The " Koh" of Chota-Narjpore. 167 



been induced to enter the Colehan to assist in levying a contribution, 

 was attacked, and lie 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 



