DAPHLA (or DAFLA) HILLS  , a tract of hilly country on the border of Eastern Bengal and Assam, occupied by an independent tribe called Daphla . It lies to the north of the Tezpur and North Lakhimpur subdivisions, and is bounded on the west by the Aka Hills and on the east by the Abor range . Colonel Dalton in The Ethnology of Bengal considers the Daphlas to be closely allied to the hill Miris, and they are akin to and intermarry with the Abors . They have a reputation for cowardice, and as politically they are disunited, they are at the mercy of the Akas, their less numerous but more warlike neighbours on the west . Their clothing is scanty, and its most distinguishing feature is a cane cap with a fringe of bearskin or feathers, which gives them a very curious appearance . The men wear their hair in a plait, which is coiled into a ball on the forehead, to which they fasten their caps with a long skewer . In 1872 a party of independent Daphlas suddenly attacked a colony of their own tribesmen, who had settled at Amtola in British territory, and carried away forty-four captives to the hills . This led to the Daphla expedition of 1874, when a force of lobo troops released the prisoners and reduced the tribe to submission . According to the census of 1901 the Daphlas in British territory numbered 954, the tribal country not being enumerated .