into Western and Eastern Lushais. The principal chief of the former branch is Sukpilal, whose name has frequently appeared in these reports. This chief was visited a few years ago by the Deputy Commissioner of Cachar, and was supposed to have seen it to be his interest to be friendly with us. He has done nothing overt since then to call for notice, but some officers stand in doubt of him, and he is withdrawing his villages more towards the Chittagong side. The left column of the military expedition of 1871-72 was directed against the Eastern Lushais. On the side of Chittagong the Lushai tribes are those of the Syloos (broken up by the other column of the same expedition); the Howlongs; and the clan of Rutton Poea, now for some years our faithful ally. The Syloos have, since the expedition, been in constant friendly intercourse with our frontier officers. We gave them advances of rice and money to obviate the suffering caused by the loss of their crops, and they received and supported a guard at one of their principal villages. The Howlongs are less intimate with us, but it is hoped that in this respect matters will improve. Shindoos. Still proceeding southward, we have in the south of the Chittagong Hill Tracts the Shindoos and other tribes of the highlands between Chittagong and Burmah. Of these, however, we know little, save that they are different from the Kookies, that they raid occasionally in the Sungoo valley, and that their villages are practically inaccessible from Chittagong, though more open it is believed to the side of Arracan. From the Arracan authorities we learn that they are very numerous, apparently of Indo-Chinese race, though their dialects vary so much that Burmese has become their lingua franca. They live in a state of constant warfare. The Shindoos are especially powerful and much feared. They live on the Upper Koladyne, and neither pay tribute nor own the authority of any British officer. In their predatory expeditions several villages and clans are said to join together. Attempts are being made to reach and influence this people from the Arracan Hill Tracts, and of late years raids have certainly been less frequent. Leaving now these races and countries, with whom our relations are, or have been, chiefly political, we come to those which are more under direct control, and who are tributary or feudatory to the British Government. Khasi States. Going from east to west, the first of these, lying between the Nagas and Garos, are the Khasi confederacies-a collection of small States of democratic constitution, whose rulers are generally elected for life by the votes of the tribesmen, but subject to the recognition of the Government. Five of these States are classed as semi-independent, as having always been on friendly terms with us, or never having been actually coerced by British troops. The remaining twenty are styled dependent. But, in fact, all the States are much on the same footing and manage their own internal affairs, only heinous offences being dealt with by the Deputy Commissioner. Between the Khasi Hills and Sylhet, on the south, is the hill territory of Jynteah, given up by the Rajah in 1834, when deprived of his lands on the plains as a punishment for persisting in human sacrifice. This is divided into 19 petty districts, 15 of |