There was a footpath all round the hill, which, after a little alteration of level here and there, and a little repairing, where landslips had made it unsafe, was delightful for a morning or evening walk or ride. As my wife was fond of botany, she found a subject of never-ending interest in the many wild flowers, ferns, and climbing plants, and soon grew accustomed to riding along the edge of a dizzy precipice.
Our private establishment consisted of ten or twelve servants in all, including a girl of the Kuki tribe, named Bykoout, who assisted the ayah; a very small establishment for India. Servants in Assam are bad and difficult to keep. Most of mine were imported, but, with the exception of my two faithful Bhooyas, Seewa and Keptie, and a syce (groom), by name Peewa, they were all soon corrupted, though some had been with me for years. Seewa once said to me, "The influence here is so bad, that we too shall be corrupted if we stay long." Seewa was quite a character. One day I got a letter from one of his relations, asking me to tell him that his wife was dead. I remembered her well; it was a love match, and she had run away with him. I feared it would be such a blow, that I felt quite nervous about telling him, and put it off till the evening, when, with a faltering voice, I broke the news as gently as I could. Instead of the outburst of grief I had looked for, he quietly asked, "What did she die of?" I said, "Fever." He replied, "Oh, yes, I thought it must be that. Will you write and see that all her property is made over to my brother, otherwise some of her people may steal it?"
The state of things at Samagudting was very discouraging. I resented seeing the Government and the establishment being charged famine prices for everything, by the Nagas and Khyahs; also the general squalor which prevailed, and which I felt need not exist. It was the inheritance of the hand-to-mouth system in which everything had been commenced in early days. However, my wife set me an example of cheerfulness, and I made up my mind to remedy all the evils I could. First, the supply system was attacked, and I made arrangements with some old Khyah friends at Golaghat, to send up large supplies of rice and other kinds of food, and as the season advanced, I encouraged such of the military police as could be spared to take up land at Dimapur, and cultivate. For ourselves, I bought two cows at Borpathar, and established them at Nichu Guard, whence my gardener brought up the milk every day. In a short time we were more comfortable than could have been expected, and there was the additional satisfaction of seeing that the arrangements for cheaper food for the establishment proved successful. Water was the standing difficulty; we had to depend upon the caprice of the Naga water-carriers, and frequently my wife's bath, filled ready for the next morning, had to be emptied in the evening to provide water for cooking our evening meal! Sometimes I got clean water for drinking from the Diphoo Panee, otherwise what we had was as if it had been taken from a dirty puddle. The want of water prevented our having a garden near our house; we had a few hardy flowers, including the shoe-flower--a kind of hibiscus--roses, and passion-flower. Such vegetable-garden as we had was at Nichu Guard, where the soil was good, and water plentiful.