1840.] Note on the Limboos, and other Hill Tribes. 597 



At the period of the Goorkha conquest of the country east of the 

 Arun river, the Limboos held a great portion of the country now in- 

 habited by them in feudal subordination to the rajas of Beejapoor and 

 Mukwanpoor. They were divided into many small chiefships, and 

 were represented at the courts of these rajas, not Limboos themselves, 

 by Limboo chiefs of note, who held the office of Chountra, or prime 

 minister, either hereditarily, or by election of the rajas. In each 

 chiefship it was the custom to maintain a fort or stronghold of very 

 difficult access, in which the chief generally lived, and to which his 

 chosen followers repaired for its defence during a feud with a 

 neighbour, or dispute with the lord superior ; it was to these strong- 

 holds that the Limboos retired during the incursions of the conquering 

 Goorkhas, and in many of them that they are said to have displayed 

 the most heroic bravery against the common enemy of the indigenous 

 mountaineers. 



The accounts now given of the resistance of the Limboos to the 

 Goorkhas, speak well for the former as soldiers, and innumerable 

 defeats over the latter are related as having preceded the establishment 

 of their supremacy. Foremost among the Limboos, as brave men, 

 are the " Pheda Hung ;" they held their stronghold of Yangrong 

 against a superior Goorkha force, for nearly a month, and did not 

 yield until nearly the whole clan fell in a succession of assaults 

 hand to hand with the Kookri. 



In proportion to the praises bestowed by the Limboos on the 

 gallantry of their own tribe, are their execrations against the brutal 

 excesses of the Goorkhas when victorious. It is said to have been 

 their custom to put all the aged of both sexes to the sword ; to 

 carry into slavery the youth and able-bodied ; separating mothers from 

 their children, and ripping open the bellies of women with child, 

 who were unable to march with their columns. These statements 

 are probably exaggerated ones, although they are very similar to those 

 made by William Fraser and other British Officers of the conduct of the 

 Goorkhas in their conquest of the Sirmoor and Gurhwal Hills, where 

 the recency of the occurrences previous to the war with us, rendered it 

 more easy to ascertain the truth than it is now. Whether to the 

 remembrance of their former sufferings, or to the irksomeness of the 

 Hindoo laws of Nipal, bearing as they do on the beef-eating, casteless. 



