3-077-713 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The Lushai Expedition: Goorkhas building a hut to store their spare kit, 1890. 'The difficulty of providing transport has been one of the chief obstacles which Brigadier Tregear's column, advancing from the Chittagong side, has had to contend with...The health of the column was good, there being no further cases of cholera...it was hoped that as soon as the force reached the uplands there would be no further trouble on this score. The Chin expedition, which was to advance, simultaneously, into the border highlands on the eastern side, from the rivers of Upper Burmah, has suffered greatly from cholera among the troops. Our correspondent, Lieutenant H. W. G. Cole, of the 2nd Goorkhas, 2nd Battalion, with the Chittagong Lushai expedition from Bengal, has sent us sketches of the camp at Demagiri, on the Kurnafuli River. The one presented this week is that of the Goorkha soldiers building a large hut for a storehouse, in which their spare "kits" will be deposited when they march on to the front. These men use the broad, sharp, curved knife, the kukrie," which is the national weapon of their country, Nepaul, in cutting bamboos for the building of a hut; but they are not so quick at such work as the natives of the Chittagong hills and forests'. From "Illustrated London News", 1890.