Towards the middle of the last century, for some reason or other, a great Hindoo revival took place in the East of India. Assam was once Hindoo but had long become Buddhist under its Ahom kings, and now became converted to Hindooism, by Brahmins from Bengal. All difficulties were smoothed over, and converts were made by tens of thousands. It is to be regretted that it was so, as these "converts" quickly deteriorated. The easy conquest of Hindooised Assam by the Burmese, when Buddhist Assam had successfully resisted a powerful army sent by Arungzebe from India and composed largely of recruits from Central Asia, seems proof of it, if all other evidence were wanting. The process of conversion in Manipur began a generation later than in Assam, and proceeded on somewhat different lines, but it was not less effective, and was still going on at a late date. It had not the same deteriorating effect, for the Rajahs assumed to themselves a position greater than that of High Pontiff, and could at any time by their simple fiat have changed the religion of the country and degraded all the Brahmins, in fact all admissions to the Hindoo pale from the outer world of unorthodoxy were made by the Rajah himself. Sometimes the inhabitants of a village were elevated en masse from the level of outcasts, to that of Hindoos of pure caste, but more often single individuals were "converted." A man belonging to a hill-tribe, for instance, could, if the Rajah chose, at any time receive the sacred thread of the twice-born castes, and on payment of a small sum of money be admitted as a Hindoo and was thenceforth called a Khetree. [16] This privilege was not accorded to Mussulmans. I once asked a Manipuri why they received hill-men and not Mussulmans, both being Mlechas, [17] according to Hindoo theory. He said it was because the hill people had sinned in ignorance, whereas Mussulmans knew the evil of their ways. Of course, every one who knows anything of Hindooism is aware that theoretically a man must be born a Hindoo, and that proselytism is not admitted. Practically, however, this rule is ignored on the eastern frontier, and all along it from Sudya down to Chittagong, where conversions are daily taking place. I remember villages in Assam where caste was unknown thirty-five years ago, but where now the people live in the odour of sanctity as highly orthodox and bigoted Hindoos. Strange to say, the pure Hindoos of the North-West Provinces acknowledge the pretensions of these spurious converts sufficiently so as to allow of their drinking water brought by them. It is probably easier to take the people at their own valuation than to carry water one's self from a distance when tired. By the religious law of the Hindoos, it is forbidden to eat or drink anything touched by one of another tribe.