The hill country in which the Lhota lives is a very beautiful one indeed. I am sitting on the banks of the Dayang as I write, and if the Abana and Pharpar, the rivers of Damascus, are one whit as lovely as the Dayang and the Chebi, then verily had Naaman the right of it. But the Lhota himself has not been fortunate in his critics. From Lieut. Bigge, the first to make his acquaintance, in 1841, down to even Col. Woods, whose acquaintance with the Lhota ended in 1912, he has been stigmatized as surly, sullen, or sulky. Yet it is most undeserved. Absurdly sensitive to ridicule, and, partly no doubt for that reason, extremely reticent, he is not near so readily moved to hilarity as his neighbour the Sema, or even the Angami. Dour he is, and very canny; hardly could even Mr. Punch’s Aberdonian better him in the virtue (or is it “vice”?) of thrift. If the Sema among Naga tribes be likened to the Irishman (I think the comparison is Mr. Mills’ originally), then the Lhota is the Scot among them. He is far from inhospitable and I think he has been misjudged, because his critics, while having more than the casual acquaintance which is predisposed to be attracted by the manly hill man, and having discovered that he is not so delightful a person as one would like to believe, have never penetrated to the real intimacy which would have ended in a very mutual esteem. Possibly too they may have judged him in some cases from the point of view from which La Fontaine writes of his cat, “Cet animal est très méchant; Quand on l’attaque il se défend!” and it must be admitted that the Naga, suspicious of strangers as he is, is a little apt to defend himself before he has been attacked at all. However that may be, I can state without reserve that Mr. Mills, during the three and a half years in which he has had to decide their disputes and deal with the Lhotas in various ways, has fully gained their confidence—without it this book could not have been written—and has doubtless found them, as I have myself, very pleasant companions, particularly on the river or in the jungle or after dangerous game.