My Experiences in Manipur and the Naga HillsJohnstone, James, Sir
History
My Experiences in Manipur and the Naga Hills
Johnstone, James, Sir
Manipur (India) -- Description and travel; Naga Hills (India) -- Description and travel
Early in June, some men of the Merema clan of Konoma who were
fugitives in a very wild part of the hills of Manipur bordering
on the Naga Hills, came to me, making a piteous appeal for mercy,
saying they would have nothing to do with the Naga Hills officials,
but came to me as their old friend and master in the days when I was at
Samagudting. As they came in trusting to my honour, I would not have
them arrested, but sent them away, telling them that nothing but good
and loyal conduct on their part could win my esteem, and that they
must make their submission and deliver up Mr. Damant's murderers to
the Political Officer in the Naga Hills, before I consented to deal
with them. I also gave orders to the Manipuri troops on the frontier,
to act with the utmost vigour against all Konoma men found within
the territory of Manipur.
Soon after some Lushais visited me, and we settled up a long-standing
dispute between them and Manipur.
The Konoma men continued to give much trouble, and to keep some check
on them, I refused at last to allow any to enter Manipur, except by
the Mao Tannah, and furnished with a pass from the Political Officer,
Colonel Michell. I also arrested one of the supposed murderers,
but the evidence against him was not considered quite satisfactory.
On the morning of June 30th, at 4.45, when we were at Kang-joop-kool
there was a violent earthquake, the oscillations continuing with great
force from north to south, and apparently in a less degree from east to
west for some minutes. Plaster was shaken from the walls, and crockery
and bottles thrown down, and furniture upset. Locked doors were flung
open and the whole house, built of wood and bamboo, shaken as by a
giant hand. Two Naga girls sleeping in my children's room next to the
one my wife and I occupied, sprang up and ran outside, my two boys,
not realising what was up, seemed to think it a good joke. We all got
up and hurried on our things to be ready for an emergency, but I soon
saw that all present danger was over. At 8.50 A.M., there was another
sharp shock, and again about 2 P.M., besides several slighter ones.
In the valley, and especially at the capital, the shocks were of the
utmost violence and the earthquake said to be the worst known with the
exception of the terrible one of January 1869. Many houses built of
wood and bamboo were levelled with the ground, the ruins at Langthabal
greatly injured, and a peepul tree growing over a picturesque old
temple torn off. The old Residency was greatly injured, part being
thrown down, and the fireplace and chimney shaken into fragments,
but still, strange to say, standing. Some houses in the Residency
compound were rendered useless. The great brick bridge on the Cachar
road was cracked and much damage done. The earth opened in several
places. The new Residency, which was nearly finished, and was built
in the old English half-timbered style, was intact.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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