Prince Angao Senna was in charge of the road between Burmah and Manipur. He was supposed to travel up and down it to see that it was kept in a state of repair, but I don’t think he ever did so. He was quite young, about two or three and twenty, and I never remember seeing him without his having a large piece of betel-nut in his mouth, which he used to chew. It gave him the appearance of having a swollen face, as he stuffed enormous bits of it into his mouth all at once, exactly as a monkey will do with nuts or anything of the kind, and people said he never cared for anything but eating and drinking and watching pigeon-fights.
The Manipuris are great gamblers, and they used to make these pigeon-fights the occasion for betting considerably. A good fighting pigeon was worth a lot of money—forty or fifty rupees. They were handsome birds, larger than the ordinary pigeon sold in the market for an anna apiece, and they had most beautiful plumage. The contests between two of them were generally held in the middle of one of the principal roads. Each owner brought his pigeon to the scene of action tied up in a cloth, and they were then put under a wicker cage, something like a hen-coop, where they fought until one conquered.
It was very unexciting to watch it, we thought; but the crowd of spectators used to take a breathless interest in the combatants, and bet considerably upon them. I never quite understood how they decided which bird had won, as they simply beat each other with their wings, cooing loudly the whole time, and sometimes one seemed victorious, and sometimes the other. However, there were doubtless points in the combat which we did not understand, and the Manipuris always took the deepest interest in them.
Latterly, after the expulsion of the Maharajah, his brother, the regent, put a stop to these pigeon-fights, as the gambling over them was becoming excessive, and several of the younger princes had been seriously involved, and the state had had to pay their debts. A heavy punishment was inflicted upon anyone found encouraging a pigeon-fight, and even the casual spectators received a beating, whilst the owners of the birds, and whoever had instigated the proceedings, were hauled up before the durbar and fined large sums. However, Prince Angao Senna was never caught red-handed, though we heard that he still continued to encourage and attend these séances on the quiet.
June, July, and August went by. Day by day came letters from my husband at Manipur full of all the little details which went to make up his life there, and never a dream of future trouble arose to disturb our peace of mind. The only thing that rather worried my husband was the approaching departure of our only neighbour, an officer in the 44th Ghoorkas, quartered at that time at Langthabal. Since the regiment had left in the winter of 1888 for Burmah, we had never had more than a wing of it back at Langthabal, and in the winter of 1889 it was decided that the troops should be removed altogether, and our escort increased from sixty to a hundred men under a native officer. But this decision took some time to effect. Barracks had to be built in our grounds for the accommodation of extra men, and these took time in building. So that it was not until January, 1891, that the garrison at Langthabal departed.
CHAPTER XI.
The Princes quarrel—Attack on the Maharajah—His retreat—His cowardice and accusations—The Pucca Senna departs also—Conduct of the Jubraj.
Early in September, 1890, the storm that had long been gathering amongst the princes at Manipur came to a head and burst. The spark that kindled the blaze arose out of a very small matter indeed. The young prince Zillah Singh had been quarrelling with the Pucca Senna over everything and anything that could be found to quarrel about, and at length the Pucca Senna got the Maharajah to forbid Zillah Singh to sit in the durbar, at the same time depriving him of some small offices of state which he usually performed.