Our march was interesting but uneventful. We started after breakfast and generally reached our halting place in time for a late luncheon or afternoon tea. Wherever we halted we had a hut to live in, generally in some picturesque spot, one day giving a splendid view of hill and valley with nothing but forests in view, on another we were perched on a hill overlooking the beautiful Kowpoom valley, a sheet of cultivation. At last, on the ninth day after crossing the Lai-metol river, and ascending the Lai-metol, we had our first view of the valley of Manipur[1] spread out like a huge map at our feet. Seen as it was by us at the end of the rainy season, and from a height of 2600 feet above it, is a vast expanse of flat land bordered by hills, and mostly covered with water, through which the rice crops are vigorously growing. To the south the Logtak lake is visible, with several island hills in it, while far away to the north-east might be seen the glittering roofs of the temples of Imphal, the capital. It requires time to take in the view and to appreciate it. In the dry season it looks very different with brown, dried-up hills in the place of green.
The valley of Manipur possesses a few sacred groves, left, according to the universal aboriginal custom, throughout all parts of India that I have visited, for the wood spirits, when the land was first cleared; but no natural forest. These groves are little isolated patches of forest dotted here and there; the villages have plenty of planted trees, many of great antiquity, and from the heights above they have the appearance of woodland covered with grass. Besides this, all is one sheet of cultivation or waste covered with grass. It was once entirely cultivated, that is, before the Burmese invasion of 1819, when the population of the valley, was from 500 to 1000 per square mile.
We halted to rest on the summit of the Lai-metol, and then descended, passing sometimes under a kind of wild apple tree with very eatable fruit, and once through a lovely grove of oak trees, called “Oui-ong-Moklung,” and then, still far below us, saw some elephants sent for us by the Maharajah. These elephants were posted at Sebok Tannah,[2] a police station where the ground begins to grow level, and a mile farther brought us to Bissenpore, where there was a rude rest house. Here we halted for the night.
I have mentioned my demand that I should be met with proper ceremony. It was of course stoutly resisted, every argument founded on old custom, etc., being used against it. However, I stood firm, and absolutely refused to go beyond Bissenpore, till the Maharajah gave me an assurance that he would do all I required. In the end he gave in, and a day before reaching that place, his uncle met me on the road with a letter saying that all should be done as I wished. This official, by name Samoo Major, became a great friend of mine, and remained so till I finally left; he is, alas, I believe, now a prisoner in the Andamans, having been supposed to be implicated in the rising in 1891.
The next day we left Bissenpore in good time, and marched the seventeen miles to the capital, halting half-way at Phoiching, where I was met by some officials. Farther on, some of still higher rank came to greet me, and finally, at the entrance to the capital, I was met by the Maharajah himself, surrounded by all his sons. A carpet was spread with chairs for him and myself, we both of us having descended from our elephants, advanced and met in the centre of the carpet, and having made our salutations (a salute of eleven guns was fired in my honour), we sat and talked for two minutes. We then mounted, the Maharajah’s elephant being driven by his third son, the master of the elephants; and we rode together through the great bazaar, till our roads diverged at the entrance to the fortified enclosure to the palace, where we took leave of each other, and he went home, and I went to the Residency, which I reached at four o’clock, my wife and children having made a short cut.
The Residency then was a low and dark bungalow built of wattle and daub, and thatched. It had one large room in the centre, and a bedroom on either side with a small semicircular room in front and rear of the centre room; there was one bathroom (I speedily added more), and verandahs nearly all round. There were venetians to the windows, but no glass, and the house was very dark and very full of mosquitoes. However, all had been done by the Residency establishment to make the place comfortable, and we were too old travellers and too accustomed to rough it, to grumble. The house might be rude and uncomfortable, but some of my happiest days were spent in it. The building was at the end of a garden, with some nice mango, and other trees here and there, and had a little more ground attached to it, but we were on all sides surrounded by squalid villages and filthy tanks and cesspools, and the situation was very low, though well drained. Our English nurse grumbled incessantly, but we had engaged in advance, a nice pleasant Naga woman, named Chowkee, to help her, and soon made everything right for the night, but the mosquitoes were terrible, and though my life has been spent in countries swarming with them, I give Manipur the palm, it beats all others!
No European lady or children of pure blood had ever before been seen in Manipur, and at first there was great excitement wherever we went, all the population turning out to look at us. By degrees they became accustomed to the novelty, but still occasionally people from distant villages coming to the capital stopped to stare. Every now and then my wife had visits from strange old ladies, often from the Kola Ranee, the widow of the last Rajah of Assam, and by birth a Manipuri princess, daughter of Rajah Chomjeet, and first cousin of the Maharajah Chandra Kirtee Singh. Once an old woman of 106 years of age, with a daughter of 76, were visitors, and once or twice some other relic of a bygone age called on us. Among the latter was old Ram Singh, the last survivor of Wilcox’s famous survey expeditions in Assam, in 1825–26–27–28. Wilcox was one of the giants of old, men who with limited resources, did a vast amount of work among wild people, and said little about it, being contented with doing their duty. In 1828, accompanied by Lieutenant Burton, and ten men belonging to the Sudya Khamptis (Shans), he penetrated to the Bor Khamptis country, far beyond our borders, an exploit not repeated till after our annexation of Upper Burmah. Ram Singh had a great respect for his former leader, and loved to talk of old days.
[1] The name means beautiful garden.—Ed.
[2] Tannah means outpost.—Ed.