India in action: a collection of pictures by Anthony Gross

To this, they add charcoal. Filling the barrel half-full with gunpowder, the other half with old nails and small stones, they can blow a man's head off at a couple of hundred feet. They regaled us with Zu, a delicious wine they make with rice or millet (millet is better). Huge earthenware pots are brought in and the Z u is sucked out through hollow bamboos, like straws. A British officer told us that all the villages in the Chin Hills produce a certain number of levies according to their size. [LD3 155]. He himself was a mining engineer in Burma in peacetime and had found himself here during the evacuation; other officers were ex-planters, some were regulars, with plenty of experience in this type of warfare. The job of the levy is to watch over the plains held b y the Japs,, to go on patrols for information and to beat up any small parties of Japs they meet. In the event of a large body of Japanese entering the hills, they keep contact with it and summon up the help of the regular battalions. After several days our path took us within sight of the Kalle Valley; there we visited Fort Wh i t e and Stockade 2 [LD3199] and Stockade 3 [LD3157]. From here on Bacha Hill with some Gurkhas, we could look down on the Japanese Headquarters at Kalemio. Wi t h a telescope we could see people moving around in the streets. It was here, on this hill, that a Ghurka, Gaje Ghale, won his V.C. At last we reached the headquarters of the Chin Hills Battalion. We found them on the top of a mountain and were received with great hospitality [LD3167]. Here, twenty days' march from civilisation, they receive most of their supplies dropped by parachute from the air [LD3169]. In the monsoons, except for wireless, they are completely shut off from the rest of the world. W e met all the Chin tribes, the Siyins [LD3156], Zahaus [LD3167], Whelngos [LD3167], and above all the Hakas [LD3338]. Their head-dresses, their long hair done up in buns a t the back of the head, on the top, or in front, denote their tribe. In fact, the Haka head-dress would well become the rage in women's fashions if ever a Haka appeared in London. Wh e n asked what their religion is, they answer proudly, "Animist" (worshipping trees and stones and a supreme being). Though some are Christians, mostly American Baptists who forbid drinking, the others Catholics. One old headman [LD3168] said, "If the Baptists let us drink as much Z u as we want, the Catholics marry as many wives as we could, we would all become Christians"; another, a Baptist, when asked whether a cemetery below us was British, said, "No, Christian." LD3334. "Captured Parasol" on the Mayo Rioer. 1