404 



INDIA. 



issue such orders in council as may be suitable to actual murderers of Mr. Birch, the English 



the historical importance of the occasion, and in res ident at Perak, were captured. One of 



conformity with the desire which will be felt by all ,, mo/lp n pomnlptpi pnnfpwinn <stntiTicr thot 



her Majesty's subjects in India to manifest the affec- em made a ? j ^S ' Stat 1 m ^ tha f 



tion which they cherish for their august sovereign by nine men had perpetrated the murder, and 



public rejoicings and appropriate demonstrations of gave their names, 

 loyalty. 



In the latter .part of November the Viceroy 

 made a journey to the Peshawur frontier. He 

 reviewed four thousand troops, and held a 

 durbar of all the chiefs of the British districts 

 on the Peshawur frontier, and met various 

 chiefs of the Afreedee and Momund tribes. 

 AVhile at Peshawur the Viceroy commenced 

 his inquiries into the measures necessary for 

 the reorganization of the frontier in a personal 

 interview with the Lieutenant-Governor, the 

 commander-in -chief, and the superior local 

 officials. 



The troubles in the Malay Peninsula con- 

 tinued during 1876. Brigadier-General Boss, 

 with one hundred and eighty men, proceeded, 

 on January 4th, to Kotah Lama, a village on 

 the Perak River, and disarmed the inhabitants 

 without opposition. Accompanied by a small 

 party, the general afterward again landed, and 

 was surprised by the enemy in an ambuscade 

 in the jungle. The Malays, after a harmless 

 volley, rushed out upon the British force with 

 their spears. Major H. L. Hawkins and three 

 men were killed, and Surgeon Townsend and 

 two men wounded. The village, with its stores 

 of rice, was subsequently burned. Several 

 Malays were killed. This village had always 

 had a bad reputation. The abode of robbers 



GOVERNMENT BUILDINOS AND OCHTERLONY MONUMENT, CALCUTTA 



and escaped prisoners, its name had always 

 been a terror to the neighboring districts, and 

 a disgrace to the Bandahara of Perak, who 

 possessed authority to control the inhabitants 

 of this village. But he neither had the power 

 nor did he show any inclination to exercise a 

 proper control, and its destruction gave gen- 

 eral satisfaction. In February three of the 



In March the chief Datu 

 Sagor, who was present when Mr. Birch was 

 murdered, was captured, while Ismael and 

 several other Malay chiefs surrendered to the 

 Rajah of Quedah, who handed them over to 

 the British. New disorders were reported in 

 March and April, but at the close of April 

 everything was quiet, and the rebellion was 

 suppressed. 



The inhabitants of the Naga Hills, who had 

 been punished for outrages committed on sur- 

 vey ing-parties in 1875, again attacked a sur- 

 veying-party under Captain Butler in the early 

 part of 1876, for which they were again se- 

 verely punished. 



The river Leh, in the Punjanb, owerflowed 

 its banks in August, and destroyed over three 

 hundred houses in the cities Reavul Pindi 

 and Sudder Bazaar. 



In the early part of December a Mohamme- 

 dan meeting of sympathy with the Turks was 

 held in the Colvotollah Mosque, Calcutta, at 

 which 10,000 persons were present. After 

 prayers for the Queen and the Sultan, the 

 memorial to the Queen which had been pre- 

 pared by the committee was read, adopted^ 

 and signed. The proceedings were most or- 

 derly, and marked by much earnestness. 



In Baroda, Sadash Rao, the nephew of the 

 deposed Guicowar, laid claim to the throne, 

 and attempted to incite 

 a rebellion, for which 

 he was, in February, 

 banished from the coun- 

 try. In April an agra- 

 rian outbreak occurred 

 at Bustar, in the pres- 

 idency of Madras. Thou- 

 sands of peasants had as- 

 sembled, but the troops 

 which were immediate- 

 ly dispatched to the 

 scenes of the disorder 

 succeeded in restoring 

 quiet before the close of 

 the month. 



Different parts of In- 

 dia were visited during 

 1876 by the plague and 

 the cholera, the diseases 

 appearing in most places 

 with terrible severity. 



In the latter part of 

 the year large districts 

 in Bombay and Madras were threatened with 

 famine, through the failure of the crops on 

 account of excessive drought. Large quanti- 

 ties of grain were sent to the distressed dis- 

 tricts by the Bombay Government; but the 

 collectors were directed not to distribute gra- 

 tuitous alms except in cases of extreme neces- 

 sity, and, as far as possible, to exact a fair day',3 



