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DEALINGS WITH THE FEUDATORY STATES
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tion, would impair 'our prestige on the frontier,' he answers: 'I object to fight for prestige. And even those who may still think that killing people for the sake of prestige is morally right, will hardly assert that the character and authority of the British arms in India are affected one way or the other by skirmishes with wild frontier tribes. But there are other considerations connected with the subject, of wider and greater import than the punishment of a few mountain savages, and the vindication of a local officer's prestige. Every shot fired in anger within the limits of our Indian Empire reverberates throughout Asia; gives to nations who are no friends to Christian or European rule the notion that amongst our own subjects there are still men in arms against us; and corroborates the assertion that the people within our frontier are not yet wholly subjected to our sway, and that the British power is still disputed in Hindustán.'

The other example which I shall cite of Lord Mayo's frontier policy will be taken from the opposite extremity of India, and it may seem at first to point to views different from the above. In 1871 the Viceroy sanctioned an expedition against the Lúshai tribes of the North-Eastern border. These races occupy the then terra incognita which stretches from the Cachar valley to the Chittagong District on the Bay of Bengal; and from Hill Tipperah on the west to the great watershed which pours its eastern drainage into the rivers of Burma. As regards the event