The population of Burpetah is estimated at about three thousand souls; their huts are built without any regularity on high artificial mounds of earth, in the centre of gardens of betel nut and plantain trees, clumps of bamboos, cane and grass jungle, mango and other large trees, under the shade of which, impervious to the sun, roads or channels intersect the town in every direction. In the rainy season, these channels, owing to the inundation of the country, are filled with water many feet in depth. Every house, consequently, is provided with one or more canoes, in which the inhabitants visit each other's isolated positions; and the cattle are brought upon the little eminences at night, and housed oftentimes under the same roof with the family, if not in the same room. Daily may the cattle be seen swimming across these street-streams in search of a dry spot of land on which to graze. In this manner, for four months of each year--June, July, August, and September--are the people surrounded by floods; but, as if endowed with amphibious natures, they seem equally happy in or out of the water, and pass their time on board their boats in trading with other villages throughout Assam. When at home, they amuse themselves during the rainy season in collecting the wood which floats down the rivers, from the destruction of their banks alluded to in the foregoing chapter; and in the sport of catching wild buffaloes, deer, and pigs, which are now seen in great numbers swimming across the rivers from the low inundated grounds to reach more elevated spots on which to subsist: the animals in their passage, being overtaken by canoes, are captured with the aid of ropes and spears, with little difficulty. At Burpetah there is a very long building supported by wooden posts carved with emblems of Hindoo Deities, with a grass roof and mat walls. It is called a shuster, alias temple; and is a religious endowment, where the vedas or holy books of the Hindoos are chanted, and offerings in kind and cash received. A grant of rent-free land, given by the Assam king Sebsunker, in 1657 A.S. or 1735 A.D. is attached to the temple, and a number of disciples, with two chief priests or pontiffs, manage the affairs of the establishment.