"In December 1890, young J.H.Lorrain left his London Post Office for Calcutta, not knowing clearly what God's plans for him were, only knowing that God's way for him was to the East, towards the rising sun. The power of the British Empire hardly yet extended farther than the eastern boundaries of the Bengal Province, beyond which lay the hills and the hillsmen with their unknown and untried dangers. To the north-east, lay the closed native state of Hill Tipperah to which the young Pioneer first felt drawn.Just at that time, the easternmost station in Bengal was being opened at Brahmanbaria, by New Zealand missionary, a most significant nameplace from which to launch a Christian crusade in the land of India, for Brahman is a sacred name. To this place young Lorrain was guided, and it was here that he was joined by his chum and life-long comrade and friend F.W.Savidge...the two young Londoners prepared themselves for the great, though yet uncertain task, to which they felt called, ever watching for a legitimate opportunity to break through the forbidden zone.
At length, they were invited to visit Chittagong, and there for the first time they learned of the Lushai country which was just being opened up by the British Government. They begged the authorities to allow them to settle there, and at last received permission to stay in a Government Post about 80 miles up river, and near the foot of the Hills. There they lived for a few months, enduring the labours of pioneers in very truth, and beginning to pay the price in sickness, hunger and great hardship.
Rumours of fresh trouble from the Lushais caused the Government officials to send out an escort to bring them back to safety, and it seemed as if that route was finally closed. So, after a few months, they decided to try to enter Lushai from the other end - the far north - at Silchar, today the centre of a great tea plantation area. And, on Boxing Day, 1893, they set out to realise their great dreams and hopes.
There are no railways in Lushai and few roads even now: fifty years ago there was none at all. Two rivers, coming down from the Lushai Hills and entering the plains nearly 200 miles apart, form the only routes into the country, and the young pioneers chose the northern route. For three weeks they travelled in canoes through uninhabited forests, for the most part, the boats having often to be dragged up innumerable rapids. They were often shut in by deep cliffs and by banks covered with wild, luxuriant vegetation and tall bamboos, having many hairbreadth escapes on the river, shallow and swift, deep and slow turns. Troops of monkeys swung among the leafy branches, or played on the sandbanks, and once a tiger crashed through the reeds. One evening while they were making a fire on the bank with dried bamboos, snakes, which had been hibernating in the snug cylinders, dropped out, and as the bamboos cracked and the red glare lit up the darkening gorge, a wild chase took place.
At length, they arrived at a little settlement of Bengali traders at Sairang. From here the final stage was by a track thirteen miles long and winding up nearly 4000 feet to Fort Aijal, which was occupied by five British Officers and two regiments of Gurkhas and Bengal Infantry. They set at once to build their house in salt which, to the Lushais, meant more then than money. It was considered unsafe for them to live more than one mile from the fort, so they settled there between tow Lushai villages. They trusted the Lushais implicitly, and soon won their confidence by simple kindness and medical services. Others carried firearms for protection; they carried their Bibles and their only defence was love." ("LORRAIN of the LUSHAIS" - Rev David Kyles. January 1944. p.9-13)
