
mail of November 26, having broken down in the
Red
Sea
, the Managing Director's letter had not reached
Calcutta
,
but that his letter of
December
3, 1863
, via
Bombay
,
had reached them that morning
Mr. Robert B. Pringle,
when he went out to join the Company's service in 1862, travelled by
the overland route; he left
Southampton
on September 3 and arrived at Cinnamara on November 30.
Dr. William Durrant also, when he went out in 1865
by this route, took two months exactly for the journey to Cinnamara.
Considering the
length of the voyage and the number of trips that were
made in carrying the Company's produce, the recorded losses and damage
to sailing ships
was remarkably small.
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