CACHAR, a district in Assam, in the upper portion of the valley of the Barak, extending from lat. 24° 13' to 25° 50' N., and from long. 92° 26' to 93° 29' E. Its area, 3750 square miles. Its population in 1872 was 205,027, in the area of 1285 square miles, to which the census was con fined. They consist of Manipuri, Cachari, Lushai or Kuki, Naga, Mikir, and Khassya. The Burmese invaded it, but were again expelled during the first Burmese war, when the legitimate raja, Govind Chandra, was restored by a treaty. On the southern frontier of Cachar lies the territory of the Lushai or Kuki, a most warlike tribe, who in 1848-49 drove up the Kaki from the south into Cachar; but Colonel Lister, by a judicious employ ment of the Kuki as soldiers, exerted a salutary influence over the Lushai. The Lushai, however, have in their turn been pressed up northwards by another tribe still more powerful than themselves, called the Poi, who approached from the south east. The hilly tract lying between Cachar and Chittagong is inhabited by the Lushai, who claim and hold all the tract of country to the south of the parallel of the latitude of Chatterchoora hill, and east of Hill Tiperah to the Tepai river is the Burmese frontier. The Cachari dynasty ended on
the assassination of Govind Chandra, without heirs, in 1830, and in 1854, Tularam Senapati of N. Cachar also died without heirs. The Cachari people must at one time have had an extensive sway in the valley of the Brahmaputra. The people adopted Hinduism about the beginning of the 18th century, and about half the number profess that faith. It yields rice, petroleum, salt from salt wells, and several valuable timbers, tea, caout chouc from the Ficus elastica. The elephant, rhinoceros, buffalo, metna or wild cow, gavaeus gaurus, tiger, black bear, and deer occur, with the sambur and the barah-sinha. The Manipuri women weave excellent cotton cloth, and a fine net for mosquito curtains. The agriculturists band themselves together as guilds or khel.—Imp. Gaz. ; Aitcheson's Treaties, p. 77 ; Ann. Ind. Adm. xii. p. 86.