Painting

Colonel R.G. Woodthorpe, C.B., of the Royal Engineers, who flourished around 1873-96, was a pioneer in the study of the ethnography of the Naga Hills in north-east India and was responsible for the Survey Report in the Assam Census of 1891. He also led a small expedition of British officers, disguised as Afghans, to Nuristan in 1885. This painting shows a view of the Khasi Hills from below Cherrapunji, which is situated 58 kilometres from Shillong, the capital of the present-day state of Meghalaya. It was formerly listed in The Guinness Book of Records as the wettest place on earth, but climatic changes have now displaced it.