140

Report on Kála-ázar.

The recent spread of
the epidemic.

     When the disease once got a firm hold on Gauhati, it began
to spread in various directions. In the first
place, it attacked some villages just oppo-
site the town on the north bank of the river severely. Man-
galdai was invaded both from the last-named villages and in
those near the Rangamati-ghát, which is the main line of com-
munication between this subdivision and Gauhati town, and one
along which there is daily intercourse by means of some
three hours' run by the mail steamers. The disease was even
introduced directly as far as Mangaldai town itself in this way,
as will be shown in the next section; and between the years
1890 and 1894, it diffused itself over the whole of the more
densely-populated south-western portions, and has recently
broken out in one or two places in the northern and eastern
parts of this subdivision, having been carried north by some
Kachari labourers, and has now affected a tea garden near the
hills. This invasion of Mangaldai is of great interest, as it
appears to have been more extensive and fatal here than
in any other portion of the north bank of the river,
although Barpeta has also suffered severely, these two
divisions being mainly low-lying rice-land and thickly popu-
lated. Between Mangaldai and Tezpur, there is a stretch
of some 30 miles of jungle with very few inhabitants, and
this has served to check the spread of the disease to a
very great extent in that direction, so that Tezpur has not
been reached in that way.

     At the same time that the disease was passing into North
Gauhati and Mangaldai, it was also continuing its general
easterly direction along the south bank of the river into
the Nowgong district, and here it at first followed its usual
course and crept up along the foot of the hills, but later
on it branched out in a north-easterly direction towards
the Brahmaputra river along the course of grand trunk road
and the thickly-populated banks of the Kulung river. In this
district its spread is of great interest, as hitherto it had
been more or less confined to a narrow strip of country