THE RISE OF THE GUKKHAS 375

jection and governed Nepal in his name. As their sol- diery were drilled and equipped in European fashion for in military matters the Gurkhas have always been skilful copyists from the English model they rapidly pushed their conquests westward over the petty hill states, and soon began to make encroachments upon the sub-Himalayan lowlands within the English border. Between the minor chiefs who Lived on the skirts of the mountains and the great proprietors in Bengal there had been chronic fighting from time immemorial, for all these Nepalese border chiefs had annexed strips of land in the plains immediately below them; but now the Gurkhas had subdued all the highlands and the English had brought the low country under their au- thority. It followed that the constant quarrels over this debatable border soon embroiled the two governments. The Nepalese officers on the frontier encroached auda- ciously upon the lands of British subjects, occupied tracts belonging to Bengal, and refused to retire. At last, when they seized two small districts in 1814, Lord Hastings sent to their government a peremptory de- mand that they should evacuate, and on receiving merely evasive replies, he re-occupied these districts by a detachment of troops, before whom the Gurkha officers quietly retired. But so soon as the troops had been withdrawn, the Gurkhas made a sudden attack upon the British police stations and massacred some twenty men. Their government, after holding a formal council, had resolved upon war, being persuaded that