in LAWS AND CUSTOMS 59

into pieces of bamboo, so that several days' food could be
conveniently carried without fear of any being lost on the road.
Sections of bamboos were also employed as water bottles, the
bamboo being cut above one joint and below the next and
a small hole made just below the joint on one side, which could
be easily plugged with a roll of leaves; for sake of lightness the
bamboo would be whittled down as much as could be safely
done. These raiding parties travelled immense distances.
About 1850, Vuta, whose village was then at Hweltu, suddenly
appeared at Pirovi's village on the Soldeng, and, taking the
people entirely by surprise, made many captives, among whom
were the chieftainess and her infant son. Many others were
killed and much loot rewarded the daring savages. The dis-
tance between the two villages is about seventy miles in an air
line and at least twice that by the jungle paths. Although
guns quickly became common in the Hills, the style of
warfare did not change. In the war between the Northern and
Southern Chiefs, which lasted from 1856 to 1859, each side
only made three successful raids, and the actual number killed
in action appears to have been very small. I once asked one of
the chiefs who had been very prominent in one of the later
wars how many men he had killed with his own hand, and, on
my expressing surprise at his admitting that he killed none, he
naively remarked, " You see, we chiefs always go last, shouting
6 Forward, forward!' and by the time I reached the village the
people had always run away." Though the Lushais were able
to turn the Thados and other clans of their own kindred out of
their possessions, yet when they came in contact with the
Chins they were invariably defeated. In 1881 a large force of
Southern Lushais raided Bunkhua, a Chin village to the north
of the Tao hill. They burnt the village without much trouble,
but the Chins refused to acknowledge this as a defeat and kept
up a hot fire on their assailants, killing one of their bravest
warriors. When the Lushais set out on their return journey
they found the whole country up, and in a gorge they were
greeted with a volley which laid forty of them low, and the
remainder fled in all directions, and, had it not been for heavy
rain, which washed away the bloodstains and made tracking
difficult, but few would have reached their homes.