We stayed two or three days in Silchar on our first arrival there and made some new friends, and were fêted, as is the custom when new-comers arrive at a station in India. Hospitality is a law, and you have only to be English to be assured of a welcome from your fellow-countrymen, who are ready to put themselves, their houses, and possessions all at your service. There are disadvantages, maybe, to be met with in India which are many and great, and one loses much by having to live out there; but one never meets with such true-hearted kindness anywhere else as in India. The narrow prejudices and questioning doubts as to who you are, and what your station in life is, which assail you at home, vanish entirely when you need hospitality out there. The civil list or the army list will tell your position and income, and for the rest you are English, you come from the old country, and all are glad to see you and be kind to you. I am happy to think of the good friends made when I was out there too—friends who were ready to share their pleasures with me, and who were still more ready to help me when the dark days of trouble came and human sympathy was so needed. Their names will ever live in my heart, and may all good luck be theirs! Our short stay in Silchar came to an end very soon, and we were on our way to Manipur in real earnest by the end of the third day. The first two marches out to the Jhiri were uneventful, and we then found ourselves on the banks of the river, with a vast expanse of forest jungle before us to be traversed the following day. Unluckily, it rained all that night, and when the morning arrived it was still damp and drizzling. We changed our coolies here, and got Nagas (hillmen) to carry the baggage. They were fine-looking men, belonging to the various hill tribes about Manipur. There were Kukis, Tongkhuls, and Kupoës, and they seemed to my uninitiated eyes very alarming people indeed. They wore very few clothes, and their necks were adorned with many necklaces made of gaudily-coloured glass beads. Their ears were split to a hideous extent, and in the loops thus formed they stuffed all kinds of things—rolls of paper (of which they are particularly fond), and rings of bamboo, which stretched them out and made them look enormous. Their hair was cut in different ways. The Tongkhuls’ heads were shaved with the exception of a ridge along the top, which extended to the nape of the neck, and gave them the appearance of cockatoos.