Note 1 — Chapter XI

A few more words about the capital and the Manipuris may not be amiss. Imphal, as has been said,1 covered a space of fifteen square miles. On the north side it touches on some low hills, called Ching-mai-roong, and running westward is bounded by a shallow lake, which is partly enclosed by a continuation of the hills, here called Langol, on which grows a celebrated cane used for polo sticks. Then, running south, it is intersected by several roads, notably the road to Silchar, which enters the capital at a place called Kooak-Kaithel (i.e. crow bazaar). Here it is bounded by rice cultivation. Going farther south, and sweeping round in an easterly direction, it is bounded by the Plain of Lang-thabal, at one extremity of which lies the old capital; here two rivers intersect it. And going farther east, it is bounded by the lower slopes of a hill rising 2500 feet above the valley. Then turning to the northward and crossing two rivers, we come again to the place from which we started. The want of the town was a good water-supply; there were one or two fair-sized tanks, or ponds, as they would be called in England, and the afore-mentioned rivers, of which the water is not improved by receiving the ashes of the dead burned on their banks. Beyond this, all the water obtainable was derived from small ponds, one or more of which was to be found in every garden enclosure. The ground on which the capital stands must at one time have been very low, probably a marsh, and it has been artificially raised from time to time by digging these tanks; every raised road, too, meant a deep stagnant ditch on either side. The people are not sanitary in their habits, and when heavy rain falls the gardens are flooded, and a fair share of the accumulated filth is washed into the drinking-tanks, the result being frequent epidemics of cholera.