Mizoram, 1872: Topographical Survey
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Topographical Survey
In July, 1871, I was appointed to the Topographical Survey Department of India, and when the Expedition against the Lushais was decided on, I was fortunate enough to be attached to the party under orders to ac- company the Left Column, and proceeded to join it in Cachar.
I arrived in Silchar, the principal station of this district, on the 12th November. The party consisted of Captain Badgley in charge. Lieutenant Leach, B.E., three Civil Surveyors, and myself. We had also a large establish- ment of instrument-carriers, and three sets of instruments.
This large party had been sanctioned on the recommendation of the Commander-in-Chief, who remembered the good results obtained from the employment of a strong Survey party in Abyssinia.
Very little was known about the disposition of the tribes at that time, and very few ex- pected that any opposition would be offered to the advance of the troops* It was there- fore thought that, with the co-operation of Sukpilal, about whose friendliness no doubts were entertained, the Survey would be able to send out detached parties in various directions, or to accompany the troops, should the ad- vance from Tipai Mukh be made by separate columns taking different routes. This, however, did not happen.
The advance, as will be seen, was made by one column in a continuous line, and the Survey had no opportunity of sending out detached parties off the line of march below Tipai Mukh.
Irritating Inaction
We had been informed that coolies would be supplied to us by the Commissariat in Cachar. On applying, however, to the officer in charge of that Department, he showed us his orders, which were to supply us, if possible. These words gave him a loop-hole for escape, and pressed as he was by the mortality among the coolies at Chattuck, he gladly availed himself of it, and we were eventually obliged to procure Cossyah coolies from Shillong.
These men proved as good coolies as any with the Expedition; but the delay conse- quent on the time spent in securing them, caused us to lose a month of very valuable time.
We found it difficult even to get coolies for short periods to enable us to move about in Cachar; so that instead of accompanying the Quartermaster-General's Department from the outset, and taking advantage of the many checks which occurred before Tipai Mukh was reached by the troops, to clear and fix points on either side of the Barak in Gachar and Munipur, while it was still safe to travel almost without a guard, we were condemned to a state of irritating inaction.
At first Cachar was in a great state of bustle, the different corps and bodies of coolies arriving daily. * The coolies were of all races, Punjabis and Hindustanis from up-country, Mekirs, Nagas, Cachari Kookies from the North Cachar Hills, and Nepaulese Goorkhas.
All these men, on arrival, were supplied each with a blanket, coat, boots, a dad, and bandages for the legs, as protection against thorns ; and large tarpaulins — in the propor- tion, I think, of one to every four coolies — were also distributed to them.
The hospital coolies, for the sake of dis- tinction, received bandages of bright yellow, which, contrasting in a very striking manner with their brown legs and general dinginess, gave them a sufficiently marked appearance. We had the pleasure of seeing corps after corps march in, to be supplied with coolies, and after obtaining the number apportioned to each, march out again.
Munipur Hockey-Ground
By the end of November we were left to ourselves, and Silchar had settled down once more into its usual dead level of dulness. The Munipur horsedealers, who inhabit villages near Silchar, and had been doing a brisk trade in selling their active, hardy little ponies to officers going on the Expedition, were left to their general amusement of hockey. Their recommendation of ponies as good hockey* players to men who required them simply as baggage animals, and who were going into almost impenetrable jungles, seemed unnecessary ; nevertheless it was one on which they strongly insisted when there appeared to be any hesita- tion in giving them the price which they de- manded.
A very curious sight is presented by the Munipur hockey-ground. The sturdy, active, little ponies enter, to all appearances, into the game as thoroughly as their riders, follow* ing the ball with great rapidity, while they wheel and turn in every direction, as if at once responsive to the least emotion of the lithe and naked natives mounted on them. Now the field is scattered. One man is seen riding away in the distance after the ball, which he strikes up towards the goal, when a simultaneous rush is made by all the players towards it, and nothing is seen but a confused mass of ponies' legs and hockey sticks whirling high in air. The ball again gets free, the field scatter in pursuit, and a similar scene is once more enacted.
This game, which is being introduced into England, affords ample opportunity for the dis- play of good riding, and is much patronized by the planters in Cachar, who hold weekly meetings for the practice of it.
Presents For A Chief
Many of the Munipuris ride without stirrups, and those who have them simply cling to them by holding the stirrup-iron between the toes, a most uncomfortable way of riding, according to our ideas. As a protection to the bare legs of the riders when passing through the jungle, they have huge flaps of hard leather suspended from the saddle on each side, descending as low as the stirrups, and turned round in front. These articles, which are anything but ornamental, give a most uncouth appearance to the saddle, and flap about with a tre- mendous noise when the pony is going at all fast.
While we were in Cachar, presents arrived at the Deputy-Commissioner's for Sukpilal. They consisted of a large silver-gilt goblet and claret jug, with inscriptions to the effect that they were presented by the Government of India in recognition of his former ser- vices.
It is sad to think that these not very appro- priate ornaments for a rough bamboo house, where they would have shone conspicuously on the floor from among the family stock of yams, potatoes, &c., never found their way to Suk- pilal at all, though they accompanied Mr. Edgar through the Expedition. The chief, fo whom they were intended, had conducted him- self in so unsatisfactory a manner that it was not considered proper to present them to him, and they returned to Cachar. They might have been presented to some other deserving chief, but the English inscription engraved on them rendered them unfit for such a purpose.
Our coolies arrived at last from Shillong on the 14th December, and that same evening Captain Badgley received a telegram from the General, directing him to send a survey officer at once to join the head-quarters, as orders had been sent by the Government to the commanders of each column, to communicate daily by telegraph to each other, through the Commander- in-Chiefs office. They were directed to give the latitude and longitude of each camp, with any other information likely to facilitate the junction of the two columns, should this be found possible before the close of the Expedition.
Captain Badgley himself left the next day to join the head-quarters, leaving the remainder of the party to follow by two routes, one by Luckipur and the Barak, the other by the Buban Range to Mynadhur.
The latter route fell to me. With one of our civil surveyors, Mr. Ogle, I left Silchar on the 16th of December, and marched out as far as a tea-garden called Borvalia, about eighteen miles along a level road.
Surveying Expedition
Here we were very hospitably received and entertained by the manager, Mr. Willington, and his wife, who also found accommodation for our classis and coolies.
The next morning, lightly equipped, we started to ascend to a point on the range which had been cleared, and from which we expected to get some work. This point, though apparently an easy day's journey from the bungalow, proved very difficult to reach. The path, a very obscure one, is used by the garden coolies and others who go occasionally to worship a stone god and goddess whose shrine is near the place towards which we were proceeding.
Mr. Willington gave us two coolies as guides, without whose assistance we should never have discovered the way, which for the first three miles lay through very tall and tangled grass jungle, of so rough and hard a texture that our faces and hands were cut by it as if by knives. The path was sometimes lost in swamps, but again appearing, followed the course of small streams alive with innumerable leeches, which fastened on us without the slightest provoca- tion.
At lasty after crossing a series of low hills and spurs, we reached the foot of the Bubans* Here, crossing a beautiful stream of clear water, the ascent commenced, and a stiff climb it proved; a sheer ascent of eighteen hundred feet, with a slope of three hundred and thirty- two feet the whole way. Arrived at the top, we had a long five miles to go over a very uneven path, ascending and descending alter- nately, never level.
Darkness closed around us long before we reached our camping ground; but lighting candles, we distributed them among the coolies at intervals, and managed, though slowly and with difficulty, to find the spot — a very romantic little place, enclosed on three sides by huge masses of fern and moss-covered rocks, the fourth sloping steeply down to a little spring of good water.
Figures Of A God And Goddess
Beneath these rocks we found the rudely carved figures of the god and goddess, about three feet high, with strips of red and white cloth adorning their shapeless bodies. The former was sitting cross-legged on some broken stones, on which were some attempts at orna- mentation, and which were apparently the remains of a kind of canopy, or at any rate, of a throne. The goddess was standing in a small low-walled enclosure, and at the foot of a bamboo bedstead, which had been erected by some visitors from the garden a few days before.
Haying lighted a fire, and killed, cooked, and eaten a fowl, we made our beds, and were speedily asleep under the shelter of the goddess near whose shrine we were lying, though to ack« nowledge the truth, she was a somewhat fear-in-* spiring object, as seen dimly through the musquito curtains by the pale moonlight, to a nervous imagination in moments of half -wakefulness.
I was unable to find out anything about these figures, how long they had been there, whom they represented, &c. The men with us did not seem to know anything about them, though they prostrated themselves with great reverence before them.
The next morning, having done what we could from this point, which commands a most extensive view of North Cachar and Muni- pur, we returned, camping at the foot of the hills for the night, and proceeding early next day to Mr. Willington's to breakfast, and pick up the men and instruments we had left behind at the gardens.
Here I must express my sense of obligation to all the planters whose gardens we visited, for the great hospitality they invariably showed us. The fact that we were strangers, and in need of any sort of assistance, was a sufficient passport to their liberality, and we were in- debted to them for much valuable help in many ways.
In the afternoon we went to Sonai Mukh, whence we proceeded the next day to Monier- khal. The road running along the Sonai is very level as &r as Nagakhal, a stream at the foot of the hills three miles beyond Monierkhal. It at first runs through very flat open country, but below Nudigram it passes through a large patch of very high grass jungle,, beyond which it enters a forest, and so to Nagakhal, passing two clearances for gardens, Durmiakhal and Monier- khal.
Monierkhal
The latter, now famous by reason of the frequent raids made upon it, is a tolerably large clearance. The dark green tea-plants, growing on the low hills or tilas, give a curious speckled appearance to the sandy mounds ; on one of which stands the stockade, containing small barracks and a magazine. Just beneath are the coolie huts, and the small stockade beyond them, which commands the bridge over the Sonai, and the opening in the belt of forest surrounding the garden whence the Lushais generally emerge.
The Monierkhal stockade, as well as that at Mynadhur, is not nearly so remarkable for engineering skill as any of the Lushai defences we came across. The bungalow is situated on a small tila about two hundred yards north of the stockade.
On arriving at Monierkhal we found the Moniejer was absent, and the garden Baboo, the guard, and every one else, in a great state of excitement, as a notice had been sent from Mynadhur that a hundred Lushais were supposed to be going in the Monierkhal direction. Everything had been moved out of the bungalow into the stockade, whither also the coolies' wives and children had been sent for safety, and an attack was confidently expected.
Early next morning, while the mists were still hanging over the garden, the head Baboo, evidently an inventive genius, informed us on the. authority of a friend supposed to be at Tipai Mukh, whom, however, I suspected to be a Bengali Mrs. Harris, that the General had •been defeated in a great fight with the Lushais, and was retreating to Tipai Mukh, as fast as the elephants, by which the line of march was much encumbered, would let him. All this sounded very circumstantial, but we told the Baboo we would not put much faith in his friend's statement.
The Hoolook
The night and morning passed off without anything occurring to disturb our peaceful slumbers, and about 9 a.m. we commenced the journey to Mynadhur, across the Bubans.
On the highest point of the mountains we found, to our surprise, a large native bedstead by the path, and afterwards heard that it be- longed to some luxurious commissariat or post- office Baboo, who had managed to get it so far, when the coolie, who was carrying it, refused to take it any further and abandoned it. It now serves as a convenient resting place on which the weary travellers may re- cline after their fatiguing climb, and from which they may survey the smiling plains of Gachar spread out like a map some three thousand feet below.
The stillness of the forest was ever and anon broken by the cries of a black monkey, known among the natives as the " hoolook." These animals go about in troops, uttering cries very much resembling the yelping of beaten puppies. One or two commence with a few single cries in one key, when suddenly the whole pack join the chorus in every variety of key. After indulging in this amusement for some time, it is brought to a close, the cries gradually dying away, but only to be resumed again with greater vigour than before. We seldom saw these monkeys, but we heard them
frequently as far down as Kungnung.
Mynadhur, which is elsewhere described, was reached about half-past six in the after- noon, and here we had our first experience of Commissariat rations. I went into the little hut and saw, on the ground, two dark masses covered with the prevailing sand, and, on in- vestigation, I found they were my beef and pork for a week.
I need not repeat my remarks about the road between Mynadhur and Tipai Mukh. Suffice it to say that, journeying by land and water, we reached the latter place just in time for dinner on Christmas Day.
Difficulties connected with the Commissariat Department prevented our going on to the front till the 2nd of January, when we started for Tuibum. On the road we met all the wounded firom the Kholel business, whom they were taking into the d6p6t hospital at Tipai Mukh. We reached No. 7 Station on the 4th.
