adventure will spread as wide a net among them as conscription, and there will be no jiwans seen in the villages who are not home on leave. THE JHARWAS (BY AN OFFICER WHO HAS COMMANDED THEM) There are not many aboriginals in the Indian Army--a few Brahuis from the borders of Beluchistan, the Mers and Merats and Meenas from the hills and jungles of Rajputana, and the Jharwas of Assam. The word "Jharwa" is the Assamese term for a "jungle-man," and how it came to be generally applied to the enlisted man from Assam and Cachar is lost in the obscurity of years. It is now the usual term for any sepoy who hails from these parts, with the exception of the Manipuri. [Illustration: THE JHARWA.] When the Sylhet local battalion, afterwards the 44th Sylhet Light Infantry, now the 1/8th Gurkha Rifles, was raised on February 19th, 1824, it was composed of Sylhetis, Manipuris, and the surrounding tribes of Cachar, which province took its name from the Cacharis, who settled there at the beginning of the seventeenth century, having been driven out of the Assam valley by the Ahoms, or Assamese, and Muhammadans. The plainsmen of Assam were very warlike till the Muhammadan invasion in the sixteenth century, when they were so thoroughly overcome they fell an easy prey to the Burmese, who were finally driven out of Assam and Cachar by the British in 1824-26, since when the Assamese have settled down peacefully. The principal races, now enlisted under the name of Jharwa, are the Mech, the Kachari, and the Rawa. The Mech mostly came from the region of Jalpaiguri, and spread eastwards. The Kachari were the original inhabitants of Assam; they are also found in Cachar, and are of the Koch stock, from whom Coochbehar takes its name; they generally call themselves Rajbansi, "of princely race." The Rawa (Ahoms) are also original Assamese. There are, besides, the Garos, who come from the Goalpara district. All the three former are Hindu converts, and show much more caste prejudice than the Gurkha does, though he, in turn, is not impressed with their Hindu claims. He raises no objection, however, to living under the same barrack-roof with them, but will not eat their food. In the old days, the Jharwa proved his value as a soldier in all the fighting in the valleys of Assam and Cachar, and surrounding hills. He rid the low country of the Khasias, who were the terror of the plains, as can be seen from the "The Lives of the Lindsays" and a recent publication "The Records of Old Sylhet," compiled by Archdeacon Firminger. The first troops engaged in the subjugation of the Khasias and Jaintias in their hills were Jharwas of the Sylhet battalion; the campaign began in 1829, and was continued at intervals until 1863, when the Jaintia rebellion was finally stamped out. Two companies of Gurkhas were brought into this regiment in 1832, and by degrees the Jharwa ceased to be enlisted in the regular army, till at last, in 1891, it was