The first few weeks in Manipur were taken up in making acquaintance with the place and people, and doing all that was possible to disarm the fears of the Durbar. Never was there one so suspicious. At first all my movements were watched, and wherever I went spies, open or secret, followed; however, I encouraged it to the utmost, and told the officials to inquire into everything I did, and they very soon saw that there was no necessity for special espionage, though all my acts were still noted and reported. Several little difficulties cropped up regarding British subjects, and required some care in dealing with them. In one case, a man had taken upon himself to intrigue with some of the Nagas under Manipur, and urged them to declare themselves British subjects, and in another, a man had robbed the Maharajah. In both instances the Durbar had acted foolishly and precipitately, though under much provocation. However, I turned both men out of the country, with orders never to return.

The question of British subjects and their rights was one that gave me much trouble for years. Judging by a decision of the High Court of Calcutta that all the descendants of European British subjects were European British subjects, I insisted on all descendants of British subjects being considered as such, and subject to my jurisdiction. After a long struggle I carried my point, and it very greatly strengthened my position.

A few more words about the capital and the Manipuris may not be amiss. Imphal, as has been said,1 covered a space of fifteen square miles. On the north side it touches on some low hills, called Ching-mai-roong, and running westward is bounded by a shallow lake, which is partly enclosed by a continuation of the hills, here called Langol, on which grows a celebrated cane used for polo sticks. Then, running south, it is intersected by several roads, notably the road to Silchar, which enters the capital at a place called Kooak-Kaithel (i.e. crow bazaar). Here it is bounded by rice cultivation. Going farther south, and sweeping round in an easterly direction, it is bounded by the Plain of Lang-thabal, at one extremity of which lies the old capital; here two rivers intersect it. And going farther east, it is bounded by the lower slopes of a hill rising 2500 feet above the valley. Then turning to the northward and crossing two rivers, we come again to the place from which we started. The want of the town was a good water-supply; there were one or two fair-sized tanks, or ponds, as they would be called in England, and the afore-mentioned rivers, of which the water is not improved by receiving the ashes of the dead burned on their banks. Beyond this, all the water obtainable was derived from small ponds, one or more of which was to be found in every garden enclosure. The ground on which the capital stands must at one time have been very low, probably a marsh, and it has been artificially raised from time to time by digging these tanks; every raised road, too, meant a deep stagnant ditch on either side. The people are not sanitary in their habits, and when heavy rain falls the gardens are flooded, and a fair share of the accumulated filth is washed into the drinking-tanks, the result being frequent epidemics of cholera.

The Manipuris themselves are a fine stalwart race descended from an Indo-Chinese stock, with some admixture of Aryan blood, derived from the successive waves of Aryan invaders that have passed through the valley in prehistoric days. It may be this, or from an admixture of Chinese blood, but certainly the Manipuris have stable and industrious qualities which the Burmese and Shans do not possess. Since then the race has been constantly fed by additions from the various hill-tribes surrounding the valley. The result is a fairly homogeneous people of great activity and energy, with much of the Japanese aptitude for acquiring new arts. The men seem capable of learning anything, and the women are famous as weavers, and in many cases have completely killed out the manufacture of cloths formerly peculiar to certain of the hill-tribes, over whom the Manipuris have obtained mastery by superior intellect. They are always cheerful, even on a long and trying march, and are good-humoured under any difficulties and never apparently conscious of fatigue. They are very abstemious, and live chiefly on rice and fish, which is often rotten from preference. Though rigid Hindoos outwardly, they have a curious custom by which a man of low caste, marrying a high-caste woman, can be adopted into her tribe, the exact reverse of what prevails in India, where a woman of high caste marrying a low-caste man is hopelessly degraded and her children outcasts.

It is impossible for those who have marched much in the hills with Manipuris to avoid liking them. Their caste prejudices, though rigid, give no trouble to others. Hungry or not, they are always ready to march, and march all day and all night, if necessary. Still, the Indo-Chinese races exceed even the ordinary Asiatic in reserve and sphinx-like characteristics, and the Manipuris are an inscrutable set. I had many intimate friends among them, yet, on the whole, prefer the pure Hindoo.

What is now the valley of Manipur was evidently once a series of valleys and ranges of hills, between the higher ranges which now border it and converge to the south. The rivers now flowing through the valley then flowed through it like the Barak, Eerung, and others, at a much lower level. One of the great earthquakes, to which these regions are so subject, closed the outlet and raised a permanent barrier; thus a lake was formed, and in the course of ages the alluvium brought down by the streams filled it up to its present level leaving the Logtak Lake in its lowest part, a lake which has constantly lessened and is still lessening in size. The crests of the sunken ranges are still to be seen running down the valley, and mostly parallel to the bordering ranges, such are Langol, Langthabal, Phoiching, Lokching, and others. Sometimes a river, as at a place called “Eeroce Semba,” runs at the base of a hill, and cuts away the alluvium, showing the solid rock. This alluvium forms one of the deepest and richest soils in the world.

I have referred to the proposed expedition to the Naga Hills, to aid the troops there in the operations against the powerful village of Mozuma. In order to take part in this expedition I had brought up one hundred men of the 35th Native Infantry, from Cachar, and I started from Manipur on December 3rd, 1877, having sent on the 35th and a Manipuri force of over three hundred men under the Minister Bularam Singh. I rode out the first day to Mayang Khang, a distance of forty miles, where I caught up my men. I passed Sengmai at a distance of thirteen miles on the border of the valley, and up to which the road is flat, and soon entered a broken country, first grass, then scrub, then forest. The road lay over a succession of spurs of the Kowpree Hills which run down into a very narrow valley, and was as bad as can be imagined—very steep ascents and descents. At last we reached Kaithemabee, the second stage, and fourteen miles from Sengmai. It is exceedingly picturesquely situated, having a splendid view of the Kowpree range, here rising to over 8000 feet. The outpost is situated on a high bank overlooking a stream, and beyond it a splendid rolling slope of grass extending for miles.

All this part of the country is covered with beehive-shaped cairns, built of well-selected stones. They are said to have been made by the KÖereng Nagas, formerly a very powerful race, whose miserable remnants now inhabit the neighbouring hills. Farther on the bee-hives end suddenly, and a region of monoliths is entered. Probably both monoliths and bee-hives were erected to commemorate great events in the lives of the builders, the death of a chief, the birth of a son, the giving of a great feast when a bison, or possibly many, were killed. Monoliths are common, and exist all over the Naga Hills and among the Kolarian and Dravidian tribes, as well as all over Europe. Cairns also are common, but the beehive-shaped cairns are, I believe, unique, and found only in Manipur and in this neighbourhood.

I reached Mayung Khang at 4 P.M., having an hour before crossed the watershed, all the streams south of it falling into the tributaries of the Chindwin Irrawaddy, all to the north running into the tributaries of the Ganges and Burrhampooter.

Mayung Khang is a highly undulating grassy slope, the Kowpree rising to nearly nine thousand feet in the west, while after crossing a small stream a lower range closes it in on the east. We halted there for the night close to a monolith, and the next day marched to Mythephum.

Mythephum or Muphum (lit. Manipuri settlement) was a small military post, and we encamped below in a wide valley among recently cut rice fields, with a river rushing by us. The place is so named from having been a Manipuri settlement, in the old days before the Burmese invasion. High hills rose above us on all sides, the valley running in and out among them and following the course of the stream. To our north, and at a distance of a mile or two, was the once powerful village of Muram, still populous but submissive. I had a small but most comfortable straw-built hut, and well remember how delightful the early morning was next day, when I had breakfast at sunrise and saw my thermometer at thirty-two degrees. Only those accustomed to great heat realise the delights of a low thermometer. Mythephum is over 4000 feet above the sea, and being a low valley is often extremely cold. Sometimes in winter the stream is for a day quite choked by blocks of ice, and I have seen the thermometer at twenty-six degrees, 150 feet above the valley, which probably meant eighteen degrees at the lowest level on the grass.

It was my intention to march on Mozuma by a track which would avoid the powerful villages of Viswema, Kohima, Jotsuma and Konoma, and enable me to attack the enemy in the rear. Half-way I was delayed by receiving no letter from Mr. Carnegy, with whom I had to act in concert, and this prevented me from reaching the scene of operations, as I received the startling news that the Manipuri outpost of Kongal Tannah on the borders of the Kubo valley had been attacked on December 14th by a party of men sent by the Rajah of Sumjok or Thoungdoot, and eight men killed. This threw the whole population of Manipur into a state of commotion, and the Maharajah begged me to return at once, and I felt it my duty to do so, as my chief work was to protect Manipur and its interests. I therefore returned to Manipur on December 17th, leaving my party on the frontier, where they remained some time longer, the Nagas being unwilling to submit; and making overtures instead to the Maharajah Chandra Kirtee Singh. He sternly declined their offers, and threatened that if they did not speedily yield to the British authorities, he would send a large force to our aid.

The Naga Hills Campaign of that year had no further interest for Manipur, and it had a sad ending for us, as Mr. Carnegy was accidently shot by a sentry.

The “Kongal outrage,” as it was thenceforth called, was so serious and so evidently premeditated, that a most thorough inquiry was needed. It took some time to collect evidence as wounded men had to be brought in, and it was the end of the month before I was able to proceed to the spot. At last I started and crossed the Yoma range of hills for the first time. What a lovely march it was and what an anxious one, as I left my wife not at all well, and no one but an ignorant and not very sweet-tempered English nurse to look after her. However, duty must come first, and off I started, posting relays of ponies on the way to enable me to return quickly when the work was done. Thangal Major accompanied me.

The first part of our march lay across the valley, and we began the ascent of the hills at a place called Ingorok. After a wearisome ascent of 3500 feet and a more gradual one along the crest, we made a rapid descent of 4000 feet to the Turet river, where we encamped. The river runs at the bottom of an exceedingly narrow valley, and the ascent on both sides is one of the most wearisome I have ever made. On a dark night lights on the hillside above, appear as stars from the bed of the stream. The scenery was majestic, and the vegetation very fine. The next day we commenced with a steep ascent of 2500 feet, and ended with a descent of 3000 feet to the Maghung river. From the Maghung next morning we started for Kongal Tannah, which we reached in good time.

I carefully examined the place and saw the charred remains of the murdered men, and many bullets still sticking in the stockade. The evidence being complete, I turned homewards, and by travelling incessantly reached Manipur next morning to find that my wife had presented me with another son, the first pure European child born in Manipur. It had been an anxious time for me, and I was thankful to find both her and the baby well. We named the baby Arthur.

I sent a full report of the Kongal case to the Government of India, and a demand for reparation was made at the Court of Mandalay, but it was not backed up with sufficient vigour. The outrage was unprovoked, and nothing less than the execution of the ringleaders, who were well known, would have satisfied Manipur, and, indeed, the claims of justice, but though the case dragged on for years, no redress was ever given. I predicted at the time that failure to do justice would eventually lead to underhand reprisals on the part of Manipur, as the Durbar could not understand our Government tolerating an attack of this kind on a protected state, and naturally ascribed our forbearance to weakness. I shall have to refer to the case farther on.