This was not an easy or speedy business. Nominal rolls of the persons held in durance by the Chins had been prepared, and it was known by which tribe and by which village the captives had been taken. But some of the raids had been committed months before. Slaves were current coin in the hills, and passed from hand to hand as easily as a bank-note in more civilized regions. Their value was fixed with reference to the customary ransom paid by their Burmese relatives, and seems to have averaged ten or twelve pounds sterling. In barter, according to Mr. Carey, a slave would exchange for three or four head of cattle, a good gun, a dozen pigs, or a wife. However willing the tribe or the village, or even the original captor, might be to keep faith, it was often difficult to trace the slave and obtain his release from the present holder, who had bought him with a price and did not see why he should be at a loss. A view not unreasonable from a Chin point of view, but quite inadmissible from our side. While these negotiations were proceeding at Haka, and the mule-road was being completed to that place, reconnaissance parties were sent out to the west, the country was explored, the submission of a western tribe, the Klanklangs, was secured, and communication with the Chittagong Column, under Brigadier-General Tregear,[58] was opened. The advance parties of General Symons and General Tregear's forces met on the 26th of February, at Tao village, fifty-two miles west of Haka. This meeting was notable for the recovery of the heads of Lieutenant John Stewart, of the Leinster Regiment, and the soldiers (two British and one Indian) who had been killed by Hoswata Shendoos on the 3rd of February, 1888, when surveying in the Chittagong Hill tracts. Their skulls had decorated the village of some Chin chief at Haka ever since. As to how they came to Haka nothing is known. The chief may have taken them himself, or he may have purchased the trophies from the real heroes. No inquiry was made, and no retaliation was inflicted on the accomplices in the murder of our fellow-countrymen.