Page:Annals of Rural Bengal Vol 3 (Orissa Vol 2).djvu/92

86 Sometimes a whole tribe forces itself upon the hospitality of another, and in one well-known case a fugitive clan was thus maintained by another for an entire year. A feast had given rise to a bloody feud, which ended in the tribe being driven out from their lands, and for twelve months they depended entirely upon the hospitality of their involuntary hosts. At the end of that time the clan which had seized their territory took pity upon them, and relaxed their cordon of outposts, so that the expelled tribe found re-entrance into one of their old villages. Here they immediately claimed the rights of hospitality; their enemies, who a year before had ousted them, were forced to admit the claim, and either to support them as guests, or to restore to them the lands which they had seized. In the end they adopted the latter course; and in this way the laws of hospitality act as a check alike upon the custom of Blood-Revenge, and upon the Kandh theory of chronic war. One creature alone among the human race can claim no shelter—the unhappy Meriah, or victim set apart for human sacrifice.

Their fidelity to their chiefs and to their allies knows no limit. It was this virtue which first brought us into collision with them. The Gumsar Rájá, when he rebelled against us in 1835, fell back upon the Kandh settlements, and on his death-bed the clans pledged their word for the safety of his family. At first they showed rather a friendly disposition to our advancing troops; but when they learned our terms, they preferred devastation and death to perfidy. They refused 'with the most admirable constancy' to give up their guests. 'The country was laid utterly desolate. The population was unceasingly pursued by our troops;' and it was only