LAST TOWN IN INDIA

Evening Star, Issue 20133, 25 March 1929, Page 2

LAST TOWN IN INDIA

BRITISH EXPLORER 1H MANIPUR Captain Kingclon Ward, avlio lias been engaged in a new expedition for the discovery of rare plants, and arrived in Calcutta from Upper Assam recently, has sent to ‘ J he Times (Loudon) his impressions of the Manipur country. . The Assam mail, which had left Calcutta the previous day, after soaring through the jungle beyond the .Brahmaputra all the afternoon, skirting the foot of the hills, decants you on to the dark and empty platform at Manipur Road about midnight (he writes). Scarcely have you hurled your kit out of the compartment than the train, with laboured effort, lurches forward again on its long journey to the head of the valley, leaving you immobilised amidst a pile of baggage. M lien the last rumble of the retreating train has died awav the shrill jazz of serenading insects again fills the hot darkness. “ I will procure you one coolie, sir, announces the Eurasian stationmaster politely, advancing, lamp in hand, to the rescue; whereupon he prods with Ids foot a corpse-like object, wrapped in a dirty shroud, and laid opt under the ticket office window. Next moment, as though_ lie had hut nibbed his lamp, a coolie stands helore you salaaming, and with this modest transport you face the black, vibrating hinterland beyond the station. Luckily the dak bungalow is only filly yards distant. From this point a narrow motor road winds over the mountains 130 miles to I'mphal, the last town in India. Nearly 100 motor lorries ply between the railway and Manipur and hardly one of them is of British make! The oneway traffic is controlled by a series of gates, where the lorries met and cross at certain hours. The descent ot 3,000 ft from the top of the range is an exciting experience, for the road swerves down on a quick slant whose hairpin bends, furrowed in flic brow of the cliff, need caution. The plain of Manipur is 2,5001 t above sea level, and the climate is healthier than that of the Brahmaputra valley. But even here the atmosphere is sodden. In the dry weather the sharp chill after sunset, Avarping the air, wrings out of it a clammy Avhite mist which rolls like smoko off the marshes and does not disperse till the sun has risen high over the mountain rim. In summer the heat sticks Avith the cloying Aveight of a poultice. PEACEFUL RURAL SCENE. But the scenery compensates for any discomfort. The fertile plain is dotted with thousands of small farmsteads, each screened behind a. rich growth of bamboos, scented acacia, and exotic fruit trees. Dykes, filled Avith more familiar wild floAvers, intersect the plain in every direction, and oddly recall the Fens; while along the embanked paths spreading peepul trees shelter some Avayside shrine, or a chatty of cold water, placed there for the use of thirsty Avayfarers as an act of piety. Here and there are largo tanks, built by kings of old, the placid Avaters of Avhich reflect the Avhite-wallecl temples on their hanks. Beyond, the level rice fields run out in green gulfs

to moot the encroaching hills. Imphal is not exactly a, town, or even a village, but a residential park girt Avith garden auPages, There are trees everyAvhere, and avenues of teak, grevillca (the “silver oak” of India), and cypress shade the quiet red roads. In the centre arc the cantonments and the officers’ bungalows. The picturesque Residency, hall-hidden behind aJ wealth of iloAvcring trees and shrubs, hanks the polo ground, which is much used, for polo is indigenous in Manipur. Just outside the cantonments the domes of the Rajaii’s palace Mvint like Avhite moons aboAc trim, green cricket hvwns; and across the polo ground is the night bazaar, one of the sights of Manipur. In the bronze sunlight of December you may sec files of neatly-clad Manipuri women, their comely faces expressing a_ suave content, coining across the fields to tn« bazaar ; Avhilc cloAvn from the hills come the gaily-dressed women of the jungle tribes, sbv and uncouth as compared with the sophisticated plains folk, hut looking undeniably “modern” in their short skirts. At dusk a, confused clamour rises from the bazaar, while the sky gloAvs redly Avith the reflection of hundreds of oil lamps.