The Manipuris themselves are a fine stalwart race descended from an Indo-Chinese stock, with some admixture of Aryan blood, derived from the successive waves of Aryan invaders that have passed through the valley in prehistoric days. It may be this, or from an admixture of Chinese blood, but certainly the Manipuris have stable and industrious qualities which the Burmese and Shans do not possess. Since then the race has been constantly fed by additions from the various hill-tribes surrounding the valley. The result is a fairly homogeneous people of great activity and energy, with much of the Japanese aptitude for acquiring new arts. The men seem capable of learning anything, and the women are famous as weavers, and in many cases have completely killed out the manufacture of cloths formerly peculiar to certain of the hill-tribes, over whom the Manipuris have obtained mastery by superior intellect. They are always cheerful, even on a long and trying march, and are good-humoured under any difficulties and never apparently conscious of fatigue. They are very abstemious, and live chiefly on rice and fish, which is often rotten from preference. Though rigid Hindoos outwardly, they have a curious custom by which a man of low caste, marrying a high-caste woman, can be adopted into her tribe, the exact reverse of what prevails in India, where a woman of high caste marrying a low-caste man is hopelessly degraded and her children outcasts.
It is impossible for those who have marched much in the hills with Manipuris to avoid liking them. Their caste prejudices, though rigid, give no trouble to others. Hungry or not, they are always ready to march, and march all day and all night, if necessary. Still, the Indo-Chinese races exceed even the ordinary Asiatic in reserve and sphinx-like characteristics, and the Manipuris are an inscrutable set. I had many intimate friends among them, yet, on the whole, prefer the pure Hindoo.
What is now the valley of Manipur was evidently once a series of valleys and ranges of hills, between the higher ranges which now border it and converge to the south. The rivers now flowing through the valley then flowed through it like the Barak, Eerung, and others, at a much lower level. One of the great earthquakes, to which these regions are so subject, closed the outlet and raised a permanent barrier; thus a lake was formed, and in the course of ages the alluvium brought down by the streams filled it up to its present level leaving the Logtak Lake in its lowest part, a lake which has constantly lessened and is still lessening in size. The crests of the sunken ranges are still to be seen running down the valley, and mostly parallel to the bordering ranges, such are Langol, Langthabal, Phoiching, Lokching, and others. Sometimes a river, as at a place called "Eeroce Semba," runs at the base of a hill, and cuts away the alluvium, showing the solid rock. This alluvium forms one of the deepest and richest soils in the world.