The ‘“ Kols” of Chota-Nagpore. 167 
‘been induced to enter the Colehan to assist in levying a contribution, 
was attacked, and he and the whole of the party cut up ! 
In 1821 a large force was employed to reduce the Lurkas to 
submission, and after a month’s hostilities, the leaders, encouraged by a 
proclamation surrendered and entered into engagement, binding them- 
selves to subjection to the British Government, and agreeing to pay 
to the chiefs at the rate of 8 annas for each plough. It was now 
noticed that the Lurkas evinced a perfect willingness to be guided 
and ruled by British officers, and the utmost repugnance to the 
authority arrogated over them by the Singbhoom chiefs; and it would 
have saved much blood, expense and trouble, if this feeling had at the 
time been taken advantage of. Made over to the chiefs, they soon 
again became restive and reverted to their old practices of resistance 
and pillage. The circle of depredations gradually increased, till it had 
included Dhulbhoom, devastated Bamunghatee, and extended to some 
parts of Chota-Nagpore. The chiefs under whom the Lurkas had 
been placed could not control them, and for some five years, from 1830 
to 1836 the Hos, maintained this hostile attitude. 
In consequence of this unsatisfactory state of affairs, a proposal 
made by Captain Wilkinson in August 1836, to employ a force and 
thoroughly subdue the Lurkas, and then to take the whole tribe under 
the direct management of British officers, was favourably received by 
Government and promptly acted on. Two Regiments of Infantry 
and two Brigades of guns entered Singbhoom in November 1836, and 
Operations were immediately commenced against the refractory Peers ; 
and by February following all the Mankees and Moondahs had 
submitted and bound themselves by fresh engagements to obey and 
pay revenue to the British Government, and no longer to follow the 
orders of the chiefs to whom they had previously been required to 
submit. Six hundred and twenty-two villages, with a population 
estimated at 90,000 souls, of whom more than three-fourths are Hos, 
were thus brought and have since remained under the immediate 
control of the British Government. Since then, the population and 
spread of cultivation have immensely increased, and the people are 
now peaceful, prosperous and happy. From the region round about 
the station, Chybassah, 170 miles due west from Calcutta, the waste 
lands have entirely disappeared. Colonies of Hindus may now be 
