1855.] Notes on Northern Cacliar. 623 



allies glutting their revenge on those that were at home. Colonel 

 Lister, finding the enemy in greater numbers than he expected, and 

 the country most intricate, and one in which an enemy conversant 

 with it might give great annoyance by laying ambuscades and 

 making sudden attacks, resolved to prosecute the expedition no 

 further, and returned forthwith to Cachar ; not, however, without 

 meeting some slight opposition from the Looshais, who in more 

 than one place had commenced stockading positions on the line of 

 march, so as to obstruct the passage of our troops. Nothing further 

 was done with reference to the Looshais, they having declared that 

 they had no intention to molest us, their quarrel being with the 

 Kookie clans alone. 



It remained then only to settle the Kookies, whom the force of 

 circumstances, and the chances of war had driven to our territory 

 for protection. 



This appeared no difficult matter to do ; most of them had already 

 settled on the woody hillocks near the river Groghra, and on the 

 hills to the north, while many had penetrated into North Cachar 

 and Manipur. But there still remained a large number of the 

 clans of Thadon and Shingshon, those most recently expelled by the 

 Looshais, who hankered for revenge, and were unsettled and turbu- 

 lent. These, if left alone not being in themselves strong enough to 

 continue openly at war with the Looshais, would have occupied 

 themselves in making secret excursions with a few men at a time, 

 and cutting off strong parties of the enemy when at work in their 

 fields or wood-cutting, who in their turn would have retaliated, thus 

 plunging the whole of the frontier into an endless little war of the 

 most pitiless kind. 



To prevent this, at Colonel Lister's suggestion, a levy of two 

 hundred men was organized, consisting chiefly of Thadons and Shing- 

 shons, officered by their own Eajahs and Muntries, to which, having 

 been regularly trained, disciplined, and placed under an European 

 officer, was allotted the defence of the southern frontier of Cachar. 

 This measure succeeded admirably. The Kookies, who, under the 

 firm belief that the corps was raised for the purpose of taking back 

 their own country, flocked to the standard in numbers, were rather 

 staggered at first by the severity of our discipline, recovered however, 



4 N 



