| caption: |
halt at Gaziphemah; description of the Manipuri attack; discussion over course of the Lanier river |
| note: |
inaccurate spelling in the original text |
| text: |
31st January. Halted at Gaziphemah. In the morning I had a long talk with some of the Chiefs and was told by them that the Manipuries Force had consisted of about 200 Manipuri sepoys and 100 Kukies and had been accompanied by some 200 Nagas of Semi and Mezemi two villages said to be situated on the right and left banks of the Onge one of the feeders of the Lanier. The force is said to have encamped on the banks of the Lanier about 10 days ago. On the following day they pushed on within about l/2 mile of the village when the Gaziphemah men turned out to oppose their further advance and speared one of the Nagas accompanying them. The following day the village was taken and burned to the ground. Eleven Nagas of Gaziphemah and two of Rajamah are said to have been shot in the attack. On the third day detachments went off and destroyed Zellomi and Semi killing one man in the former village and two in the latter, after which they retired by the same route they had come in without attacking Razami as they had threatened to do. |
| text: |
In the afternoon I walked down the Lanier and visited the Manipuri encamping ground there, which I found had been defended with a regular palisade 370 paces in circumference. |
| text: |
In the evening I had a long talk with Austin regarding the course taken by the Lanier after it leaves this. Austin says he feels positive that the Lanier does most undoubtedly flow into the Brahmapootra and from the general appearance of the country as far as the eye can reach I think it must do so too and is in all probability one of the feeders of the Dikho which comes out at Seebsagar, but still it is so large a stream even here that I do not think there is just a chance that it may possibly take a bend to the east and flow into the Kaiendween or Mrigti River. However I must add that all the Nagas with whom I have spoken on the subject declare positively that it continues its northerly course, and I may add that if the source of the Dikhoo really turns out to be where we now suppose it to be, that river would even then be very little longer than the Dhunsiri so that after all we might be pretty confident that the Lanier and the Dikhoo are identical and in that case the watershed of the Brahmaputra and Irrawadi after leaving the Tellizo Hill takes a south easterly direction instead of north easterly one as has generally been supposed which of course at once accounts for the opposition offered to me by the Manipuries who aware that they have little or no influence at the present time across the watershed wish to prevent my ascertaining the fact and probably hope that if they can only delay the matter they will be able to push on in the interior and make good a claim to which they have not the slightest shadow of a right at present. |
