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HIGHLANDS OF CENTRAL INDIA:

NOTES ON THEIR FORESTS AND WILD TRIBES,
NATURAL HISTORY, AND SPORTS.

By CAPTAIN J. FORSYTH,

BENGAL STAFF CORPS.

WITH MAP AND ILLUSTRATIONS.
SECOND , KDIVION.

LONDON :
CHAPMAN & HALL, 193, PICCADILLY.

1872.

x 3

><4

LONDON :
KRADKIRY, EVASS, AND CO., PRINTERS. WHITKKRIAKS.

|n Pemonam.

Before the present volume was

entirely

through

the press, the author, Captain James

Forsyth,

Bengal Staff Corps, late Settlement

Officer

and Deputy Commissioner of

Nimar,

Central

Provinces, formerly Assistant

Conser-

vator and Acting Conservator of Forests, Central

Provinces of India, died in London, 1st May,

1871, aged 33.

324885

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER I.

INTEODUCTOEY.

PAGE

Physical description of the Central Highlands The Satpura Eange
Early history of G6ndwan The Bajputs and their Bards Mixed
Eaces Immigration of Hindus The Conquest by Akber Fate of the
Aborigines Overthrow of the Gond Kings Arrival of the Marathas
The Hill-tribes plunder the Low Country The Pindaris British
conquest of the Country Improved Administration Eecent ignorance
of the Interior of the Hills Constitution of the Central Provinces
Energy of the New Administration Establishment of the Forest
Department Exploration of the Hill Tracts Their Area and Character
Settlement Operations Interesting Nature of the Country Its
Aboriginal Population The Gonds Kolarian Eaces The Kols The
Korkus The Bygas The Bheels Singular facts in Distribution of
Organic Products Timber Trees Eelation to Geological Formations
The Fauna Wild Buffalo Twelve-tined Deer Jungle-fowl Hog-
deer Partridges Intrusion of Eastern Forms Early Destruction of
the Forests The Sal The Teak Its usefulness Euin of the Teak
Forests 1

CHAPTER II.

THE NAEBADA VALLEY.

Start for the Mahadeo Hills Camp of an Explorer Travelling in Wild
Eegions Capture of a Camel March down the Narbada Valley
Gorge in the Eiver The Marble Eocks Colonies of Bees Fatal
attack by a Swarm Their Ferocity Capture of the Honey Moon-
light Pic-nics Crocodiles and Fish Shooting a Crocodile Cold

vin CONTENTS.

PAGE

Weather Marching Prosperity of the Country Description of Hindu
Eaces in the Valley Abundance of Game Wild-fowl and Snipe
Partridge and Quail Shooting- Adventure with a Snake The Black
Antelope Methods of Stalking A Solitary Buck The Indian
Gazelle Method of Shooting The Nilgai The Hunting Leopard
The Wolf Man-killing Wolves Destruction of a Pair "Tinker"
and the Wolf Wild Boars The People of the Narbada Valley
Gond Labourers The Mhowa Tree Coal Mines Snipe Shooting-
Hill Forts Jungle Clearings Forest Animals 34

CHAPTER III.

THE MAHADEO HILLS.

The Mahadeo Mountains Sacred Hills Ascent to Puchmurree Aspect
of the Forest Park-like Scenery A Moist Night Solitary Snipe
Description of the Plateau Fine Views The Denwa Valley The
Andeh K6h Legends of the Place Ancient Eemains The Great
Eavine The Sonbhadra Gorge The Great Eed Squirrel A Hill
Chief Caprice of the Hill-men Their System of Tillage Destruction
of the Forests Incursions of Wild Animals Gond Legend Dense
Jungles Eestlessness of the Aborigines Their Precarious Livelihood
Produce of the Jungles The Seeding of the Bamboo Scarcity in
the Hills Bunjara Carriers Project a Forest Lodge Find Lime
The Indian Bison His Habits and Eange Growth of his Horns A
Grand Hunt Kill a Stag Sambar A Bull shot by the Thakur
Power of the Bison A Hill Tiger -A Mother's Defence Description
of Gonds and Korkus A Midnight Eevel The Wild Men are con-
ciliated We teach them to Build and Plough The D6nwa Sal
Forest The Twelve-tined Deer Jungle-fowl Spur-fowl Gazelles
and Hares Fire-hunting by Night Bears and Panthers A trouble-
some Panther Fox-hunting at Puchmurree Bison-Stalking A
Brace of Bulls Tracking the Bison A Hard Day's Work Death
of the Bull 81

CHAPTER IV.

THE ABOEIGINAL TEIBES.

Interest of the Subject An Historical Parallel Influence of contact with
Hinduism Mixed Eaces The Bajgonds The Korkus the Bhilalas
Introduction of Caste Difficulties of Investigation Meagreness of
Aboriginal Languages Gond Legends Eeligion of the Gonds

CONTENTS. ix

PAGE

Worship of Powers of Nature Fetishism Worship of Ancestors
Demigods and Heroes Idol Worship Sivaism Eeligious Cere-
monies The Great Spirit Eeligion of the Korkus Sun Worship
Burial Customs of the Tribes Personal Appearance Marriage Cus-
toms Economical Position of the Tribes Drunkenness Agricul-
tural Position The Timber Trade Demoralization of the Tribes
Eetribution Excise Laws Forest Regulations Improvement in
the Condition of the Aborigines Effect of High Prices Culture of
the Oil- seed Plant Influence of Hinduism Future of the Abori-
gines Measures Eequired Hindoo Pilgrims to the Shrine of Maha-
deo An Indian Fair Description of the Shrine The Eeligion of
Sivaism Human Sacrifices Omkar Mandhatta Death of a Victim
A Priestly Murder Cholera among the Pilgrims Panic and Flight
The Scapegoat 133

CHAPTEK V.

THE LAY OF SAINT LINGO.

1. The Creation and Exile of the Gonds 2. The Coming of Lingo 3. The
Deliverance of the Gonds 4. Subdivision into Tribes, and Worship
of the Gond Deities 179

CHAPTEE VI.

THE TEAK EEGION.

The Trap Country Condition of the Teak Forests Other Timber Trees
The Tapti Valley The Frankincense Tree Aspect of the Forests
in the Trap Eegion Jungle Fires Ancient Settlements The Kor-
kus of the Tapti Valley Difficulty of Exploration Wild Sports The
Sambar Deer Its Habits and Food Death of the Bori Stag Horns
of the Sambar Curious Occurrences in Shooting Incidents in Tiger
Shooting Stalking the Sambar The Hatti Hills The Bheels A
Bheel Fort Mahomedan Architecture Difficulty of finding Sambar
Dhaotea Disappearance of the Sambar Eeturn to the Plains The
Valley of the Vultures Eeturn to the Sambar Ground Shoot a Stag
Miss another The Four-horned Antelope Bison Shooting The
" Shrimp" and the " Skunk" Find a Herd Kill a Bull A
Dangerous Position A Solitary Bull We miss the Water Another
Bull Killed A Herd of Sambar Account of a Bag . . . .199

x CONTENTS.

CHAPTER VII.

THE TIGEE.

PAGE

Tiger-shooting in the Hot Weather Different Sorts of Tigers The Game-
killer The Cattle-eater The Man-eater Haunts of the Tiger
Destructiveness of Tigers Native Shikaris Beating for Tigers
Shooting on Foot Shooting with an Elephant Difficulty of Finding
Tigers Method of Hunting Search for information Viceregal
Tiger-shooting A Tiger in a Tobacco-field The Hot "Weather Camp
The Village Shikari Spying out the Land Nocturnal Life of Wild
Animals Tyranny of the Tiger Tiger Tracks The Monkeys Inform
Death of a Tiger Pranks of Juvenile Tigers The Monkeys Pre-
varicate Almost too Close Singular Effect of a Shell An Abrupt
Introduction A Man-eating Tigress The Monkeys are Eight
Alarm Cries of Animals A Beef-eater slain Terrific Heat Size of
Tigers Baits for Tigers Caste Objections Tiger Shikaris The
"Lalla" He is Killed by a Tiger Eevenge What a Shikari
should not be The Tiger in his Lair Trained Elephants Pur-
chasing Elephants Their "Points" Selection of a Hunting Ele-
phant A Man-killer Entering Elephants Elephantine Vices
Keeping Elephants -A Bag of Tigers Eavages of a Man-eating Tiger
Unfortunate Delay Denizens of a Mango Grove Sharp Treatment
effects a Cure Start after the Man-eater Deserted Villages A Pil-
grim Devoured Unsuccessful Hunt A Bait Proposed Another
Victim On the Trail A Long Day's Work Eenew the Chace
Exciting Sport An Elephant Killed by a Tiger Find the Man-eater
He charges Home Blown up by a Shell Elephant Anecdote
Destructiveness of Tigers Proposals for their Extermination What
can be Done Get Jungle Fever Eeturn to Puchmurree A cool Cli-
mate Completion of " Bison Lodge " Burst of the Monsoon Ad-
vantages of Puchmurree Selected as a Sanitarium Eeturn to
Jubbulpur 252

CHAPTER VIII.

THE HIGHEE NAEBADA.

Jubbulpur Transformed Effects of the Eailway along the Narbada A
Station Shikari The Panther and the Leopard Dangers of Panther
Hunting A Man-eating Panther Curious Legend Cunning of
Panthers A Determined Charge Baits for the Panther A Hot-
Weather Excursion Dance of the Peacocks Deer Shooting from

CONTENTS. xi

PAGE

a "Dug-out" The Spotted Deer An Interview with a Tiger The
Monkey's Leap Immense Herd of Deer A Famous Tiger A Suc-
cessful Beat A Midnight Intruder The Man-eater of Pouhri
Ghostly Legend Coursing the Sambar Native Dogs The Wild Dog
Bunjara Dogs The Black Bear A Family Charge Bear Shooting
Large Python 314

CHAPTER IX.

THE SAL FOEEST.

Head Streams of the Narbada The Mandla Plateau A Prairie Country
Character of the Uplands Scenery Climate Scanty Population
Gonds Bygas Their retired Habits Poisoned Arrows Courage
of the Bygas Patriarchial Institutions A singular Eace The Byga
Medicine Man Tiger Charming A pleasant Custom Byga Seers
Eeligious Sentiments Destruction of Sal Trees The Dammer Eesin
Traffic of the Bygas Character of the Sal Forests Forest Products
Lac Dye Tusser Silk A Grazing Country Value of Cattle
Prospects of the Country Its Eesources Causes of Backwardness
Wanting Population Distance of Markets Malaria Advantages of
the Tract for Settlers European Colonisation Field for Enterprise
A Missionary Attempt Land Jobbing Prospects of Missions
Wild Animals The Eed Deer Its Habits Variety of Game A
Christmas Party Beating with Elephants A Tiger Shot Flying
The Halon Valley A Mendicant killed by a Tiger Stalking the Eed
Deer Kill a Stag A Eun at a Hind A Wild Elephant Singular
Freak Eange of Wild Elephants Tigers Eoaring at Night A
Bemarkable Serenade Large Herds of Eed Deer The Wild Buffalo 355

CHAPTER X.

AN EXPLOEATION IN THE FAE EAST.

Commanding Promontory The Source of the Narbada Sivite Legends
Fine View A Long Exploration The Wild Buffalo Its Eange
and Habits Criminal Trespass The Police called in We slay the
Invader Toughness of the Buffalo Size of his Horns A Voyage
down the Mahanadi The Country of the Khonds More Buffaloes
A Feverish Eegion Buffalo Hunting on Horseback A Vicious Cow
Upset by a Bull " Tinker " to the Eescue A Curious Sentinel
Treed by Buffaloes The Enemy retires Danger of Buffalo Shooting
A Cumbrous Trophy March for the Elephant Country A Decayed

CONTENTS.

PAGE

City An unfortunate Seizure Retire to Laafagarh A Hospitable
Chief The Bygas again A Primitive Pipe An Amazing Spectacle
The Elephant God Life at Laafagarh The Doctor discomfited
Jungle Delicacies The Thakur's Yarns A Tiger Shot with an
Arrow An Elephant Done to Death A " Loathly Worm " Wild
Animals on the Hill An irksome Prison Make another Start A
splendid Game Country A Herd of Elephants A Solitary Tusker
Almost an Adventure A Villainous Termination Explore the
Country Bhumia Trackers Fate of a Herd of Elephants A Vast
Sal Forest The Way lost Beat out a Bhumia Habits of the Bhu-
mias Aspect of the Country A Primitive Measure of Distance
Haunts of the Buffaloes Capture of wild Elephants Coal Mea-
sures Prospects of the Country The Plateau of Amarkantak A
Terrible March End of the Exploration Effects of Exposure
The Forest Question Utility of Forests Prospects of the Forests
Central India as a Field for Sport Where to go Outfit Guns and

-Conclusion 395

APPENDICES.

Appendix A. Note on the Diseases of Elephants, and the Treatment of
the Animal in Captivity B. Rules for the Sale and Lease of Waste
Lands in the Central Provinces C. Useful Trees of the Forests of
Central India D. Vocabulary of Local Terms E. Hints on the
Preservation of Natural History Specimens . . . . .451

THE

HIGHLANDS OF CENTEAL INDIA.

CHAPTER I.

INTRODUCTORY.

Physical description of the Central Highlands The Satpura Range Early
history of Gondwana The Rajputs and their bards Mixed races Immi-
gration of Hindus The conquest by Akber Fate of the aborigines
Overthrow of the Gond Kings Arrival of the Marathas The hill-tribes
plunder the low country The Pindaris British conquest of the country
Improved administration Recent ignorance of the interior of the hills
Constitution of the Central Provinces Energy of .the new administration
Establishment of the Forest Department Exploration of the hill tracts
Their area and character Settlement operations Interesting nature of the
country Its aboriginal population The Gonds Kolarian races The
Kols The Korkus The By gas The Bheels Singular facts in distribution
of organic products Timber trees Relation to geological formations
The fauna Wild buffalo Twelve-tined deer Jungle-fowl Hog- deer
Partridges Intrusion of Eastern forms Early destruction of the forests
The Sal The Teak Its usefulness Ruin of the Teak forests.

People commonly talk of the " hills" and the " plains" of
India, meaning by the former the great Himalayan range, and
by the latter all the rest of the country. The mightiest
mountains of the earth are called nothing more than " hills ;"
and popular geography has no name for the numerous excres-
cences of mother earth which intersect the so-called region of
" plains. " A range called the Nilgherries, in the south of the
peninsula, approaching 9,000 feet in altitude, is known to a
few beyond the limits of India as a resort of invalids, and a
nursery for cinchonas ; but of lesser ranges than this, which

2 j THE HIGHLANDS OF OENTEAL INDIA.

would still be called mountains in any other country, the mass
of " ordinary readers " has no cognizance.

Much of this has really been owing to the unexplored and
undescribed condition of such regions ; but something also to
the overwhelming prominence of the great northern range,
which rivets the attention of teachers of geography and their
pupils, and also, from the exigencies of the art of chartography,
renders it almost impossible to delineate on ordinary maps of
India the features of inferior ranges.

Yet in the very centre of India there exists a considerable
region to which the term Highlands, which I have adopted for
a title, is strictly applicable ; and in which are numerous
peaks and ranges, for which the term " mountain" would, in any
other country, be used. Several of the great rivers of India
have their first sources in this elevated region, and pour their
waters into the sea on either side of the peninsula to the
north the Son commingling with the Ganges, to the east the
Mahanadi, flowing independently to the Bay of Bengal, to the
south some of the principal feeders of the Godavari, and to the
west the Narbadd and the Tapti, taking parallel courses to the
Arabian Gulf. If the reader will seek the head-waters of
these rivers on the map, he will find the region I am about to
describe. To be more precise, it lies on the 22nd parallel of
north latitude, and between the 76th and 82nd of east longi-
tude. It forms the central and culminating section of a ridge
of elevated country which stretches across the peninsula, from
near Calcutta to near Bombay, and separates Northern India,
or Hindostan proper, from the Deccan, or country of the
south. The traveller by the new Great Indian Peninsular
Eailway from Bombay to Calcutta, after some 275 miles of his
journey, will come to a point where the line branches into two.
The northern branch leads him on up the Narbada valley,

INTRODUCTORY. 3

and so, by Alahabad and the Gangetic valley, to the City
of Palaces. If he takes the southern branch instead, he will
be landed at Nagpiir, a city in the very heart of India, and its
present terminal station. Between these two branches lies a
triangle of country in which is situated the western half of the
highlands I speak of. From its western extremity, in the
fork of these lines, the mountainous region extends eastwards
for a distance of about 450 miles, with an average width of
about 80 miles.

The general level of what may be called the plains of
Central India has here, by gradual, and to the traveller
scarcely perceptible, steps, reached an altitude of about 1,000
feet above the level of the sea ; and he will rise but little
higher than this at any point on the lines of railway. So
soon, however, as he leaves the railway, and proceeds a few
miles towards the interior of the triangle, he will begin to come
on ranges of hills, at first generally low, but in 'places attain-
ing at once a height of about 1,000 feet from the plain ; and
beyond them peaks and plateaux will present themselves evi-
dently of much superior elevation. Valleys will everywhere
be found penetrating the hills, by following which he may rise
gradually to these higher regions ; and soon he will exchange
the rich cultivation of the flat land through which the rail-
way passes for unreclaimed waste and rugged forest-covered
steeps.

He will now find himself in a region where all is chaos to
the unguided traveller ; where hill after hill of the same wild
and undefined character are piled together ; where the streams
appear to run in all directions at once; and it will not be
until he has traversed the whole region, or closely studied a
map, that some method will begin to evolve itself, and the
geography become plain. He will find that at a height of

B 2

4 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTKAL INDIA.

about 1,000 feet above the plain, that is of about 2,000 above
the sea, the hills have a tendency to spread out in the form of
plateaux ; some comprising the top of only one hill and a
small area ; others like a group of many hills, which support,
like buttresses, on their summits, large level or undulating
plains. From these again he will find shooting up still higher,
a good many other solitary flat-topped hills, reaching the
height of nearly 3,500 feet; some of which in like manner
unite into plateaux at about the same elevation. Yet higher
than these, but never assuming the character of a plateau, he
will see here and there a peak rising to nearly 5,000 feet above
the sea.

As is usual, the inhabitants of the hills themselves have no
general name for the whole chain ; each individual hill or
minor range being called by a local name derived from the
nearest village, or the species of tree it bears, or a god, or a
river, or some* other accidental circumstance. The Hindus of
the plains have several terms for its different sections, calling
the most easterly the Mykal, the centre the Mahddeo, and the
western the Satpiira hills. Geographers have applied the
name Satpiira to the entire range ; and the name is perhaps as
appropriate as any which could be selected.

The watershed of these mountains varies in direction in
their several sections. In the extreme east the range termi-
nates in a bluff promontory with a precipitous face to the
south, throwing the whole of the drainage of a vast area
towards the north. This is the cradle of the Narbada river,
which soon leaves its parent hills, and flows through a wide
valley of its own along the northern face of the range. In the
centre the range culminates in the bold group of the MdM-
deos, crowned by the Puchmurree peaks, throwing the drain-
age almost equally to the north and south, the former into the

INTRODUCTORY. 5

Narbada and the latter into the Grodavari. The western sec-
tion (the Satpiiras proper) is cleft in two by a deep valley,
and drains inwards, forming the river Tapti, which, like the
Narbada, flows for but a short part of its course within the
hills before it leaves them altogether, and runs along their
southern face to the sea. Such, however, is the tortuous for-
mation of these mountains, that their streams frequently sur-
prise one by turning short round in their courses, and making
off towards the wrong river, as if they had suddenly changed
their minds. The drainage of the great central MaMdeo
block is a striking example of this. Two streams rise near its
southern face, the Denwa* and the S6nbadra\ Both flow
nearly south, away from the Narbada, for a short way, when
the former turns to the east and the latter to the west. Pre-
sently, however, they find two vast cracks in the range,
and turn sharp to the north, passing through them to the
northern face, where they unite and fall into the Narbada
after all.

This extensive region emerged from the outer darkness
that shrouds the early history of such immense tracts in
India only within the last three centuries. Before then we
have nothing to grope by in the thick darkness but the will-o'-
the-wisp lights of tradition, and the scarcely more reliable
indications of a few ruinous remains and vague inscriptions.
The aborigines have never possessed a written language, and
the Hindu races, who have within the last few centuries
peopled the valleys that surround and interpenetrate the hills,
have allowed their literature to remain the monopoly of a
priestly caste, whose very existence was bound up in the
necessity of falsifying all history. Their only writings which
wear even the remotest semblance of history the Mahd-
bharat and Ramayan epics speak of all India south of the

6 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTRAL INDIA.

Jamn& as a vast wilderness inhabited by hostile demons and
snakes. Eeligious hermits of the northern race are described
as dwelling in leafy bowers in their midst, while heroes and
demigods wandered about like knights-errant, protecting the
devotees from their hostile acts, which seem more like the
pranks of frisky monkeys than the actions of human beings.
The snakes and demons have been conjectured, with some
probability, to have been the black aborigines of the country,
and the scenes of the epics to pourtray the gradual advance
of the Aryan race and religion into their midst. The wander-
ing Eajas are frequently described as allying themselves in
marriage with the daughters of the potent demons, and so far
the poems agree with what is otherwise shown to be probable.
Nothing like a connected historical narrative is, however, to be
extracted from the mass of Brahminical fiction ; and whatever
value such materials may yield to the investigation of the
history of the Aryan or conquering races, they are worth
nothing as bearing on that of the wild men of the wilderness,
who are throughout regarded as being as much beyond the
pale of humanity as their country was beyond the Aryan
pale the land of clearings and the black ante] ope.

We have a few architectural remains and inscriptions that
tell of Aryan chiefs holding power in parts of the Narbada
valley and the central plateaux, between the 5th and the 1 4th
centuries. But who and what they were, and what was
really their position, their is nothing to show. Bemains of
religious edifices surrounded by fortifications point to the
probability of their having been the heads of isolated bands of
the warlike caste, protecting settlements of missionary priests,
and perhaps, by superior courage and arms, holding in nominal
subjection the aboriginal tribes around them. Traditions exist
of a pastoral race, to whom is attributed every ancient build-

INTRODUCTORY. 7

ing that cannot be otherwise accounted for. It is highly pro-
bable that the cow was unknown to the aborigines before it
was brought by their Aryan invaders. Tradition would
probably fix on so striking a feature as the possession of herds
by those early colonists ; and thus it does not seem necessary
to suppose the existence of any peculiar pastoral people, dis-
tinct from other Aryan settlers in these central regions.

But what these early immigrants may really have been is
unimportant. For, when first the light of true history breaks
upon the country, at the period of its contact with the invad-
ing Mahomedan in the 14th century, all of them had ceased
to have any separate existence. Most probably they had been
absorbed in the great mass of the aboriginal tribes who sur-
rounded them : and we find the country then called by the
name of G6ndwana\ from the tribe of G6nds who chiefly
inhabited it. The petty tribal chieftainships, into which, there
is reason to believe, it had formerly been divided, had then
been united into three considerable principalities, under the
sway of chiefs whom all the evidence we have proves to
have been of mixed aboriginal and Hindu (Rajput) descent.
Architectural remains, and the recorded condition of the
country at the time mentioned, show that these little king-
doms had acquired a considerable degree of stability and
development ; and it has often been wondered how a tribe of
such rude savages as the Gonds could have reached a stage of
civilization at that early period so greatly above anything they
have since shown themselves to be capable of. The explana-
tion seems to lie in the circumstance mentioned. The real
establishes of these courts, and introducers of the arts, were
not Gonds but Hindus.

It is the custom in all families which trace their lineage
to the fountain-head of Hindu aristocracy among the Rajput

8 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTKAL INDIA.

clans of Eajasthan to retain, like the Celtic chieftains of our
own country, family bards, whose duty it is to record in
a genealogical volume, and recite on great occasions, the
descent and family history of their patrons. The bardic
office is hereditary, and where the lineage of the family is
really ancient the bard is generally also a descendant of
the bards of the original clan. Often he is the chief bard
of the clan itself, and resides with its hereditary head at
the family seat in Eajasthan, visiting at intervals the cadet
branches of the house to record their domestic events. In
G6ndwana* numerous chiefs now exist who claim either a pure
descent from Edjpiit houses, or more frequently admit their
remote origin to have sprung from a union between some
Eajpiit adventurer of noble blood and one of the daughters of
the aborigines. Few of them are admitted to be pure Eajpiits
by the blue-blooded chiefs of Eajasthan ; but all have their
bards and genealogies. These, like such documents in all
countries, often go back to fabulous times, and are overlaid
with modern fiction ; but the legendary portion of the bardic
chronicle can generally be separated with little difficulty from
a solid residue of probable fact.

The general conclusion to be drawn from the evidence of
these writings, supported as they are by tradition and later
history, is that during the 1 4th and 1 5th centuries, and it may
be even earlier, a great immigration of the Eajpiit clans took
place into the country of the aborigines. The Mahomedan
invaders of Upper India were then pressing hard on the
country between the Ganges and the Narbada rivers occupied
by the Eajpiits ; and it was doubtless the recoil from them that
forced these colonies of Eajpiits southwards into the wilds
of Central India. Here it would seem that they generally
formed matrimonial alliances with the indigenous tribes.

INTEODUCTOBY. 9

The superior qualities of the Aryan race would soon assert
themselves among such inert races as these aborigines ; and
there is little doubt that before the arrival of the Mahomedans,
not only the heads of what have been termed the G<5nd king-
doms, but also many of the subordinate chiefs, were far more
Hindu than aboriginal in blood. The unfailing evidence of
physical appearance supports these indications of tradi-
tion. Most of the chiefs possess the tall well-proportioned
figure and light complexion of the Hindu, but allied with
more or less of the thickness of lip and animal type of
countenance of the pure aborigine. The mass of the tribes
on the other hand are marked by the black skin, short squat
figure, and features of the negretto race of humanity. Between
them are found certain sections of the tribes, who would seem
to have been also imbued with something of the foreign blood,
though in a less degree than the chiefs. Like the latter they
affect much Hindu manners and customs ; and it is probable
that they too are the result of some connection in long past
times between immigrant Aryans and the indigenous tribes.

The Hindu proclivities of the chiefs appear to have early
led them to encourage the settlement in their domains of
colonies of the industrious agricultural races who had already
reclaimed the soil of Northern and Western India. But no
very extensive arrival of these races would seem to have
occurred previous to the establishment, early in the 17th
century, of a strong Mahomedan government, under the
great Akber, in the surrounding countries. The impetus
given to the development and civilisation of the dark
regions of India by the wise rule of that greatest of eastern
administrators can never be over-rated. Before the absorption
into his empire of the minor Hindu* and Mahomedan states,
their history is one of a continuous lawlessness and strife :

10 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTEAL INDIA.

and the further we investigate, the more certainly we perceive
that political order, the supremacy of law, sound principles of
taxation, a wise land system, and almost every art of civilised
government owe their birth to this enlightened ruler. His
treatment of these unsettled wilds and their people was
marked with the same political wisdom. While, in the sur-
rounding countries, which had already been in a measure
reclaimed by Hindi! races, he everywhere broke up the feudal
system, under which strong government and permanent im-
provement were impossible, he asked no more from the chiefs
of these waste regions than nominal submission to his empire,
and the preservation of the peace of the realm. Those on his
borders he converted into a frontier police, and the rest he left
to administer their country in their own fashion. Acknow-
ledgment of his supremacy he insisted on however ; and in
case of refusal sent his generals and armies who very soon
convinced the barbarous chiefs of their powerlessness in his
hands. The influence of his power and splendour rapidly
extended itself over even this remote region. The chiefs
became courtiers, accepted with pride imperial favours and
titles, and in some cases were even converted to the fashion-
able faith of Islam.

A vast development of the resources of these central
regions followed the coming of Akber. A great highway
between Upper India and the Deccan was established through
a gap in the Satpiira mountains. A vast city arose in the
Tapti valley, which became the seat of government of the
southern province of the empire. Armies marching to and
fro, and the retinues of a great court, brought with them a
demand, before unheard of, for the necessaries and the
luxuries of life. The open country, under the rule of Akber
was rapidly reclaimed by Hindu* immigrants, arriving simul-

INTKODUCTOKY. 11

taneously from the north and from the west. Nor were they
long in extending into the fat lands of the great valleys in
the territories of the Gond princes. The reclamation of the
heavy lands of the Narbada valley, and the country now
known as the Berars, had probably been entirely beyond the
resources of the aboriginal races. The immigrants brought
with them the necessary energy and the necessary resources ;
and from this time a process commenced which resulted in
the wholesale deprivation of the indigenous races of their birth-
right in the richest portions of their country, and the establish-
ment therein of the arts of agriculture and commerce.

The Gonds retired to the higher plateaux and slopes of the
central hills, where their hunting instincts, and rude system
of raising the coarse grains on which they subsist, could still
find scope ; the more extensive plateaux were also soon
invaded by the aggressive race, and their level black soils
covered with crops of wheat and cotton. These elevated
plains are surrounded by belts of rugged unculturable country
which remained in the possession of the aborigines ; and thus
ere long the tribes were not only surrounded but interpene-
trated by large bodies of Hindiis.

The Brahman priest accompanied the warlike Kajpiit and
the industrious Hindu peasant to their new country ; and
brought with him the worship of the Hindi! gods and the
institution of caste. No separation from the holy mysteries
of his faith was demanded from the immigrant. Not only
was he persuaded that he was still under the protection of the
old gods ; but the gods themselves, and all their belongings,
were bodily borne into exile along with their votaries. New
scriptures were revealed, in which the religious myths of the
race were transplanted wholesale, and fitted to local names
and places. The Narbada became more holy as a river than

12 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTEAL INDIA.

the Ganges. The mountain of Kail as, the fabled heaven of
Siva beyond the snows of the Himalaya, jutted to heaven in
the peaks of the Mahadeo range. Krishna and Eama passed
their miraculous boyhood, and achieved their legendary feats,
in these central forests, instead of in the groves of Matlrdra
and the wilderness of Bindraban. Some remarks will be
offered in another place on the social and religious influence
of this contact with Hinduism of the aboriginal races who
retired before the invaders. A few remained in the country
occupied by the Hindiis, chiefly in the position of agricultural
serfs, of watchers of the villages against the inroads of their
wilder brethren or of wild beasts, of hewers of wood, pre-
vented only by the rules of caste from being also their
drawers of water. A social status was assigned them below
that of all but the outcasts of the other race ; and they were
compelled to segregate themselves in humble hovels, beyond
the limits of the comfortable houses and homesteads of the
superior castes.

The semi-aboriginal principalities of Mandla Deogarh, and
Kherla, which included the whole of this highland region,
were thus permitted by the policy of successive Mahomedan
rulers to maintain a little irksome feudatory position, until
the Maratha power began to supplant that of the Moghuls in
the latter part of the 18th century. Then the irrepressible
hordes of the Deccan, having swallowed up the more settled
dominions of the Moslem, began to overrun also the country
of the G6nds. Before the close of the century the three
kingdoms had been entirely broken up, and are heard of no
more in history. They seem to have at no time been more
than a feudal agglomeration of numerous petty chiefships ;
and on the ruin of their heads they resolved themselves again
into the same elements. The conquest of the Marathas

INTRODUCTORY. 13

assumed little of a practical character in the interior of the
hills, the mountaineers continuing to wage against them a
desultory warfare from their fastnesses. The present century
broke with the commencement of that "time of trouble,"
when the leaders of the Maratha confederacy began to quarrel
over their spoil, and entered on a deadly struggle for territory
and power. The financial straits of the Maratha chiefs
now led to wholesale disregard for all rights of property
inconsistent with their demand of a rack-rent from every
acre of the soil commanded by their troops. The hill-chiefs
were now reft of the last of their possessions in the plains ;
corrupt and overbearing farmers of the land-tax seizing on
the last of their accessible resources. Then they took to the
hills with their tribes, and turned their hands against the
spoiler, till the name of G6nd and Bheel became synonymous
with that of hill-robber. Whole tracts came to be distin-
guished by the title of the " country of robbers." There is
not a district in all that long frontier between hill and plain
where tales are not still related of the sudden downswoop of
bands of hillmen on the garnered harvest of the plains, of
bloodshed, torture, and blazing villages, and of the sharp and
savage retaliation of Maratha mercenaries. A little tributary
of the Tapti river that comes down from the hills of Gavil-
garh is still called the " stream of blood," from the massacre
in its valley of a whole tribe of Nahals, man, woman, and
child, by a body of Arabs in the service of Sindia ; and many
similar tales have been related to me when travelling in the
hills. Then, if not before, every pass in the hills was crowned
by a fortified post of the mountain men, and every inhabited
village of the plains by a wall of earthwork and a central
keep. Then, too, arose the organised bands of mounted
plunderers who have been called Pindaris Ishmaelites of

14 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTRAL INDIA.

these central regions, who, like the vulture, sallied forth from
their fastnesses in some secluded wild to gorge on the prey
struck down by a nobler hand. Thenceforth, for nearly
twenty years, the hill-tribe3, Pindari plunderers, and lawless
Maratha soldiery, with their daggers at each others throats,
were unanimous only in robbing the husbandmen of the plains,
who ploughed their fields by night with swords and match-
locks tied to the shafts of their ploughs, or purchased peace
by heavy payments of blackmail. Vast areas of the country
that had been reclaimed by their industry were again aban-
doned to the jungle and the wild beast ; and only round the
walls of fortified villages, within which the people and their
herds could retreat in time of need, was any tillage main-
tained at all.

In the year 1818 this unheard-of anarchy was terminated
by our final success against the Marathas, and the extermina-
tion of the Pindari bands. But we entered on the possession
of our new territories to find them almost desolated by a
quarter of a century of the utter absence of government, with
the hill population frenzied by the excitement of a life of
plunder, and branded with the character of " savage and in-
tractable foresters." The Sagar and Narbada territories, as
the northern half of the country was then called, were ac-
quired by us in full sovereignty after this war. The southern
portion remained nominally the territory of the feudatory
Baja of Nagpur, but had long been under British administration
when, in 1854, it too was annexed on failure of heirs. The
Gavilgarh hills, in the extreme south-west, formed part of
the Nizam's territory of Berar ; but that also has for many
years been under British management.

With the establishment of a strong government the hill-
men soon proved how greatly they were maligned when

INTRODUCTORY. 15

described as " savage and intractable." Since they first came
under our rule there has not been an outbreak among them
of the least importance ; and, on the contrary, they have long
since gained the character of being a remarkably submissive
and law-abiding people. The chiefs were early secured in
their feudatory position, with the full proprietorship of such
territories, both in the hills and in the plains, as they could
establish a title to ; and for many years they were left almost
to themselves in the management of their internal affairs. Our
early administrators were too fully occupied with the work of
restoring prosperity in the open country to have much time
to spare for the Gond and his wildernesses ; and thus we find
that the interior of their country remained an almost unex-
plored mystery up to a very recent period.

Two and a half centuries ago the great Akber knew nothing
of the G6nds but as a " people who tame lions so as to make
them do anything they please, and about whom many won-
derful stories are told;"* and within the last twenty years
even they have been described as going naked, or clothed
in leaves, living in trees, and practising cannibalism. "So
lately as 1853, when the great trigonometrical survey of India
had been at work for half a century, and the more detailed
surveys for some thirty years, Sir Erskine Perry, addressing
the Bombay branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, wrote,
'At present the Gond wand highlands and jungles comprise
such a large tract of unexplored country that they form quite
an oasis in our maps. Captain Blunt's interesting journey in
1795, from Benares to Rajamandri, gives us almost all the
information we possess of many parts of the interior.' " | Till

* Gladwin's ' Ayeen Akberee,' vol. ii. p. 59.

t 'Introduction to the Central Provinces Gazetteer,' by Charles Grant,
Esq., C.S.

16 THE HIGHLANDS OP CENTEAL INDIA.

within a few years, " unexplored " was written across vast
tracts in our best maps ; and, though lying at our very doors,
unexplored in reality they were. With few exceptions, the
civil officers of those days never dreamt of penetrating the
hilly portions of their charges ; and the writer is acquainted
with one district containing some 3000 square miles of forest
country, and inhabited by between 30,000 and 40,000 abori-
gines, in which one officer held charge for eleven years with-
out once having put foot within this enormous territory. All
accounts of such tracts were filtered through Hindii or Maho-
medan subordinates, whose horror of a jungle, and its un-
known terrors of bad air and water, wild beasts, and general
discomfort, is such as to ensure their painting the country and
its people in the blackest of colours.

But a new era dawned on these dark regions, when the
conscience of the British rulers of India was awakened to
the wants of their great charge, after a rebellion which nearly
ousted them from their seat. Along with many more im-
portant provinces, this secluded region felt the benefit of the
impulse then given to the administration of the empire. That
great civiliser of nations the iron road was to be driven
through the heart of its valleys ; and Manchester had pro-
phetically fixed an eye on its black soil plains as a future
field for cotton. Something stronger than the divided and
limited agency of the several local officers who had been
sitting still over its affairs was wanted for the guidance of a
country and a people who possessed all the elements of a
rapid progress. Accordingly, in 1861, were constituted what
have since been known as the Central Provinces, under the
chief commissionership of Mr. (now Sir Kichard) Temple, of
the Bengal Civil Service.

Then were seen strange sights in that unknown land ; when

INTRODUCTORY. 17

distant valleys and mountain gorges, that had heard no other
sound than the woodman's axe, echoed to the horsehoofs of the
tireless Chief, and his small knot of often weary followers ;
when the solitary Gond or Byga, clearing his patch of millet
on the remote hill-side, was astonished by the apparition,
on some commanding hill-top, of that veritable " Govern-
ment" (Sirkar) in the flesh, which to him and his for
several generations had been an abstraction, represented,
if by chance he ever visited the district head-quarters, by a
" Saheb " in his shirt sleeves, sitting in a dingy office smoking
a cheroot !

A Chief who thus, by dint of hard riding, insisted on seeing
the requirements of the country for himself, was not long in
perceiving that the highland centre of the province, with its
extensive forests and mineral wealth, its limitless tracts cf
unreclaimed waste and scanty half-wild population, and its
great capabilities for the storage of precious water, was worthy
of a principal share of attention. It had already been whis-
pered by a few that its forests, calculated on by the projectors
of the railway lines, then being constructed through the pro-
vince, for their supply of timber, were likely to prove a broken
reed, having been already exhausted by a long course of mis-
management ; and one of the first steps taken was the organi-
sation of a Forest Department, for the detailed examination
and conservation of the timber-bearing tracts. An officer *
who had already interested himself in the question, and had
travelled extensively in these regions, and who was admirably
fitted for the task by physical qualities, and the possession of
that faculty of observation which is not to be attained by the
labours of the study, was selected as superintendent of the

* Captain G. F. Pearson, of the Madras Army, now Conservator in the N.W.
Provinces.

18 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTRAL INDIA.

new department. During the five succeeding years several
officers, quorum unusfui, were unremittingly employed in the
exploration of the 36,000 square miles which may be taken
to be the area of the central hills, besides doing much to ex-
amine an almost equally extensive tract of. low-lying forest in
the south of the province. In later years the regular civil
officers of the district, those employed in the land revenue
settlement, surveyors, missionaries, and many others, have
traversed many parts of these mountains ; and a great mass
of information respecting their physical character and in-
habitants has been accumulated, which, although of very
unequal value, is yet a mine of useful ore from which much
good metal may be extracted. Much of this has already been
printed in the form of official Eeports ; and recently the
cream of it has been abstracted into a Gazetteer of the Central
Provinces, the Introduction to which, from the pen of Mr.
Grant, late Secretary to the Chief Commissioner, is a resume
of the history of the province, admirable for its conciseness
and research. Good maps of all but the remotest tracts have
also now been made available ; and statistical information of
all sorts is annually prepared with much care and made public
by the Government.

My design, then, in thus venturing before the public, is not
that of attempting to rival these most complete official docu-
ments in accuracy or extent of information, but rather to pre-
sent, in a more popular and accessible form, the lighter and
more picturesque aspects of a country in which an increasingly
large section of our countrymen may be expected to take an
interest, now that two railways, carrying most of the pas-
sengers between India and England, pass for several hundred
miles within sight of the hills of Gondwana. Though most of
what I shall have to say is founded on, or corroborated by, my

INTRODUCTORY. 19

own observation during many years of acquaintance with the
region described, I shall not refuse to avail myself of well-
authenticated material collected by others.

The highland region is comprehended within eleven of the
nineteen districts into which the province has been subdivided
for administrative purposes. A portion of most of these dis-
tricts lies also in the adjacent plains, either to the north or
south of the hills, a judicious arrangement which combines in
one jurisdiction the hill and the plain people who have deal-
ings together. The total area of these districts is, in round
numbers, 44,000 square miles, of which about 11,000 are
under cultivation, and the remainder waste. Where such
extensive mountains are included, it will not be surprising to
find that of this large unreclaimed area, about 20,000 square
miles are estimated to be wholly incapable of tillage, the
remaining 13,000 being probably more or less fit for improve-
ment. These figures are obtained by the returns of the
department employed in what is called the " settlement of the
land revenue." *

Few readers will require to be told that in India the great
mass of the land has always paid a tax to the Government
(which is really of the nature of a rent-charge which had never
been alienated by the original proprietor of all land the
State) ; and in these provinces most of the hill-chiefs even
were found, on the country coming into our hands, to be liable
to the land tax, which in their case, however, was usually a
very light one. During the times of anarchy which preceded
our rule, the proper amount of this tax had become very un-
certain, the assessment in fact having very much resolved
itself into a struggle between the rulers and the ruled, " that

* The writer served for three years as settlement officer of one of these dis-
tricts, and can vouch for the general accuracy of the statistics.

c 2

20 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTRAL INDIA.

they should take who have the power, and they should keep
who can." It was also by no means clear in many cases from
whom the tax should be demanded, rights of property in land
having fallen greatly into abeyance during a period when to
claim the proprietorship was to invite spoliation and oppres-
sion. Our strong and equable rule so greatly encouraged the
arts of peace that population soon began to press upon the
immediately available land ; and this circumstance, together
with the moderation arid certainty of our land taxation, soon
bestowed on property in land a value which it had never
before possessed. Eival claimants then began to bring forward
conflicting, and often long-dormant, claims to possession ; and
the courts established for the ordinary business of the country
were soon swamped by the number and complexity of these
cases. It was found, too, on inquiry, that there had never
really existed any clearly recognised right of property, in our
sense of the term, which would give the agricultural classes a
real interest in the improvement of their lands, while many
classes of persons had been allowed to exercise very undefined
powers over the whole of this immense area of unreclaimed
land. The culturable wastes were becoming much in demand
by enterprising settlers, a demand which the shortly expected
opening of the country by the railway promised to largely
increase. Such operations were clogged by these uncertain
claims, and thus the progress of the country was in danger.
The forest question also became urgent, timber being required
in large quantities by the railways, while a fear arose of the
impending exhaustion of the whole forests of the country.
Nothing could be effected in this direction either, until the
question of title in these wastes should be determined. The
Government then determined to appoint special officers for the
settlement of all these matters in every district of the province ;

INTRODUCTORY. 21

and after ten years of hard work they have now been set at
rest. Few persons can conceive the amount of personal
labour, in the field and in the office, involved in the settlement
of one of these districts. Every village and hamlet has to be
visited, and every acre of land appraised and assessed; the
title of every claimant to any interest in the land has to be
investigated from the beginning of time ; and finally a minute
and accurate record of the whole process has to be drawn up,
to form the substantive law for the disposal of future cases in
the civil and revenue courts of the district. The grand result,
as affecting rights and interests in the land, was, that where
any title which could be converted into a right of property
was established, the freehold, bearing liability to the fixed
Government rent-charge, was bestowed on the claimant ; while
all land to which no such private title could be established was
declared to be the unhampered property of the state. Most of
the hill-chiefs were admitted to the full ownership of the
whole of their enormous wastes, though certain restrictions as
to the destruction of the forests have here (as in all civilised
countries), been imposed on these proprietors. Thus the area
which has remained to the State in these highlands is only
about 14,500 square miles, of which about 9,500 are con-
sidered to be culturable, and the rest barren waste. A por-
tion of this area has been reserved from disposal to private
persons, as State forest ; but in every district there is much
good land available for sale or lease, under rules which will be
found in an Appendix.

Few parts of India present so great a range of interesting
natural objects for investigation as this. Situated in the very
centre of the peninsula, the ethnical, zoological, botanical, and
even geological features of north and south, and of east and
west, here meet and contrast themselves. As has been

22 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTRAL INDIA.

noticed above, two distinct streams of the so-called Indian
Aryans, approaching from Northern and Western India, here
meet and intermingle, differing considerably in appearance, in
character, and in speech. Where the land has been suitable
for their agricultural processes, the original dwellers of the
land have been driven out to the central hills ; and there
we find them in several tribes, which yield to the investi-
gator points of connection with several branches of the human
race.

The total population of the tracts I have included in this
sketch is about 4^ millions, of whom about 3^ millions are
Aryans, and one million only belong to aboriginal races.
The great majority of these (826,484) are the Gonds, who
have given their name to the country, and who are distributed
in greater or less density over the whole of the hilly portion of
the tract. The infallible test of lano-ua^e shows that the
Gonds belong to the same family of mankind as the Tamil-
speaking Dravidians of Southern India.* In the extreme
north-east of the tract, are found about 37,000 of the tribe
known in the Bengal hill-tracts as Kols, a race closely allied
to the Santals and other tribes of the north-east ; and in the
very centre of these highlands, on the high plateaux of Puch-
murree and Gavilgarh, surrounded and isolated by the Gonds,
are found another race, called Kiirs or Korkiis, numbering
about 44,000, whose language and general type are almost
identical with these Kols and Santals, though they themselves
are utterly unaware of the connection. All these Kolarian
tribes differ radically in language from the Dra vidian Gonds ;
and some connection has been traced between them and the

* A supposed connection between the Gonds and the Brahuis, a Mahomedan
tribe on the Sindh frontier, based on the correspondence of a few words in their
languages, does not appear to bear the test of a closer examination.

INTRODUCTORY. 23

aboriginal races of countries lying to the east of India.
Further to the east again, in the Mykal range, and like the
Korkiis imbedded among the Gonds, is found a small body of
about 18,000 Bygas, who have not yet been traced either to
the Kolarian or the Dravidian stock. They present, from
many circumstances to be afterwards noticed, the most curiour
ethnical problem of all. Less raised above the condition of
the mere hunting savage than any, and clinging to the most
secluded solitudes, they have yet entirely lost all trace of their
own language, and speak instead a rude dialect of the tongue
of the Aryan immigrants. They present some points of
affinity to the Bheels of Western India, of whom also, in the
extreme west, some 20,000 are reckoned in this cauldron of
peoples. The number of the aborigines is completed by about
25,000 souls, forming the fag ends of tribes who have lost all
semblance of distinct cohesion, without language or territory
of their own.

Which of these entirely distinct families are the autoch-
thones of the land, or which of them first settled here, may
possibly never be known. None of them have any relia-
ble tradition of their arrival ; and no evidence, bearing on
the subject, beyond what has been already mentioned, has
been discovered. It is not within the scope of my present
purpose to attempt any elaborate investigation into the eth-
nical history or peculiarities of these tribes. The evidence
yet recorded is too scanty to yield valuable results ; and such
has been the admixture of their customs, religion, and lan-
guage with those of the Hindus, that it is improbable now
that much of their original distinctive peculiarity remains
to be discovered. Yet there is much that is curious and
interesting in their present condition, gradually being ab-
sorbed as they are in the vast mixture of races composing

24 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTRAL INDIA.

modern Hinduism; and a grave problem remains unsolved
in the question of our duty towards these races as a Govern-
ment. What I have to say on these points will find a place
further on.

The region is also remarkable as forming the meeting ground
of some forms of vegetable and animal life, which seem to
be characteristic of North-eastern and South-western India.
The principal forest-tree of upper India is the Sal (Shorea
robusta), a tree whose habit it is to occupy, where it grows at
all, the whole area, almost to the exclusion of others. It thus
forms vast forests in the lower Himalaya, and covers also the
greater portion of the hilly region to the south of the Gan-
getic valley. From the latter tract it stretches along the table-
land of the subdivision of Bengal called Chota Nagpiir, and
thence extends into the Central Provinces in two great
branches, separated by the open cleared plain of Chattisgarh.
The southern branch reaches as far as the GodaVari river, and
the northern embraces the eastern half of the highlands I have
described, both branches ceasing almost exactly at the eightieth
parallel of east longitude. To the west of this the charac-
teristic and most valuable forest-tree is the Teak (Tectoria
grandis), which is not found at all in Northern India, or
Bengal, and but scantily in the Central Provinces to the east of
80 longitude. The Teak- tree is, however, not so exclusive in
its habit of growth as the Sal, appearing rather in the form of
scattered clumps among other forms than as the sole occupant
of large areas.

Some explanation of this peculiar disposition of these two
timber trees may perhaps be found in their habits of growth
and relation to various soils. The Sal is a tree possessed of a
remarkable power of propagating itself, shedding an enormous
number of seeds, at a season (the commencement of the rains)

INTRODUCTORY. 25

when the usual jungle fires have ceased, and which sprout
almost immediately on their reaching the ground. On the
other hand, the Teak seeds after the rainy season, and the
seeds themselves are covered by a hard shell, which must*
be decomposed by long exposure to moisture and heat
before they will germinate. This necessitates their exposure
throughout one hot season, when the whole of the grass
covering the ground below is burnt in the annual conflagra-
tions. Thus a large per centage of the seeds of the Teak never
germinate at all. It is clear then, that if these two species
were growing together, on soil equally suitable for both, the
Sal must possess an immense advantage in the " struggle for
life " over the Teak. And if to this natural advantage be
added an adventitious one, in the fact that the Teak is much
more generally useful to man particularly to man in a
primitive state as is really the case, there seems to be a
sufficient reason why the Teak should disappear before its rival
in tracts where the latter has obtained a footing and is equally
suitable to the soil and climate. Now an examination of the
tracts on which these trees are found in Central India shows
that, while the Teak does not appear to shun any particular
geological formation, it thrives best on the trap soils which
predominate in the south and west of the province. But the
Sal, on the other hand, clearly shuns the trap formation
altogether. Not only is it unknown within the great trappean
area to the west of the eightieth degree of longitude, but even
to the east of that line, in its own peculiar region, it does not
grow where isolated areas of the trap rocks are found.
Further I believe that in no part of India where this tree
grows is there any of the trap formation. With the exception
only of this volcanic rock the Sal appears to thrive on any
other formation, being equally, abundant within its own area,

26 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTRAL INDIA.

where primitive rocks, or sandstones, or lateritic beds pre-
dominate. Thus I believe that the Sal, where the soil is suit-
able, that is where there are no trap rocks, has exterminated the
"Teak, of which it is a natural rival. In other parts of India,
where the Teak does not meet with this rival, as in Malabar
and Burma, it flourishes on the soils from which it is here
excluded by the Sal. The general conclusion appears irresist-
ible, but sharp contrasts perhaps best illustrate such peculi-
arities. Many such might be mentioned, but two in par-
ticular are very noticeable. Within the Sal region, in the hills
immediately to the east of the town of Mandla, there is a
considerable area covered by Teak, to the total exclusion of the
Sal. The whole of this region is composed of a trap overflow ;
and all around it, as soon as the granitic and lateritic forma-
tions recommence, the Sal again entirely abolishes the Teak.
Again, within the area of the trap and Teak, in the valley of
the Denwa river, 150 miles west of the furthest limit of the
general Sal region, is found a solitary isolated patch of the
latter, occupying but a few square miles. Here the Sal grows
on a sandstone formation. It is surrounded on three sides by
trap rocks, and there it entirely ceases, and is supplanted by
the Teak as the principal timber tree. But how to account
for this small and unimportant outlier of the great Sal belt ?
To maintain our theory, some link to connect them together
should be found. I think that a hypothesis, much less
extravagant than many which are introduced into such argu-
ments, will do so. Towards the fourth side of the Sal patch
in the Denwa valley lies the great open plain of the Narbada
into which the sandstone formation extends, and passes on
along with primitive rocks, and with little interruption from
the trap, right up to the main body of the Sal forest at the
head of the Narbada valley. The Sa], it is true, ceases in the

INTEODUCTOEY. 27

open Narbada valley, but so does all forest, the country
having been completely cleared and cultivated for many
generations. It is not then a very violent assumption to
suppose that the Sal forest at one time extended down
the Narbada valley as far as the Denwa, and that, when the
country was cleared, this little patch alone was left securely
nestled under the cliffs of the Mahadeo range, in the secluded
valley of the Denwa, into which there was no road even until
within the last few years.

These are strange facts. But it would be still more strange if
a corresponding distribution of animal life could also be demon-
strated. Something of the kind is really almost possible.
Equally with the Sal tree, several prominent members of the
Central Indian fauna belong peculiarly to the north-eastern
parts of India. These are the wild buffalo (Bubalus Ami), the
twelve-tined " swamp " deer (Rucervus Duvaucellii), and the
red jungle-fowl (G alius f err ugineus). 'All these are plentiful
within the area of the great Sal belt, but do not occur to the
west of it, excepting in the Sell patch of the Denwd valley,
where the two latter, though not the buffalo, again recur. In
the Denwa valley there is but a solitary herd of the swamp
deer, I believe ; the red jungle-fowl are not so numerous as
the rival species, G. Sonneratii, which replaces it in the west
and south of India ; and it is not surprising that the wild
buffalo should have disappeared when his range had been
reduced, by the clearance of the intermediate forest, to the
narrow limits of this small valley. So large and prominent
an animal requires a much larger range than deer and birds ;
and there is no part of the surrounding country suitable for
his habits until we reach the Sal tracts again, though very
probably the extensive black soil plains of the Narbada valley
were so before they were cleared. In corroboration of the

28 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTRAL INDIA.

probability of his formerly having extended further down the
valley than at present, skulls and horns have been found in the
upper gravels of the Narbada in no way differing, except in
superior size, from those of the existing species. Their greater
size is not surprising, as they are not larger than the horns
still occasionally met with in Assam, where also the average
size is stated to be now rapidly diminishing under the attacks
of sportsmen.

Two other large representatives of the eastern and western
faunas, the wild elephant and the Asiatic lion, also appear to
have formerly extended far into this region. In modern times,
however, the advance of cultivation and the persecutions of
the hunter have driven them both almost out of the country
I am describing. The former, in the time of Akber (as is
ascertained from Abul Fuzl's chronicles), ranged as far west
as Asirgarh, but is now confined to the extreme east of the
province. Sir Thomas Roe, ambassador from James I. to the
Court of the Great Mogul, in the 17th century, speaks of
the lion as being then common in the Narbada valley. It is
now seldom heard of further east than Eajput^na ; although
a solitary specimen sometimes appears in their old haunts
further east. A lion was killed in the Sagar district in 1851,
and another a few years ago only a few miles from the Jubbul-
piir and Alahabad railway. The hog-deer (Axis porcinus), I
have never met with in the west of the province, nor is it very
numerous even in the east, though very common in the Sal
tracts of Northern India. The black partridge (Francolinus
vulgaris) of Northern India, does not extend into these pro-
vinces at all, its place being taken by the painted partridge
(F. pictus), a very closely allied species. The great imperial
pigeon of Southern India does not, I think, cross the Narbada
to the north, though not uncommon in the higher forests to

INTRODUCTORY. 29

the south of that river. Scientific research among the minor
forms of animal and vegetable life (for which I have had
neither the time nor the knowledge), may possibly elicit many
confirmations of the law of distribution I have thus roughly
stated from observations that have presented themselves to me
as a forester and a sportsman.

I need here only indicate another matter in connection
with this subject. It has already been stated (p. 22) that
a tribe called Korkus, closely connected with what is called
the Kolarian stock, which is represented by the Kols and
Santals of Bengal, is found embedded among the Gonds of
these central hills. Now the commencement of the range of
this tribe precisely agrees with the isolated patch of the Sal
forest in the Denwa valley ; and their nearest relatives of the
same stock are the Kols of the country to the north of Mandla,
where the Sal forest again commences. Thus we have an
outlier of the human tribes of Eastern India existing along
with an outlier of its vegetable and animal forms, and the
country between the whole three and their nearest con-
geners occupied by other forms. It is a most singular
coincidence ; and such must be my excuse for devoting
so much of my space to what must be to many an un-
interesting discussion. It is worthy, I think, of further
investigation.

I have said that at the time the Central Provinces were
constituted little was accurately known regarding the forest
resources of their vast waste regions. It had, indeed, been
suspected that the projectors of the railways had over-Calcu-
lated the possible supply ; but it was little guessed that the
exhaustion had gone so far as really proved to be the case.
In another place (p. 96) will be found an account of the
system of cultivation of the hill-tribes, who had for centu-

30 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTRAL INDIA.

ries devastated the forests, by the cutting and burning of
their best timber to form ashes to manure their wretched fields
of half-wild grain. This was itself almost sufficient to have
proved the ruin of the forests, but other causes had not been
absent. The most valuable timbers for the railway and other
useful purposes are the Teak and the Sal ; indeed no others
have been found to be really lasting when subjected to the
great and sudden variations of an Indian climate. The Teak
tree is perhaps the most generally useful in the whole world.
In combined strength, lightness, elasticity, and endurance
there is none to compare with it. At the present day its
uses cover a wider range than those of any other timber,
from the handle of an axe in its native forests to the backing
of an ironclad in the navy of England. But it is unfor-
tunate also that it is the easiest of all timbers to fell, and
makes better firewood and charcoal than any other. It is
little wonder, then, that on it almost exclusively, where
found, had fallen the weight of the people's requirements,
ever since the country was first populated by civilised tribes.
I have already said that it is a most difficult tree to repro-
duce, the seeds being exposed to the extremities of clanger
before they have the opportunity to germinate. The seed-
lings also, with their great dried leaves like so many sheets
of tinder, are more exposed to injury by fire than those of
any other tree. Thus the Teak had everywhere been merci-
lessly cut down, and had to struggle with the most adverse
circumstances to maintain a footing at all. Over great tracts,
where it probably once grew, it has been utterly exterminated,
giving place to a " shoddy aristocracy " of such worthless
species as the Boswellia, which no one would dream of cut-
ting, and on which nature has bestowed all the indestructible
vitality of a weed. The Teak has but one rare and valuable

INTRODUCTORY. 31

property, by means of which it has alone continued to sur-
vive at all in many places. However much it may be cut and
hacked, if the root only be left, it will continue to throw up
a second growth of shoots, which grow in the course of a
few years to the size of large poles. This is the sort of
timber which was chiefly in demand for the small native
houses before the introduction of our great public works ; and
thus, perhaps, may be explained the apathy with which the
native Governments witnessed the destruction of the forests
of large timber. A further reference to this matter will be
found further on.

The Sal-tree, again, as I have explained, possesses a much
stronger vitality as a species than the Teak ; though from its
liability to heartshake, dry-rot, and boring by insects, as well
as its want of all power (like most resinous trees) of throwing
out coppice wood, the individual trees are much more perish-
able than the Teak. It is also not so generally useful, par-
ticularly for minor purposes, being hard to fell, of coarse
grain, and making very inferior charcoal. It, however, yields
a gum -resin valuable in commerce, and this alone has led to
a very great destruction of the Sal forests {vide p. 364).
Again, the Sal tracts were very inaccessible from the popu-
lous regions, the nearest point where any great supply could
be had for the railway being about 100 miles, by a bad
land route. This distance has up to the present time
proved an insurmountable obstacle to the general utilisation
of the Sal timber on the railway works. The supply of this
timber is almost inexhaustible ; and a stronger commentary
on the commercial value of easy communications could not be
found than this, that the railways have found it cheaper to im-
port pine sleepers from Norway, and iron wood from Australia,
than to carry the Sal timber growing within a hundred miles

32 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTRAL INDIA.

of their line * There is something wrong where this is the
case ; and that something is the want . of a good road into
the Sal regions from the railway at Jubbulpur, which road
should have been made, for many other reasons besides this,
long ago {vide pp. 376-7).

So much for the Sal forests. As regards the Teak, the sup-
ply available for railway uses had already been much reduced
from the causes mentioned. A good deal was, however, still
left in the remoter forests, where communications were not so
easy ; and the forests, if properly taken in hand, might have
yielded a steady supply of large timber for many years. But
unfortunately the grave mistake was now made of announcing
that after a certain time the forests would be brought under
Government management and strictly conserved. This was
the death-blow to the remainder of the Teak throughout the
northern parts of the tract. The railway contractors, and
numerous speculators, foreseeing the value that timber was
likely to acquire, owing to railway operations and the closing
of the forests, then went into the jungles with bags of rupees
in their hands, and spread them broadcast among the wild
tribes, with instructions to slay and spare not to fell every
Teak tree larger than a sapling that they could find, and
mark them with their peculiar mark. It was only too faith-
fully done ; and scarcely anything that was accessible escaped
the axe. Now came delay in the railway works, failure of
the contractors, and want of money. The cut timber was
abandoned wholesale where it lay. Teak wood is full of oil,
and burns readily after lying for a short time. The jungle
fires occurred as usual in the long dry grass where the logs

* I would not be understood to say that no Sal timber has been used. A
little has ; but it has always proved to be a losing speculation in its cost as com-
pared with the imported material.

INTRODUCTORY. 33

were lying, and the great majority of them were burnt ! The
exact amount of the destruction can never be known. For
years afterwards, when exploring in the forests, we continued
to come on the charred remains of multitudes of these
slaughtered innocents, most of them being quite immature
and unfit for felling at any time. All that were worth any-
thing were saved by the Forest Department in after years,
and the value even of these amounted to many lacs of rupees.
They were not a hundredth part of those that were cut, which
should probably be reckoned by millions rather than thousands.
The injury done to the forests and to the country by this
most mistaken measure may never be recovered ; certainly it
cannot be recovered in less than two generations of the people's
life. Such was one of the most material results of the utter
ignorance of the administrative officers of that period regard-
ing everything connected with the wilder portions of their
charge. The mischief had been completed, and most of the
timber speculators had bolted from their creditors, leaving
their logs smoking in the forests, before the formation of the
Central Provinces, and ere the Forest Department had entered
on their labour of exploring and arranging for the protection
of what was still worth looking after. Succeeding chapters will
give some account of such of these explorations as the writer
was engaged in, and of the penalties and pleasures that accom-
panied the early investigations in these Central Indian forests.

CHAPTER II.

THE NAEBADA VALLEY.

Start for the Mahadeo Hills Camp of an Explorer Travelling in Wild Re-
gions Capture of a Camel March down the Narbadd Valley Gorge in
the Eiver The Marble Eocks Colonies of Bees Fatal attack by a
Swarm Their Ferocity Capture of the Honey Moonlight Pic-nics
Crocodiles and Fish Shooting a Crocodile Cold Weather Marching
Prosperity of the Country Description of Hindu Eaces in the Valley
Abundance of Game Wild-fowl and Snipe Partridge and Quail Shoot-
ing Adventure with a Snake The Black Antelope Methods of Stalking
A Solitary Buck The Indian Gazelle Method of Shooting The Nilgai
The Hunting Leopard The Wolf Man-killing Wolves Destruction of a
Pair" Tinker" and the Wolf Wild Boars The People of the Narbada
Valley Gond Labourers The Mhowa Tree Coal Mines Snipe Shoot-
ing Hill Forts Junglo Clearings Forest Animals.

Early in January, 1862, I received instructions to proceed
to the Puchmurree (Pachmarhi) hills the lofty block I have
described as crowning the Satpura range to the south of the
Narbada river. There the centre of our operations in that
extensive forest region was to be fixed ; a permanent forest
lodge was to be built in the heart of the country of the Gonds
and Korkus, whose interests we were to endeavour to unite
with our own in the preservation of the remnants of the fine
forests that clothed the slopes of their hills. The country to
be explored was, as I have said, little known. But it was
sufficiently ascertained that plenty of rough work was before
us in overcoming the obstacles presented by the rugged nature
of the land and its inhabitants.

The organisation of such a camp as is admissible in such a

THE NARBADA VALLEY. 35

wild country, occupies no great time. Since the return of
my regiment to quarters a year or so before, I had been
almost constantly out on detachment duty, or on shooting
excursions ; and had added little to the modest properties I
found myself possessed of at the close of some three years of
camping out in the sub-Himalayan Terae, and subsequent
hunting up of skulking rebels over the stony wastes of Bandel-
kand. There are two ways of travelling in such tracts. The
one is to take a full equipment of the large tents and their
luxurious furnishings, which render marching about in India,
under ordinary circumstances, so little attended by hardship,
or even by inconvenience ; a corresponding train of servants
and baggage animals ; and a small army of horse and foot as
a protection. Such a camp will perhaps number from fifty to
eighty men, and half that number of animals of sorts. An
array like this may be allowable or even proper for the civil
officer, who has the dignity of his office to maintain, while
traversing slowly a populous and well-supplied district of the
plains. But the hardship of such an infliction on scattered
tribes of poor and resourceless aborigines is sometimes forcibly
brought home to the invaders, by finding the country, as they
advance, utterly deserted in their track. When I come to
describe the extreme poverty in resource of these outlying
tracts, this circumstance will perhaps be more easy to
realise.

In my shooting excursions I had always marched with only
a single small tent, about eight feet square, of the sort called
a Pdl, which is composed of two or three thicknesses of com-
mon double-thread country cloth, sewn together, and thrown
over a ridge-pole on two uprights, all of the hollow (female)
bamboo, which combines strength with lightness in the highest
possible degree, It has no doors nor windows, but one of the

D 2

36 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTEAL INDIA.

gable ends (so to speak) is slit up the middle and fitted with
stout laces in case of storms. In ordinary weather this end is
kept open to the breeze except at night, and such a tent
really affords ample protection and accommodation to the
traveller who has no heavy indoor business to do, unless per-
haps in the extreme hot weather when no trees are available
to pitch it under. It affords room enough for a light folding
bedstead of bamboo, a cane stool, a small folding table, a brass
basin and stand, and* your portmanteau and guns, which is
all the furnishing that the mere sportsman or explorer should
require. All this, with a good supply of such eatables and
drinkables as are not to be had in the wilderness, will go on a
good camel ; and such had been the extent of my personal
requirements during many a rough expedition and hunting trip
before the present march. On this occasion I added another
tent twelve-feet square, for the servants and a few newly
entertained native foresters who were to assist in my explora-
tions ; and we were also furnished with a somewhat larger
double-roofed tent by Government, which was to be pitched
on the hill as a depot while the contemplated masonry lodge
was being erected. To carry these additional impedimenta I
entertained four or five of the rough little unshod and un-
kempt country ponies, called tattoos hardy little villains,
whom no amount of work can tire out of immediate readiness
for a daily battle royal with teeth and heels the moment they
are cast loose from their loads to graze.

My own tent travelled as usual upon a camel. I don't
think I would have ventured to take any other camel but
" Junglee " into the country I was going to visit. Though
the camel is far more at home in rough and difficult country
than his ungainly-looking formation would lead one to sup-
pose, there are many passes in the Mahadeo hills where these

THE NABBADA VALLEY. 37

animals cannot carry their loads, and some where they could
not proceed at all. But "Junglee"was a camel among
camels. Of the low, stout, shaggy breed used by the Cabul
merchants, who annually during the cold season hawk the
dried fruits of their country over the plains of India, I had
found and caught him running wild and ownerless among the
hills along the Cane river in Bandelkand. When out shooting
I was astonished to see him start out of a thicket, and flee
like a deer over rocks and ravines ; and a rare chase we had
Sepoys, camel men, and camp followers before we got
him into a corner, and bound his sprawling legs and threaten-
ing jaws with tent ropes, and led him away between a couple
of tame loadsters, to have his nose rebored and be starved into
a peaceful return to the uses of his race. He had probably
been abandoned by some party of hard-pressed rebels, long
enough before I saw him to have become perfectly at home in
the jungles, and to have got into first-rate condition. A
better beast to scramble over breakneck ground with a heavy
load I never saw. Poor Junglee ! he afterwards ended his
days under the paw of a tiger in the Betul forests during
one of his periodical relapses into the life of freedom he had
tasted in the wilds of Bandelkand.

On the 11th of January, I bade adieu to the pretty little
station of Jubbulpur (Jabalpur), and to my comrades of the
gallant 25th Punjabees. I was really sorry to see the last of
the jovial manly company of Sikhs who composed the regi-
ment, one of the first of the force that rose on the ruins of the
Bengal army in 1857. But soldiering in India, in time of
peace, is truly one of the dreariest of occupations ; and I con-
fess I was far from doleful at the prospect of quitting the
bondage of parade routine for the free life of the forest ; and
to think that- 11 - * * ". : r '.

38 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTEAL INDIA.

" No barbarous drums shall be my wakening rude ;
The jungle cock shall crow my sweet reveille."

For the first five marches (82 miles), my route lay down
the open and well-cultivated valley of the Narbada\ In the
first march I went off the highway to pay a last visit to a
remarkable scene of beauty, a few miles to the south of the
road. What visitor to Jubbulpiir can ever forget the Marble
Eocks ! In any country, a mighty river pent up into a third
of its width, and for a space of two miles or more boiling
along deep and sullen between two sheer walls of pure white
marble, a hundred feet in height, must form a scene of rare
loveliness. But in a bustling, dusty, oriental land, the charm
of coolness and quiet belonging to these pure cold rocks, and
deep and blue and yet pellucid waters, is almost entrancing.
The eye never wearies of the infinite variety of effect produced
by the broken and reflected sunlight, now glancing from a
pinnacle of snow-white marble reared against the deep blue of
the sky as from a point of silver ; touching here and there
with bright lights the prominences of the middle heights ; and
again losing itself in the soft bluish greys of their recesses.
Still lower down, the bases of the cliffs are almost lost in a
hazy shadow, so that it is hard to tell at what point the rocks
have melted into the water, from whose depths the same lights
in inverse order are reflected as clear as above, but broken into
a thousand quivering fragments in the swirl of the pool.

Here and there the white saccharine limestone is seamed by
veins of dark green or black volcanic rock ; a contrast which
only enhances, like a setting of jet, the purity of the surround-
ing marble. The visitor to these Marble Eocks is poled up
through the gorge in a flat-bottomed punt as far as the " fall
of smoke," where the Narbada makes her first plunge into the
mighty rift ; and there is no difficulty in dreaming away the

Gorge in the Narbada. The Marble Rocks. (From a photograph.)

THE NAUBADA VALLEY. 39

best part of a day in the contemplation of this marvellous *
scene of beauty.

The only drawback to the peaceful enjoyment of the scene
is the presence of numerous colonies of bees, whose combs are
to be seen attached to most of the jutting ledges of the rocks
on the left bank. In cold weather these insects seem to be
inoffensive ; but from about March to July, anything disturb-
ing or irritating them is almost certain to bring them down in
swarms on the offender. Their attack is of a most determined
character ; and, not long before my present visit, had proved
fatal to a gentleman named Boddington, an engineer employed
in sounding the river for a projected crossing of the railway.
It is believed that, on this occasion, the bees were roused by
some of his companions above shooting at the blue rock
pigeons that build in the cliffs, on which they attacked
furiously this gentleman and a Mr. Armstrong, who were
together in a boat below. After a while both gentlemen
sought protection by taking to the water. His companion,
by taking long dives under water, managed to elude the angry
insects and hide in one of the few accessible clefts of the rock ;
but poor Boddington, although also a practised swimmer, was
never lost sight of by the exasperated creatures, and in the
end was drowned and carried down the stream. He lies
buried above the cliff, under a marble slab cut from the rock
beneath which he met his death.

The species of bee that frequents these rocks is, I believe,
the common Bonhrd (Apis dorsata), which attaches its large
pendent combs indiscriminately to such rocks and to the
boughs of forest trees. There are two other species of bees
common in Central India, both much smaller than the Bonhra,

* A fiend in human shape has perpetrated a pun, in the visitor's book kept
at the little rest-house above the cliff, which will here be sufficiently obvious.

40 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTEAL INDIA.

and neither of them inclined to act on the offensive. The
Bonhra is of very common occurrence in many forest tracts ;
and I have myself several times been attacked by them. If
attacked, the only resource is to rush into the nearest thick
bush, break off a leafy branch, and lay about with it wherever
there is an opening. On one occasion, when marching in the
Mandla district, my baggage animals and servants were
attacked, and scattered in every direction. Many of the men
and animals were so severely stung as to be laid up for several
days ; and one of the baggage ponies, who could not get rid
of his load, was killed on the spot. Our kit was flung about
all over the jungle, and was not all collected for several days.
On another occasion a valuable elephant was attacked, and
driven away into the jungle ; and was so panic-stricken that
she could not be recovered for days. I have heard of a large
force of troops in the Mutiny days being routed, horse and
foot, by a swarm of these terrible insects, in the neighbour-
hood of Lucknow. The honey and wax of this and the other
species of bee are regular articles of export from our forests.
The people who engage in the business of taking them seem
to possess not a little of the art of the bee-master ; but they
usually resort to more forcible measures, and rob the combs
after suffocating the tenants at night with the smoke of
torches. Their richest harvests are got from cliffs like this
on the Narbadd ; and some of their slender ladders of bamboo
slips may usually be seen at the Marble Eocks, hanging from
the edge of the cliffs over the abyss of water. The honey is
inferior in quality to that of the domesticated bee of Europe ;
and is sometimes even of a poisonous quality, owing to the
bees having resorted to some noxious flower. It is easy to
procure a comb by slicing it off the face of the rock with a
rifle ball ; and I once had the gratification of thus operating

THE NARBADA VALLEY. 41

on the colonies at the Marble Eocks, from a safe position on the
opposite bank, sending several large comb-fulls to a watery
grave in the depths below.

The presence of these inhospitable bees renders it a matter
for congratulation that the finest impression of the Marble
Eocks is to be got " by the pale moonlight." The bees are
then quite harmless ; and, if the scenery has then lost some-
thing in brilliancy of contrast in its lights and shades, it has
gained perhaps more in the mysteriousness and solemnity that
well befit a spot seemingly created by Deity for an everlast-
ing temple to himself. I am sorry to say that, in the old
Jubbulpur days, we not unfrequently used to desecrate the
sanctuary by unholy moonlight pic-nics, in which plenty of
champagne, brass bands, and songs that were sometimes very
much the reverse of hymns, bore the most prominent part.
It was very jolly, though, like most things that are wrong.

A spot so naturally remarkable as the Marble Eocks could
not escape sanctification at the hands of the Brahmans.
Nothing more completely refutes the accusation of want of
taste for natural beauty, so often made against the Hindus,
than their almost invariable selection of the most picturesque
sites for their religious buildings. Many of the commonest
legends of Hindu mythology have, as usual, been transplanted
by the local priests to this neighbourhood. The monkey
legions of Hanuman here leapt across the chasm on their
way to Ceylon; and the celestial elephant of Indra left a
mighty footprint in the white rock which is still exhibited to
the devout pilgrim. Several picturesque temples dedicated
to Siva" crown the cliff on the right bank ; and by the river's
edge is a favourite ghdt for the launching of the bodies of
devout Hindus into the waters of Mother Narbada\ A
pleasure party to the rocks is apt to be not a little marred by

42 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTRAL INDIA.

a collision with one of these unsavoury objects in mid-stream.
In India many a fair scene has its foul belongings and fell
inhabitants ; and these lovely waters are polluted by ghoul-
like turtles, monstrous fishes, and repulsive crocodiles, that
batten on the ghastly provender thus provided for them by
the pious Hindii.

I believe the common Magar of the rivers and tanks of
the Central Provinces is identical with that of Upper India
(Crocodilus biporcatus). The other species of Indian croco-
dile (Gavialis Gangeticus), the long-nosed Gavidl, is found
in these provinces only in the Mahanadi river, which falls into
the Bay of Bengal. The long still reaches of the Narbadd all
contain a goodly complement of broad-snouted magars ; but,
so far as I have observed, they do not attain in our rocky-
bottomed rivers nearly to the dimensions I have seen in the
slimy tributaries of the Ganges and Jamna\ Eight or nine feet
in length I take to be here about the limit of themagar's growth.
Nor have I ever heard an authentic case of an adult human
being having been killed by a crocodile in our rivers. Small
animals are frequently carried off, and children sometimes
disappear from the ghats in a suspicious manner. A dog
employed in retrieving wild fowl is almost certain to be sooner
or later made a meal of by the saurian. The fall of a duck
in his neighbourhood generally brings the reptile near the
spot ; and many a shot bird thus disappears, as if by magic,
before the eyes of the gunner. But he will prefer your plump
retriever, should he see him nearing the duck as he comes up.
A dear old spaniel of mine named " Quail," possessed of an
uncontrollable " craze after the deuks," had so many narrow
escapes of this sort that I never taught any of the four gene-
rations of his descendants I have possessed to retrieve from
water.

THE NAEBADA VALLEY. 43

Although our crocodiles are thus little noxious to life, and
may even advance some claims to merit as scavengers, it is
not in human nature to refrain from destroying so hideous a
reptile when a chance occurs. There is a spot in the gorge of
the Marble Rocks where such a chance is seldom wanting. A
flat and slightly hollowed rock-shelf at the water's edge in-
vites to noontide repose these unlovely monsters of the deep.
Cold weather and a warm sun seem to be the most favourable
conditions. The place is on the left bank, some quarter of a
mile above the rest-house ; and is marked by the droppings of
the brutes, and of the aquatic birds that invariably watch over
their slumbers. If now, as midday approaches, you will take
your rifle and cross over below the house, and get you round
to where a cleft in the rocks commands the spot, and if the
place has not recently been much disturbed, you will shortly
perceive (if he is not there before you) the seeing and smelling
apparatus of one or more of the reptiles floating slowly in
from mid-stream, like two bungs out of a cask. Nothing
but experience will enable you to distinguish them at this
distance from the pieces of drift wood always floating down
the stream, so marvellously does nature protect even the most
loathsome of her productions. The crocodile approaches the
projected scene of his siesta with immense caution. Long
and keenly he reconnoitres it from a distance ; and if he has
any suspicions he will sink and rise again and again during
his approach. If not he will descend after the first good look,
and then swim right in under water ; and the next thing you
will see of him will be his rugged head lying on the ledge of
rock below you, and a pair of fishy eyes slowly revolving in a
last survey of the neighbourhood. This done, he will heave
his huge bulk and serrated tail sideways out of the water,
and lie extended along the edge, ready to " whammle " in again

44 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTRAL INDIA.

^on the slightest alarm. You will aim at him in the centre of
the neck, just where it joins the head ; and if you then shoot
plumb-centre, but not otherwise, he will never stir. A different
shot might eventually perhaps be fatal ; but this alone will
prevent his reaching the water and escaping, to float up in a
day or two a sickening mass of corruption. Nothing possesses
such a frightful, " ancient fish-like smell " as a crocodile that
has been dead for even a few hours. You can seldom get near
enough to one of these creatures in a boat to kill him with
certainty ; and the only certain plans are to watch for them
at noon as I have described, or to bait with a noisy puppy
dog in the evening, at which time they appear to be most on
the feed.

Few things are more enjoyable than marching along during
the cold season in a rich open country like the Narbada valley
with a well appointed camp, and plenty of leisure to linger
over the numerous objects of interest or amusement presented
by such a tract. Very little of this sort of thing fell in the
way of the forest officers of those days, however. Our work
lay in the depths of distant forests, or at most in the half- re-
claimed frontier belt lying between the hills and the plains,
where timber transactions generally took place, and the chief
dep6ts for forest produce had been established. When by
chance our direct route from forest to forest led across such an
open region, our movements were as rapid as man and beast
could make them ; and at the earliest possible moment we
hurried again from the face of civilization, like ghosts at cock-
crow, to bury ourselves again in the depths of the wilderness.
In after years, when employed in revenue work in a populous
district, I saw the reverse of the picture. Marching by fair
roads and easy stages, with a duplicate set of canvas houses
(for such our large Indian tents really are), one of which goes

THE NAEBADA VALLEY. 45

on over-night and is pitched ready for your arrival in the
morning, in the deep shade of some mango grove, near a
populous village which supplies all your wants; starting after
the morning cup of hot coffee to ride slowly along through green
fields and grassy plains; and looking on the forest-covered hills
on the blue horizon only as an agreeable vanishing point in
the landscape, or as unpleasantly complicating the questions
of liquor excise and police administration ! It is amazing
what a difference the point of view makes. The man who
has dwelt for years among the forests, and their simple wild
inhabitants, will regard nearly every question that arises in a
wholly different light from him whose experience has lain
only among the corn fields of the plains, and their tame and
settled tillers. And each of them will probably arrive at a
conclusion as little comprehending the whole bearings of the
question as the other.

The climate of Central India in the cold season, that is,
from November to March, is almost perfect for the life of
combined outdoor exercise and indoor occupation which forms
the healthiest sort of existence in India. The midday sun, if
a little hot for hard work in the open air, is just sufficient
to make the temperature under canvas delightful, while the
mornings and evenings are cool and bracing, and the nights
cold enough to make several blankets a necessity. In Janu-
ary ice will generally be found on water that has been exposed
all night. Nothing can in my opinion exceed the exhilarating
effect of a march at such a season, with pleasant companions,
through a country teeming with interest in its scenery, its
people, and its natural productions, such as is this region of
the Narbada valley.

Of the history of the country and its people something has
been given in the last chapter. The valley was not long ago

46 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTEAL INDIA.

not long, that is, in the history of countries, a hunting ground
of the Gonds and other wild tribes who are now chiefly con-
fined to the hills which surround it. At most it could have
been but scantily patched by their rude tillage before the
arrival of the Hindu races, who have cleared its forests,
driven the wild elephant that roamed through them to the far
east, and covered its black soil with an unbroken stretch of
wheat cultivation that strikes every visitor with admiration.
In less than three centuries this has been done ; and yet it is
the custom to say that India is an unprogressive country, that
she has been standing still since the beginning of history !
Everything shows that this country is still in its very youth.
The people strong-limbed and healthy, rejoicing in the, rude
abundance that falls to the lot of energetic races tilling an
almost virgin soil. Tilling it roughly, it is true, getting from
it nothing approaching to the quantity of produce extracted
by the denser populations of long-reclaimed tracts from much
inferior soils ; but still tilling it in the way which is the most
profitable to a scanty population with a poor accumulation of
wealth and stock. The example of all new countries with
much available land, even when, as in America, all the
resources of capital and machinery are available, shows that a
comparatively rough culture of a large area is more remunera-
tive than the higher tillage of a smaller area ; and this alone
is the cause of the rude state of agriculture still observed in
this and many other parts of India. This undoubted fact is
however continually overlooked by those who declaim against
the barbarous processes of Indian agriculture, or cry aloud for
the imposition in these Central Provinces of a land-tax as
heavy per acre as that received from the old countries in
Northern and Western India. The time is probably -not far
distant, now that this land-locked valley has been tapped by

THE NARBADA VALLEY. 47

the iron road, when population will flow in from denser
peopled regions ; and the " struggle for life," of which high
land-rents are by some the much-wished-for result, will com-
mence among its people ; probably leading to the high rate of
produce per acre, the high rents, the enrichment of the few
and the pauperization of the many, which are the peculiar
happiness of " old countries." At present, plenty for all is
the rule, poverty the very rare exception. Well-built houses,
well-stocked cattle yards, and a general air of comfort and
happiness, cannot fail to arrest the attention in Hindu
villages. It is true that the people of the soil, those of the
Gr6nds who have preferred to stay and serve a Hindi! master
to a retreat to the hills, are poorly clad and housed, living
like outcasts beyond the limits of the Hindii quarter ; but
they too are at least sufficiently fed ; and nothing but their
own innate apathy and vice prevents them from receiving a
greater share of the surrounding plenty. This is a matter,
however, which will come to be discussed further on.

As the influence on the aborigines in the past, and at the
present time, of their contact with these invading Hindi! races
will afterwards form matter of consideration, it is important
to understand of what material these Hindu races themselves
are really composed. They have generally been comprehended
in the category of " Aryan," as distinguished from the "Taura-
nian" peoples who are believed to have preceded the fair-
complexioned Aryan invaders from Upper Asia in the occupa-
tion of Hindostan, and among whom are included the rem-
nants of wild tribes still found in the hills. But it needs but
little observation of these Hindu races to perceive that they
themselves have long been subjected to some influence which
has greatly modified the original high Aryan type a type
which includes the noblest races of mankind ; the Caucasian

48 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTEAL INDIA.

of Europe, the Persian of high Asia, and the Sanscrit-speaking
"fair-skinned" people who entered India from the north
uncalculated ages ago. That influence cannot have been one
of climate only, which would have affected all their descen-
dants equally ; whereas we see existing the greatest range of
diversity, from the light-coloured, noble-featured Brahman of
the extreme north-west to the black and negro-like chamar or
pariah of the east and south. Everything shows that the cause
has been a mingling of the immigrant race with the inferior
Tauranian tribes whom they found occupying the soil before
them. To judge from physical appearance, few but the highest
castes of Northern India can have any claim to purity of
Aryan blood ; and the admixture of indigenous blood, as indi-
cated by colour and feature, appears to be greater and greater
the further we proceed from the seat of the original Aryan
settlements in the north-west. It can scarcely be doubted then
that the modern Hindus are a composite race, resulting from
the absorption of a wave of Aryanism in a great ocean of
peoples of a far inferior type, the type in fact represented by
such of them as have still remained undiluted in their inac-
cessible hills. The force of the wave diminished as it pro-
ceeded ; and the gradations in the extent of its influence are
now jso subtle that it is hard to say where the line should be
drawn to denote a preponderance of the one element over
the other. The difficulty is further increased by the circum-
stance that the Aryan language, customs, and beliefs, appear to
have been carried far beyond any perceptible influence of the
Aryan blood, so that whole races who show little or nothing
of the latter have become thoroughly imbued with the
former.

Not, however, without notable modification have the Aryan
language, religion, and customs, thus permeated the masses of

THE NAEBADA VALLEY. 49

the inferior races. In language, while the tongue of the
most northern high-caste races has changed from the classical
SaDscrit scarcely more than was inevitable from the wear
and tear of use through such long ages, that spoken by the
masses of lower physical type has suffered so radical an
alteration that a large proportion of its vocables, in some
parts as much as half, are not traceable to Sanscrit at
all ; while in Southern India, where the aboriginal type has
been little modified, purely aboriginal languages, uncon-
nected with Sanscrit, are still spoken. Still greater has been
the effect on the Aryan religion of contact with these lower
races. The gods of the primitive Aryans have almost dis-
appeared from practical recognition. The backbone of the
original system survives in its priesthood and ceremonial, just
as the backbone of the language survives in the grammatical
forms of the invaders. But, as the vocables of the tongue have
frequently been adopted from the aborigines, so probably have
the popular gods of the pantheon been largely drawn from
aboriginal sources. No religious system possesses such facility
for proselytizing as a polytheism ; and history shows that
when two such systems meet, there is nothing to stand in
the way of their coalescing but the rivalry of their priests.
Here there probably was no such rivalry. To judge from
those which remain, the aboriginal tribes had no regular
priesthood, and no systematic mythology. They had only
inchoate gods, without a history, and numerous as the natural
objects whose forces they represented. And when the tribes
accepted the Hindu priest and his ceremonial, the priest found
no difficulty in admitting to his accommodating pantheon a
sufficient number of these to satisfy the conscience of the
aboriginal Pantheist. The leading deities in the existing
Hindu pantheon, Siva and Vishnu, were wholly unknown

50 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTEAL INDIA.

to the early Aryans ; and even they themselves are at the
present day scarcely worshipped at all, in their radical forms,
by the great body of the people, but only in the form of
mythological consorts and sons, and incarnations in many
forms, most of which are probably adaptations of the gods and
heroes of the races thus absorbed within the accommodating
pale of Hinduism. Nor is this all. Even such secondary forms
of the regular gods of the Brahmans receive but little of the
real devotion of the people, which is paid rather to tribal and
village deities, unheard of in recognised mythology, and to
the Lares and Penates of the householder. And these, the
Brahman priest, who is paid for his services, has no scruple
in recognising as orthodox. Superficial inquirers have quoted
Hinduism as a faith which cannot admit of a proselyte : but
nothing could be more completely the reverse of the truth.
Anything in the way of new gods may be brought by new
worshippers within the pale of orthodoxy, provided only that
they agree to accept the dominion of the Brahman priest,
together with the caste rules and ceremonial by means of
which he exercises his power.

It was then with a race thus already modified, and with a
social and religious system which had thus already engulfed
the great mass of the indigenous nations of India, and which
was still ready to absorb in a similar manner any number
more of them, that the aborigines of Central India came in
contact. What has been the result will be discussed in a
future portion of this work.

In a new country like this, few objects of antiquarian in-
terest attract the attention of the traveller. Allusion has
already been made to the traces of isolated settlements of
Aryans in the country, who had all been swept away again,
or had been absorbed in the indigenous element surrounding

THE NAKBADA VALLEY. 51

them, before the true history of the country opens; and a few
shapeless ruins still remain to mark the sites of some of these
settlements "in the unremembered ages." Generally, how-
ever, even the religious edifices, which in the East seem to
outlast all others, will be found to be of very modern date,
and of little pretension to interest. They will frequently be
met with standing on the embankment of some water tank,
covered with the lotus in full bloom, and shaded by great
trees of mango, tamarind, and fig. Very often the camp will
be pitched alongside of them, for the sake of the fine shade ;
and the wildfowl and snipe that frequent the tanks will pro-
bably form an attraction, to the sportsman at least, superior
to the allurements of such poor antiquities.

Snipe and wildfowl begin to arrive in these central regions
of India, voyaging from the frozen wilds of Central Asia,
early in October; and, before the end- of November, every
piece of water and swampy hollow affords its contingent to
the gun. The common teal,* and the whistling teal,f are the
most numerous as well as the first to make their appearance.
The lovely blue- winged teal J is scarcely less common; and
of larger ducks, the red-headed pochard, || the wigeon, the
pintail,! and the gadwall,** are found throughout the winter
on nearly every tank of tolerable size. On the main rivers,
and on the larger reservoirs such as those of Bhandara and
Lachora in Nimar, which, though owing their existence to the
hand of man (the giants of past days, who knew the require-
ments of India better than their successors), yet approach the
dignity of lakes, many other species of wild fowl will be
found, including that king of ducks the mallard, If the common

* Querquedula crecca. Mareca penelope.

t Dendrocygna awsuree. ^[ Dafila acuta.

% Q. circia. ** Chandlelasmus streperus.

|| Anthia ferina, ft Anas boschas.

E 2

52 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTKAL INDIA.

grey goose,* and the black-backed goose, f The latter species
is extremely common ; the others, which are much superior
for the table, are comparatively infrequent. Numerous wad-
ing birds, storks, herons, and cranes, haunt every pool and
marsh. Few of these offer much temptation to the sports-
man, except the Demoiselle crane, J generally known as the
Coolen, which is much sought after, and is therefore difficult
to approach. Few extensive wheat or gram fields in the
Narbada valley will be found at this season without a flock
of these delicious birds stalking across it in the morning and
evening grazing on the young shoots.

If encamped in the neighbourhood of a river or swamp, the
traveller will probably be aroused at daybreak by the quaver-
ing and sonorous call of the giant Sarus crane, a bird revered
by the Hindus as a type of conjugal affection. They are
nearly always seen in pairs, and, should one of them be shot
by the ruthless gunner, the companion bird will return again
and again to the spot, to hover and lament over its slain friend
in a manner that generally prevails on the hardest hearted to
grant immunity to the race for ever after. A contrast to this
happy union of lovers is found by the Hindu in the Braminy
ducks, || which also associate in pairs, but, by a cruel fate, are
compelled to pass their nights on the opposite banks of a
stream, wailing forth their unavailing love in the melancholy
" Chukwa, chukwi," which few travellers by the rivers of India
have failed to hear in the dusk of the evening. Their unfit-
ness for the table, probably more than the Hindu adage against
their slaughter, protects them from the gun.

Of other winged game, the grey quail best of Indian

* Anser cinereus. Grus antigone.

t A. melanonotus. || Casarca rubila.

X AntJtropoides virgo.

THE NAEBADA VALLEY. 53

game birds, in my opinion will be found in good numbers in
most grain fields. I have never seen them here in such swarms
as in some parts of upper India, where eighty or a hundred
brace may be bagged in a day ; but the sport is none the
worse for that. Twenty brace is a first-rate bag in Central
India ; and generally the sportsman has to be contented with
much less. The common grey partridge, which closely re-
sembles in appearance the English bird, abounds in many
places. It hugs the vicinity of villages, and feeds foully. I
have seen a covey of them run out of the carcass of a dead
camel, and speed across the plain like so many hares. These
nasty habits, and its skulking nature, much belie its appear-
ance as a bird of game. Far different is the gallant painted
partridge,* which here takes the place of the black partridge f
of upper India. I have seen the latter in Bandelkand ; but
I am positive that it nowhere occurs in the Central Provinces.
The appearance of the two species is so alike, and their habits
are so identical, that assertions to the contrary have no doubt
arisen from mistake. No game bird could afford more perfect
shooting than the painted partridge. Of handsome plumage,
and excellent on the table, his habits in the field admirably
adapt him for the purposes of the gun. He frequents the
outskirts of cultivation, in spots where bushes and grass-
cover fringe the edge of a stream, for he seems to be very
impatient of thirst. The proximity of some sort of jungle
seems to be as necessary as the neighbourhood of crops.
Morning and evening small coveys or pairs of them will
be found out feeding in the stubble of the cut autumn
crops, that latest reaped being the most likely find. On being-
disturbed they seldom run farther than to the edge of the
nearest cover, from which, on being flushed, they rise like

* Francdlinus jpictua. -f- F. vulgaris.

54 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTRAL INDIA.

rockets, with a great whirr, straight up for twenty or thirty
yards, and then sail away over the top of the cover to a dis-
tance of a few hundred yards ; this time plumping into the
middle of the cover, from which it is not so easy to raise them
again. This beautiful bird is most common in the extreme
west of the Central Provinces, and in good spots a bag of
ten to fifteen brace to each gun may be made in Nimar
and the Tapti valley.

The most common way of shooting quail and partridges is
by beating them out with a line of men; but it is a poor
sport compared to shooting them over dogs. I have used both
pointers and spaniels in this sport. The former secure the
best of shooting in the early morning and late in the evening,
while the birds are out of cover and the scent good, and four
hours' shooting may thus be had in the day. But a team of
lusty spaniels is, I think, on the whole preferable, as they are
useful also for many sorts of cover shooting where pointers
could not be worked. They also keep their health better, and
degenerate less in breeding than any other imported dog,
which is probably due to their descent from a race originated
in a warm climate. They make the best of all companions,
and are not so liable to "come to grief" in many ways as
larger dogs. Fresh imported blood is however required, at
least once in every two generations, to keep all English sport-
ing dogs up to their best in India. The spaniels should either
be large Clumbers, or of the heavy Sussex breed, as a small dog
like a cocker cannot penetrate the jungle cover. The noble
Clumber, otherwise faultless, has the fault for this particular
purpose of giving no tongue on game : I commenced the breed,
which I maintained for twelve years in India, with a strain
of pure Clumber in the never-to-be-forgotten " Quail " a
dog that for looks and quality surpassed anything of the breed

THE NARBADA VALLEY. 55

I can now discover in England. All his descendants were
more or less crossed witli Sussex or cocker blood ; but none of
them ever gave tongue till the fourth generation, when symp-
toms of it began to appear. On the whole, then, I think I
would prefer the heavy Sussex breed.

On one occasion the whole of my spaniels were very nearly
being " wiped out " by one of a class of accidents that must
be looked for in India. I was shooting quail in a grainfield
near Jubbulpiir, with "Quail," "Snipe," "Nell," and "Jess,"
when on a sudden they all began to jump violently about,
snapping at what seemed to me to be a large rat. But coming
nearer I made out that it was a huge cobra, erect on his coil,
and striking rioht and left at the dogs. I lost no time in
pelting them off with clods of earth, and then cut the brute's
head off with a charge of shot ; when I found that the snake
had been in the act of swallowing a jat, of which the hind
legs and tail were protruding from his jaws, so that his re-
peated lunges at the dogs had fortunately been harmless. All
these spaniels were famous ratters, and had no doubt been
attracted by the cobra's mouthful, for they generally had, like
all dogs of any experience in India, a wholesome dread of the
snake tribe. I never lost any of these dogs by an accident,
though exposed to all the dangers of panthers, hyenas, wolves,
snakes, and crocodiles ; and all of them lived to a good age,
in excellent health. As with men, English dogs keep healthy
enough if properly treated in accordance with the climate.

Of larger game, the principal animal met with in the settled
parts is the black antelope,* which has probably followed the
clearings made by the immigrant races. The aversion of this
animal to thick uncleared jungle has made it, in the Hindu
sacred literature, a type of the Aryan pale, of the land fitted

* Antelope cervicapra*

56 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTEAL INDIA.

for the occupation of the fair-skinned races ; and the appro-
priate seat of the devotee is still upon its black and white skin.
It is too well known to require any minute description. Suffice
it to say, that not even in Africa the land of antelopes is
there any species which surpasses the " black buck " in love-
liness or grace. In Central India, although this antelope
attains the full size of body, the horns of the buck (the female
is hornless and of a fawn colour) rarely exceed a length of 22
inches. I have shot one with horns 24-^ inches, and seen a
pair that measured 26 inches. The longest horns are probably
attained in Giijerat, and about Bhurtpur in Northern India.
In all the corn districts of Central India it is found in con-
siderable herds, and does much damage to the young crops.
I have seen herds in the Sagar country, immediately after
the mutiny of 1857, when they were little molested, which
must have numbered a thousand or more individuals. A
tolerable shot could at that time kill almost any number he
chose. In most cultivated districts, tracts of the poorer land
are kept under grass for cattle-grazing, &c, and these pre-
serves are generally the favourite mid-day resorts and the
breeding-grounds of the antelopes. Thence in the evening
they troop out in squadrons on to the cultivated lands in the
vicinity ; and all the night long continue grazing on the tender
wheat shoots, returning in the grey of the morning to their
safe retreat. Many will, however, remain in the fields the
whole day, sleeping and grazing at intervals, unless driven off
by the cultivators. In such places the voices of the watchers
in the fields will be heard in the still night shouting continu-
ously at the antelopes ; but they seldom succeed in effecting
more than to move them about from field to field, doing more
damage probably than if they were left alone, for a buck killed
in the morning will always be found filled nearly to bursting

THE NAKBADA VALLEY. 57

with tlie green food. Although many of them are shot by the
village shikaris at night, and more snared and netted by the
professional hunters called Pardis (who use a trained bullock
in stalking round the herds to screen their movements), the
resources of the natives are altogether insufficient, in a country
favourable to them, to keep down the numbers of these prolific
and wary creatures ; and it is a perfect godsend to them when
the European sportsman hits on their neighbourhood as a
hunting-ground.

There are many ways of circumventing them. Living quite
in the open, they rely principally on the sense of sight for
protection, although at times warned also by their power of
smell.. One way is to drive up to them in one of the bullock
carts commonly used in agriculture. The native shikari often
gets near tbem by creeping up behind a screen of leaves which
he works before him. Where they have not been much ha-
rassed the European sportsman, in sad- coloured garments, can
usually stalk in on them when passing between the grass
plains and the crops. In the very early morning, if a station
be taken up in their usual route, they are nearly sure to come
within shot, the grunting of the bucks warning the sportsman
of their approach some time before they emerge from the dark-
ness. One of the most successful and interesting plans is to
ride a steady shooting horse nearly up to the herd. When
within say four hundred yards, slip off and walk on the off
side of the horse in such a direction as will lead past the herd
within shot, if possible on the down-wind side. If they have
been so shot at in this way as to be shy of the horse, take a
groom and pass them further off; and when a convenient
bush or hillock intervenes drop behind, and let the man lead
the horse on, passing well clear of the herd. They will pro-
bably be so intent on watching them out of the way, that you

58 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTRAL INDIA.

will generally be able to creep in on them without much diffi-
culty. Shots at antelope in populous districts are seldom got
much under 150 yards now-a-clays, which is however near
enough for modern rifles to make sure work. One great advan-
tage of employing a horse in stalking is that it will often
enable you to follow and spear a wounded buck which might
otherwise escape. If you have a brace of good greyhounds in
the distance ready to slip, the chances will be still better. A
wounded buck often gives a beautiful run with greyhounds,
which have never been known to catch' an untouched and per-
fect antelope on fair hard ground, though under conditions
unduly favourable to the dogs they have sometimes done so. A
shooting horse, like several which I have possessed, who is quite
steady under fire, does not need to be tied, and will come to
call, is a perfect treasure for many sorts of sport in India. As
in all good qualities, the Arab is the most likely to develope
such a character ; but most horses are capable of being taught
something of the business. Should neither horse nor hounds
be at hand, a wounded buck should not be followed, up too
quickly. If left to himself he will probably lie down in the
first cover he comes to ; and by watching the line he takes you
may often follow up and secure him.

In upper India they are frequently shot by approaching
them on a riding camel. The more bells and gay trappings
he has on him the better, as the antelope on this plan fall
victims to their curiosity and amazement. I brought down
to Central India with me a trained camel, with which I had
thus bewildered many an antelope into rifle distance ; but
after getting some dangerous tumbles owing to the yawning
cracks that form in the black soil in these provinces after
the rains, I had to abandon the camel as a shooting vehicle.
As a sport antelope-shooting palls upon the taste. There is too

THE NARBADA VALLEY. 59

much of it, and it lacks variety. So I should think also
would be the case with much of the African sport we read of.
To the beginner in Indian sport, however, there is no pursuit
more fascinating. The game being nearly always within
sight, the excitement is maintained throughout the day's
sport. Simple as it seems, it takes a good man and a good
rifle to make much of a bag when the antelope have been
much disturbed. The old hand is apt to smile at the
enthusiasm of the "griff" when he dilates on the glories of
antelope-stalking ; but the time was when he too passed
through the stage at which the acquisition of a particular long
spiral pair of horns was more to him than the wealth of all
the Indies, and when nothing impressed him so profoundly
with the vanity of all human affairs as the miss of " a few
inches" under or over, which so frequently terminated the
weary stalk. Perhaps I may be allowed to quote a descrip-
tion of the pursuit of a master buck, written many years ago,
when I myself was in the throes of the " buck fever."

" I had frequently seen in my rambles over the antelope
plains a more than ordinarily magnificent coal-black buck.
I had watched him for hours through my ' Dollond/ but my
most laborious attempts to reach him by stalking had as yet
proved futile. His horns were perfection, of great size, well
set on, twisted and knotted like the gnarled branch of an
old oak tree. As the sun glanced on his sable coat, it shone
like that of a racehorse fit to run for the Two Thousand
Guinea stakes in fact, he was the beau ideal of a perfect
black buck. Of course, the more difficult the task appeared,
the more determined was I that these superb horns should be
mine, and that in future I would disregard every buck except
the one. He was constantly attended by two does, to whom
he confidently entrusted the duty of watching over his per-

60 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTRAL INDIA.

sonal safety and faithful sentinels they were. They seemed
to relieve each other with the precision of sentries, and clever
indeed would be the stalker who could approach within many
hundred paces ere the warning hiss of the watchful doe
aroused the grand signior from his siesta. It was then grand
to see the majestic air of the buck, as, after stretching his
graceful limbs, he slowly paced towards the object of his sus-
picion, still too far distant to cause him any alarm. Now he
stops, and, tossing his nostrils in the air, snuffs the breeze
that might convey to his delicate sense the human taint. Now
he lazily crops a blade or two of grass, or scientifically whisks
a fly from his glossy haunch with the tip of his horn ; anon
he saunters up to one of his partners, and seems to take
counsel regarding the state of affairs. Again, as some move-
ment of the distant figure catches his eye, his sudden wheel
and prolonged gaze show that, despite his careless mien, not
for a moment has he lost sight of his well-known foe. But
soon the does begin to take real alarm ; and after fidgeting
round their lord, as if to apprise him of the full extent of the
danger, trot off together towards some other haunt. Now
they halt a moment, and look round appealingly to the buck,
and again with feigned consternation start off at a gallop,
every now and then taking imaginary ten-barred gates in
their stride. At last the buck, after remaining behind a
decent time to maintain his character for superior courage,
follows them at a pace that mocks the efforts of every animal
on the face of the earth but one the hunting leopard.

" Such was the invariable result of my best efforts for up-
wards of a week. I would not risk a long shot, as it might
drive him for ever from that part of the country. His
favourite haunt was a wide grassy plain, intersected here and
there by dry watercourses, up which I had many a weary

THE NAEBADA VALLEY. 61

crawl, ventre d terre. I soon found out his usual feeding and
drinking places ; and observed that to reach the latter he
almost daily crossed a deepish dry nullah about the same
place. This struck me as affording the means of circumvent-
ing him, so I took up my position in the nullah ; but as luck
would have it my buck took his water in some other direction
for the next two days. Many other herds of antelope con-
stantly passed within easy shot of where I was ensconced ; but
not until I was almost giving up hope on the third day, and
was taking a last sweep of the plain with my binocular, did
the well-known form of the master buck greet my vision, as
he slowly wound his way with his two inseparable companions
towards the pool to which he had watched so many of his
species passing and re-passing in safety.

" The wind was favourable, and the buck came steadily on
till he arrived within a long rifle shot of. where I was posted.
Here he suddenly threw up his head, and, after standing at
gaze for a few moments, turned sharp to the left and started
off at a canter for a pass in the nullah, about a quarter of a
mile from where I was ; I knew he could neither have seen nor
smelt me, and was at a loss to account for his sudden panic
till, on turning round in disgust, there was the cause behind
me, in the shape of a small parcel of does, which had
evidently been returning from the water, but, having dis-
covered my unprotected rear, were now pulled up in a body,
and staring at me with an air which had telegraphed the state
of affairs to the old buck in an unmistakable manner. I felt
very much inclined to sacrifice one of the inquisitive does to
my just wrath, but preferred the chance of a running shot at
the buck ; so off I started at a crouching run (somewhat try-
ing to the small of the back) up the bed of the nullah, in
the hopes that the buck might have pulled up ere he crossed,

62 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTRAL INDIA.

and would still afford me a shot. Nor was I mistaken, for,
on turning a bend of the tortuous nullah, there he stood
broadside on, in all his magnificence, not eighty yards from
my rifle ; but, alas ! who could shoot after a run, almost on
all fours, of some 500 yards or so ? When I attempted to
bring the fine sight to bear on his shoulder, my hand trembled
like an aspen leaf, and the sight described figures of eight
all over his body. There was no help for it, however : he was
moving away, and I might never have such another chance.
So, almost in despair, I fired. I was not surprised to see the
ball raise the dust a hundred yards or so on his further side,
and with a tremendous bound of, I fear to say how many
yards, straight in the air, away went the buck like an arrow
from the bow. In for a penny, in for a pound ! once fired at,
I might as well have the other shot ; so stepping from my
cramped position, I held my breath as I tried to cover his
fleeting figure with the second barrel. He had gained at least
150 yards ere I touched the trigger, but the ball sped true,
and over rolled the buck in a cloud of dust. Short was my
triumph, however, for ere I had well taken the rifle from my
shoulder he had regained his feet, and was off with hardly
diminished speed. It is very rare that an antelope thus sud-
denly rolled over does not succeed in regaining his legs.
Their vital power is immense, and nothing but a brain shot
or broken spine will tumble them over for good on the spot.
When shot in the heart they generally run some fifty yards
and then fall dead, and I much prefer to see an antelope go
off thus, with the peculiar gait well known to experienced
shots as the forerunner of a speedy dissolution, than to see
even the prettiest somersault follow the striking of the ball.

" In the present instance I watched the antelope almost to
the verge of the horizon. Now and then he slackened his

THE NAKBADA VALLEY. 63

pace for a few seconds, and looked round at his wounded
flanks, and then, as if remembering that he had not yet put
sufficient distance between him and the fatal spot, he would
again start forward with renewed energy. The two does,
as is generally the case when the buck is wounded, had
gone off in a different direction ; and were now standing on
the plain, a few hundred paces from where I stood, gazing
wistfully from me to their wounded lord. Such are the scenes
that touch the heart of even the hardest deer-stalker, and for
a moment I almost wished my right hand had been cut off
ere I pulled trigger on this the loveliest of God's creatures.

" When he dwindled before the naked eye till he seemed
as a black speck on the far horizon, I still continued to watch
him through my glass, in the hope that he might lie down
when he thought himself concealed, in which case I might
steal in and end his troubles by another shot. Suddenly I
saw him swerve from his course, and start off in another
direction at full speed. Almost at the same instant a puff
of smoke issued from a small bush on the plain the buck
staggered and fell, and many seconds afterwards, the faint
report of a gunshot reached my ears."

The person who came to my aid in so timely a fashion
was a native sportsman, whom I then saw for the first time.
He was more like the professional hunter, of the American
backwoods than any other native of India I have ever met.
His short trousers and hunting-shirt of Mhowa green dis-
played sinewy limbs and throat of a clear red brown, little
darker than the colour of a sun-burnt European. An upright
carriage and light springy step marked him out as a roamer
of the forests from youth upwards ; and the English double-
barrelled gun, and workman-like appointments of yellow
sambar leather, looked like the genuine sportsman I soon

64 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTEAL INDIA.

found him to be. Many a glorious day did I afterwards pass
with him in the pursuit of nobler game than black bucks.

' The chikdrd, or Indian gazelle,* is another antelope very
common in Central India. It is called often the " ravine
deer " by sportsmen ; and, as regards the first part of the
name, is so far well denoted. Its favourite haunts are the
banks of the shallow ravines that often intersect the plain
country in the neighbourhood of rivers, and seam the slopes
of the higher eminences rising out of the great central table-
land. These are generally thinly clothed with low thorny
bushes, on the young shoots and pods of which it browses like
the domestic goat. Of course it is wrong to call it a " deer,"
which term properly belongs only to the solid-horned Cervidce.
Considerably smaller than the black antelope, the gazelle also
differs much from it in habits. It prefers low jungle to the
open plain ; and trusts more to its watchfulness and activity
than to speed, which however it also possesses in a high
degree. It is very rare to catch a gazelle, or still more a herd
of them, off their guard; and it is surprising how, on the
least alarm, the little creatures manage to disappear as if. by
magic. They have probably just hopped into the bottom of a
ravine, sped along it like lightning for about a hundred yards,
and are regarding you, intent and motionless, from behind the
straggling bushes on the next rising ground. Should you
follow them up they will probably repeat the same manoeuvre,
but this time putting three or four ravines between you and
them instead of one. They also resort to the cultivation to
feed, though not so regularly as the black antelope ; and
their numbers are not sufficient to do any notable damage.
In the morning they may often be found picking their way
back to the network of ravines where they stay during the

* Gazella Bennettii.

THE NAEBADA VALLEY. 65

day. Should you disturb them at this time, they will most
likely seek their cover at top speed ; and what that amounts
to will amaze you if you let slip a greyhound at them.
Chikdrd have not yet learned the range of the modern
" Express " rifle ; and consequently they still often let one
get almost within the killing distance of the old weapon,
and are easily knocked over with the " Express." The depth
of their slender bodies is so small, that a bullet must be
planted in a space little wider than a handVbreadth to make
sure of stopping them. Shots are generally got at a distance
of from 100 to 150 yards; and the difficulty of such fine
shooting at uncertain distances, together with their peculiar
" dodginess " in keeping out of sight, makes the stalking of
them a more difficult, and I think more interesting, sport than
the pursuit of the larger antelope. Their art has little variety
in it however ; and there is something to .the experienced eye
in the features of the ground which will almost infallibly tell
whereabouts one is likely to have stopped after his first dis-
appearance. Unless they have been seen to go clean away,
they should always be followed up on the chance of being
found again.

The last of the antelopes met with in the open country is
the Mlgae* the male of which, called a " blue bull," wall
stand about 13-J- hands high at the shoulder. The female is a
good deal smaller, and of a fawn colour. Their habitat is on
the lower hills that border and intersect the plains, and also
on the plains themselves wherever grass and bushes afford
sufficient cover. The old sites of deserted villages and culti-
vation, unfortunately so common, which are usually covered
with long grass and a low bushy growth of Palas and Jujube
trees, are seldom without a herd of nilgae. They are neverf

* Portax picttis. t Butea frondosa, Zizyphns Jujuba.

66 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTRAL INDIA.

found very far from cultivation, which they visit regularly
every night. When little fired at, the blue bull is very easily
approached and shot. It is very poor eating, and affords no
trophy worth taking away, so that it is not much sought after
by the sportsman. The beginner, however, who is steadying
his nerves, or the inventor who wants a substantial target for
a new projectile, will find them very accessible and convenient.
The blue bull is an awkward, lumbering, stupid brute ; and it
is highly ludicrous to observe the air of self-satisfaction with
which a blockhead of a bull, who has allowed you to walk up
within fifty yards of him, will blunder off to the other side of
a nala, then turn round and stand still within easy range of
your rifle, and look as if he thought himself a very clever
fellow indeed for so thoroughly outwitting you. He is a
favourite quarry with the unenterprising Mahomedan gentle-
man. The antelope his style of dress and powers of locomo-
tion do not allow him to approach ; the rugged ground and
thorny underwood prohibit his succeeding with the forest
deer ; the tiger he likes not the look of, and the pig he may
not touch ; so he gets him into a bullock cart, and is driven
within a few paces of an unsuspecting blue bull, whose
carcase, when shot and duly cut in the throat after the rules
of his faith, makes for him the beef which his soul loveth.
Awkward and inactive as he looks, however, the blue bull
when fairly pushed to his speed will give a good horse as
much as he can do to overhaul him. It is in vain to attempt
it in or near the jungle ; but if you can succeed in getting at
him when he has a mile or two to go across the open plain,
a real good run may be had with the spear. I have never
heard of a blue bull attempting to charge when brought to
bay, in which respect therefore the sport of riding them is
inferior to pig-sticking.

THE NAEBADA VALLEY. 67

Such are the principal animals which form the objects of
the sportsman's pursuit in the open country. As, however, in a
state of nature, there never are herbivorous creatures without
their attendant carnivora to form a check and counterbalance
to them, so we find various natural enemies attendant on the
herds of antelope and nilgae, whose acquaintance the sports-
man will occasionally make. The nilgae is a favourite prey
of the tiger and the panther. But it is in the low hills where
he retires during the day, rather than in the plains where he
feeds at night, that he meets these relentless foes ; and the
chief carnivorous creatures of the open country are the hunting
leopard,* the wolf,| and the jackal.|

I have several times come across and shot the hunting leo-
pard when after antelope ; but they cannot be called common
in this part of India. They live mostly in the low isolated
rocky eminences called Torias, that rise here and there like
islets in the middle of the plains, and on the central plateau,
and which are frequently surrounded by grassy plains where
they hunt their prey. They are of a retiring and inoffensive
disposition, never coming near dwellings, or attacking domes-
ticated animals, like the leopard and panther ; and I never
heard of their showing any sport when pursued. Their
manner of catching the antelope, by a union of cat-like stealth
of approach and unparalleled velocity of attack, has often
been described. A few are kept tame by the wealthier
natives, but more I think for show than real use in hunting.

The common jackal, always ready for food of any descrip-
tion, seldom fails to make a meal of any wounded animal, and
I have seen a small gang of them pursue a wounded antelope
I had just fired at. The fawns of the antelope and gazelle
frequently become their victims. .

* F. juhata. t & pallipes. J C. aureus.

F 2

68 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTRAL INDIA.

The wolf is extremely common in the northern parts of the
province ; frequenting the same sort of ground as the antelope
and chikara, I have very seldom met with them in forest
tracts ; and I think that in India they are. clearly a plain-
loving species. They unite in parties of five or six to hunt ;
the latter being the largest number I have ever seen together.
More generally they are found singly or in couples. I have
several times observed them in the act of hunting the ante-
lope ; their method being to steal in on all sides of a detached
party of does and fawns, and trust to a united rush to capture
one or more of them before they attain their speed. Fast as
the wolf is (as you will learn if you try to ride him down), I
do not believe he is capable of running down an antelope in a
fair hunt, though doubtless old or injured animals are thus
killed by him. When game is not to be had, the wolf seldom
fails to get a meal in the neighbourhood of villages, in the
shape of a dog or a goat. They are deadly foes to the former ;
and will stand outside a village or the travellers' camp at
night, and howl until some inexperienced cur sallies forth to
reply, when the lot of that cur will probably be to return no
more. Unfortunately the wolf of Central India does not
always confine himself to such substitutes for legitimate game ;
and the loss of human life from these hideous brutes has
recently been ascertained to be so great that a heavy reward
is now offered for their destruction. Though not generally
venturing beyond children often or twelve years old, yet when
confirmed in the habit of man-eating, they do not hesitate
to attack, at an advantage, full-grown women and even adult
men. A good many instances occurred, during the construction
of the railway through the low jungles north of Jubbulpur,
of labourers on the works being so attacked, and sometimes
killed and eaten. The attack was commonly made by a pair

THE NARBADA VALLEY. 69

of wolves, one of which seized the victim by the neck from
behind, preventing outcry, while the other, coming swiftly up,
tore out the entrails in front. These confirmed man-eaters
are described as having been exceedingly wary, and fully able
to discriminate between a helpless victim and an armed man.
My own experience of wolves does not record an instance of
their attacking an adult human being ; but I have known
many places where children were regularly carried off by them.
Superstition frequently prevents the natives from protecting
themselves or retaliating on the brutes. In 1861 1 was march-
ing through a small village on the borders of the Damoh dis-
trict, and accidentally heard that for months past a pair of
waives had carried off a child every few days, from the centre
of the village and in broad daylight. No attempt whatever
had been made to kill them, though their haunts were perfectly
well known, and lay not a quarter of a mile from the village.
A shapeless stone representing the goddess Devi, under a
neighbouring tree, had instead been daubed with vermillion,
and liberally propitiated with cocoa nuts and rice ! Their
plan of attack was uniform and simple. The village stood on
the slope of a hill, at the foot of which ran the bed of a stream
thickly fringed with grass and bushes. The main street of the
village, where children were always at play, ran down the
slope of the hill ; and while one of the wolves, which was
smaller than the other, would ensconce itself among some low
bushes between the village and the bottom of the hill, the
other would go round to the top, and, watching an opportu-
nity, race down through the street, picking up a child by the
way, and making off with it to the thick cover in the nala.
At first the people used to pursue, and sometimes made the
marauder drop his prey ; but, as they said, finding that in
that case* the companion wolf usually succeeded* in carrying

70 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTEAL INDIA.

off another of the children in the confusion, while the first
was usually so injured as to be beyond recovery, they ended,
like phlegmatic Hindus as they were, by just letting them
take as many of their offspring as they wanted ! An infant
of a few years old had thus been carried off the morning of
my arrival. It is scarcely credible that I could not at first
obtain sufficient beaters to drive the cover where these two
atrocious brutes were gorging on their unholy meal. At last a
few of the outcaste helots who act as village drudges in those
parts were induced to take sticks and accompany my horse-
keeper with a hog-spear and my Sikh orderly with his sword,
through the belt of grass, while I posted myself behind a
tree with a double rifle at the other end. In about five
minutes the pair walked leisurely out into an open space
within twenty paces of me. They were evidently mother
and son ; the latter about three-quarters grown, with a reddish-
yellow well-furred coat, and plump appearance ; the mother a
lean and grizzled hag, with hideous pendent dugs, and slaver
dropping from her disgusting jaws. I gave her the benefit of
the first barrel, and dropped her with a shot through both her
shoulders. The whelp started off, but the second barrel
arrested him also with a bullet in the neck ; and I watched
with satisfaction the struggles of the mother till my man
came up with the hog-spear, which I defiled by finishing
her. In the cover they had come through my men said that
their lairs in the grass were numerous, and filled with frag-
ments of bones ; so that there was little doubt that the
brutes thus so happily disposed of had long been perfectly
at home in the neighbourhood of these miserable supersti-
tious villagers.

Dogs that are in the way of hunting jackals will readily
pursue a wolf, so long as he runs away. But- the wolf

THE NARBADA VALLEY. 71

generally tries the effect of his bared teeth on his pursuers
before running very far, and only the most resolute hounds
can be brought to face them. I have several times had my
dogs chased back close up to my horse by a wolf they had
encountered when out coursing foxes and jackals ; and only
once saw the dogs get the better of one without assistance
from the gun. On that occasion I had out a couple of young
greyhounds, crossed between the deerhound and the Eampore
breed ; and along with them was a very large and powerful
English bull-mastiff, rejoicing in the name of "Tinker,"
whose exceedingly plebeian looks in no way belied his name.
He was an old hand at fighting before ever he left the
purlieus of his native Manchester ; and in India had been
victor in many a bloody tussle with jackal, jungle cat, and
pariah dog. His massive head and well-armed jaws com-
bined in a high degree the qualities of a battering ram and
heavy artillery ; and his courage was in full proportion to
his means of offence. On the present occasion the three
dogs espied the enemy sitting coolly on his haunches on the
top of a rising ground ; and the young dogs, taking him no
doubt for a jackal, went at him full speed, Tinker as usual
lumbering along in the rear. Soon, however, the hounds
returned in a panic, with their tails well down, and closely
pursued by the wolf, a large dark grey fellow, snapping and
snarling at their heels. The greyhounds fled past Tinker,
who steadily advanced, dropping into the crouching sort of
run he always adopted in his attack. No doubt Master Wolf
thought he too would turn from his gleaming rows of teeth
and erected hair, as all his canine assailants had done before.
But he never was more mistaken, for the game old dog, as
soon as a pace or two only remained betwixt him and the
enemy, suddenly sprang to his full height and with a bound

72 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTEAL INDIA.

buried his bullet head in his advancing chest. I saw the
two roll over and over together ; and then the gallant Tinker
rose on the top of the wolf, his vice-like jaws firmly fastened
on his throat. At this point of a combat he usually over-
powered his antagonist utterly, by using his immense weight
and power of limb to force him prostrate on the earth, the
while riving at the throat with a force that often scooped a
hollow in the earth under the scene of action. His efforts
were now directed to effect this favourite manoeuvre ; but the
wolf was too strong for him, and repeatedly foiled the at-
tempt. But the young hounds, who were not at all without
pluck, soon returned to his assistance, and seizing the wolf
by different hind-legs, made such a spread eagle of him that
Tinker had no difficulty in holding him down while I dis-
mounted and battered in his skull with the hammer-head of
my hunting-whip. None of the three dogs had been bitten,
Tinker having got his jaws in chancery from the very first.
I am sure that the three, or even Tinker alone, would have
killed him in time without my assistance ; for Tinker never
let go a grip he had once secured, and though not so large,
was not much inferior to him in strength.

The catalogue of amusements offered to the sportsman in
the open plain would be incomplete without a mention of the
"mighty boar." He is to be found almost everywhere in the
low jungle on the edge of cultivation, and sometimes in the
sugar-cane and other tall crops ; and with a liberal expendi-
ture of self and horse may be ridden and speared in a good
many places. Generally, however, the country is highly
unfavourable to riding, the black soil of the plains being
split up into yawning cracks many feet in depth, or covered
with rolling trap boulders, both sorts of country being almost
equally productive of dangerous croppers. The neighbour-

THE NAEBADA VALLEY. 73

hood of Nagpiir affords the best ground ; and there there is
a regular " tent club," which gives a good account of numer-
ous hogs in the course of the year. The sport has been so
voluminously described that I believe nothing remains to be
said about it. The hogs that reside in the open plains are
not much inferior in size to those of other parts of India ;
but those met with in the hills are generally much smaller,
and far more active. A brown-coloured variety has some-
times been noticed among them. The common village pig of
the country shows every sign of having been derived from
the wild race originally.

My march down the Narbada valley led along the tortuous
and rugged cart track, through the deep black loam of the
surrounding fields, which, before the construction of the rail-
way, was the only means of communication through these
fertile districts. Broken carts strewed the roadside, and
clumps of thorny acacias overgrew the path. These were
justly called the " cotton thief" by the people, their branches
being laden with bunches of the fibre dear to Manchester, torn
by their thorns from the unpressed bales, as they lumbered
along on antediluvian buffalo carts towards the distant coast.

Large gangs of aboriginal Gonds from the nearer hill tracts
were labouring on the railway works. The really wild tribes
of the interior of the hills were not yet attracted by the labour
market in the plains, preferring a dinner of jungle herbs and
their squalid freedom to plenty earned by steady toil under the
eye of the foreign task-master. But the semi-Hindu tribes of the
border-land, who are now the most numerous of the race, and
whom long contact with the people of the plains has imbued
with wants and tendencies strange to their wilder brethren,
have reaped a rich harvest from this sudden demand for labour
arising at their doors. How far it has been to them an un-

74 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTEAL INDIA.

mixed advantage will be discussed further on. As labourers
their innate distaste to steady toil, born of long years of a
semi-nomadic existence, renders them inferior to the regular
Maratha navvy from the Deccan, who is also their superior in
muscular power, and can double the wages of any Gond at
this sort of work.

On the 25th of January I quitted the main road down
the valley, near the little civil station of Narsingpur, and
struck off nearly at right angles to the south, marching direct
for the hills that bounded the horizon in that direction.
About half way through the march of fifteen miles the level
deep black soil of the valley began to give place to a red
gravelly tract of undulating conformation ; and numerous
flue Mhowa trees, forming groups that at a little distance
much resembled oaks, and half-cleared fields, gave indications
of the approach of the border belt of half-reclaimed land
which intervenes between the open plain and the forest-
covered hills. The Mhowa (Bassia latifolia) is one of the
most useful wild trees in this part of India. It is not cut
down like other forest trees in clearing the land for tillage,
its value being at first greater than that of the area rendered
unproductive by its shade and roots. As the country gets
more thickly peopled, however, the case is reversed, and it
generally disappears in long settled tracts. As a singular
instance of the influence sometimes exerted by social customs
on the physical character of a country, I may mention an
exception to this rule in the case of the district of Nimar,
which, even in its fully cultivated parts, is still thickly dotted
with Mhowa trees. The reason of this I believe to be that,
during the " times of trouble " referred to in my first chapter,
the majority of the small proprietors of the land were ousted
from possession of their fields ; but the custom having been

THE NARBADA VALLEY. 75

established that possession of the fruit trees growing on it did
not necessarily pass with the land, they mostly retained the
proprietorship of these trees. Thus it has happened that the
land is often owned by one party and the trees by another.
The rent is paid only by the landholder ; and thus, though
it would pay him to clear off the trees, it would not pay the
tree-man ; and so they have remained, doubtless to the very
great advantage, and certainly to the beauty, of the district.

The value of the Mhowa consists in the fleshy corolla of its
flower, and in its seeds. The flower is highly deciduous,
ripening and falling in the months of March and April. It
possesses considerable substance, and a sweet but sickly taste
and smell. It is a favourite article of food with all the wild
tribes, and the lower classes of Hindus ; but its main use is
in the distillation of ardent spirits, most of what is con-
sumed being made from Mhowa. The spirit, when well made
and mellowed by age, is by no means of despicable quality,
resembling in some degree Irish whisky. The luscious flowers
are no less a favourite food of the brute creation than of man.
Every vegetable -eating animal and bird incessantly endeavours
to fill itself with Mhowa during its flowering season. Sambar,
nilgae, and bears appear to lose their natural apprehensions
of danger in some degree during the Mhowa season ; and the
most favourable chances of shooting them are then obtained.
The trees have to be watched night and day if the crop is to
be saved ; and the wilder races, who fear neither wild beast
nor evil spirit, are generally engaged to do this for a wage
of one-half the produce. The yield of flowers from a single
tree is about 130lbs., worth five shillings in the market ; and
the nuts, which form in bunches after the dropping of the
flowers, yield a thick oil, much resembling tallow in appear-
ance and properties. It is used for burning, for the manu-

76 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTRAL INDIA.

facture of soap, and in adulterating the clarified butter so
largely consumed by all natives. A demand for it has lately
sprung up in the Bombay market ; and a good deal has been
exported since the opening of the railway. The supply must
be immense ; and probably this new demand will be the
means of greatly increasing the value of the trees.

I encamped at the end of this march at a place called
Mohpani, the scene of the works of the " Nerbudda Coal and
Iron Company/' Their labours have however as yet been con-
fined to the coal. This useful mineral has been now discovered
in numerous parts of the Central Provinces, of a quality con-
sidered equal to most Indian coals. When I visited the mines
at Mohpani, several trial shafts had been driven for some hun-
dreds of feet into the beds, and I believe there is no doubt
that an ample supply of coal for the railway could be obtained
from here. Other schemes have, however, since presented
themselves ; the management of the company's negociations
does not appear to have always been conducted with judg-
ment ; and it seems now to be doubtful whether their labour
and money have been laid out to great advantage. Most of
the miners employed at that time were Gonds, whose courage
in diving into the bowels of the earth was found to be
superior to that of other races. The universal pantheism of
the Gond stands him in good stead on such occasions. From
his cradle he has looked on every rock, stream, and cavern
as tenanted by its peculiar spirit, whom it is only needful
to propitiate in a simple fashion to make all safe. So he
just touches with vermillion the rock he is about to blow into
a thousand fragments with a keg of powder, lays before it
a handful of rice and a nutshell full of Mhowa spirit, and lo !
the god of the coal mine is sufficiently satisfied to permit his
simple worshipper to hew away as he pleases at his residence.

THE NAEBADA YALLEY. 77

If utility is, as some have thought, a good quality in religions,
surely we have it in perfection in a pliable belief like this !

Near Mohpani is one of the best snipe jheels in the pro-
vince. I went out to it in the afternoon with one of the
gentlemen connected with the works, who surely never could
have seen a snipe before. We took opposite sides of the long
swamp, which swarmed with the long-bills ; and when we
met at the end I had got 27^ couples, while my friend had
collected a miscellaneous bag of snippets, plovers, paddy birds,
and minas, and not one snipe among them.

My next march lay under the northern face of the main
range of the Satpuras, which here form a bluff headland
rising some 500 feet above the plain, crowned by an old
fortress called Chaoragarh. This is one of the many extensive
fortifications constructed by the chiefs of the country to the
south of the Narbada, at the time when 'the resistless tide of
Mahomedan conquest, after engulfing the Hindu kingdoms of
upper India and the Deccan, was rolling against the princi-
palities of these central regions. The works of these forts
generally enclose a considerable space on the summit of a
naturally inaccessible hill, having been designed for the retreat
of large bodies of the inhabitants, and of armies, in times of
successful invasion. The flat-topped and scarp-sicled hills of
the trap formation are the most suitable for such strongholds,
and there are consequently more of them in the trap country
than elsewhere. Such additional works as are necessary are
composed of massive blocks of rock, roughly squared and laid
without masonry. Inside tanks have generally been exca-
vated in the rock to hold a plentiful supply of water, natural
hollows being always taken advantage of to avoid labour as
much as possible. Before the days of artillery such places
must have possessed great strength ; but we rarely hear of

78 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTKAL INDIA.

their being vigorously defended by their possessors ; and they
were generally surrendered after a short investment. Doubt-
less the chief cause was usually want of provisions, masses of
people being suddenly huddled into the place, and being un-
able to carry with them the scanty provender afforded by a
poor country in the face of danger. In 1564 the great Akber
sent his lieutenant to reduce the Gond chieftain of MandM.
The Gond troops, led by the heroic Diirgawati, the Eajput
widow of the last chief, made a noble resistance to the invader
near Jubbulptir ; but, the battle at last going against them,
their leader stabbed herself rather than suffer the disgrace of
defeat ; and this fort of Chaoragarh immediately afterwards
fell into the hands of the Moslem, together with property and
treasure valued in the chronicles at an altogether fabulous
amount. The summits of these old forts usually contain a
little water in the old tanks ; and being generally covered
with thick jungle are favourite resorts of the tiger and other
animals in the hot weather.

From my camp at Chaolpani a single peak of the Puch-
murree hills was visible. It had not a very imposing appear-
ance, however, as I find it recorded as " like half an egg
sticking out of an immense egg-cup ! " A couple of bears
came close up to the camp at night and commenced to fight,
making a fearful noise, it seemed to me, as I awoke, inside
the tent ropes. The horses were tearing at their pickets, and
all the camp in a hubbub. I started out with a gun, but the
people said they had just passed through the camp, rolling
over each other and growling ; and it was so pitch dark that
I could not see any distance before me, and had to come back.
The next march was fourteen miles to Jhilpa, the last village
before the ascent of the hills begins. The view of Puchmurree
was lost during this march from our being too close under the

THE NAKBADA VALLEY. 79

intervening range of hills. On the way I shot a young
Sarnbar stag ; and after arriving in camp a messenger from
the village I had left in the morning came in breathless to say
that a tiger had killed a bullock in the morning within half a
mile of my camp. At that time of year, when the jungle is
very green and thick, and tigers always on the move, it was
not worth while to go back, even if I had had the time.

This day's march was through a much more jungly country
than I had yet met. It could not be called a forest ; for the
trees were all of the secondary growth which marks land
repeatedly cleared and abandoned again ; and the cultivation,
such as it was, was still carried on with the regular bullock-
plough, after the manner of the plains. In many places there
was a thick growth of teak poles from old stumps of trees ;
and many of the fields had been hewn out of these coppices,
the poles being burnt on the ground as manure, in the manner
to be hereafter described. The clear and pretty stream of the
Denwa, which comes down from Puchmurree, was crossed
several times by the track we followed, and contained on its
sandy banks many footprints of tigers. There was evidently
a good deal of forest game about. The valley is one of those
tracts on the border between open plain and dense jungle,
where much of the nocturnal life of the forest creatures is
passed. In such a tract the traveller will often be astonished
at the quantity of signs of animals he will see in the morning
all about his night's camp, while not a wild creature of any
sort will he find in the neighbourhood if he goes to look for
them after the sun is up. The fact is that deer, bears, pigs,
etc., travel such long distances at night to their feeding
grounds, and depart again to the remoter hills so early in the
morning, that unless a very early start be made, nothing but
the tracks they have left behind will ever be seen. The tigers

80 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTRAL INDIA.

and panthers, again, which prey on them, although not usually
retreating so far, yet seek the most secluded thickets and
ravines of the neighbourhood at an equally early hour, and in
the cold weather are so much on the alert, and can so easily
hide in the thick vegetation, that the chances with them,
except by sitting up over a bait at night, are equally poor.
The native Shikari, watching by night, kills a great deal of
game at this season. But it is very slow and cold, as well as
rather poaching, work, and few Europeans are cat-like enough
to succeed in it. Now, as most Europeans who attempt
shooting at all in India (and who does not at first ?) only go
out during the cold season, and never go deeper into the
forest than this semi-cleared belt, the reason of much of the
want of success complained of is not far to seek. To ensure
success the animals must be followed up into the deeper
jungles. In future chapters some sketches of the sport in
these wilder regions will be given. The present chapter
scarcely deals at all with the subject indicated by my title ;
but I have given it as a sort of introduction to Indian camp
life, and to the field sports likely to be attempted by beginners,
and in the earlier part of the season.

CHAPTER III.

THE MAHADEO HILLS.

The M&hadeo Mountains Sacred Hills Ascent to Puchmurree Aspect of the
Forest Park-like Scenery A Moist Night Solitary Snipe Description of
the Plateau Fine Views The Denwa Valley The Andeh K6h Legends
of the Place Ancient Eemains The Great Ravine The Sonbhadra Gorge
The Great Red Squirrel A Hill Chief Caprice of the Hill Men Their
System of Tillage Destruction of the Forests Incursions of Wild Animals
Gond Legend Dense Jungles Restlessness of the Aborigines Their
Precarious Livelihood Produce of the Jungles The Seeding of the Bamboo
Scarcity in the Hills Bunjara Carriers Project a Forest Lodge Find
Lime The Indian Bison His Habits and Range Growth of his Horns A
Grand Hunt; Kill a Stag Sambar A Bull shot by the Thakur Power of
the Bison A Hill TigerA Mother's Defence Description of Gonds and
Korkus A Midnight Revel The Wild Men are conciliated We teach
them to Build and Plough The Denwa Sal Forest The twelve-tined Deer
Jungle-fowl Spur-fowl Gazelles and Hares Fire-hunting by night
Bears and Panthers A troublesome Panther Fox-hunting at Puch-
murree Bison Stalking A brace of Bulls Tracking the Bison A. hard
day's work Death of the Bull.

In the eyes of the Hindu inhabitants of the neighbouring
plains, the whole of the range of hills which culminated in the
Puchmurree plateau is sacred to their deity Sivd, called
Maliadeo, or the Great God ; and the hills themselves are
called by his name, the M&hadeos. A conception of awe and
mystery had always been associated with their lofty peaks,
embosomed among which lies one of the most sacred shrines
of the god, to which at least one pilgrimage was a necessity in
the life of every devout Hindii. But excepting at the ap-
pointed season for this pilgrimage, no dweller of the plains

THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTRAL INDIA.

would venture, at the time of which I am writing, to set his
foot on the holy soil of Mahadeo's hills ; and, as we approached
its neighbourhood, gloomy looks began to gather on the faces
of my followers, whose fears had been acted on by the con-
versation of the people they had met. The road to the top
was represented as impassable from natural difficulties ; and
guarded by wild beasts, goblins, and fell disease.

Camp at Puelmmriee. Buddliist caves in the background.

I halted a day at Jhilpa, the last village on the plains, to
make arrangements for the ascent, and procure guides ; and
on the 22nd packed my small tent and a few necessaries on a
pony, and with two attendants started up the hill on foot.
For the first ten miles or so the pathway led up an easy and

THE MAHADEO HILLS. 83

regular ascent over shelving rocks and scanty soil, whereon
grew a thin forest of the commoner sorts of trees, Salei (Bos-
wellia thurifera), Dhaord, (Conocarpus latifolia), and Saj
(Pentaptera glabra), being the most numerous species ; the
grass and vegetation on these slopes had begun already to
assume the yellow tinge of the dry season. Such a prospect
as this, which is typical of vast tracts in the jungles of Central
India, is sadly disappointing to him who looks for the luxu-
riant tropical forest of low-lying equatorial regions. Forests
like those of Southern Africa and the littoral countries of Asia,
with their close array of giant trunks, dense canopy of vege-
tation, impenetrable underwood, gorgeous flowers, and mighty
tangled creepers

" From branch to branch close wreaths of bondage throwing."

are unknown in these central regions of India ; and their
character is rarely approached save in some occasional low
moist valley, where the axe of the woodcutter has not pene-
trated, and the stagnation of some stream has united with the
heat of a close valley in giving to the vegetation a more truly
tropical character. Indeed, but for the preponderance of
yellows where rich reds and browns should be, and the rare
appearance of a palm or other eastern form, most of these low
forest tracts might be taken after December for a late autumn
scene in a temperate climate. Nothing is more striking
than the absence of brilliant flowers, which contrary to
popular idea are far more characteristic of temperate than
of tropical regions. The PaMs (Butea superba) is almost
the only tree in our forests which possesses really bright
colouring.

When an elevation of about 2000 feet (above the sea) had
been attained, the character of the scenery began to change.

Q 2

84 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTEAL INDIA.

Vertical scarps of the red sandstone which forms the higher
plateau began to rise into view at every turn of the path,
which now plunged into narrow and gloomy glens, following
the boulder-strewn bed of a small stream. The dried and
yellow grasses and naked tree stems of the lower slope gave
place to a green vegetation thickly covering the soil, and in
places almost meeting overhead. The moist banks of the
stream were covered with ferns and mosses, and the clear
sparkle of the little brooks appeared singularly refreshing after
our long walk up-hill in the heat of a sultry and lowering day.
The baggage-pony found considerable difficulty in scrambling'
over the boulders that now began to block the road ; and we
relieved him by putting about half of his load on the two
guides. After scrambling thus along the sides and bottoms
of ravines for some miles, steadily rising at the same time, we
suddenly emerged through a narrow pass, and from under the
spreading aisle of a large banyan tree (from which this pass
gets its name of the Bur-ghat), on to an open glade, covered
with short green grass, and studded with magnificent trees,
which I found was the commencement of the plateau of
Puchmurree.

Heavy masses of cloud had now gathered overhead, and
large drops of rain began to fall, betokening, as it proved, the
coming of one of the short but severe storms to which these
hills are liable at this season. The village of Puchmurree was
still some miles distant, and we hurried along over the now
almost level plateau to get shelter as soon as possible, as we
had already walked about seventeen miles, and the sun was
almost set. The road now lay over a hard and gently undu-
lating sandy soil, crossed by many small streams running
swiftly in their rocky beds. Immense trees of the dark green
Harra (Terminalia Chebula), the arboreous Jaman (Eugenia

THE MAHADEO HILLS. 85

Jawfoolana), and the common Mango dotted the plain in fine
clumps ; and altogether the aspect of the plateau was much
more that of a fine English park than of any scene I had before
come across in India. By-and-by, through the vistas of the
trees, three great isolated peaks began to appear, glowing red
and fiery in the setting sun against the purple background of
a cloud bank. The centre one of the three, right ahead of us,
was the peak of Mdhadeo, deep in the bowels of which lies
the shrine of the god himself ; to the left, like the bastion of
some giant's hold, rose the square and abrupt form of Chau-
rd,deo ; while to the right, and further off than the others,
frowned the sheer scarp of Dhupgarh, the highest point of
these Central Indian highlands.

We had little leisure to enjoy this splendid view, however,
for a blinding rain, accompanied by thunder and lightning,
now came on ; and some distance still intervened from the
village when we were compelled to seek shelter in a grove of
trees. Fortunately there was among them a large hollow
banyan tree, within which we all found shelter, including
" Quail " and " Snipe," who I forgot to say were of the party,
and had revelled in spur fowl all the way up.

I sent on the two guides to the village to procure us some
firewood and water ; for I determined to encamp here, rather
than go further, and probably fare worse, among the unknown
disagreeables of a Korku village. A swampy hollow lay be-
twixt us and the village, and after we heard the guides go
splashing through this and disappear in the darkness it was
full two hours before we heard them floundering back again
with three or four Korkus carrying bundles of sticks, grass,
pots of water, and the various natural productions which have
always to be procured from the village where camp is pitched.
Meanwhile we sat in our tree and smoked, and very cold and

6 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTRAL INDIA.

disagreeable it was, though tolerably dry. With the help of
the Korkus the little tent was soon pitched, and I transferred
myself and dogs to its shelter, while a fire was lit in the hollow
of the banyan, and the natives were soon crouching over it as
jolly as sandboys ; while my servant plucked and grilled over
its embers one of the spur fowl I had shot, as a "spatch-
cock." About midnight the rain ceased, and the sky
cleared. It was an excessively cold night ; and when I got
up shivering in the morning I found my men had stayed up
the greater part of the night by the fire for the sake of the
warmth.

The morning broke fine and bright, however, and I started
off for a ramble over the plateau. In passing through the
swamp below the tent, the dogs put up, and I shot several
couple of snipes, and among them a fine specimen of the
solitary or wood snipe.* This fine snipe is of rare occurrence
in Central India, and in fact I have only met with it on one
other occasion, in the Mandla" district. I suspect this is the
bird that has stood for the woodcock in the stories told of the
latter s occurrence in the Central Provinces ; for though I
have hunted every likely spot in the hills for the latter bird,
I never found a single one of them.

There were two small settlements of Korkiis on the plateau.
One at Puchmurree itself, and another about a mile to the
north of it. The, former was the larger of the two, consisting
of about thirty houses, and, besides the Th&kur, a few families
of traders from the plains lived in it. The functions exercised
by these Hindu dealers in the rural economy of the aborigines
will form the subject of some remarks further on.

A brother of the Thdktir of Puchmurree accompanied me
in my ramble, a fine athletic intelligent young fellow of

* GalUnago nemorkola.

THE MAHADEO HILLS. 87

eighteen or twenty, and an ardent sportsman, who was after-
wards my guide over the whole of this wonderful mass of
mountains. We were out nearly all day, the succession of
fine views from the different heights and bluffs luring me on
and on, till what was meant for a stroll ended in a pretty
hard day's work.

I found that the plateau had something of a cup-like shape,
draining in every direction from the . edges into the centre,
where two considerable brooks receive its waters and carry
them over the edge in fine cascades. The general elevation
of this central valley is about 3400 feet, the ridge sur-
rounding it being a few hundred feet higher, and here and
there shooting into abrupt peaks, of which the three I
had seen the evening before attain a height of 4500 feet.
The area of the plateau is altogether about twelve square
miles, some six of which in the centre resemble the portion I
had before passed through, and consist of fine culturable,
though light, soils. Everywhere the massive groups of trees
and park-like scenery strike the eye j and the greenery of the
glades, and various wild flowers unseen at lower elevations,
maintain the illusion that the scene is a bit oat of our own
temperate zone rather than of the tropics. Though the ascent
on the side I had come up was generally gradual, I found
that in all other directions the drop from the plateau was
sudden and precipitous. There are three other pathways by
which a man can easily, and an unladen animal with difficulty,
ascend and descend. Subsequently we took lightly laden
elephants (which, when there is room for them, are the most
sure-footed of all creatures) up and down both of the passes
leading to the south ; but the eastern pass (Kdnji GMt) has
never, I believe, been traversed by any baggage animal. The
view from the edge of the plateau, in almost any direction, is

88 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTRAL INDIA.

singularly fine ; and a still more extensive sweep is com-
manded from the tops of the higher peaks.

To the south, as far as the eye can see, lie range upon range
of forest-covered hills, tumbled in wild confusion. To the
east a long line of rampart-like cliffs mark the southern face
of the Mahadeo range, the deep red of their sandstone forma-
tion contrasting finely with the intense green of the bamboo
vegetation, out of which they rise. Here and there they
shoot into peaks of bare red rock, many of which have a
peculiar and almost fantastic appearance, owing to the irre-
gular weathering of their material beds of coarse sandstone
horizontally streaked by darker bands of hard vitrified ferru-
ginous earth. Looking across this wall of rock, to the north-
east, a long perspective of forest-covered hills is seen, the
nearer ones seeming to be part of the Puchmurree plateau,
though really separated from it by an enormous rift in the
rock, the further ranges sinking gradually in elevation, till,
faint and blue in the far distance, gleams the level plain of
the Narbada valley. Standing on the eastern edge of the
plateau, again, the observer hangs over a sheer descent of
2000 feet of rock, leading beyond, in long green slopes, down
to a flat and forest-covered valley. Its width may be six or
seven miles, and beyond it is seen another range of hills rising
in a long yellow grass-covered slope, dotted with the black
boulders, and ending in the scarped tops that mark the trap
formation. That is the plateau of Motur (Mohtoor), with
which the general continuation of the Satpura range again
commences, after the break in it occasioned by the Mahadeo
group. On this side, the forest that clothes the valley and
the nearer slopes presents a very dark green and yet brilliant
colouring, which will be noted as differing from the vegetation
in any other direction. This is the Sal forest, which I have

THE MAHADEO HILLS. 89

mentioned before (p. 26), as forming so singular an outlier
far to the west of the line which otherwise limits the range
of that tree in Central India. It fills this valley of the
Denwa, almost to the exclusion of other vegetation, and,
creeping up the ravines, has occupied also the south-eastern
portion of the plateau itself.

A remarkable feature in the configuration of the plateau is
the vast and unexpected ravines or rather clefts in the solid
rock, which seam the edges of the scarp, some of them reach-
ing in sheer descent almost to the level of the plains. You
come on them during a ramble in almost any direction, open-
ing suddenly at your feet in the middle of some grassy glade.
The most remarkable is the Andeh-K6h, which begins about
a mile to the east of the village, and runs right down into the
Denwa valley. Looking over its edge, the vision loses itself
in the vast profundity. A few dark indigo-coloured specks at
the bottom represent wild mango trees of sixty or eighty feet
in height. A faint sound of running water rises on the sough
of the wind from the abyss. The only sign of life is an
occasional flight of blue pigeons swinging out from the face
of either cliff, and circling round on suspended pinion, again
to disappear under the crags. If a gun is fired, the echoes
roll round the hollow in continually increasing confusion, till
the accumulated volume seems to bellow forth at the mouth
of the ravine into the plain below. If tradition be believed,
no mortal foot has ever trodden the dark interior of the
Andeh-K6h. I myself never found an entrance to it, though,
with the aid of ropes, I got once at the easiest place within a
few hundred feet of the bottom. I may say, however, for the
benefit of adventurous explorers, that a way in may pro-
bably be found by going round behind the M&hadeo peak,
and following down the bed of the stream which issues from

90 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTRAL INDIA.

the cave of the shrine I am about to describe, and which,
I think, eventually falls into the Koh under the scarp of
Chd,urddeo.

Legend has made the Andeh-K6h the retreat of a monstrous
serpent, which formerly inhabited a lake on the plateau, and
vexed the worshippers of Mah&deo, till the god dried up the
serpent's lake, and imprisoned the snake himself in this rift,
formed by a stroke of his trident in the solid rock. It needs
no very ingenious interpreter of legend to see in this wild
story an allusion to the former settlements of * Buddhists
(referred to as snakes in Brahminical writings) on the Puch-
murree hill, and their extinction on the revival of Brahmanism
in the sixth or seventh century. Certain it is that there once
was a considerable lake in the centre of the plateau, formed
by a dam thrown across a narrow gorge, and that on its banks
are still found numbers of the large flat bricks used in ancient
buildings, while in the overhanging rocks are cut five caves
(whence the name of Puchmurree), of the character usually
attributed to the Buddhists. Beneath the lower end of the
lake lies a considerable stretch of almost level land, on which
are still traceable the signs of ancient tillage, in the form of
embankments and water-courses. Looking from the portico
of the rock-cut caves, it is not difficult for the imagination to
travel back to the time when the lower margin of the lake
was surrounded by the dwellings of a small, perhaps an exiled
and persecuted, colony of Buddhists, practising for their sub-
sistence the art, strange in these wilds, of civilized cultivation
of the earth, and to hear again the sound of the evening bell
in their little monastery floating away up the placid surface of
the winding lake.

Another very striking ravine, called Jambo-Dwip, lies on
the opposite side of the plateau from the Andeh-K6h. About

THE MaHADEO HILLS. 91

a thousand feet of steep descent, down a track worn by the
feet of pilgrims, leads to|the entrance of a gorge, whose aspect
is singularly adapted to impress the imagination of the pilgrim
to these sacred hills. A dense canopy of the wild mango tree,
overlaid and interlaced by the tree-like limbs of the giant
creeper,* almost shuts out the sun ; strange shapes of tree
ferns and thickets of dank and rotting vegetation cumber the
path ; a chalybeate stream, covered by a film of metallic scum,
reddens the ooze through which it slowly percolates ; a gloom
like twilight shrouds the bottom of the valley, from out of
which rises on either hand a towering crag of deep red colour,
from the summit of which stretch the ghostly arms of the
white and naked Sterculia urens, a tree that looks as if the
megatherium might have climbed its uncouth and ghastly
branches at the birth of the world. Further on the gorge
narrows to a mere cleft between the high cliffs, wholly desti-
tute of vegetation, and strewn with great boulders. Climbing
over these, and wading through the waters of a shallow stream,
the pilgrim at length reaches a cavern in the rock, the sides
and bottom of which have been, by some peculiar water action,
worn into the semblance of gigantic matted locks of hair ;
while deep below the floor of the cavern, in the bowels of the
rock, is heard the labouring of imprisoned waters shaking the
cave. It is small wonder that such a natural marvel as this
should be a chosen dwelling place for the god to whom all these
mountains are sacred, and that it forms one of the most holy
and indispensable points in the circuit which the devout pilgrim
must perform.

The place has also a slight historical interest. During the
last of our struggles with the Mar^th^s, App Salieb Bhonsla,
Raja of Nagpiir, on his way to an exile justly earned by re-

* Bauhinia scandem.

92 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTEAL INDIA.

peated acts of treachery, escaped and fled to the fastnesses of
the Mahadeo hills ; and it was in this secluded ravine, if tra-
dition speaks the truth, that he was concealed by the fidelity
of his aboriginal subjects till he finally made his escape, while
detachments of British troops were hunting for him in every
other nook and recess of the mountains.

Beyond the Jambo-Dwip, or " great ravine " as we called
it, and between it and the valley of the Sonbhadra, lies
another group of wild hills, a little lower than the Puchmurree
block in elevation, and with few level plateaux of any extent.
One or two poor hamlets of Korkus occupy its most sheltered
nooks ; but the soil is everywhere extremely thin, and there is
a great absence of water in this section of the Mali&deo range,
so that it is almost uninhabited. The Sonbhadrd, valley itself
can only be entered where it leaves the southern face of the
hills, by a difficult pathway along the edges of the rapid
stream ; but the scene is well deserving of the scramble of
eight or ten miles on foot by which it is reached. , It is utterly
untenanted even by animals, save a few melancholy bears, and
its steep precipices, and long slopes of grey and naked rock,
interspersed with scanty moor-like vegetation, are singularly
suggestive of a comparison with the well-known valley of
Glencoe.

These deep and gloomy dells that seam the Puchmurree
block are the home of a splendid squirrel (Sciurus maximus),
measuring two and a half to three feet in length, and of a rich
deep claret colour, with a blue metallic lustre on the upper
parts of the body, the lower parts being rufous yellow. They
dwell in the upper branches of the wild mango trees, making
nests of the leaves, generally in the very top. They live
ehiefly on the mango fruit, lavishly squandering the supply
while the fresh mangoes are attainable, and afterwards crack-

THE MAHADEO HILLS. 93

ing the discarded stones for their kernels. They seem to be
of a retired and melancholy nature, appropriate to the sunless
ravines they reside in ; and they are not very numerous either
here or at Amarkantak, which is the only other part of the
hills where I have met the species. They are easily captured
in the nests when young, but make most foolish and unin-
teresting pets, having a singularly vacant expression of coun-
tenance, and nothing of the light-hearted vivacity of the other
members of the squirrel family. If an exquisite fur for a lady's
muff or a sporran is an object, some pretty shooting may be
had in knocking them off the tops of the high trees with a
small rifle. Numerous vultures and birds of the rapacious
order build on the ledges of the cliffs. Among them is the
grand imperial eagle (A. imperialis), whose wings measure
eight feet from tip to tip, and whose soaring flight and harsh
scream forms a grand feature in the scenery of this range of
mountains.

On my return to the tent I had an interview with the
Th&kur, or chief, of Puchmurree. This potentate is the pro-
prietor of a considerable tract of hill and forest in the MaMdeo
range, and the valleys at its base. He is the representative
of one of the families already referred to as having been estab-
lished in the early days of Aryan colonisation, by an inter-
mixture of the blood of the adventurous Kajpiit with that of
the aboriginal (in this case Korku) occupants of the soil. In
personal appearance and habits the family exactly correspond
to their descent. Taller and fairer by far than the undiluted
Korkus about them, they still possess the thick lips and pro-
minent jaw of the aborigines. With all the love of tinsel and
sounding form of the vain Eajput, they unite much of the
apathy and unthrift of the savage. In religion they are (like
all converts) ultra Hindu, worshipping Sivd, looking on the

9t THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTKAL INDIA.

slaughter of a cow with horror (though they will kill the
nearly related bison of their hills), wearing the holy thread of
the twice-born castes, and keeping a family Br&hmn to do
their household worship for them. The Puchmurree Thakur
was a well-grown young man of about twenty-five ; but
awkward in manner and incapable of any sort of conversation.
I subsequently found that he was, like most of these petty
chiefs, a confirmed opium-eater. By his side, however, stood
the Br&hman " Dewan," or minister of state (!), whose glibness
of tongue was fully sufficient for both. Behind them came
four or five tatterdemalion retainers, in quilted garments of
many hues, girded as to their loins with broad embroidered
belts of Sambar leather, in which were stuck, or suspended,
swords, daggers, and the cumbrous appointments of a match-
lockman, the matchlock itself being borne, with smoking
match, over the shoulder of each. These were mostly of the
same breed as the Thakur, being his poor relations in fact.
This description would serve sufficiently well for the great
majority of these petty semi-aboriginal chiefs, who are so
numerous in the hills of Central India. Though the breed
between the Rajput and the aborigine produces the best of all
shikaris and foresters, in a somewhat higher sphere they are
chiefly remarkable for debauchery, and a vain and silly pride
which leads them into expenditure beyond their means, and
ruinous debt. They all call themselves " Rajds," and keep up
minute standing armies of these ragamuffin retainers, as well
as one or two Brahman bloodsuckers to manage their holy and
clerkly affairs. As they are always seeking for brides for their
sons in families with higher claims to Rajput descent than
their own, they have to pay enormous sums for marriage ex-
penses, and this is probably the chief cause of their generally
hopeless poverty.

THE MAHADEO HILLS. 95

I found I was likely to have a good deal of trouble in getting
the wild hill people to help in building our lodge. The
Thakur made all sorts of excuses for withholding from us his
influence with his " subjects." There was great scarcity among
them, owing to a failure of their precarious crops ; they had
nearly all left the hills to seek service in the plains ; they were
engaged in preparing the land for their crops ; they hated
work they had not been accustomed to ; they would be afraid
to help in making a house on Mahadeo's hill and so on.
Truth was, I saw the chief himself and his advisers hated our
intrusion. With some truth they feared we were come to
break up their much -loved seclusion, and untrammelled bar-
barism ; their rich harvest from the taxation of pilgrims to
Mahadeo's shrine they thought was in danger ; and they would
have none of us. They promised, however, to send me a gang
of men to start wood and grass cutting next morning. Of
course they did not come ; and the Thakur I found had gone
off to a village he had below the hill, and quite out of reach
of my camp ; and he did not return to Puchmurree, except
when I sent for him, all the time I was there. Luckily I had
a friend in council in the shape of the younger brother, who
had shown me the lions of the place. Not being a chief he
had little to live on, and was in fact scarcely to be dis-
tinguished in position or worldly wealth from the common
Korkus about. He promised to use his influence to get them
to come and work for me, and went oft* on a visit to the
neighbouring hamlets, partly with this object, and partly to
look for traces of any bison or other larger game there might
be on the hills, as I contemplated a grand hunting party at
which I hoped to overcome the shyness of the jungle popu-
lation.

They were really in great distress owing to the failure of

96 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTRAL INDIA.

the previous harvest, on which great part of their subsistence
for the year depends. The system of cultivation of all the
wild tribes of these provinces is much the same, and is, in
fact, almost identical with the method followed jby all the
unreclaimed aboriginal races throughout India. Though large
tracts of splendid level land lie untilled on the Puchmurree
plateau, and in the valleys below, the Korku has no cattle or
ploughs with which to break it up. He has nothing in the
way of implements but his axe. This is enough, however,
for his wants. He selects a hill side where there is a little
soil, and a plentiful growth of grass, timber, and bamboos.
He prefers a place where young straight teak poles grow
thick and strong, as they are easiest to cut, and produce
most ashes when burnt. He cuts every stick that stands on
the selected plot, except the largest trunks, which he lops
of their branches and girdles so that they may shortly die.
This he does early in the dry season (January to March), and
leaves the timber thickly piled on the ground to dry in the
torrid sun of the hot season. By the end of May it will be
just like tinder, and he then sets fire to it and burns it as
nearly as he can to ashes. With all his labor, however
(and he works hard at this spasmodic sort of toil), he will
not be able to work all the logs into position to get burnt ;
and at the end of a week he will rest from his labor, and con-
temp] ate with satisfaction the three or four acres of valuable
teak forest he has reduced to a heap of ashes, strewn with
the charred remains of the larger limbs and trunks. He
now rakes his ashes evenly over the field and waits for rain,
which in due season generally comes. He then takes a few
handfuls of the coarse grain he subsists on and flings them
into the ashes, broadcast if the ground be tolerably level, if
steep, then in a line at the top, so as to be washed down

THE MAIIABEO HILLS. 97

by the rain. The principal grains are Kodon {Paspalum),
Kutki (Panicum), and coarse rice. But nearly all the
ordinary crops raised in the plains during the autumn season
are also grown more or less in these dhya clearings, as they
are called, though usually from greatly degenerate seed, the
produce of which is often scarcely recognizable as the same
species. A few pumpkins and creeping beans are usually
grown about the houses in addition to the dhya crop. Such
is the fertilising power of the ashes that the crop is generally
a very productive one, though the individual grains are far
smaller than the same species as cultivated in the plains. A
fence against wild animals is made round the clearing by
cutting trees so as to fall over and interlace with each other,
the whole being strongly bound with split bamboos and
thorny bushes. The second year the dead trees and half-
burnt branches are again ignited, and fresh wood is cut and
brought from the adjoining jungle, and the same process is
repeated. The third year the clearing is usually abandoned
for a fresh one. Sometimes the owner of a dhya will watch at
night on a platform in the middle of the field and endeavour
to save it from wild animals, but oftener he does not think
it worth the labor, and lets it take its chance till ripe, while
he earns his livelihood in some other way.

The dhya clearings are of course favourite resorts for all
the animals of the neighbourhood. The smaller species of
these peafowl, partridges, hares, &c, are often trapped in
ingenious " deadfall " traps set in runs left open on purpose ;
and the larger are frequently shot by the sportsmen of the com-
munity. None of the G6nds of the Central Hills now use the
bow and arrow; but few villages are without their professional
hunter, who is generally a capital shot with his long heavy
matchlock, and as patient as a cat in watching for game.- He

98 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTRAL INDIA.

usually takes it in turn to sit up at night in all the dhya
clearings of the village, getting as remuneration all that he
kills, and a basket of grain at harvest-time besides. The
skins of sambar are of considerable value in the market for
making the well-known soft yellow leather the best of all
materials for sporting leggings and other accoutrements.

The abandoned dhya clearings are speedily covered again
with jungle. The second growth is, however, very different
from the virgin forest destroyed by the first clearing ; being
composed of a variety of low and very densely-growing
bamboo, and of certain thorny bushes, which together form
in a year or two a cover almost impenetrable to man or
beast. I have often been obliged to turn back from such a
jungle after vainly endeavouring to force through it a power-
ful elephant accustomed to work his way through difficult
cover. In such a thicket no timber tree can ever force its way
into daylight ; and a second growth of timber on such land
can never be expected if left to nature. The scrub itself
does not furnish fuel enough for a sufficient coating of ashes
to please the dhya cutter; and so the latter never again
returns to an old clearing while untouched forest land is to
be had. Now, if it be considered that, for untold ages, the
aboriginal inhabitants have been thus devastating the forests,
the cause of the problem that has puzzled railway engineers
namely, why, in a country with so vast an expanse of forest-
covered land, they should yet have to send to England, or
Australia, or Norway for their sleepers will not be far to
seek. Stand on any hill-top on the Puchmurree or other
high range, and look over the valleys below you. The dhya
clearings can be easily distinguished from tree jungle ; and
you will see that for one acre left of the latter, thousands
have been levelled by the axe of the Gond and Korku. In

THE MAIIADEO HILLS. 99

fact I can say, from an experience reaching over every teak
tract in these hills, that, excepting a few preserved by private
proprietors, no teak forest ever escaped this treatment, unless
so situated in ravines or on precipitous hill-sides as to make
it unprofitable to make dhya clearings on its site.

The system of cultivation thus adopted by the wild tribes,
which seems to be a natural consequence of their want of
agricultural stock, necessitates a more or less nomadic habit
of life. The larger villages, where the chief of a sept, and the
Hindu traders who effect their small exchanges, reside, is
usually the only stable settlement in a whole tract ; the rest
of the people spreading themselves about in small hamlets of
five or six families, at such intervals as will give each a suffi-
cient range of jungle for several years of dhya cutting. Their
huts are of the most temporary character, and made from
materials found on the spot a few upright posts, interlaced
with split bamboos, plastered with mud, and thatched with
the broad leaves of the teak, and an upper layer of grass. It
costs them but the work of a day or two to shift such a
settlement as this in accordance with the changes of their
dhya sites.

The system of cultivation, if it can be so termed, I have
thus described is of course of the most precarious character.
The holding off of rain for a few weeks after the seed is
sown, or when the ear is forming, will ruin the whole, and
then the owner may be compelled to subsist entirely on what
always largely supplements his diet the wild fruits and pro-
ducts of the forest. Nature has been very bountiful in these
forests in her supply of food for their wild human denizens.
Many species of tree and bush ripen a wholesome and palatable
fruit in their season ; and the earth supplements the supply
by many nourishing roots. The Mhowa flower before referred

H 2

100 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTEAL INDIA.

to (p. 75), the plum of the ebony tree (Diospyros melanoxy-
lon), and the fruit of the wild mango, are the staples in
these hills. The berries of the Chironji (Buchanania lati-
folia), and the Ber (Zizyphus jujuba), the seeds of the Sal
(Shorea robusta), the bean of the giant Bauhinia creeper,
and many other products of trees, are also eaten in different
parts of the hills. A species of wild arrowroot (Curcuma),
and a sort of wild yam, are also dug out of the earth and
consumed.

The rare occurrence of the general seeding of the bamboo
forests, is a godsend to the aboriginal tribes. A certain
number of bamboos seed every year, but a general seeding is
said to occur only once in about thirty years. Then every
single bamboo over a vast tract of country will drop its leaves,
and form at the end a large panicle of flowers, to be followed
by the formation and shedding of myriads of seeds which are
hardly to be distinguished from grains of rice. This done the
parent bamboo itself immediately dies, while a fresh and
vigorous crop at once begins to spring from the seed. For some
years the scarcity of so useful an article as the bamboo may
be severely felt, though it is not often that all the sources of
supply are at once cut off; but in the meantime an abundant
supply of wholesome grain is afforded, not only to the wild
tribes but to multitudes of the poorer inhabitants of the open
country, and the cities around, who crowd to the spot to
obtain their share of the heaven-sent provender. There is a
proverb that this occurrence portends a failure of the common
food staples of the country ; but like many such it has not
been verified by experience. It would probably be in vain to
guess the cause of this sudden renewal at long intervals of the
whole crop of bamboo.

This diet of herbs is varied and improved by the flesh of

THE MAHADEO HELLS. \ \ ' \ , / > \ i < rci

wild animals, procured by extensive drives in which the whole
population of a tract will unite ; and many small fish are also
captured in the mountain streams, chiefly by poisoning the
pools with various vegetable substances, of which I am ac-
quainted only with the leaves and fruit of the species of
stryclinos that grow wild in these hills.

Those of the wild men who live in the neighbourhood of
the plains, and have got accustomed to contact with their
inhabitants, add considerably to their means of subsistence by
trooping out in large numbers, after they have cut their own
dhyas, to the reaping of the wheat harvest of the plains in
the month of March, much after the fashion of the gangs of
Irishmen who cross the Channel about harvest time. But the
genuine hill-man of the far interior cannot yet bring himself
to this, and is often put to severe straits by the failure of his
scanty crop.

Such was now the case with the Gonds and Korkus in and
about the Puchmurree hills; and I soon saw that to make any-
thing of them I must appeal to their bellies. I accordingly sent
down to the nearest large market in the plains, and purchased
a mighty store of wheat and millet about twenty-five bullock
loads I think and had it sent up by the agency .of some of the
Banjdrd* carriers, who are in the habit of penetrating the

* These Banjaras are a curious race of nomads who are found everywhere in
Central India, acting as carriers with herds of pack bullocks. Their name
means " Forest Wanderer," and they appear to be perfectly distinct both from
Hindus and from the known aboriginal tribes. It has been conjectured with
some probability that they are gipsies. They are a fine stalwart light- coloured
people, ready for any adventure, and of dauntless courage. With the aid of
their splendid dogs they do not scruple to attack and spear the wild boar, the
bear, and even the tiger ; and they are at all times ardent and indefatigable
sportsmen. Each tanda, as their camps are called, is commanded by a
chief called the naik, whom all obey, and who, in council with the elders,
disposes of intertribal offenders, even to the extent of capital punishment it is
believed. The old men and many of the women and children remain encamped

,102 HI| .HBSpi^NDS OF CENTRAL INDIA.

remotest tracts of these liills with loads of salt, and taking
back forest produce in return.

In the meantime I got up the remainder of my camp,
pitched the large tent, and erected a hut of wattle and daub
as a storehouse for the grain and tools, and made myself com-
fortable. At the same time I arranged for a few artificers,
carpenters, and masons, being sent up from the plains ; but
it was long before any of them could be induced to venture
into the dreaded region. Though the geological surveyor of
the Narbada valley had given no hope of limestone being
found in these hills, I discovered an excellent supply of it in
one of the deep glens a little below the scarp of the plateau.
After searching long and wearily for it in vain, and receiving
on all hands assurances that such a thing had never been
heard of, I was directed to the place by a Korku whom I
incidentally .saw in the unwonted occupation of chewing paun 9
in the composition of which lime has a place. I found a
huge block of pure white crystalline limestone jammed in the
bottom of this ravine ; and it is curious to conjecture by what
fortunate geological process this immense boulder of an article
without which building would be impossible at Puchmurree,
could have been brought and so conveniently deposited at an
elevation of at least 2000 feet above the nearest formation of
the kind. Though I believe I have at one time or other been
in almost every other ravine in these hills, I never found
another piece of limestone but one a smaller boulder of the
same sort, similarly situated, but at a rather lower elevation.

The young Thdkur came back in a day or two, with about

at some favourite grazing spot during the expeditions, where all return to
pass the rainy season and recruit their cattle. Though eminent in the art and
practice of highway robbery, the Ban j aids are scrupulously faithful in the execu-
tion of trusts, and are constantly employed in the interchange of commodities
between the open country and the forest tracts.

THE MAHADEO HILLS. 103

half-a-dozen Korkus from the neighbouring hills, and news of
a herd of bison in the B&nganga Valley, behind and below the
high peak of Dhupgarh ; so I determined to have our grand
hunt in that place. Invitations were sent to all the Gond
and Korku chiefs in the neighbourhood, with their followers,
and every available man in the hills was sent for to beat. A
store of grain enough to feed them all was sent down to the
little hamlet at the bottom of the Rorighat pass, where the
beat was expected to end ; and one of the Puchmurree grog-
shops was taken bodily down to the same place to supply the
drinkables.

In after days I spent many a long day in the chace of the
bison on these splendid hills ; and have also made the acquaint-
ance of the mountain bull in many other parts of the province.
Some account of his habits may, therefore, not be out of place
here, particularly as they are frequently a good deal misre-
presented. And first as to his name. The latest scientific
name for him is Gavceus Gaurus, but what he is to be called
in English is not so easily settled. Sportsmen have unani-
mously agreed to call him the " Indian Bison," which natu-
ralists object to, as he does not properly belong to the same
group of bovines as the bisons of Europe and America. They
would have us call him the Gaur, which appears to be his
vernacular name in the Nepalese forests. I would, however,
put in a plea for the retention, by sportsmen at least, of the
name " Indian Bison." In the first place it fully accomplishes
the object of all names in distinctly denoting the animal
meant. Ever since he became known to Europeans he has
been so called, and no other animal has ever shared the name.
Then his structural distinction from the true bisontine group
appears to consist chiefly, if not solely, in his having thirteen in-
stead of fourteen or fifteen pairs of ribs, and somewhat flattened

104 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTEAL INDIA.

instead of cylindrical horns (Jerdon). Lastly, there is no
vernacular name universally applicable to him, " Gaur " being
unknown in Central India ; while his occasional Central Indian
name of Bluiisa (with Bun or " wild " prefixed to it) is almost
identical in sound with " bison," and is no doubt derived from
the same root. If you ask for " bison " in these forests where
he is known (and speak a little through your nose at the same
time), you will certainly be shown Gavceus Gaurus and no
other animal.

The respective ranges of this animal and the wild buffalo
(Bubalus) have sometimes been defined by sportsmen in the
saying that the bison is not found north, nor the buffalo south, of
the Narbada river. Like most apophthegms, however, this con-
tains little more than a flavour of the truth. Not only does the
bison inhabit many parts of the Vindhya Mountains, directly
to the north of the Narbada, but he also stretches round the
source of that river and penetrates into the hills of Chota-
Nagpur and Midnapur, and crosses over to the Nepalese Terae,
and the hilly regions in the east of Bengal. The wild buffalo
also covers the whole of the eastern part of the Central Pro-
vinces far to the south of the latitude of the Narbada, and also
the plateau of Mandla and the Godavari forests, directly to the
south of that river. In fact, the bison appears to inhabit every
part of India where he can find suitable conditions. These
appear to be, firstly, the close proximity of hills, for though
he is sometimes found on level ground, he is essentially a
lover of hills, and always retreats to them when disturbed ;
extensive ranges of forest little disturbed by man or tame
cattle, for, unlike the buffalo, he cannot tolerate the proxi-
mity of man and his works ; a plentiful supply of water and
green herbage ; and lastly, so far as I have observed, the
presence of the bamboo, on which he constantly browses. In

THE MaHaDEO HILLS. 105

the Central Provinces of India all these conditions are unfor-
tunately still present over enormous tracts of country.
Thousands of square miles in the central range, much of
which will one day be reclaimed to the uses of the plough,
are now the very perfection of a preserve for the bison.

Perhaps he is nowhere more completely at home than in
the Mahadeo hills. There, as a general rule, he will be found
to frequent at any season the highest elevation at which he
can then find food and water. During the cold season suc-
ceeding the monsoon they remain much about the higher
plateaux, at an elevation of 2000 to 3000 feet, where they
graze all night on the bamboos that clothe their sides, and on
the short succulent grasses fringing the springs and streams
usually found in the intervening hollows. They generally
pass the day on the tops of the plateaux, lying down in secure
positions under the shade of small trees, where they chew the
cud and sleep. Their object in lying under trees seems more
the concealment thus afforded to their large and dark-coloured
bodies than shelter from the sun, as the shade is seldom dense,
and a secure windy position is always secured irrespective of the
sun. I have observed that single animals always lie looking
down wind, leaving the up wind direction to be guarded by
their keen sense of smell ; and, in my experience, it is far
easier to baffle their sense of vision in a direct approach, than
to stalk them down wind, however carefully the approach
may be covered. It is extraordinary how difficult it often is
to distinguish so strongly coloured an object as a bull bison
when thus lying down in the flickering shadow of a tree.

The colour of the cows is a light chestnut brown in the cold
weather, becoming darker as the season advances. The young
bulls are a deeper tint of the same colour, becoming, however,
much darker as they advance in age, the mature bull being

106 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTRAL INDIA.

almost black on the back and sides, and showing a rich chest-
nut shade only on the lower parts of the body and inside of
the thighs. The colour of both bulls and cows varies a good
deal in different localities. The lightest coloured are those of
the open grass jungles in the west, the darkest those of the
deep bamboo forests of Puchmurree and the east. The white
stockings, which are so characteristic a marking of this species,
also change with advancing age, assuming a much dingier
colour in the old bulls. A singular change also occurs in the
growth of the horns, which will be well illustrated by the
accompanying plate of a photographed series belonging to
bulls of different ages shot in the same locality (Nimar).
No. 1 belonged to a young chestnut-coloured bull of about
five years old. Its shape, it will be seen, approximates to
that of tHe cows (No. 5), being, like them, slender and much
recurved at the points. No. 2 pertained to a very dark, but
not black, bull, evidently a year or two older than the first,
but not. quite mature. The horns have considerably increased
in girth at the base, and have assumed a more outward sweep,
with less incurvature at the points. No. 3 are still thicker
and more horizontal, with some signs of wear at the tips, and
were taken from a full-grown jet-black bull, the lord of a
herd. No. 4 adorned a very old and solitary bull, and are, it
will be seen, extremely rugged and massive, with scarcely any
curve, and are considerably worn and blunted at the points.
They measure thirty-seven and a half inches across the sweep,
and seventeen round the thickest part. No. 3 are the longest
round the curve of the horn, each measuring twenty-five and
a half inches, the extreme girth being only fifteen and a half
inches. The largest of these bulls measured exactly seventeen
and a quarter hands (five feet nine inches) at the shoulder,
measuring fairly the right line between two pegs held in the

THE MAHADEO HILLS.

107

108 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTEAL INDIA.

line of the foreleg. I once measured a bull in the Puchmurree
hills which was two inches taller than this, and I am con-
vinced that this is about the extreme height attained by them
in this part of India. I strongly suspect that the much greater
heights often given have been taken from unfair measure-
ments. A common way is to take an oblique line from the
forefoot to the top of the dorsal ridge, and follow the curva-
tures of the body besides. In this way twenty-two hands
may doubtless be made out, but we might as well measure the
distance from nose to tail for the height as this.

At this season of the year (the winter months) the bison
are rutting, and they will be found collected in herds num-
bering ten or twelve cows, with one bull in the prime of life,
and a few immature males, the remaining old bulls being
expelled to wander in pairs, or as solitary bachelors, in sullen
and disappointed mood. Very old bulls with worn horns are
almost always found alone, never apparently rejoining the
herd after being once beaten by a younger rival. These
solitary gentlemen wander about a great deal ; while the
herd, if undisturbed, will constantly be found in the same
neighbourhood. Each herd appears to possess a tract of
country tabooed to other herds ; and in this are always in-
cluded more than one stronghold, where the density of the
cover renders pursuit of them hopeless. When frequently
disturbed in and about one of these, they make off at once to
one of the others.

As the hot season advances, and the springs in the higher
ranges dry up, the bison come lower down the hills ; and may
even, if compelled by want of water, come out into the forest
on the plains, drinking from the large rivers like other animals
at that season. But they are always ready to retreat to their
mountain fastnesses when much disturbed ; and as soon as

THE MAHADEO HILLS. 109

the fall of the rains has renewed the supply of water, and
freshened the grass in the higher hills, they retire again to
their favourite plateaux. At this season the cows begin to
calve, and separate a good deal, remaining for two or three
months secluded in some spot where grazing and water are
plentiful. The bulls and young cows are then often found
together in herds of six to ten, the oldest bulls, however,
always remaining alone. During the lulls in the monsoon
a species of gadfly appears in the jungles, which is exceed-
ingly troublesome to all animals. At such times the bison
seek the high open tops of the mountains ; and I have then
seen a solitary bull standing for hours like a statue on the top
of the highest peak in the Puchmurree range.

Though at first sight a clumsy-looking animal, which is
chiefly due to his immensely massive dorsal ridge, the bison
is one of the best rock climbers among animals. His short
legs, and small game-like hoofs, the enormous power of the
muscles of the shoulder, with their high dorsal attachment,
and the preponderance of weight in the fore part of the body,
all eminently qualify him for the ascent of steep and rocky
hills. For rapid descent, however, they are not so well
adapted ; and I have known cases of their breaking a leg
when pushed to take rapidly a steep declivity ; a bull with
one foreleg broken is at once brought to a standstill.

Terrible tales are told of the relentless ferocity of the bison
by the class of writers who aim rather at sensational descrip-
tion than at sober truth. I have myself always found them
to be extremely timid, and have never been charged by a
bison, though frequently in a position where any animal at all
ferocious would certainly have done so. In all my experience
I have only heard of one or two cases of charging which I
consider fully authentic, and in all these cases the animal had

110 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTRAL INDIA.

previously been attacked and wounded. Captain Pearson was
once treed by a wounded bull in the Puchmurree hills, which
charged and upset his gun-bearer ; and an officer was killed
by one some years ago near Aslrgarh. Often the blind rush
of an animal bent on escape is put down by excited sportsmen
as a deliberate charge. Much, too, of the romance attached to
the animal must be attributed to his formidable appearance ;
for the sullen air of a mighty bull just roused is very impres-
sive ; and much to the wild tales of the people in whose neigh-
bourhood they live, who always dilate on their general fero-
city, but can seldom point to an instance of its effects, and
who are, moreover, frequently from religious prejudice, de-
sirous of withholding the sportsman from their pursuit. Still
there is sufficient evidence on record of the occasional fierce
retaliation of the bull bison when wounded and closely fol-
lowed up, in some resulting even in the death of the sports-
man, to invest their pursuit with the flavour of danger so
attractive to many persons, and to render caution in attacking
them highly advisable. The ground on which they are usually
met is fortunately favourable for escape if the sportsman be
attacked, trees and large rocks being seldom far distant.

Although a closely-allied bovine, the Gayal of trans-Brah-
maputra India, has for ages been domesticated and used to
till the land, all attempts to do so with the subject of my
remarks, or even to raise them to maturity in a state of
captivity, have failed. After a certain point the wild and
retiring nature of the forest race asserts itself, and the
young bison pines and dies. It has always struck me as
curious why the most difficult of all animals to reclaim from
a wild state are precisely those whose congeners have been
already domesticated. The so-called wild horses, and the
wild asses, are almost untamable ; so also with the wild

THE MAHADEO HILLS. Ill

sheep and goat, the wild dog and the jungle-fowl. A young
tiger or hyena is infinitely easier to bring up and tame than
any of these.

This unconquerable antipathy of the Indian bison to the
propinquity of man is slowly but surely contracting its range,
and probably diminishing its numbers. Gradually cultivation
is extending into the valleys that everywhere penetrate these
hills ; and the grazing of cattle, which extends far ahead of
the regularly settled tracts, is pushing the wild bull before it
into the remotest depths of the hills. I have, in a compara-
tively brief acquaintance with these hills, myself known con-
siderable areas where bison used to be plentiful almost entirely
cleared of these animals. Other wild beasts retire more slowly
before the incursions of man, partly subsisting as they do on
the products of his labour. The tiger who finds himself sud-
denly in the middle of herds of cattle merely changes his
diet to meet the situation, and preys on cattle instead of wild
pigs and deer. Even deer seldom live entirely in the deep
forest, but hang on the outskirts of cultivation, and, mainly
subsisting on it, need not materially decrease in numbers so
long as there remain uncleared tracts to furnish a retreat
when pressed. But the bison admits of no compromise. I
have never heard of his visiting fields even when he lives
within reach ; he never interbreeds with tame cattle ; and the
axe of the clearer and the low of domestic cattle are a sign
to him, as to the traditional backwoodsman, to move " further
West." It may be that the time is not far distant when the
tracts now being marked out, to remain for all time as re-
serves for the supply of forest produce to the country, will
be the only refuge for these wild cattle, as has been the case
with the bison and the wild bull of Europe.

On the day appointed for our grand hunt I started early,

112 THE HIGHLANDS OP CENTEAL INDIA.

with the young Thakur and a few of the Korkus, by a way that
led right over the top of Dhupgarh. After walking along the
open plateau for about three miles w T e commenced the ascent
of the hill, which is close on 1000 feet above the plateau.
The zigzag track was hardly distinguishable among the grass
and bamboos that clothe the hill ; and every here and there a
road had to be cleared with the axe, no one having passed
that way since the preceding rainy season, when all vestiges
of paths in these hills become obliterated. We were amply
rewarded, however, for the climb by the magnificent prospect
that awaited us when we gained the summit the finest by far
in all this range of hills. The further slope of Dhupgarh was
not nearly so precipitous as that we had come up, but fell, by
steps as it were, to the bottom of a deep and extensive glen,
which was the one we were about to beat. Beyond this
again rose the mural cliff that buttresses the who]e of this
block to the south ; and far past this, to the left, stretched
out below us the wilderness of forest-clad hills, that reaches
with scarcely a break to the Tapti river a distance, as the
crow flies, of sixty or seventy miles. All this immense waste
is the chosen home of the bison ; and beyond it, on either
side of the Tapti, on the elevated Chikalda range, and in the
wild hills of Kalibhit, lies another tract of equally wide
extent, where, too, the mountain bull roams, as yet scarcely
troubled with the presence of man or cattle. This is the
region of the Teak tree par excellence in this central range
of mountains, to which I will have the pleasure of conducting
the reader in a future chapter.

Tracks of bison and sambar were numerous on the top of
the hill, which is covered with bamboo clumps and with a
low thicket of the bastard date.* I have frequently, on other

* Phoenix sylvestris.

THE MaHaDEO HILLS. 113

occasions, found both bison and sambar on the very top of
Dhupgarh in the early morning. The descent of the farther
side of the hill, over long slopes of crumbled sandstone, and
the curious vitrified pipes of ironstone that exfoliate from the
decomposed surface of these hills, was fully more tiresome
than the ascent. Many a time after this did I tread the same
path to reach this valley, where bison were nearly always to
be found, and many an effort did I make to discover a shorter
and less precipitous road. But all in vain ; for the sheer
ravines that everywhere else hem in the flanks of the Dhup-
garh mountain render a passage round it a matter of in-
finitely greater time and toil than the way over the top.
At the bottom of the valley, below a shady grove of wild
mango trees, where the stream that drains the large valley
has formed a considerable pool in a rocky basin, I found
assembled three or four of the Raj-G6nd chiefs whose pos-
sessions lie in the hills to the south of Puchmurree. They
differed not at all from him of Puchmurree, unless that they
were somewhat more intelligent and polished in manner.
Each had brought his small retinue of matchlock men, and
a large gang of common Gonds and Korkus to beat ; so that
altogether we mustered some twenty guns, and between two
and three hundred beaters. The people were well acquainted
with all the beats and passes, having always several great
hunts of this sort during the year ; and everything had been
arranged before I came. The bulk of the beaters had gone
on hours before to surround the valley, and, as we were a
little later than was expected, it was likely that they would
already have commenced to beat. We lost no time, therefore,
in taking up our posts, which stretched in a long line right
across the lower end of the valley. First, however, I had to
furnish powder to load the whole of the matchlocks of my

114 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTEAL INDIA.

native friends ; and had I not guessed that such would be the
case, as usual, I would certainly not have had sufficient in my
flask. Six fingers deep is the rule for these weapons, and it
is of no avail to point out the superior strength of our powder.
They will have six fingers of Hall's No. 2, whatever the con-
sequence. As they put generally two bullets, a leaden and
an iron one, on the top of this charge, and wad with a hand-
ful of dry leaves, the result often is the bursting of the barrel,
and always considerable contusion of the user's shoulder.

This was to be a silent beat ; that is, the people were to
advance without noise, beyond the rapping of their axes
against the trees, as there was another dense cover lower
down which usually held bison, and sometimes a tiger, and
which was to be beaten also in the afternoon. I had sat an
hour at least behind the screen of leaves that had been put
up for me when the first sign of the beat appeared, and for
another half-hour nothing was heard but the occasional knock
of an axe-handle on a tree. Presently a shot rang from the
extreme flank of the line of guns, then another, and a clatter
of hoofs inside showed that a herd of something had been
repulsed in an attempt to escape. As the beat advanced
more shots were heard on either side, and the galloping about
of the imprisoned animals, now and then met by a shout from
behind when they attempted to break back, became productive
of considerable excitement on my part. At last a rush of
animals advanced down the side of the stream where I was
posted, and eight or ten sambar clattered past within half a
stone's throw. I had just fired both barrels of my rifle at a
couple of the stags, dropping one of them in his tracks, and
had advanced a few paces towards it, when I heard a shot on
my immediate right, and a fine bull bison, with two cows and
a small calf, trotted past almost in the same line as the sambar

THE MAHADEO HILLS. 115

had taken. Those were not the days of breech-loaders, and
though I had another rifle it was a little behind, leaning
against the tree, and before I could get hold of it nothing but
the sterns of the " beeves" (as a friend used to call them) were
to be seen. When I got it I favoured the bull with both
barrels a posteriori, but there was no result. The young
Thakiir, who occupied the post on my right, had been more
successful ; and when the beaters came up immediately after-
wards I found a fine four -year-old bull lying dead, with two
of his bullets through the centre of his . neck. All the
guns now came dropping in, and gathered in a group round
the slain bison. One had seen a bear, another a couple of
sambar, and so on. All had fired, and of course hit hard,
but the net result was the Thakiir 's beeve, my sambar, and
two little "jungle sheep/' as they are called, the proper name
being the four-horned antelope.*

I had never seen a bison before, and though this was only
a young chestnut-coloured bull with small horns I was much
struck with the bulk and expression of power belonging to
the animal. Such was the width of the chest that when
lying on the side the upper fore leg projected stiff and
straight out from the body, without any tendency towards
the ground. The head in particular has a fine highbred,
and withal solemn appearance, which is still more noticeable
in old bulls. From the eye of a newly slain bison, turned
up to the sunlight, comes such a wonderful beam of emerald
light as I have seen in the eye of no other animal ; and the
skin emits a faint sweet odour as of herbs.

We tracked the wounded sambar and bison a little way
down the valley, the former showing signs of being hard hit,
and a little blood was found also on the track of the bull. We

* T itracer 08 quadricornis.

I 2

116 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTRAL INDIA.

left a few of the best trackers to follow up their trail with
the next beat, and went round to take up our places about a
mile further down, and close to my camp at Rorighat. The
same process was repeated here, and this time with much
shouting and hammering of drums, as a tiget was usually
somewhere in this part of the valley, and his tracks had been
seen in the morning. I did not get a shot on this occasion.
One of the Gond Thakurs shot another sambar ; and my
wounded stag was found and killed with their axes by the
G6nds. The wounded bull was in the beat, and broke near
one of the Thakiir's retainers, who was too astonished to fire.
The rest of the bison, or another herd, broke through the side
of the beat, and plunged down a very steep and rocky de-
scent, which the people said they had never attempted but
once before, when one of them had broken a leg. Certainly I
should not have thought that any animal so large as a bison
could go down that place and live.

Nothing had been seen of the tiger, and had I known him
as well as I afterwards did, I would not have been surprised.
I knew that tiger intimately for many months after this, and
yet I never once saw him. He was a very large animal in-
deed, but entirely a jungle tiger, that is, preying solely on
wild animals, and keeping during the day to the most inac-
cessible ravines and thickets. He frequented the bison ground
round Dhupgarh, and hung on the traces of the herds, ap-
parently with an eye to the young beeves. I never came
across evidence of his killing any of them, though I once saw
a place on the plateau where the whole night long he had
evidently baited an unfortunate cow with a calf. Within a
space of some twenty yards in diameter the grass had been
closely trampled down and paddled into the moist ground by
their feet, the footprints of the calf being in the centre, while

THE MAHADEO HILLS. 117

the tiger's mighty paw went round outside,, and the poor
cow had evidently circled round and round between the
monster and her little one. I am glad to say that I tracked
the tiger off in one direction, and the courageous mother and
her calf safe in another. The tiger cannot, I believe, kill even a
cow bison, unless taken at a disadvantage ; and with a bull he
could have no chance whatever. I seldom went out without
meeting the tracks of this tiger ; and often followed him
through his whole night's wanderings, which were laid out as
on a map in the clean sand of the stream beds ; but I always
lost him in the end, though I believe he often let me pass
within a few yards of him without saying anything. He
came at rare intervals, like the bison, on to the plateau ; but
his regular beat was round the bottom of Dhiipgarh, a thou-
sand feet lower down. Once, long ago, a tiger took up his
post on the plateau, and became a man-eater, almost stopping
the pilgrimage to Mahadeo, till he was shot by the uncle of
the TMkur.

I followed the wounded bison bull for about a mile from
where he was last seen ; but he was moving fast, and the blood
had ceased to drop. He would never stop, the people said,
till he got to a stronghold of the bison of these hills, about
five miles off, a hill called the Buri-Ma (Old Mother) ; and so
I reluctantly gave up the pursuit. When I returned all the
beaters were assembled ; and a more wild and uncouth set it
never before had been my lot to see. Entirely naked, with
the exception of a very dingy and often terribly scanty strip of
cloth round the middle, there was no difficulty in detecting the
points that mark the aborigine. They were all of low stature,
the Korkus perhaps averaging an inch or two higher than the
G6nds, who seldom exceed five feet two inches ; the colour
generally a very dark brown, almost black in many indivi-

118 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTRAL INDIA.

duals, though never reaching the sooty blackness of the negro-
Among the G6nds a lighter-brown tint was not uncommon.
In features both races are almost identical, the face being flat,
forehead low, nose flat on the bridge, with open protuberant
nostrils ; lips heavy and large, but the jaw usually well
formed and not prominent like that of the negro ; the hair
on the face generally very scanty, but made up for by a
bushy shock of straight black hair. In form they are gene-
rally well made, muscular about the shoulders and thighs,
with lean sinewy forearm and lower leg. The expression of
face is rather stolid, though good humoured. Some of the
younger men might almost be called handsome after their
pattern ; but the elders have generally a coarse weather-beaten
aspect which is not attractive. All the men present carried
the little axe, without which they never stir into the forest,
and many had spears besides. During the beat they had
killed a good many peafowl and hares, and one little deer, by
throwing their axes at them, in which they are very expert.

The Korktis, I found, were prevented by prejudice acquired
from the Hindus from eating the flesh of the slain bison ; so
the Gonds from Alm6d, and a number of a tribe called Bharyas,
who had come from the Motur hills, had him all to them-
selves, while the Korkus set to work on the s&mbar with their
sharp little axes, w T hich are all that is wanted for skinning
and cutting up the carcass of the largest animal. My servant
secured the tongues and marrow-bones, and a steak out of the
undercut of the bison all delicacies of the first water for the
table of the forest sportsman ; and the remainder of the flesh
was given up to the hungry multitude. As night fell, they lit
fires where the bison had fallen, and near the village where
they had brought the deer; and for hours after continued
carrying about gobbets of the raw meat, which they hung up

THE MAHADEO HILLS. 119

on the surrounding trees, broiling and swallowing the titbits
during leisure moments. This was only the preliminary to
the great feast, however the dozen of oysters to whet the
appetite for turtle and venison. Soon the trees were fully
decorated with bloody festoons, and the savages set to work
in earnest to gorge themselves with the half-cooked meat.
The entrails were evidently the great delicacies, and were
eaten in long lengths, as Italians do maccaroni. The gorging
seemed to be endless, and I sat outside my little tent for
hours looking on in wonder at the bloody orgie. The bonfires
they had lighted threw a ruddy glow over the open glade, and
on the crimson junks of flesh hanging on the trees, bringing
the dusky forms of the revellers into every variety of
picturesque relief, and forming a wild and Eembrandt-like
picture which I shall not soon forget. Till a late hour many
new arrivals continued to add to their numbers, winding down
the steep path that leads over the Rorighat, with lighted
torches and loud shouts to show the way and scare wild beasts.
All were welcome to a raw steak and a pull at the pot of
Mhowa spirit that stood beside every group. Ere long they
began to sing, and then to dance to a shrill music piped from
half-a-dozen bamboo flutes. The scene was getting uproarious
as I turned in ; and my slumber was broken through the
greater part of the night by the noise and the glare of the
great fires through the thin canvas of my tent.

Next morning I was roused by the crow of the red jungle-
fowl, which swarm in the bamboo cover of this little valley,
and by the unremitting "hammer, hammer" of the little
" coppersmith " barbet,* of which there seemed to be more in
this valley of Rorighat than in all the rest of the country. I
found the revellers lying like logs just where they had been

* Xantholcema indica.

120 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTRAL INDIA.

sitting; and it was no small labour to rouse and get them
together. A couple of days' supply of flour was served out
to each, as remuneration for their labour in the drive ; and
plenty more was promised if they would come and help to
build the lodge at Puchmurree. I also gratified the Chiefs by
presenting them with sundry canisters of powder and all my
spare bullets; and we parted, I believe, mutually pleased with
each other, and with promises of plenty more hunting-meets
of the same sort. I had had enough of that sort of sport,
however; and, excepting once with the TMkur of Almod,
never again drove the hills for game. It is poor sport in
my opinion, and is seldom very successful even in making
a bag.

Two days after this parties of my aboriginal friends began
to drop in at the bungalow work ; and, as a few masons and
brickmakers had also arrived from the plains, our prospects
looked cheerful. The wild people brought their women and
children along with them, and in half a day erected huts of
boughs sufficient for their accommodation. They were all
told off in parties to cut and bring in Sal poles for rafters, and
bamboos and grass for thatching, to break and carry up lime
from the ravine, to puddle earth for brick-making, etc. The
wood-cutting part of the work they were well accustomed to ;
but those to whose lot fell the lime and earth business were
much disgusted, and were with difficulty kept to their work.
All payments were made in kind, the convoy of Banjara
bullocks being now unremittingly employed in carrying grain
from the plains. The work rapidly progressed, and was but
slightly interrupted by the absconding after a while ol all our
masons and brickmakers, who had very unwillingly come up
from the plains. Their places were at once taken by the
Gonds who had been employed under them, and whom I had

THE MAHADEO HILLS. 121

selected to learn these branches of the work, with a view to
such a contingency. An old foreman carpenter, who stuck by
us and superintended the work, had fortunately some know-
ledge of bricklaying, and with his help we soon began to get
the Gonds to turn out very respectable work indeed. Nobody
knew how to turn an arch, however ; and I had to evolve the
idea of one out of my own consciousness, and build the first
over the fireplace myself. The Gonds were immensely amused
at the idea of the Koitor, or " men," as they call themselves,
dabbling in bricks and mortar, and laughed and joked over it
from morning to night. Regular industry, however, was not to
be got from these unreclaimed savages; and there were seldom
half of those on the muster-roll actually present. Every now
and then, too, they would walk off in a body, and have a big
drink somewhere for a couple of days, returning and setting
to work the next morning without appearing to think a word
of explanation necessary. The height of absurdity was reached
when I imported a plough and a pair of bullocks from below,
and sent a Korku to work with them to plough up a piece of
land for a garden. He really made a sad bungle of it at first,
having no conception of the business ; and I had to set one of
my peons, who had followed the plough before he donned the
badge of office, to help him. In a little while, however,
several of the Korkus became quite aufait at ploughing; and
an acre or so of fine soil in the old bed of the tank was soon
fenced in, deeply ploughed, and prepared for gardening opera-
tions at the commencement of the rainy season.

For the next few weeks my spare time, was pleasantly
passed in exploring the neighbourhood of the hills and
their productions. I visited the Sal forest in the Delakari
valley, to the east of Puchmurree. It was one of the few
forests in this part of the country which had till then escaped

122 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTEAL INDIA.

destruction at the hands of the timber-speculator or the dhya-
cutting aborigine, being inaccessible to the former from want
of roads, and unsuited from its level character and the size of
the trees to the operations of the latter. It, however, affords an
example of one of the great difficulties of growing large timber
in the dry upland regions of Central India. Though the trees
bore every appearance of being fully mature, their size was by
no means first rate, the largest averaging no more than six or
eight feet in girth, while most of them when subsequently cut
down were found to be almost useless from heart-shake and dry
rot. At this time there was a great outcry for sleepers to lay the
Great Indian Peninsular Eailway line ; and it was important
to secure so promising a forest as this, both for present wants
and to be regularly worked on a proper system in after years.
It belonged to the Thakur of Puchmurree and another Chief ;
and I soon after concluded a lease of it for Government with
them, and laid out a road connecting it with the open country.
The view looking upwards to the Puchmurree heights from the
Denwa" valley, or across from the opposite Motur hills, is exceed-
ingly fine, the rich reds of the sandstone scarp mellowing
into an indescribable variety of delicate shades of purple and
violet in the evening sun, while broad belts of shadow thrown
across the green slopes at the foot, and gathering in the re-
cesses of the ravines, seem to project the glowing summits of
the rocks to an unnatural height in the soft orange-tinted
sky.

Here I ascertained the existence of the Bara-Singha, or
twelve-tined deer (Rucervus Duvaucellii), an animal which,
like the Sal forest in which it lives, had been supposed
not to extend to the west of the Sal belt in the Mandla
district. I was not so fortunate as to shoot a stag myself
in this place ; but I shot two does, and saw a frontlet of the

THE MAHADEO HILLS. 123

male in the possession of a native shikari, with the unmis-
takable antlers attached. Since then, too, I have heard of a
fine stag being shot there by a railway Engineer. I believe
they are not very numerous here ; indeed, the Sal forest, to
which I believe their range is confined, covers an area of only
a few square miles.

I also found that the red jungle-fowl of North-eastern India
(G. ferrugineus) inhabits this Sal forest and the hills around
it, although, .so far as I am aware, it is not found anywhere
else in these hills further west than the great Sal belt of
Mandla. The other species of jungle-fowl, which properly
belongs to Western and Southern India (G. Sonneratii), is also
to be met with on the Puchmurree hills ; and I have shot both
species in the same day in the ravine where the Mahadeo Cave
is situated. The red fowl could hardly be distinguished from
many a specimen of the domesticated race either in appearance
or voice, while the grey fowl does not crow like a cock, and is,
I think, a much handsomer bird than the red. His peculiar
hackles, each feather tipped as with a drop of yellow sealing-
wax, are much valued for fly-dressing. Jungle-fowl shooting
with spaniels in these hills is capital fun. The cover they
frequent is very thick, and they take a good hustling before
they fly up and perch on the trees. When you approach
they generally fly off, and are very clever at putting a thick
cover between themselves and the gun, making the shooting
by no means so easy as it looks, so that a couple of brace are
a good bag for a morning's sport. I never saw reason to sup-
pose that the two species interbreed, nor that either of them
crosses with the domestic fowl of these hills.

I have already remarked on the singularity of thus finding
a patch of the forest peculiar to eastern India, together with
its most characteristic mammals and birds, isolated among the

124 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTRAL INDIA.

vegetation and fauna of the west, at a distance of about one
hundred and thirty miles from the nearest point of the main
forest to which they belong.

Two species of spur-fowl are pretty common on the hills.
The one is the common little red bird,* which, but for its
size, might easily be mistaken for the red jungle-fowl, being
very like a small bantam cock. The other species is, I think,
the same as the painted spur-fowl,f an exceedingly handsome
bird, with a long double spur on each leg. The latter species
is generally found on the edges of the ravines, down which
it drops, when flushed, like a stone, and can seldom be found
again. The red bird I found chiefly on the little broken hills
that surround the plateau, and in the same places as the
jungle-fowl ; and very pretty sport it gives with spaniels.

The common Chikdrd gazelle of the plains inhabits the
undulating part of the plateau ; and the little four-horned
antelope, already referred to, is not uncommon in the thicker
parts. The black antelope is quite unknown, though on
the similar plateau of Toran Mai, in the western Satpuras,
it is said to be common. Hares are very numerous. The
Korkus have a curious way of killing them at night. I dis-
covered it by observing a strange will-o'-the-wisp-like light
flitting about the edges of the little eminences across the
valley below my tent, accompanied by a faint jingle as of
bells. It is very simple. One man carries a pole across his
shoulders, from the fore end of which is slung an earthen
pan full of blazing faggots of the torch-wood tree,;]: arranged
so as to throw the light ahead. The pan is made out of one
of their ordinary earthen water-vessels, by knocking out the
side. It is balanced at the other end by a basket of spare

* Galloperdix spadiceus. \ G. lumulosus, Jerdoii.

\ Cor/)fospermii,m goasypium,

THE MAI1ADE0 HILLS. 123

faggots. Another man carries a long iron rod, with a number
of sliding rings, that jingle as he walks. Three or four lusty
fellows follow, carrying bamboos fifteen or twenty feet in
length ; and the party proceed to move about the edge of the
thickets, where unsuspecting hares come out to feed after
nightfall. As soon as one appears in the streak of bright
light thrown across the ground by the fire-pan, the whole
party rush towards her, jingling frantically at the bells, and
keeping her terror-stricken form in the circle of light. Poor
puss seldom attempts to escape, but sits stupefied by the glare
and noise, till a bamboo brought down on her back ends her
existence. A party generally gets five or six hares in this
way in a few hours. They sometimes come across small deer,
and kill them in the same way ; and I have heard stories of
panthers and even tigers being met with, and turning the
tables on the fire-hunters in an unexpected fashion. I once
took a gun out with one of these parties ; but found that it
spoiled the whole aifair, all the hares in the neighbourhood
retreating to the cover at the first shot.

I have already said that tigers rarely come on to the
plateau. Bears are equally scarce ; in fact, I don't think I
ever saw the track of one above the passes, and very few below.
The opposite range of Motiir, however, as well as the Maha-
deo hills further west, are full of them. The panther, on the
other hand, is pretty common in Puchmurree. The first night
my camp came up, one of a small flock of sheep I had
brought, in case of provisions running short, was killed by
a panther close to my tent. He dropped from an overhanging
branch into an enclosure of prickly bushes that had been
put up round the sheep ; and his attempts to drag it through
the fence created such a disturbance among the people that
he left it and leaped out in the confusion. The next night he

126 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTEAL INDIA.

seized one of my Clumber spaniels at the door of my tent ;
but a big greyhound named " Jack " flew to the rescue, and
little " Nell " escaped with a few scratches and a great fright.
The same panther became afterwards very troublesome on the
hill when the workmen at the bungalow had left, attacking
my dogs, sheep, and goats nearly every night, and coming
boldly through the very rooms of the house. He was a
toothless old brute however, to which circumstance the dogs
owed several escapes out of his very jaws ; and though so
daring at night in attacking our animals he would never face
the men. Several times my horsekeepers and dog-boys sent
him skulking off sideways, like a crab, from the vigour
of their applications of long bamboos across his back. I
never could kill him, though I tried ever} 7- conceivable plan.
One night 1 might have shot him as he passed along below
the raised plinth of the house in the moonlight ; but of
course I had seized the only unloaded gun in the rack in the
hurry, and the locks snapped harmlessly within a foot of his
back. He was shot by a shikari after I had left the hill.

Coursing foxes was another great amusement. A colony
of the pretty little fox of the plains * inhabited a small
open glade a little to the west of my camp. They had
a great many burrows almost in the centre of the plain, all
of which appeared to run into each other. I never failed
to unearth one or more foxes here by the aid of " Pincher,"
a minute black and tan English terrier, with the spirit of a
lion, who could get into any of the holes, and would die
rather than not get out his fox. Often he showed signs of
severe subterranean combats ; and once I thought he was done
for, when the greyhounds ran a fox into the very hole he had
gone in at. We had to get picks and spades and dig down

* Valpes Bengalemi&.

THE MAIIADEO HILLS. 12?

to him, and we found him lying with one fox before him
pinned up in the end of a blind hole, which he had already
half killed, and another blocking the way out behind him.
Poor gallant little Pincher I He died of a sunstroke some
three months later, from being dragged through a long
eighteen-mile march in the hot sun by a brutal dog-boy,
without getting a single drop of water. I had two brace of
capital greyhounds at that time ; one couple crossed between
the English and Kampur breeds, and the other bred from a
Scotch deerhound out of a Bunjiira bitch. The Indian fox is
not above half the size of English Reynard, but he has an
astonishing turn of speed, and doubles with wonderful agility.
These dogs had, however, the speed of them, and the run was
generally much in a circle ; so that though the ground was
well suited for riding, I generally went on foot, along with
some of the workpeople who greatly enjoyed the sport, and
some of whom (Bharyas) eat the foxes afterwards. It was
capital training for bison-shooting, which severely tries the
wind, and in which I also spent a day or two now and then.

Stalking the bison in these hills is very severe work indeed.
At times they may be found pretty near at hand, but more
generally the Dhupgarh hill, or the great ravine, has to be
crossed first, and either implies a good many miles of stiff
work before the sport really begins. Then bison, though they
seem to move slowly, are often really going very fast ; and,
as scarcely a yard of the country they live in is anything like
level, what is apparently nothing to them is really a very hard
pull for their pursuer. The bottoms of the valleys are also
very hot even at this time of year; and at all times exercise
under an Indian sun is much more fatiguing than in a cold
climate. A wounded bison never stops going while he can,
short of nightfall, and must be pursued while a ray of hope

128 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTRAL INDIA.

remains. Thus hill after hill, and ravine after ravine, are put
between one and home in the excitement of the chase, till
suddenly you pull up and realize what an immense distance
you have come, and that you cannot possibly get back before
the middle of the night. If you have anything to eat, the best
course under such circumstances is to sleep where you are.
I often used to bivouac thus when out after bison ; and seldom
found it much of a hardship. A good fire can always be lit in
a few minutes, dry wood being never far off in an Indian jungle.
An elevated place, at the same time sheltered from the wind,
should be chosen for the purpose, as the valleys are more
malarious at night. A shelter of boughs should always be
knocked up, which your wild men will do handsomely in five
minutes. I learned more of the simple nature of the forest
people during the few hours' chat by the fire on these occa-
sions than I believe I would have done otherwise in as many
years. I think they got attached to me a good deal ; and,
though they are not very demonstrative at any time, Iwas
often touched by some simple act of thoughtfulness one would
hardly have expected from their untutored natures.

About the hardest day I had was after a couple of bulls I
had seen grazing on the very top of Dhupgarh, looming against
the sky-line like two young elephants in the red sunlight. It
was evening when I found them, and, as the spot was
inaccessible by stalking, I sent round a couple of Korkiis to
move them, while I posted myself on the road they would be
most likely to take down the hill. They went, however, by a
pass a few hundred yards further on ; and though I ran over
the intervening bare and slippery rocks as hard as I could to
get a shot, I was only in time to see them floundering down
the hill-side like two great rocks, and they never pulled up
till far down in the blue haze that huncr over the bottom of

THE MAHADEO HILLS. 129

the valley they looked scarcely bigger than a couple of crows.
As they had not been alarmed by shooting, and would pro-
bably be found in the valley next day, I went home and
prepared for a long hunt. We took the road round by the
great ravine, instead of going over Dhiipgarh, because it was
rather shorter when the bottom of the valley had to be made
for, and also because we expected to find another herd on the
way. We were disappointed, however, in this, seeing nothing
till we got to the valley except a bear with her cub, the former
of which I shot. Arriving in the valley, we spread about in
all directions to -look for bison-tracks. The young Thakiir of
Puchmurree, the best hunter and tracker in the hills, was un-
fortunately laid up with a sprain he had got the preceding
day ; but we picked up two capital bison-trackers out of a
lot of Korkiis from a village across the great ravine, whom
we found cutting a dhya on one of the hill-sides as we
passed. I had found the footprints of the Dhiipgarh tiger in
the bed of the stream, and was following them up with one
of the Korkiis, when I was recalled by a whistle to a place
where the tracks of the two bulls had been discovered. They
were making for a high plateau covered with thick bamboo
jungle at the top of the valley, and we at once started on the
trail. It was clear everywhere, and the men ran it at a sharp
walk nearly to the top of the hill. Here, however, a sheet of
rock intervened, and above it was a mass of large boulders
intermixed with heavy clumps of bamboo. We were a long
time puzzling the track through here, as the bulls had stopped
and fed about on the young bamboo shoots. At last, how-
ever, one of the men we had picked up took a long cast over
the top of the hill, and returned with the news that the bulls
had separated, one going off to the south, apparently in the
direction of a well-known haunt in the Bori teak forest, while

130 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTKAL INDIA.

his companion had gone off up the hill in the opposite direc-
tion. We decided to follow the latter, as it led more nearly
in the direction of home. The wilderness of bamboo-covered
hills and deep intervening rocky-bottomed or swampy dells,
over and through which we carried that trail till the sun was
getting low, is beyond description. Every now and then we
thought we were just upon him, freshly cropped bamboos and
droppings showing that he was not far in front. But he had
never stopped for long. This restlessness I afterwards found to
be the habit of bison which have recently been disturbed. He
was evidently making off steadily for some, distant retreat.
We started several herds of sambar and solitary stags, and
once a bear bustled out of a nala we were crossing, and
bundled off down the hill-side ; but we were bent on nobler
game and durst not fire at them. By evening we had got
right to the further side of the great ravine beyond Jambo-
Dwip, and the peak of Dhupgarh glowed pink and distant in
the rays of the declining sun. We were descending a long
slope among thin trees and high yellow grass, and I was a
little ahead of the rest, when I suddenly saw the head and
horns of a bison looking at me over a low thicket, and was
putting up my rifle to fire when, with a loud snort, the owner
wheeled round, and plunging noisily down the hill disap-
peared. This snort, which sounds like a strong expulsion of
air through the nostrils, is very commonly uttered by bison
when suddenly disturbed, and is the only sound I ever heard
from them, except a low menacing moan, which I have heard
a bull utter when suspicious of approaching danger, and the
quivering bellow which they sometimes emit in common with
most other animals when in articulo. I ran to the edge of
what proved to be a deepish ravine full of bamboos, and was
just in time to see a small herd of six or seven cows and

THE MAHADEO HILLS. 131

calves disappearing over a low shoulder on the opposite side.
But behind them slowly stalked one bull a majestic fellow
nearly jet-black, and towering like a young elephant in the
rapidly-closing gloom of the evening. As he reached the top
of the rise he paused and turned broadside on, his solemn-
looking visage facing in our direction. He was about ninety
yards from where I sat, with the heavy 8 -bore rifle I had
wearily dragged after him all day rested on my knee ; and,
forbidding though he looked, I sighted him just behind the
elbow and fired, fully expecting him to subside on the
receipt of two ounces of lead driven by six drachms of powder.
But there was no result whatever, save a dull thud as the
bullet plunged into his side ; and he slowly walked on over
the brow as if nothing had happened. My other barrel caught
him in the flank, and then I seized the spare rifle that was
thrust into my hand, and sped across the intervening ravine.
I was toiling up the other side, very hot and much out of
breath, when a heavy crash beyond fell upon my delighted
ear. I had been in agony lest I had missed the mighty target
after all ; but it was not so. There he lay as he had fallen,
and rolled over down the hill until stopped by a clump
of bamboos. A mighty mass of beef, truly, secured at last.
But we were six or seven miles from Puchmurree, and there
was no more than half-an-hour of daylight left. The road I
knew was frightful, with hundreds of ravines besides the great
one to cross, and it was not to be thought of at night. After
due consideration we determined to go and sleep at a recently
cut dhya that was known by the people, about a mile from
where we were ; so, leaving the fallen bull to the shadows of
night, we went and made ourselves sufficiently comfortable
for the night, under a canopy of the newly-cut branches, on
couches spread deeply with the springy shoots of the bamboo.

K 2

132

THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTRAL INDIA.

We had walked at least twenty miles in the course of the day,
and that over fearful ground. I was very tired, but happy,
and never slept sounder in my life. On the whole I think
stalking the mountain bull among the splendid scenery of
these elevated regions, possesses more of the elements of true
sport than almost any other pursuit in this part of India.

Head of Bull Bison.

CHAPTER IV.

THE ABORIGINAL TRIBES.

Interest of the Subject An Historical Parallel Influence of contact with
Hinduism Mixed Races The Rajgonds The Korkus The Bhilalas
Introduction of Caste Difficulties of Investigation Meagreness of Ab-
original Languages Gond Legends Religion of the Gonds Worship of
Powers of Nature Fetishism Worship of Ancestors Demigods and
Heroes Idol Worship Sivaism Religious Ceremonies The Great Spirit
Religion of the Korkus Sun Worship Burial Customs of the Tribes
Personal Appearance Marriage Customs Economical position of the
Tribes Drunkenness Agricultural Position The Timber-trade
Demoralization of the Tribes Retribution Excise Laws Eorest Regu-
lations Improvement in the Condition of the Aborigines Effect of High
Prices Culture of the Oil-seed Plant Influence of Hinduism Future of
the Aborigines Measures Required Hindu Pilgrims to the Shrine of
Mahadeo An Indian Fair Description of the Shrine The Religion of
Sivaism Human Sacrifices Omkar Mandhatta Death of a Victim A
Priestly Murder Cholera among the Pilgrims Panic and Flight The
Scapegoat.

Something has already been said regarding the inter-
mixture of Hindu blood, manners, and religion, that has
taken place among the aboriginal races of Central India.
Were this an isolated event in the ethnical history of the
country it would possess a comparatively feeble interest. Its
high importance lies in its furnishing us with a living example
of a process which has, as already suggested, played an im-
portant part in the development of the races which compose
the mass of modern Hinduism. It is the uppermost and
most accessible stratum of a geological series of untold
antiquity ; and, as the geologist interprets ancient formations

134 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTRAL INDIA.

by the analogy of the processes he sees still going on around
him, so it may be that some light may be thrown on the
construction of modern Hinduism by the process of trans-
formation which is here going on before our eyes.

It is difficult to say how far the actual admixture of blood has
taken place. There is small room for doubt that the so-called
Gond Rajas of pre-Mahomedan times were nearly, or quite,
pure Hindu Rajputs, exercising a feudal authority over
numerous petty chiefs of mixed descent. The former have
been nearly swept away, their only remaining representative
being the pensioned Gond Raja of Nagpur ; the latter
remain in their descendants, and, almost to a man, show the
clearest signs of possessing a mixture of the Hindu and
aboriginal blood. The Hindu element in such cases has not
been the debased article current among the masses of the
laboring population, but the purer strain derived from the
aristocratic families of Rajpiit&Da\ It is as it were the first
cross in the mixed breed, and thus, as might be expected,
shows the characteristics of both sides clearly developed. In
other cases, among the lower races of aborigines, crosses also
appear to have taken place ; but in such cases it appears to
have been the already debased Hindu of the lower orders
that has furnished the foreign element, and the result has
been a breed which little approaches the high Aryan character,
and is in fact only a slight advance on the purely aboriginal
type. Among the chiefs the cross appears to have taken place
with all the different tribes of indigenes. Towards the east
the mixed breed call themselves Gond-Rdjputs, or shortly
RaJ-G6nds, and are the direct result of the alliance between
the Rajput adventurer and the G6nd. In the Korku country
the same thing seems to have occurred between the Rajputs
and the Korkvis. In this case, however, the tribe being an

THE ABOEIGINAL TEIBES. 135

influential one, the descendants are only known as Korkus.
But they differ in many respects from pure Korkus, being tall
and fair-complexioned, ultra-Hindu, in their observances, and
marrying only among their several families, or into purer
houses never among the undiluted aborigines. In the ex-
treme west a distinct race called Bhilalas has originated from
the cross between the Eajput and the Bheel. The Bheels
were for a much longer period in close contact with Hindus
than any other tribe, and that during a- period of Indian
history when the restrictions of caste were almost entirely in
abeyance. Buddhism, and its offspring Jainism, were the
ruling faiths in that part of the country up to the 11th or
12th century; and thus it is probable that a much greater
admixture of the races occurred there than in countries
where the Brahminical forms prevailed. The Bhilalas are
now very numerous, occupying large tract's as almost the sole
population, but still there is a marked distinction between
these and the land-holding chiefs of the same descent. The
distinction is in fact identical with that between the Kaj-
Gond and Korku chiefs and the numerous commoner classes
of the same tribes who are nominally pure aborigines, but are
really half Hindu.

As is the case with the divers peoples now included among
modern Hindus, it would be wholly impossible now to gauge
the extent to which the infusion of the Aryan element has
taken place among these aboriginal races. The facility for
amalgamation between them the chemical affinity, so to speak,
between the races seems to be so great, that in a very few
generations the points denoting the predominance of one or
the other become obliterated. And yet the traveller among
them will come on stratum after stratum showing in the
clearest manner the intermediate stages between the two

136 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTEAL INDIA.

races. And, as a rule, variation of physical type will be
found to be accompanied in almost equal ratio by divergence
from aboriginal manners and religious ideas in the direction
of Hinduism. It is probable that the further commixture of
blood, excepting through the occasional immorality of the
races, has in recent times ceased as regards the masses, though
the chiefs are still unremitting in their endeavours to purify
their families by alliance with more blue-blooded Eajpiit
houses than their .own. Blue blood being a marketable com-
modity here as in other countries, the chiefs have to pay
highly for such privileges ; and nothing has so much tended
to pauperize these families as these constant bribes for the
ennoblement of their race, and the equally heavy cost of
conciliating the priestly arbitrators of their quality.

For it is through this chink that the influence of Brahman-
ism has mainly succeeded in penetrating to the very core of
these indigenous tribes. The test of purity of caste among
races of uncertain descent is much more the extent of their
observance of the Hindii code of purity and ceremonial than
actual proof of lineage. The Brahmans form a sort of Heralds'
College, to be inscribed on the rolls of which for a few gene-
rations entitles an aspirant to ally himself with families who
have already attained a higher status than himself. Strict
reverence for the Brahmans, and adherence to ceremonial
purity, are necessary to secure this ; and thus it is that all
these semi-Hindu chiefs spend the greater part of their time
and means in striving to attain the utmost rigour of attention
to Hindu religious and social rule. To this end they have
abandoned the gods of their fathers for the deities of the
Brahmans. They have retained Brahmans as their councillors
and to conduct the worship of the gods. They .eat nothing
unsanctioned by the Brahminical law; and some even employ

THE ABORIGINAL TEIBES. 137

Brahmans to cook their food, sprinkling the faggots employed
for the purpose with holy water. Thus they have gradually
separated themselves from the mass of their aboriginal sub-
jects, and formed a separate caste of their own, either inter-
marrying among families similarly situated, or if possible
seeking brides, as I have said, in houses superior to them-
selves. Some of them have thus succeeded in almost eradi-
cating the aboriginal taint; and by continued reversion to the
purer stocks have attained to an equality of physical type with
the higher races. Their social status has come to be acknow-
ledged as that of the Kajpiit rather than the aborigine ;
and many have assumed the sacred thread, the wearing of
which denotes membership of one of the twice-born castes.
Most of them, however, whether from motives of policy or of
superstition, still concede something to their semi-aboriginal
descent ; worshipping perhaps in secret the tribal deities,
and, in cases, placing at certain festivals the flesh of cows,
abhorred of Hinduism, to their lips, wrapped in a thin cover-
ing of cloth. Many of them also require to be installed on
their succession to the chiefship by a ceremony which includes
the touching of their foreheads with a drop of blood drawn
from the body of a pure aborigine of the tribe they belong to.
Such an example on the part of their influential chiefs was
certain to be followed by large sections of their subjects ; and
in particular by such of them as were themselves in some
degree of mixed descent. Accordingly we find the tribes
much subdivided into clans, or castes, distinguished from each
other by a more or less close adoption of Hindii customs
and religious forms. A theory has arisen that the Gonds are
divided into twelve and a half formal castes according to the
number of the gods they worship, after the pattern of the
Hindus ; but, as in the case of the latter such a division is

138 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTEAL INDIA.

purely nominal, the actual number of Hindii castes being
almost infinite, so also among the Gonds this distinction
accords with nothing to be seen in practice ; and their sub-
divisions differ in almost every district, being founded partly
perhaps on tribal descent, but chiefly on imported distinc-
tions arising from the extent of their approximation to
Hinduism. Some of these castes have already succeeded,
like their chiefs, in attaining to the status of Eajputs ; and
the process is still going on before our eyes in places where
the sacred thread is openly sold to aspirants by the chiefs and
their obsequious Brahmans. We have only to make a slight
change in the machinery to recognize in all this a system of
social promotion going on amongst ourselves in civilized
England ; and it may perhaps be doubted whether, if a slight
change of creed were, as here, the password to advancement
of social position, a good many Christians might not be found
to discover excellent reasons for such a step !

As might be expected, the Gonds have gone further in the
adoption of these Hindu sentiments than the other tribes.
They are far more numerous ; they occupy large tracts of low
country intermixed with the Hindus; their semi-Hindu chiefs
possessed the ruling power of the country for many genera-
tions ; and possibly they belong to a branch of the human
race more susceptible of modification than the others. Their
Tamulian congeners in Southern India, while losing little of
their aboriginal physical type, have conformed en masse to
the customs and religion of Hinduism ; while the Kolarian
stock, wherever found, has obstinately resisted intermixture
with the Hindii.

In the next chapter I propose to give a sample of the
legends current among the Gonds, which indicate their own
consciousness of the importance of the change that has been

THE ABORIGINAL TEIBES. 139

wrought among them by their acceptance of Hindu, ideas ;
and in the meantime will proceed to some description of the
aboriginal beliefs and institutions, which still lie, in the most
advanced of their sections, but a little way below the surface,
and which, among the undiluted denizens of the wilder
regions, are yet found in their primitive purity.

It is not an easy matter for the inquirer among such tribes
really to ascertain the peculiarities of their language, religion,
or ideas. Like all savages there is a child -like vagueness
about their conceptions which it is very difficult to get the
better of, and to this is added a suspiciousness which frequently
leads them to deliberately withhold information the object of
which they are unable to comprehend. In the case of these
particular tribes, moreover, the admixture of Hinduism has
proceeded so far that one has to be constantly on his guard
against admitting as belonging to them what is in fact of foreign
origin. An intimate acquaintance with Hindu beliefs and
peculiarities is therefore the first essential quality of him who
attempts to ascertain the distinctive features of these races ;
and from the want of this great mistakes have constantly been
made in describing them. The poverty of their languages is
another great obstacle to the inquirer. In the aboriginal
tongues there seem to be no expressions for abstract ideas, the
few such which they possess being derived from the Hindi.
In fact, the aboriginal roots are really almost confined to
the expression of the barest necessities of savage existence.
The names even of most of their personal deities, the nomen-
clature of religious ceremony, of moral qualities, and of nearly
all the arts of life they possess, are all Hindi. The form, and
particularly the termination, of these imported words is, how-
ever, frequently a good deal modified, the pronunciation being
as a rule broadened ; and thus an imperfect acquaintance with

140 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTRAL INDIA.

the dialects of Hindi frequently leads to the acceptance of
such phrases as purely aboriginal. The greatest difficulty,
however, is their vagueness of conception, and their want of
abstract ideas. Thus, for instance, in all the recorded vocabu-
laries it will be found that the term for " sky " is nothing but
the Hindi name for "clouds," or "sun," or "moon," or some
specific object in the sky, not for the sky generally, for which
they do not seem to possess a name. It is only in the re-
motest wilds that either Gonds or Korku s are now found who
do not know sufficient Hindi to carry on a simple conversa-
tion, although they generally employ their own tongue in
talking among themselves. The tribes bordering on the
plains, who visit some bazaar town once a week for purposes
of exchange, and who are constantly in contact with the
people of the plains, have in many cases lost all knowledge of
their own language, and speak the Hindi of the plains. There
is nothing that is worth preserving in these rudimentary
indigenous tongues ; and their inevitable absorption in the
more copious lingua franca of the plains is not at all to be
regretted.

In religion the Gond tribes have passed through all the
earlier stages of belief, and are now entering on that of
idolatry pure and simple the last in which religion is still
altogether dissevered from ideas of morality. As has been
generally observed, however, the objects of worship of each
new stage of development here form additions to those for-
merly reverenced, rather than supplant them.

The foundation of their creed appears to be a vague pan-
theism, in which all nature is looked upon as pervaded by
spiritual powers, the most prominent and powerful of which
are personified and propitiated by simple offerings. Every
prominent mountain top is the residence of the Spirit of the

THE ABORIGINAL TEIBES. 141

Hill, who must be satisfied by an offering before a dhya can
be cut on its slopes. The forest is peopled by woodland
sprites, for whom a grove of typical trees is commonly left
standing as a refuge in clearing away the jungle. When the
field is sown, the god of rice-fields (Khodo Pen) has to be
satisfied, and again when the crop is reaped. The malignant
powers receive regular propitiation. The Tiger God has a hut
built for him in the wilderness that he may not come near
their dwellings. The goddess of small-pox and of cholera
receives offerings chiefly when her ravages are threatened.
Among such elementary powers must be reckoned the ghosts
of the deceased, which have to be laid by certain ceremonies.
These consist in conjuring the ghost into something tangible,
in one case into the body of a fish caught in the nearest water,
in another into a fowl chosen by omen. The object, whatever
it is, is then brought to the house of the deceased, and propi-
tiated for a certain time, after which it is formally consigned
to rest by burial, or in one case by pouring it (in solution)
over the representation of the village god. The spirits of
persons killed by wild animals are believed to be especially
malignant, and are " laid ' with much care and ceremony. To
this practice has been superadded by some the rite of periodical
propitiation of deceased ancestors by sacrifice, implying their
continued existence in another world, an entirely different
thing it may be observed from the rite already described,
which implies only a restless and spiteful existence in this
world of a ghost which may be made an end of by a
ceremony. I believe the superior belief to be entirely
derived from the Hindus, with whom it is a prime article
of faith.

None of these powers of nature are represented .by idols,
nor have they any particular forms or ceremonies of worship.

142 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTRAL INDIA.

They are merely localised by some vague symbol ; the moun-
tain god by a daub of vermilion on some prominent rock ;
the tree god by a pile of stones thrown round the stem of a
tree and so on. At these the simple savage pays his devo-
tion, almost furtively, as he passes in the grey of the morning
to his day's labour, by a simple prostration, or perhaps by the
offering of a handful of rice or an onion ! More elaborate acts
of worship are engaged in by the community at certain seasons,
and then these primitive powers may be joined with the more
personal deities derived from their neighbours in the general
act of worship.

In the next stage the tribes have added certain Fetiches to
the list of powers. The principal of these is an iron spear-
head called Pharsa Pen, and he is supported by the Bell god,
the Chain god, a god composed of some copper money hung up
in a pot, shapeless stones, and many other objects, the power
attributed to which is purely arbitrary, and unconnected with
any natural agency. To this stage appears to belong the
medicine man and dealer in witchcraft, who still possesses
considerable power among the tribes. These medicine men
can scarcely be called priests, and are not a hereditary caste.
Their business is to exorcise evil spirits, to interpret the wishes
of the fetish, to compel rain, and so on. Some of them seem
to have acquired the power of throwing themselves into a sort
of trance in which they are visited by the deity ; but in this
respect they are far behind the sorcerers of the Byga race
further to the east, who will be subsequently alluded to.

In a still more advanced stage the Gonds have resorted to
hero worship ; but it is curious that all the deified heroes they
reverence are of purely Hindu derivation. The chief are
Bhima, one of the five Pandu brethren, who is represented by
his mythical club either in stone or wood ; Hardyal, a Eajput

THE ABORIGINAL TRIBES. 143

hero of much later date ; Dulha Deo, the apotheosis of a bride-
groom, and many others.

Lastly come the recognized divinities of the Hindu, pan-
theon. Amongst a race whose blessings are few and hardships
many it is not surprising that the malevolent members of the
Hindu pantheon should have found more acceptance than the
benevolent deities. Vishnu is scarcely recognized by them,
except in his one terrible development of Narsingha or the
Man-Tiger; while Siva the Destroyer, with his formidable
consort Kali, and son Bhairava, are the favourite objects of
reverence among the more advanced of the tribes. These are
represented by rude idols, Siva, himself in his usual Phallic
form ; and a Brahman in many cases officiates at their shrines.
Here for the first time we find mythology the science of
priests at work. In their earlier stages the tribes had no
priests, no hierarchy of gods, and consequently no mythology.
Now legends are invented to connect the tribes, and their
earlier gods, with the great web of Hindu fiction, and bring
them within the dominion of caste and priestdom. In the
succeeding chapter will be found a version of one of these
fragments. Their art is of the rudest character, often out-
raging the requirements of Hindu orthodoxy suited, in fact,
to the mental calibre of a people scarcely yet emerging from
mere fetishism.

Many have conjectured that the worship of Siva and his
mythic companions, which forms so incongruous an intrusion
into the milder faith of the Aryan Hindus, has been in fact
derived from the aboriginal races of India. As regards Siva
himself in his Phallic form there seems to be little founda-
tion for such an hypothesis. The emblem has nowhere, I
believe, been found as an object of adoration among the in-
digenous races where Brahmanism has not penetrated, whereas

144 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTKAL INDIA.

it was a very ancient form of worship among the peoples of
Western Asia, and was even prevalent in heathen Eome more
than 1600 years ago. It was, as in India, so in the countries
of Western Asia, connected with human sacrifices. It is true
that this form of the Hindu religion is chiefly prevalent in
the wilder parts of the country, where the aboriginal element
prevails, many of its chief est shrines being in fact situated in
secluded wildernesses, and guarded by aboriginal, or semi-
aboriginal, custodians. It may be, then, that the personified
forms of this deity were adaptations from the cultus of some
of the aboriginal races that have been absorbed in Hinduism ;
but I think we must go much further back in the history of
this movement to find the originals of Kali and Bhairava
than to anything we know of the indigenes as they now
exist. May it not have been in the earliest days of Brahmin-
ical revival, when competitors for the adherence of the people
in the great struggle with Buddhism had to be sought for
among the popular deities when Vishnu was transformed
into the popular demigods Kama and Krishna, into the Tor-
toise, and the Fish, and the Man-Tiger, to suit the tastes of a
variety of half-Hinduized races that then Siva was also im-
ported from the West, and allied with the sterner objects of
worship of the wilder races, to draw them into the great net
of the priests, as the incarnations of Vishnu in their popular
heroes and totems were employed to draw the more civilized
classes of the people % Were these deities really indigenous
amongst the Gonds we should certainly see their worship a
matter of more widespread and heartfelt devotion than it is.
It is in truth still almost confined to the Chiefs and their half-
Hindu dependants, and to a few of the most advanced, and
probably half-blooded, sections of the tribes. In the great
periodical acts of public propitiation of the gods they are

THE ABOEIGINAL TRIBES. 145

either not admitted, or if so, frequently have to sit under
one of the fetishes or nature-gods of the primitive faith.

The chief of these ceremonies occur at the marked periods
of their agricultural season when the crops are sown or
reaped, and at the flowering of the valuable Mliowa tree
also when severe pestilence threatens the community. On
such occasions a row of small stones, taken from the nearest
hill side, are set up in a row and daubed with vermilion, to
represent the presence of all the gods that are to be included
in the propitiation. Sometimes small pieces of iron hung up
in a pot are used instead. A bigger stone or bit of iron
represents the " Bard Pen," or Great God of the occasion, who
is usually the one supposed to want most attention at the
time. Cocks and goats, and libations of mhowa spirit, are
then offered with much ceremony, dancing, and music ; and
the affair, like most of their great occasions, usually winds up
by the whole of them getting abominably drunk. Such is
still the real religion of these peoples, notwithstanding the
lacquer of Hinduism many of them have received ; and such
I may add is not very different from that of the vast mass
of the so-called Hindus of the plains, who look on Vishnu
and Siva as little nearer to them than do these savages,
and pay their real devotion to the village gods, to the gods
of the threshing-floor, and to their lares and penates
all unrecognized by the orthodox priest. In both cases
their religious belief is wholly unconnected with any idea
of morality. A moral deity, demanding morality from his
creatures, is a religious conception far beyond the present
capacity either of the aborigine or the ordinary Hindu.

The idea of a Great Spirit, above and beyond all personal
gods, and whom they call Bhagwan, is, however, accepted by
all Hindus, and has been borrowed from them by the Gonds.

146 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTRAL INDIA.

He is the great First Cause of all things, but himself
endowed with neither form nor moral qualities. He is
unrepresented, and receives no adoration. A Hindu will
accurately describe all the gods of his pantheon ; but of
Bhagwan he has no idea, except that he is the great Creator.
He is, in fact, that " Unknown God " whom humanity has
never yet learned to approach save through the medium of
some human or anthropomorphous substitute.

I have not yet touched on the religion of the Korkus. It
is, I think, purer than that of the Gonds. The powers of
nature are equally adored, such as the Tiger God, the Bison
God, the Hill God, the Deities of Small-pox and Cholera. But
these ^are all secondary to the Sun and the Moon, which,
among this branch of the Kolarian stock as among the Kols
in the far East, are the principal .objects of adoration. I have
seen nothing resembling Fetichism among them ; and if,
as some consider, that is the earliest form in which the
religion of savages developes itself, the Korkus would seem in
this respect to have advanced a stage beyond the Gonds. The
sun and the figure of a horse (a Scythian emblem of the sun)
are carved on wooden posts, and receive sacrifices. They also
sacrifice to the manes of their dead, but only for a certain
period, to "lay" them. Belief in sorcery and witchcraft is
not so prevalent among them as with the Gonds and Bygas.
Their semi-Hindu chiefs have accepted Siv& and his com-
panions ; but the common Korkus seem to care little about
them, excepting in the immediate neighbourhood of his great
shrine in the Mahddeo hills. A few glorified heroes receive
attention, but not to nearly so great an extent as among the
G6nds.

In disposing of the dead, the aboriginal tribes all appear
to have formerly practised burial ; but those who have been

MALE AND FEMALE G-ONL.

THE ABORIGINAL TRIBES. 147

much Hinduized resort by preference to cremation. The
process being an expensive one, however, it is not lavished
on all alike, women and children being still mostly buried,
while adult males are burnt. Also during the rainy season,
when burning is inconvenient, burial is often adopted for all
alike. Most of the tribes erect some sort of a memorial to
the dead ; the Gonds generally in the shape of little mounds,
covered by slabs of stone ; while the Korkiis carve elaborate
pillars of teak-wood, with emblems of the sun and the
crescent moon, and of the deceased party mounted on a
horse, which they erect under a tree appropriated to the
purpose near each of their villages. A very populous ceme-
tery of this sort may be seen close to the village of
Puchmurree.

I have already described the personal appearance of the
men of the Gond and Korku tribes. Their women, I think,
differ among themselves more than do the men of these races.
Those of the Gonds are generally somewhat lighter in color
and less fleshy than the Korkus. But the Gond women
of different parts of the country vary greatly in appearance,
many of them in the opener parts near the plains being
great robust creatures finer animals by far than the men ;
and here Hindu blood may be fairly suspected. In the inte-
rior, again, bevies of G6nd women may be seen who are liker
monkeys than human beings. The features of all are gene-
rally strongly marked and coarse. The young girls occa-
sionally possess such comeliness as attaches to general plump-
ness and a good-humoured expression of face ; but when
their short youth is over, all pass at once into a hideous
age. Their hard lives, sharing as they do all the labours of
the men except that of hunting, suffice to account for this.
They dress decently enough, in a short petticoat, often dyed

L 2

148 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTKAL INDIA.

blue, tucked in between the legs so as to leave them naked to
the thigh, and a mantle of white cotton covering the upper
part of the body, with a fold thrown over the head. The
most eastern section of the Korkus (hence called Pothrias)
add a bodice, as do some of the Hinduized Gonds. The
Gond women have the legs as far as they are suffered to be
seen tattooed in a variety of fantastic patterns, done in indigo
or gunpowder blue. The Pardhans are the great artists in
this line, and the figures they design are almost the only
ornamental art attempted by these tribes. It is done when
the girl becomes marriageable ; and the traveller will some-
times hear dreadful screeches issuing from their villages,
which will be attributed to some young Gondin being
operated upon with the tattooing-needle. Like all barba-
rians, both races deck themselves with an inordinate amount
of what they consider ornaments. Quantity rather than
quality is aimed at ; and both arms and legs are usually
loaded with tiers of heavy rings in silver among the more
wealthy, but, rather than not at all, then in brass, iron, or
coloured glass. Ear and nose rings and bulky necklaces
of coins or beads are also common ; and their ambrosial locks
are intertwined on state occasions with the hair of goats and
other animals.

In marriage customs they differ from the Hindus chiefly in
the contract and performance both taking place when the
parties are of full age. Polygamy is not forbidden; but,
women being costly chattels, it is rarely practised. The father
of the bride is always paid a consideration for the loss of her
services, as is usually the case among poor races where the
females bear a large share in the burden of life. The Biblical
usage of the bridegroom, when too poor to pay this considera-
tion in cash, serving in the house of his future father-in-law

THE ABORIGINAL TRIBES. 149

for a certain time, is universal among the tribes. The youth
is then called a lamjan; and it frequently happens that he
gets tired of waiting, and induces his fair one to make a
moonlight flitting of it. The morality of both sexes before
marriage is open to comment ; and some of the tribes adopt
the precaution of shutting up all the marriageable young men
at night in a bothy by themselves. Infidelity in the married
state is, however, said to be very rare; and when it does
occur is one of the few occasions when the stolid aborigine
is roused to the extremity of passion, frequently revenging
himself on the guilty pair by cutting off his wife's nose, and
knocking out the brains of her paramour with his axe.

The marriage ceremony is very elaborate and childish, and
is generally borrowed in great part from the Hindus. The
bride is in some tribes selected from among first cousins by
preference. More usually, however, connection is sought
among another tribe. Usually an understanding is come to
privately before the formal " asking " takes place, so that a
" refusal " is scarcely known. The Pardhan is the ambassador,
and arranges the articles of the " marriage settlement/' In
contradistinction to the Hindu practice, it is at the bride-
groom's house that the ceremony takes place, so that the
whole of the expense may fall upon him. Hindiiized tribes,
however, practise the reverse. The actual ceremonies consist,
first, of an omen to discover the propitious day, on which com-
mences a series of repeated carryings to and fro, anointings
and sprinklings with various substances, eating together, tying
the garments together, dancing together round a pole, being
half drowned together by a douche of water, and the inter-
change of rings all of which may be supposed to symbolise the
union of the parties. The bridegroom sometimes places his foot
on the bride's back to indicate her subjection ; and a feigned

150 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTRAL INDIA.

forcible abduction of the bride is often a part of the ceremony
the usual relic of olden times of the strong hand. Sacrifice to
the gods, and unlimited gorging and spirit-drinking, are usually
the "wind-up of the affair. Widows are not precluded from
re-marriage ; and among the Gonds it is even the duty of a
younger brother to take to wife the widow of an elder. The
converse is not, however, permitted. A widow's re-marriage
is accompanied by little ceremony.

There is little in any of these customs, it will be seen, to
distinguish these tribes from other races of savages ; and it
would be unprofitable to devote further space to a record of
their details. They may nearly all be found repeated among
large masses of the so-called Hindu population of the plains ;
and, in fact, so far as religious and other customs are con-
cerned, I believe that, were the Gonds not associated with
hills and forests into which the Hindus have not penetrated
very far, they would long since have come to be looked on
merely as another caste in the vast social fabric of Hinduism.
The Korkus are more peculiar, and, I think, a far superior
race in most respects ; and the Bygas or Bhumias of the
eastern hills are still more worthy of observation by the
ethnologist. Something will be said of them in future
chapters.

It is more important, as regards the Gonds and Korkus of
the central and western hills, to inquire into their present
economical position and their probable future. Their me-
thods of subsistence in the interior of the hills have already
been described ; and their life has been shown to be one of
great hardship and toil. Although so far inured to malaria
as to be able to exist, and in some measure continue the race,
in the heart of jungles which are at some seasons deadly to
other constitutions, the effect of the climate and a poor diet

THE ABOEIGINAL TErBES. 151

is seen in impoverishment of the constitution, constant attacks
of fever and bowel diseases, and often chronic enlargement of
the spleen. Imported diseases like cholera and small-pox
also commit dreadful ravages among them. The life of labour
which both sexes undergo, and their low physical vigour, re-
sult in very small families, of whom moreover a large per-
centage never attain maturity. There has been no accurate
enumeration of the hill tribes at intervals, from which to judge
whether they are increasing or the reverse. I suspect the
latter as regards those in the interior, though the better fed
and less exposed tribes in and near the plains may probably
be increasing.

Until lately habits of unrestrained drunkenness have
aggravated the natural obstacles to their improvement. The
labour of their peculiar system of cultivation, though severe,
is of a fitful character, a few weeks of great toil being suc-
ceeded by an interval of idleness, broken only by aimless
wanderings in the jungle or hunting-expeditions. Periods of
rude plenty, when the rains have been propitious to the crops,
the hunt successful, and the crop of mhowa abundant, have
been succeeded by times of scarcity or even of want. Such
a thing as providing for a rainy day has never been thought
of. The necessity for constantly shifting the sites of their
clearings and habitations has created a want of local attach-
ment, and a disposition to anything rather than steadiness
of occupation. Occasional periods of hardship are sure to be
followed, in such a character, by outbursts of excess ; and
thus the life of the Gond has usually consisted of intervals of
severe toil succeeded by periods of unrestrained dissipation,
in which anything he may have earned has been squandered
on drink. It is this unfortunate want of steadiness that has
led to most of the misfortunes of the race, to the loss of their

152 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTEAL INDIA.

heritage in the land, and in a great many cases practically
even of their personal liberty. Inferior races give way before
superior whenever they meet ; and whether, as here and in
America, the instrument selected be " fire-water," or as in
New Zealand, it be our own favourite recipe of powder and
lead, the result is the same.

The case of the Gond has hitherto little differed, whether
he has preferred to cling to his rugged hills and struggle
with nature, or has remained on the edge of civilization and
toiled for the superior races. Everywhere the aboriginal is the
pioneer of the more settled races in their advance against the
wilderness. His capacity for toil that would break the heart of
a Hindii, his endurance of malaria, and his fearlessness of the
jungle, eminently qualify him for this function; and his thrift-
lessness and hatred of being long settled in a locality as
certainly ensure the fruits of his labour reverting as a per-
manency to the settled races of the plains. The process is
everywhere much the same. The frontier villages in the posses-
sion of Hindu landholders or of the Grdnd Thakurs or chiefs
usually comprehend large areas of culturable but uncleared
land, and there are always numbers of the aborigines floating
about such frontiers, earning a precarious livelihood by wood-
cutting and occasional jobs, or working as farm servants, who
can be induced to undertake to break it up. They have, of
course, no capital, and seldom any security to offer; and the risk
of loss must therefore be borne by the landholder. He either
lends money himself for the purchase of a plough and pair of
bullocks, and the other small farm-j>tock required to commence
with, or becomes security for such a loan borrowed from the
banker who is found in every circle of villages with money
always ready to be lent on any such speculation. The interest
charged on such a money-loan is never less than 24 per

THE ABOEIGINAL TRIBES. 153

cent, per annum. Seed grain has also to be borrowed ; and
this, as well as sufficient food to last the cultivator till his
crop is ready, is generally borrowed in kind, the arrangement
being that double the quantity borrowed shall be repaid at
harvest-time. As grain is cheaper at harvest than, at seed
time, this does not quite represent 100 per cent, interest!
Such rates of interest seem high, but the risk of such specu-
lations is very great, the principal being not seldom lost
altogether. The short-sighted policy long followed by our
legislature, which rendered the recoveiy of such debts a
matter of the greatest difficulty and uncertainty, greatly aided
in maintaining these rates of interest. This policy is not
even yet extinct, there being, in the Central Provinces at
least, a rule which prohibits procedure against the farm-stock
of a debtor, although it may all have been purchased with the
borrowed money to recover which execution is sought.

It is obvious that transactions of this' nature are really of
the nature of a partnership between the labourer and the
capitalist, the former furnishing nothing but his personal
labour and supervision. Sometimes the partnership takes a
more explicit form, when the man of money furnishes the
oxen against the manual labour of the cultivator. All the
other expenses, including the wages of the cultivators family
if he has any, are deducted from the gross produce of the
farm, with interest to the capitalist if he has advanced any
part of such expenditure, and the balance is then divided
equally between the owner of the oxen and the cultivator. In
either case the result usually is that all the profit, beyond the
bare wages his labour would fetch in the market, is absorbed
by the man that supplies the money and takes the risk. But
the cultivator is far better off also than if he had been
working for hire, for then he would not have laboured half so

154 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTEAL INDIA.

steadily as his interest in the result of the crop induces
him to do.

Until recently the habits of debauchery I have mentioned,
together with the low value of agricultural produce, usually
prohibited the advance of the aboriginal cultivator from this
stage. The harvest reaped, any grain that might fall to his
share was at once taken to the spirit-dealer (who usually com-
bined grain-dealing with his more pernicious trade), and con-
verted into mhowa spirit, gangs of Gonds at this season be-
ing constantly to be seen rolling about in a perpetual state of
drunkenness, or sitting blear-eyed at the door of the bothy,
until the last of their earnings had been dissipated. This
effected, they had no resource but to work during the rest of
the season, until sowing-time should again arrive, at occasional
jobs of wood-cutting or road-making, or anything that
might turn up, always getting drunk whenever opportunity
served.

Great numbers of them, when once they had resorted to the
grog-shop, never again became their own masters, remaining
practically the bond slaves of the spirit-dealer ever after.
And this introduces one of the most pernicious evils with
which we had to contend in the early days of forest conserva-
tion. A very great amount of timber, bamboos, grass, and
other forest produce is annually required by the people of the
plains for house-building and repairing, fencing their fields,
and other agricultural purposes. The timber-bearing tracts in
the neighbourhood of the cultivated plains having long since
been cleared, all this has to be brought down from the interior
of the hills ; and such work can only be done by the bold
and hardy aborigines. Almost the whole of this trade had
got into the hands of the Kulars, or spirit-dealers, by means of
the power they had obtained over the tribes by their devotion

THE ABOEIGINAL TEIBES. 155

to strong potations. Badly off as the poor Gond was in the
hands of the agricultural money-lender, he was at least paid
in wholesome grain or hard coin ; but here the universal prac-
tice was to pay him in liquor, all except the pittance neces-
sary to keep body and soul together in the way of food and
raiment. Often the Kulars united the three trades, making
the Gond cultivate an autumn crop of grain for his own sub-
sistence and the trader's profit at a season when forest opera-
tions were impossible, exchanging his surplus grain for liquor
immediately after, until he had him deep in his books again,
and then sending him out to the forests to cut wood to repay
him, and to purchase back some of his own grain for subsist-
ence. He was clean done and cheated at every turn, having
to labour like a horse, and getting out of it nothing but a
scanty subsistence, and as much vile liquor as he could swal-
low without interfering too much with his working power.
This trade had become enormously profitable. The numbers
of the caste of Kulars, who alone can legitimately deal in
spirits, were limited ; and they soon were rolling in wealth.
A dissolute flaunting set by nature, they did no good with the
money they thus earned, spending it chiefly in gambling and
debauchery, and in loading themselves and their women with
massive golden ornaments. The evils of the system were in-
calculable. In his wild state the Gond or Korku has been
recognized to be truthful and honest, occasionally breaking
out into passion which might lead to violent crime, but free
from tendency to mean or habitual criminality. Now he be-
came a thief and a scoundrel. His craving for drink made
him a ready tool in the hands of every designing knave ; and
to the dangerous temper of the drunken savage he soon began
to add the viciousness of a debased and desperate character.
To the forests the injury was scarcely less. Having no im-

156 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTKAL INDIA.

plements but their little axes, and their employers being
wholly indifferent to economical processes, these woodcutters
procured their material in the most wasteful way possible.
To produce a post for a cattle-pen a straight young teak sap-
ling of ten or fifteen years' growth would be felled, and a piece
six feet long taken from its middle, all the rest being left to
perish. To procure a plank for a door a mature tree would
be cut down, and hewn away to the requisite thickness with
the axe. Timber was then doubtless cheap because nothing
but the labour of these down-trodden races was expended in
procuring it, and as many of them as they desired could be
procured by the spirit-dealers for a wage which to the latter
was almost nothing. In those days, the excise arrangements
being very lax, the duty levied on spirits was very low ; and
enough liquor could be brewed to make a Gond drunk for
about a penny of our money. No forests could stand such a
drain as this ; and this wasteful system of working them was
one of the main causes of their impending exhaustion.

It is fortunate that, under an improved administration,
means were found at once to put a stop to this wholesale
waste, and to greatly ameliorate the condition of the abori-
ginal labourer. The first step in this direction was the intro-
duction of a new excise law, under which the formerly unre-
stricted power of establishing spirit-stills and grog-shops among
the aborigines was withdrawn. Liquor was allowed to be
distilled only at certain central places, and on payment of a
fixed and considerable still-head duty. A certain number of
retail shops only were allowed, sufficient in number and
position to supply all the proper requirements of the people,
and capable of being regulated by the police, without forcing
temptation in the way of the less provident classes. The
licenses for this restricted number of shops were let by public

THE ABORIGINAL TRIBES. 157

auction. Now came a just retribution on the whole race
of Kulars. There were far more of them engaged in the
liquor-trade than were required to man these shops ; all were
wealthy and reckless, and also jealous of each other ; and so a
strong competition for the licenses set in among them. Fabu-
lous sums were bid at the auctions in many cases ; and every-
where the price of liquor was so forced up by this and the
heavy still-head duty that the poorer classes could no longer
afford to drink it in excessive quantity. Sales thus diminished,
while the expenses of a shop were largely increased ; and the
result was the almost universal ruin of the Kulars, arfd the
complete breaking up of their system of traffic. The gold
ornaments they had flaunted to the world gradually dis-
appeared, and many of them ended in utter bankruptcy. It
may, perhaps, be regretted that a less sudden and seemingly
oppressive method of curing the canker that was eating into
the frontier society did not suggest itself ; but it is difficult to
pity so vicious and unscrupulous a tribe as these Kulars.
Though the consumption of liquor has fallen off immensely,
the state revenue has not suffered, the avowed object of get-
ting "the maximum of revenue with the minimum of con-
sumption" being fully attained.

The complement to this overhauling of the excise law was
the introduction of our system of forest conservation. So
large a subject, regarding which so little knowledge existed,
could not be expected to be dealt with in an entirely satisfac-
tory manner all at once. Some mistakes were made, the chief
of such being to attempt too much on a sudden, and with in-
sufficient means. The management of all our immense tracts
of waste was thrown upon one or two officers, who had not
yet even explored the country, and had nothing besides to
guide them, and who were expected to administer a code of

158 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTKAL INDIA.

rules in detail, throughout this area, which was afterwards
found to be much too strict, and to bear very hardly on the
people. It could not be done ; and things came ere long to a
dead lock, till solved by the rules themselves passing into a
dead letter. Presently the proper remedy was applied, by
reserving the most promising forests to be directly managed
by the special Forest Department, while the greater portion
was left to be looked after by the ordinary civil officers.
Improved experience has still further improved the system ;
but the main features of it w^ere struck out as early as 1864.
Restrictions on the method of felling timber were imposed, and
a fixed timber-duty levied. These measures, if in some cases
not unopen to exception, at least had the effect of inducing a
more economical system of working the forests. The abori-
gines still furnish the labour in the forests, and, being paid in
coin at the regular market value of their work, are enabled to
profit by whatever they can earn. For some time the break-
ing up of the Kul&r system left a want of private agency in
the timber trade ; and the Forest Department itself had to
step in and arrange for the supply of the country. At the
time this was beneficial in many respects, enabling us to
utilize most of the fully ripe standing trees, and the logs
lying in the forest, by enhancing the price until it became
remunerative to take these out. Now, however, this has
ceased to be necessary, and there are sufficient legitimate
dealers in the trade to supply all wants.

It was some time before we ventured to interfere with the
devastation caused by the wild tribes in their system of
tillage by axe and fire which has been described. Having
acquired the reputation of " savage and intractable foresters,"
it was with considerable hesitation that the first steps were
adopted. The most promising forests were encircled by

THE ABOEIGINAL TEIBES. 159

boundary lines, marked by terror-inspiring masonry pillars,
within which the formation of dhya clearings was prohibited.
The people obeyed with scarcely a murmur ; and presently
the rules were extended to the great mass of the wastes, in so
far that the cutting of valuable timber for clearings was for-
bidden, except under such arrangements as afforded a prospect
of the reclamation of the land being permanent. To the
wildest of the tribes certain areas were assigned, sufficient to
afford room for a rotation of sites for their dhya-fields. It
cannot be said that these comprehensive restrictions have
been everywhere enforced to the letter, nor was it to be
expected. But the general effect has been very marked : the
" intractable foresters w have shown a ready acquiescence in
arrangements the object and necessity of which were carefully
shown to them ; and year by year the influence of law is
more fully acknowledged and felt in the forest regions.

The habits of the aborigines are now' greatly changed for
the better. Excessive and constant drunkenness is almost
unknown, though drinking to a greater extent than is good
for them on occasions has not entirely ceased. The whole of
their earnings is not now dissipated in drink ; and the accu-
mulation of the little capital needed to start cultivation on a
more regular system is now possible to them all. An im-
mense assistance in this respect has been derived from the
great enhancement in the value of all agricultural produce, con-
sequent on the opening up of the country and the American
war. Large areas in the west of India, which formerly yielded
cereals, have been devoted to the production of cotton, and a
great extension of cultivation to supply the consequent scarcity
of food-grains has taken place, and is still progressing, where-
ever the country is fitted by proper communications to yield
an exportable supply. The great undertakings in railways,

160 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTRAL INDIA.

and other public works, which have marked the last decade,
have also much increased the demand for labour ; and even
the natural produce of these central wilds has acquired a
commercial value which it never before possessed. Before I
left India, the agents of Bombay mercantile houses were
probing the recesses of my district (Nimar) in search of
various articles of natural production which had suddenly
become valuable for export, such as the oil-yielding seeds
of the Mhowa (Bassia latifolia), and the pure gum of the
DMora (Conocarpus latifolius). Altogether a new era has
dawned for these " children of the forest." The relation
between labour and capital, long unfavourable to the former,
has been reversed, and hard rupees are finding their way into
the hills of G6ndwana, to the material improvement of
the circumstances of its denizens, instead of the poisonous
liquor which was fast hurrying them to destruction. Their
contact with the Hindu races was long to them nothing but
a curse ; but there is now a general agreement of opinion
that of late they have been fast improving, both in well-
being and in character. Where they still continue to work
as farm-servants they receive better wages, and save some-
thing out of them ; and, either from such savings or from
their large earnings on the railway works, many have found
the means to settle down as small farmers on their own
account. Even as borrowers their credit is much improved.
A great deal of capital is now seeking the profitable invest-
ment offered by agriculture ; and loans are given on easier
terms even to these still somewhat unreliable settlers. " The
high price obtainable for oil-seeds of late years has perhaps
done more towards this than anything else. It takes a mere
handful of seed to sow an acre of tillee (sesamum) ; it flou-
rishes with the rudest tillage on half-cleared land, for which

THE ABORIGINAL TEIBES. 161

no rent is usually paid for the first three years ; and it is cut
and sold by the beginning of November. I know two ' un-
encumbered' Korkus who in 1867 cleared thirty acres of
light land, and sowed it with tillee. They borrowed
80 rupees (8) to buy bullocks and implements, and two
manees (1,920 lb.) of jowaree (millet) to eat. The interest
on the money-debt was 20 rupees, and, as usual, double the
quantity of grain had to be paid back at harvest. They had
no other expenses, no rent being charged, and they themselves
doing all the labour. The produce was 75 maunds (6,150 lb.)
of oil-seed, which sold for 215 rupees (21 10s.), from which
they repaid the 80 rupees worth of grain and 100 rupees in
cash, leaving them gainers of 35 rupees (3 10s.), after paying
off the whole of their debt. Thus they got a stocked farm,
free from debt, in a single season, by their own manual
labour alone, which would afterwards yield them at least
10 apiece per annum, or much more than they could live on
in comfort. The money-lender at the same time cleared 40
per cent, on his money in eight months." * Such a farm as
this may appear rather a miserable little affair to the English
reader ; but such are the units of which the vast extent of
Indian tillage is made up ; and to obtain possession of such a
holding, with its slender stock, is an object of ambition to
millions of labourers for a bare subsistence.

There can be small room for doubt that the permeation of
these aboriginal tribes with Hindu ideas, manners, and religion
is steadily progressing; and it may be hoped that this influ-
ence is now working rather for the better than for the worse.
The flighty, debauched, half-tamed G6nd was a being much
deteriorated from his original state of rude simplicity ; but the

* Extract from a Report, by the writer, on the Settlement of the Nimar
District.

162 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTKAL INDIA.

steady and sober, if illiterate and superstitious, Hindu cultivator
of the soil is a type towards which we should by no means
regret to see the aboriginal races advancing. It is true that
in thus joining the great mass of Hinduism they will exchange
their rude forms of religious belief for a submission to the
powerful priestly influence which still prohibits the advance
of the people of India beyond a certain point, and for a
superstition which is morally no better than their own. The
missionary may lose his chance in the meantime of getting
them to accept some of his fetiches"''" in the place of their
own. But probably they will then be no further, if so far,
from the acceptance of a pure religion of morality than they
are at present ; and when the distant day dawns for the dusky
peoples of India, when the light of education shall dissipate
their hideous superstitions, and lead them to inquire after a
pure belief, they will be there, elevated and improved by con-
tact and assimilation with a race superior to themselves.

Such seems to be the probable future of those sections of
the aborigines who lie on the confines of Hinduism in the
plains. But so long as the vast wildernesses of these central
highlands remain uncleared, which physical causes will in
great measure render a permanent necessity, so long must
h u man inhabitants of a type fitted to occupy them continue
to exist. For such, civilization as we call it is impossible,
and undesirable if it were possible. All that can be done for
them is to eliminate by thoughtful administration causes
which lead to their depression or demoralization, and to avoid
any treatment irksome to their wild and timid nature which is
not necessitated by the general requirements of the country.

There is probably not room in their jungles for a much

* Of course I mean what would prove fetiches to them in their present intel-
lectual stage not that they are so to the missionary !

THE ABOEIGINAL TEIBES. 163

larger number of them than there are to exist in their wild
state. In the great areas of unculturable waste their remnants
must probably continue to exist much as they are, struggling
for a livelihood with the beasts of the forest. But much of
their country is also capable of clearance and permanent
tillage. In this work the aboriginal will, as hitherto, be the
necessary pioneer. Must he also, as hitherto, clear the wastes
only to resign them when ready for permanent settlement to
the occupation of the Hindu races ? Can we not now hope
to secure to him some of the permanent fruits of his own
toil ? Legislation has never yet enabled an inferior to stand
before a superior race ; but it has frequently done much to put
a weapon in the hands of the aggressors without which the
invaded might have held their own. There are Haws in our law
relating to the occupation of land, and to the legal enforce-
ment of obligations, which, it may be feared, arm the Hindti
irresistibly against the aborigine. None but a capitalist can
now practically occupy the waste lands so as to secure a legal
proprietary title ; and the aborigine never has such capital as
would enable him to do so. The rules for the occupation of
the wastes, given in Appendix B, will sufficiently explain
this.

Again, our administration of civil justice, while perhaps
sufficiently suited to the requirements of settled districts, is
practically a negation of all justice to the aborigine in his
jungle. The courts sit at distant stations ; and in the Central
Provinces there is even a rule prohibiting the trial of cases by
civil officers on tour, unless both parties live on the spot. It
wants only the slightest acquaintance with the timid and
suspicious aborigine to see that this really amounts to denying
him a hearing altogether. He will never come in to the station
if he can avoid it by any payment within his means to make,

m 2

164 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTEAL INDIA.

and, if he does, the chances are against his succeeding in
escaping from it, and the crowd of harpies who clog the
wheels of justice, without leaving behind him much of his
worldly substance. The apparent necessities of a government
which impoverishes its treasuries to cover the land with public
works have led to an economy in its judicial establishments
that inevitably leads to a very superficial investigation of small
causes, and to a corrupt execution of the processes of the
courts ; so that, notwithstanding much recent improvement in
these respects, it is still often fully within the power of a
wealthy litigant, who is acquainted with the secret springs of
the judicial machinery, to obtain a decree, and take out pro-
cesses of duress and distraint, against an alleged debtor, who
may never have even been informed of the claim against him.
Of course the law provides subsequent remedies for a person
who has been so injured, but they are not such as are within
the power of a poor aborigine in a remote jungle. The proper
remedy obviously is to encourage, or even prescribe, the
hearing of claims against the hill people by the superior civil
officers during tours in their own country tours which for
many reasons should be regularly made, instead of, as now,
being rendered almost impracticable owing to constant pressure
of other work.

The aborigine is the most truthful of beings, and rarely
denies either a money obligation or a crime really chargeable
against him. When brought into court he will stand on one
leg, and, holding his ears in his hands in token of submission,
freely confess to having battered in a rival's head with his axe.
But he has no idea of letters ; and, so long as his admission of
having signed a bond is held to prove against him all the
obligations that it may contain, he will continue to be cheated
by the man of the pen with whom he deals. In addition to an

THE ABOEIGINAL TEIBES. 165

improved machinery for the disposal of such cases, we should
accordingly require some system of compulsory registration
of agreements between such parties, without which no claim
should be enforced. In fine, our system is too sharp and
swift for these people. The dwellers in the plains may be
left to adjust themselves to its requirements : they are clever
enough to protect themselves. But it is death to the honest,
timid, and unsettled aboriginal.

But to return to my doings at Puchmurree, after this long
digression. Towards the end of February numbers of Hindu
pilgrims from the plains to the great shrine of Siva in the
Mahadeo hills began to pass my camp. They usually encamp
at the foot of the hill below the shrine ; and, besides the road
over the plateau, come by a way which leads through the
Denwa valley below the Puchmurree scarp. Several other
roads lead in from the south, all of which are rugged and
difficult, and are traversed in fear and trembling by the
pilgrims. About this time I crossed over from Puchmurree
to visit the opposite plateau of Motur, which was also at
that time under examination as a possible site for a sani-
tarium in these provinces. The Denwa valley lay between,
necessitating a descent and ascent of about 2500 feet each
way. On my return from Motur on the 26th of February I
found the little plain in the Denwa valley below the shrine,
through which my road lay, swarming with the pilgrims, some
forty thousand of whom had collected in this lonely valley in
a few days, and were now crowding up into the ravine where
the cave is situated a ravine through which a week or two
before I had tracked a herd of bison !

Most of these annual gatherings of pilgrims are, to the ma-
jority of the Hindus who attend them, very much what race-
meetings and cattle-shows are to the more practical English-

166 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTEAL INDIA.

man an episode in their hard-worked and rather colourless
existence, in which a nominal object of little interest in itself
is made the excuse for an " outing," the amusements of which
chiefly consist in bothies for the sale of all sorts of miscella-
neous articles, universal gossiping for the elders, and peep-
shows and whirligigs for the younger members. It is sur-
prising how the familiar features of a fair at home come out
in an oriental costume, at these so-called religious gatherings.
The cow with five legs and the performing billy-goat ade-
quately represent the woolly horse and the dancing bear of
our childhood. The acrobats are there to the life, tying them-
selves into the identical knots we loved so well. The begging
gipsy appears in the fantastic Jogee. Ginger-pop and oranges
are even faintly typified in Mhowa grog and sticky sweet-
meats. Aunt Sally alone is nowhere : there is nothing at
all resembling the uproarious mirth of that ancient lady.

Doubtless at all these gatherings there are a certain number
of genuine pilgrims, whose end in coming is the performance
of sacred rites at these holy shrines at such holy seasons ; for
the fairs are all held at times when the worship of the local
deity is held to be particularly efficacious. But generally their
number is no greater a proportion of the whole than is that
of the "members of the ring" in a Derby crowd. Such
gatherings usually occur near the large centres of population,
where solemn temples crown some sacred eminence by the
holy Narbada. But the gathering at the Mahadeo shrine
was of another character from these holiday outings. It draws
its multitudes into a remote and desolate valley surrounded
by the " eternal hills," where the Great God has his chief est
dwelling-place in these central regions. No gorgeous temples
or impressive ritual attract the sight-seer. The pathways
leading to the place are mere tracks, scarcely discernible in

THE ABORIGINAL TEIBES. 167

the rank jungle, and here and there scaling precipitous rocks,
where the feet of countless pilgrims have worn steps in the
stone. Young and old have to track out these paths on foot ;
and all the terrors of pestilence, wild beasts, and the demons
and spirits of the waste surround the approach in their excited
imaginations. Arrived at the foot of the holy hill, the pilgrim
finds neither jollity nor anything more than the barest require-
ments of existence awaiting him. His food is dry parched
grain, his couch on the naked earth, during his sojourn in the
presence of Mahdeva\ Should he be among the first to arrive,
the tiger may chance to dispute with him the right to quench
his thirst at the watering-place in the Denwa river.* Those
who come to a place like this for pleasure must be few indeed.
On my way back to Puchmurree, as I passed through the
assembled multitudes, many of them were starting, after a dip
of purification in the holy stream, to scale the heights that
contain the shrine. My way also lay up the pilgrims' pass ;
and as I went I passed through numerous groups of them
slowly toiling up the steep ascent of nearly two thousand feet.
Both men and women formed the throng, the former stripped
to the waist and girded with a clean white cloth, the hori-
zontal marks of red and yellow which distinguished them as
worshippers of Siva being newly imprinted on their arms and
foreheads. The women retained their usual costume ; but the
careful veiling of face and figure, attended to on common
occasions by high caste ladies, was a good deal relaxed in the
excitement of the occasion (and besides, were they not on
their way to be absolved of all sin ?) ; and not inconsiderable
revelations of the charms of many of the good dames, of light
brown skins and jet-black eyes, were permitted by the wayward

* As I went to Motur on this occasion I saw the track of a tiger where the
pilgrims drink. They had not then arrived, of course.

168 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTRAL INDIA.

behaviour of their flowing robes as they turned to stare in
astonishment at the saheb and his strangely attired attendants
pegging away past them up the hill with double-barrelled
rifles on their shoulders. Signs of religious fervour there were
none. All were talking and laughing gaily now and then
shouting out " Jae, Jae, Mahadeo ! " (victory to the Great
God). The cry raised by each as he took the first step on the
hill was taken up by all the forward groups, till it died away
in a confused hum among the crowd who had already reached
the shrine, far up in the bowels of the hill. Gloom and terror
are the last sentiments in the religious feeling of the Hindu,
even when approaching the shrine of the deity who has been
called the Destroyer in their trinity of gods. It is considered
sufficiently meritorious to perform such a pilgrimage as this
at all, without further adding to its misery by wailing and
gnashing of teeth. They believe it will do them good, because
the priests say so ; but they do not think it necessary to weep
over it, and " boil their peas" when they can. But at the
best it is a hard clamber for those unused to toil. The old
and decrepit, the fat trader, and the delicate high-bred
woman, have to halt and rest often and again as they labour
up the hill. The path was a zig-zag ; and at every turn some
convenient stone or rocky *ledge had been worn smooth by
these restings of generations of pilgrims.

For a long way before the shrine was reached the path was
lined on either side by rows of religious mendicants and de-
votees, spreading before them open cloths to receive alms,
clothed in ashes picked out by the white horizontal paint-
marks of the followers of Siva, with girdle of twisted rope
and long felted locks, hollow-eyed and hideous, jingling a huge
pair of iron tongs with moveable rings on them, and shouting
out the praises of Mahadeo. The clang of a large fine-toned

W
Q

<
<

THE ABORIGINAL TRIBES. 169

bell and the hum of a multitude of voices reached our ears,
as, surmountiDg the last shoulder of the hill, we entered the
narrow valley of the shrine. A long dim aisle, betwixt high
red sandstone cliffs, and canopied by tall mango trees, led
up to the cave. The roots of the great mangoes, of wild
plantains, and of the sacred Chumpun* were fixed in cracks
in the pavement of rock, worn smooth by the feet of the
pilgrims, and moist and slippery with the waters of the
stream that issues from the cave.

The cave itself opens through a lofty natural arch in a
vertical sandstone cliff ; and for about three hundred feet runs
straight into the bowels of the hill. It is without doubt
natural ; and a considerable stream of clear cold water issues
from a cleft at its further end. Here is set up the little
conical stone (Lingam) which represents the God, and attracts
all these pilgrims once a year. No temple made with hands,
no graven image, nothing of the usual pomp and ceremony of
Brahminical worship, adorns this forest shrine. Outside on
a platform a Brahman sits chanting passages in praise of the
god, out of the local Sivite gospel (the Rewa Khanda) ; and a
little way off an old woman tolls the great bell at intervals.
But within there is no officiating priest, no one but a retainer
of the aboriginal Chief whose right it has been from time
immemorial to act as custodian of the shrine, and to receive
the offerings of the pilgrims. No pilgrim ever brings more up
the hill with him than he means to offer ; for he may take
back nothing his last rupee, and even the ornaments of
the women, must be left on the shrine of the god. Before
passing into the cave the pilgrim leaves with the Brahmans
outside (along with a sufficient douceur) his pair of small
earthen vessels for the receipt of holy water. These they

* Michelia Champaca.

170 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTRAL INDIA.

fill from the stream, seal up, and return to the pilgrim, who
then proceeds to make the tour of the holy places on the
MdMdeo hills. This takes him the whole of the remainder of
the day. At each place a cocoa nut is offered ; and little piles
of stones, like children's card -houses, are erected at some point
of their peregrinations to signify a desire for a mansion in
Kail as the heaven of Siva. Many of the places which
should in theory be visited are very inaccessible, such as the
top of the Chaoradeo peak, and very few of the pilgrims
make the whole round.

I sat for some hours in the ravine sketching the entrance
to the cave and the picturesque throng about it. A few
sulky looks from the professional religionists, and a drawing
closer of their garments by the ladies, when they saw my
occupation, were all the notice I met with. The bright
colouring which gives such a charm to congregations of
Hindus was heightened by the general holiday attire of the
worshippers on this occasion j and, in the mellowed light from
above, which percolated rather than shone through the canopy
of foliage, would have formed a subject worthy of a much
better artist than myself. It was hard to believe that all this
gay gathering had come in a day, and would go in another,
leaving the valley again to the bison and the jungle-fowL
Unlike most shrines where such pilgrimages occur, no one
remains to look after the god when the pilgrims are gone. The
bell is unslung and taken away, being evidently looked upon
as the only thing of value in the place. When 1 first visited
the cave I found that the Great God had been better attended to
by the wild beasts of the forest than by his human worshippers
a panther or hyena having evidently been in the daily habit
of leaving the only offering he could make before his shrine !

It is a common idea amongst Europeans that the worship

THE ABORIGINAL TRIBES. 171

at these Sivite shrines includes rites or mysteries of an ob-
scene character. I believe this to be wholly groundless. No
such thing could take place, here at any rate, except in public
among a dense crowd ; and neither here nor at any other of the
many shrines that I have visited have I either seen or heard of
such a practice. It is undoubted that the small sects who
worship the Sdkti, or female power of Sivd, do indulge in such
obscenity. Their unholy rites are not, however, practised at
the public shrines, but in the dark seclusion of their secret
meeting-places ; and their existence I believe is wholly un-
known to the great majority even of the ordinary followers of
Siva.

There is one object which will attract attention near this
shrine of Siva, and which will receive a remarkable explana-
tion. Projecting from the edge of a sheer and lofty cliff
above the sacred brook is hung a small white flag. Innocent-
looking enough it is ; but it marks a spot where, " in the
days that are forgotten," human victims hurled themselves
over the rock as sacrifices to the bloody Kali, and Kal-
Bhairava, the consort and son of Siva the Destroyer. The
British Government, which cannot be accused of timidity in
forbidding so-called religious customs which are contrary to
humanity, has long since put a stop to these bloody rites.
For centuries, however, they were a regular part of the show
at these annual pilgrimages, both here and at other principal
shrines of Siva. They are connected with the worship of the
terrible mythical developments of the god above mentioned
forms which have, with some probability, been conjectured to
be aboriginal deities imported into the Brahminical pantheon.

Far to the west of Puchmurree, in the district of Nimar, is
a rocky island in the Narbada river called M^ndhdtta, on
which is situated the shrine of Siva called Omkar one of

172 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTRAL INDIA.

the oldest and most famous in all India. Like that at
Puchmurree it is situated among rugged hills and jungles ;
but it has evidently at one time been the seat of a great centre
of Sivite worship. Ancient fortifications surmount its scarps ;
and the area of nearly two square miles enclosed is piled up
with the ruins of a thousand gorgeous temples. The most
ancient of the temples at which worship is still paid are held
by aboriginal Bheels as their custodians, and the more recent
by a Bhilala family, who admit their remote derivation from
the former. A legend is here current, and based on writings
of some antiquity, that Kali and Kal-Bhairava were here
worshipped by the Bheels, long before the worship of Omkar
(Siva) was introduced along with the Rajput adventurer and
his attendant priest, who were the ancestors of the present
Bhilala custodian and of the hereditary high priest of Siva s
shrine. The Rajput is said by alliance with the Bheels to
have obtained the headship of the tribe ; and the holy man
who accompanied him, to have stayed by his austerities the
ravages of their savage deities, locking Kali up in a cavern of
the hill (and if you do not believe it you may still see the
cavern closed up), and vowing to Bhairava an annual sacrifice
of human beings. Listen now to the inducements which the
local Sivite gospel* holds forth to devotees to cast themselves
from the rock. " At Omkar-Mandhatta is Kal Bhairava.
Regarding it Parbati (wife of Siva) said unto twenty-five
crores of the daughters of the Gandharvas (angels), ' Your
nuptials will be with persons who shall have cast themselves
over that rock/ Whoever thus devotes himself to Kal Bhairava
will receive forgiveness, even though he had killed a Br&hnian.

* The Narmada Khanda, which professes to be a part of the Skanda Purana.
A more detailed account of the Holy Island and its Shrines, by the author, will
be found in the Central Provinces Gazetteer, 2nd edition.

THE ABORIGINAL TRIBES. 173

Let the devotee make a figure of the sun on a cloth and take
two flags, a club, and a chawar * in his hands, and proceed
joyously with music to the rock. Whoever shall boldly cast
himself down and die, will be married to a Gandharva.
But if he fall faintheartedly his lot will be in hell. Whoso-
ever turns back again in terror, each step that he takes shall
be equivalent to the guilt of killing a Brahman ; but he who
boldly casts himself over, each step that he takes is equal in
merit to the performance of a sacrifice. Let no Brahman cast
himself from the rock. A devotee who has broken his vows,
a parricide, or one who has committed incest, shall by thus
sacrificing himself become sinless."

In 1822, a European officer of our Government witnessed the
death of almost the last victim to Kal Bhairava at this shrine.
The island then belonged to a native State (Sindia), and our
Government had not then begun to interfere with such bloody
rites. The political officer who wrote the account of it was
therefore unable to prevent it by force. I came on the descrip-
tion a few years ago in MS., hidden away among many other
forgotten papers in the Government record room of the Nimar
district. The concluding portion may be interesting, as per-
haps the only account on record, by an eye-witness, of such
an occurrence. After narrating how he vainly urged every
argument on the youth to dissuade him from his design, the
writer proceeds to relate how he accompanied him nearly up
to the fatal rock. " I took care," he says, " to be present at
an early hour at the representation of Bhyroo (Bhairava), a
rough block of basalt smeared with red paint, before which he
must necessarily present and prostrate himself, ere he mounted
to the lofty pinnacle whence to spring on the idol. Ere long
he arrived, preceded by rude music. He approached the

* A yak's tail used for fanning, &c.

174 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTEAL INDIA.

amorphous idol with a light foot, while a wild pleasure marked
his countenance. As soon as this subsided, and repeatedly
during the painful scene, I addressed myself to him, in the
most urgent possible manner, to recede from his rash resolve,
pledging myself to ensure him protection and competence for
his life. I had taken the precaution to have a boat close at
hand, which in five minutes would have transported us beyond
the sight of the multitude. In vain I urged him. He now
more resolutely replied that it was beyond human power to
remove the sacrifice of the powerful Bhyroo ; evincing the
most indomitable determination, and displaying so great an
infatuation as even to request me to save him from the fell
dagger of the priestess,* should he safely alight upon the idol.
So deep-rooted a delusion could only be surmounted by force ;
and to exercise that I was unauthorised. While confronted
with the idol, his delusion gained strength ; and the barbarous
throng cheered with voice and hand, when by his motions he
indicated a total and continued disregard of my persuasions to
desist. He made his offering of cocoa-nuts, first breaking one ;
and he emptied into a gourd presented by the priestess* his
previous collection of pice and cowries. She now tendered to
him some ardent spirit in the nut shell, first making her son
drink some from his hand, to obviate all suspicion of its being
drugged. A little was poured in libation on the idol. She
hinted to him to deliver to her the silver rings he wore. In
doing so he gave a proof of singular collectedness. One of
the first he took off he concealed in his mouth till he had
presented to her all the rest, when, searching among the

* The priestess here referred to was probably tbe Bheel custodian of the
shrine. There is nothing to prevent the hereditary custodian from having been
a female at that time ; but priestesses, properly speaking, have never existed in
India. Her receipt of his collections from the people also indicates this con-
clusion.

THE ABORIGINAL TRIBES. 175

surrounding countenances, he pointed to a man to whom he
ordered this ring to be given. It was a person who had
accompanied him from Oojein. An eagerness was now evinced
by several to submit bracelets and even betel-nuts to his sacred
touch. He composedly placed such in his mouth and returned
them. The priestess at last presented him with a pann leaf,*
and he left the spot with a firm step, amidst the plaudits of
the crowd. During the latter half of his ascent he was much
concealed from view by shrubs. At length he appeared to the
aching sight, and stood in a bold and erect posture upon the
fatal eminence. Some short time he passed in agitated motions
on the stone ledge, tossing now and then his arms aloft as
if employed in invocation. At length he ceased ; and, in slow
motions with both his hands, made farewell salutations to the
assembled multitude. This done, he whirled down the cocoa-
nut, mirror, knife, and lime, which he had continued to hold ;
and stepping back was lost to view for' a moment a pause
that caused the head to swim, the heart to sink, and the flesh
to creep. The next second he burst upon our agonized sight
in a most manful leap,| descending feet foremost with ferrific
rapidity, till, in mid career, a projecting rock reversed his
position, and caused a headlong fall. Instant death followed
this descent of ninety feet, and terminated the existence of
this youth, whose strength of faith and fortitude would have
adorned the noblest cause, and must command admiration
when feelings of horror have subsided. Thus closed the truly
appalling scene. "|

With the exception of the murder of a poor old woman

* The usual signal for the termination of a formal interview.

t The place is called the " Bir-Kali" rock, which I believe means literally
the " manful leap."

X Extract from a letter of 29th November, 1822, from Captain Douglas,
Political Assistant in Nimar, to the Resident at Indore.

176 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTRAL INDIA.

who shrunk from the fatal leap when brought to the brink,
but was mercilessly pushed over by the excited religionists,
this was the last of these sacrifices that was permitted, the
country coming in 1824 under our administration.

But the powers of evil were not yet to be baulked of their
victims. The British Government could prevent deluded and
drugged devotees from casting themselves over the Bir-Kali
rock ; but it could not deprive Kali and Kal-Bhairava of
their fell executioner the cholera demon. Year by year the
pestilence invaded the encampments of the pilgrims. Sani-
tary science would say that it arose from the germs of disease
brought from the festering gullies of the great cities, and
pushed into activity by the exposure, bad food, defiled neigh-
bourhood, and poisoned water, of the pilgrim camps. But the
Hindu saw nothing in it but the wrath of the offended
Divinity claiming his sacrifice. Year after year the gatherings
were broken up in wild disorder. The valley of the cave, the
steep hillside, and that green glade in the Sal forest, were left
to bury their dead, while the multitude fled affrighted over
the land, carrying far and wide with them the seeds of death.
Everywhere their tracks were marked by unburied corpses ;
and the remotest villages of the Narbada valley and the
country of the South felt the anger of the destroying fiend.
A pilgrim fleeing from the fatal gathering could find no rest
for the sole of his foot. The villages on his road closed their
gates against him as if he were a mad dog ; and many who
escaped the disease perished in the jungle from starvation and
wild beasts. At last, after a terrible outbreak of cholera in
1865, the Government prohibited the usual gathering at the
Mahadeo Cave. The people made no complaint. They do
not seriously care about these things when left alone by the
priests ; and here the priests were satisfied by the continuance

THE ABOEIGINAL TEIBES. 177

to the hereditary custodians, on whom they were dependent,
of their average income from the pilgrimage, in the form of a
pension. It is very different when their gains are affected.
Two years ago a cholera epidemic threatened in Nimar, aud
the pilgrimage to Omkar Mandhatta was closed by order.
The priests and guardians of the shrine were up in arms at
once, basing their objections entirely on the money loss they
would suffer. Since the closing of the Mahadeo pilgrimage
the deities of destruction have been baulked of their prey. The
valley of the Denwa, although now opened up by a good
timber road made to penetrate the Sal forest, no longer wit-
nesses the annual pilgrim congress. The Cave of the Shrine
is silent and deserted.

The interruption to the business of the country caused by
these cholera outbreaks used to be terrible. Whole villages
were sometimes swept away. In May of 1865 I had marched
nearly twenty miles to a small Gond village on one of the
pilgrim tracks, in the district of Be'tul. I had been eluding
the tracks of cholera the whole of the hot season, and had
escaped without a single case of the disease in my camp. My
people were almost exhausted with such a long march in the
height of the hot season ; and I joined them at the village, like-
wise much knocked up by a long exploration in the hills.
I found my tent-pitcher and one or two others who had
arrived struggling to pitch the large tent, without the usual
assistance rendered by the villagers at the camping place.
They placidly told me that the village was no longer the home
of the living, every one in the houses being dead of cholera !
The only living object in the place was a white kid, wandering
about with a garland round its neck. It was the, scape-goat
which these simple people, after the manner of the Israelites
of old, send out into the wilderness on such occasions to carry

178 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTEAL INDIA.

with it the spirit of the plague. Tired out as we were it was
death to stay in this place ; so we re-loaded the things and
marched eight miles further, straight into the jungle ; and at
nightfall pitched our camp by the banks of the wide Tdwa
river, far from human habitation. No one was seized by the
disease ; and during all my marching, humanly speaking I
believe owing to proper sanitary precautions, I never had a
single case in my camp.

CHAPTER V.

THE LAY OF SAINT LINGO.

1. The Creation and Exile of the Gonds.

2. The Coming of Lingo.

3. The Deliverance of the Gonds.

4. Subdivision into Tribes, and Worship of the Gond Deities.

The Pardhans, or bards, of the G6nd tribes are in posses-
sion of many rudely rhythmical pieces, which it is their func-
tion to recite on festive occasions to their assembled con-
stituents, to the accompaniment of the two-stringed lyre.
The best and most complete of these, extending to nearly a
thousand bars or lines, was laboriously taken down in writing
from the lips of one of these Pardhans by the late Rev.
Stephen Hislop, of the Free Church of Scotland mission at
Nagpur. But the lamented death of that indefatigable
investigator into the history and manners of the Central Indian
peoples prevented his furnishing it in a complete form. In a
collection of his papers afterwards published under the editor-
ship of Sir R. Temple, this legend appeared at length, with a
translation of each word as it stood, only so far modified as
to conform to the first requirements of English grammar.
In this guise, although well suited to the purposes of the
student, the piece is almost unintelligible to ordinary readers ;
and, if it be considered that the Gonds have never had
any written language, and that these pieces have only been
preserved by tradition from one of these troubadours to
another, it will not be surprising that a good deal of recension
is requisite before it can be made suitable to the general

H 2

180 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTEAL INDIA.

reader. Whether or not the piece has any original foundation
in purely Gond tradition may be matter of doubt ; but it is
certain that it has become greatly overlaid with the spirit and
phraseology of Hinduism. It professes to recount the creation
of the original Gonds at the hands of Hindu (Sivaic) deities ;
what may be called their subsequent fall through the eating of
meats forbidden by Hindu law ; their exile and imprisonment
by the offended Hindu deity ; the appearance by miraculous
birth and life among them of a Hindu saint named Lingo,*
whom they ungratefully put to death, but who rises again, and,
after much penance and suffering, delivers them from bondage,
introduces Hindu observances, the arts of agriculture, and the
worship of tribal gods, and eventually disappears and goes
to the gods. The programme thus bears a singular resem-
blance in many respects to the legend of Hiawatha, the
prophet of the Eed Indians ; and to some an even more
startling parallelism may suggest itself.

My own opinion is that its origin is comparatively recent,
subsequent to the propagation among the Gonds of Hindu
ideas and rules. It seems to possess little value as bearing
on their origin, assigning to them a northern descent, which
is contradicted by the strong southern affinities of their lan-
guage, and which is obviously only introduced as part of the
Hindu machinery which pervades the piece. As a com-
position it has little merit, though here and there exhibiting
something of beauty, and more often a good deal of quiet
humour. The style of the original is very discursive, con-
stantly losing sight of the narrative, often apparently lead-
ing to nothing, and full of repetition, defects which are
probably the natural result of its usage as a ballad, handed

* This name is probably typical of the Lingaet sect, who are known to have
actively propagated the worship of the Phallic Siva in the Deccan.

THE LAY OF SAINT LINGO. 181

down by mere word of mouth. It gives the idea of having
been composed by the gradual accretion round a very slender
thread of original story of successive episodes, manufactured
by the semi-Hindu Pardhans for recitation before the almost
entirely Hindu chiefs of the Gonds. Yet even as such it
possesses some interest, as exhibiting, in a somewhat dramatic
form, the recent Hinduization of many of the Gond tribes ;
and I have, accordingly, endeavoured to throw it into a shape
that will not greatly fatigue my readers. I have excised from
it most of the Hindii mythology with which it was overlaid,
and which was often anything but orthodox ; and I have
thought it best to omit nearly the whole of the latter part,
which consists of tiresome details of marriage and other cere-
monial, which do not even possess the value of being an
accurate account of the practice of the present day.

Thus the present version is greatly reduced in bulk, and is
rather a paraphrase than a translation, though in many parts
it will be found to adhere almost literally to the original,
and little will be detected which has not some foundation
therein. I should, perhaps, apologise for the adoption of
the Hiawathian metre and style, and in a few cases even
of the words of the American poet, in a piece which may
appear almost like a burlesque of his Eed Indian legend. It
is probable that the originals of the two legends may not have
differed greatly in character : and the close and curious paral-
lelism between them could only be brought out by the
adoption of the method introduced by the author of Hiawatha,
and now familiar to the public. But the " noble savage " of
North America is a very different character from the poor
squalid Gdnd of Central India ; and not even the genius of a
Longfellow or a Fenimore Cooper could throw a halo of senti-
ment over the latter and his surroundings. I have therefore

182

THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTEAL INDIA.

thought it best to give full play to the grotesque element in
the tale, for which, it must be confessed, the Hiawathian
style is provokingly well adapted. I should add that the
serious student of G<5nd institutions had better, perhaps,
prefer the original to the version now offered.

I.-THE CEEATION AND TABULATIONS OF THE GONDS.

In the Glens of Seven Mountains,*
Of the Twelve Hills in the Valleys,
Is the mountain Lingawangad,
Is the flowering tree Pahindi ;
In that desert far out-spreading
Twelve coss round arose no dwelling :
" Caw " saying, there no crow was ;
11 Chee" saying, there no bird was;
"Kaghum" saying, there no tiger was.
And the Gods were greatly troubled.
In their heavenly courts and councils
Sat no Gods of Gonds among them.
Gods of other nations sat there,
Eighteen threshing-floors t of Brah-
mins,
Sixteen scores t of Telinganas ;
But no Gods of Gonds appeared there
From the Glens of Seven Mountains,
From the Twelve Hills in the Valleys.
Then the Strong God Karto Subal, J
The firstborn of Mahadeva,
Of the Great God Mahadeva,
Pondered deeply in his bosom
O'er a circumstance so curious ;
Pondered much, and then he fasted,
Devotee-like prayed and fasted
For the coming of the Gond Gods
From the Glens of Seven Valleys
To the councils of the Godhead.
Pondered thus till on his left hand

Eose a most Portentous Tumour,
Tumour boil-like, red, and growing
Bigger daily, daily bigger,
Till it burst, and from its centre
Came the Koitor, came they trooping,
Sixteen threshing-floors they num-
bered.
Came and spread them o'er the country,
On the hills, and in the valleys,
In the arches of the forest,
Everywhere they filled the country ;
Killing, eating, every creature ;
Nothing knowing of distinction ;
Eating clean and eating unclean ;
Eating raw and eating rotten ;
Eating squirrels, eating jackals,
Eating antelope and sambar,
Eating quails and eating pigeons,
Eating crows and kites and vultures,
Eating Dokuma the Adjutant,
Eating lizards, frogs, and beetles,
Eating cows and eating calves,
Eating male and female buffaloes,
Eating rats, and mice, and bandicoots ;
So the Gonds made no distinction.
For half a year they bathed not,
And their faces nicely washed not
When they fell upon the dunghills
Thus at first were born the Koitor
From the hand of Karto Subal.

* The Sdtpfira mountains are probably here referred to.

t Such expressions are used thioughout the legend to denote indefinite
numbers.

% Kartik Swami the son of Siva (Mahadeva) is thus termed in the legend.

Koitor is the national name for all the Gonds of different tribes. It signi-
fies properly " men."

THE LAY OF SAINT LINGO.

183

Soon a stench began to issue
From the forests and the mountains
Stench of Gonds that lived so foully.
Rose the stench to Mahadeva,
To his mountain Dewalgiri.*
Wrathful then became the Great God,
Called his messenger Narayan,
Said he, ' ' Bring these Gonds before

me
Outcast wretches ! How their stink has
Spread o'er all my Dewalgiri."
Then the messenger Narayan
Called the Koitor all together,
Called them up to Dewalgiri
To the Great God Mahadeva,
Ranged them all in rows before him
In the courtyard of the Great God.
Then the Great God washed his body,
Washed a little of the dirt off ;
Fashioned it into the likeness
Of the King of Squirrels Warche ;
Breathed the breath of life into it ;
Down before the Koitor threw it.
Straight the Squirrel then his tail

made,
Seeking passage to escape them,
Jerking in and out among them ;
And the Gonds began to chase it,
Crying, < Catch it ! " crying, Kill it J"
" Let us catch and skin and eat it,"
Some took sticks, and some took stones,
Some took clods, and off they scurried
After W&rche, King of Squirrels,,
Hip-cloths streaming out behind them.
But the Squirrel Artful Dodger
Jerking in and out among them
Popped into a hole convenient
In the mountain Dewalgiri.
And the Gonds all ran in after
All but four that stayed behind them.
Then a stone took Mahadeva.,
A great stone of sixteen cubits,
Shut them up within the cavern

In the mountain Dewalgiri ;

Shut them up, and placed the demon

Monster horrid, fierce Basmasur

Placed him guardian o'er the entrance.

And the four that were remaining

Swiftly fled from Dewalgiri,

Fled across the hills and valleys,

Fled to hide them from the Great God,

From the wrath of Mahadeva.

Long they wandered thus in terror,

But no hiding-place discovered ;

Till a tree at last ascending,

On a hill a straight- stemmed date tree,

Thence looked forth and saw a refuge

Saw the Red Hills, Lahugada,

The Iron Valley, Kachikopa.

There they sped them through the

forest,
And they hid them from the Great God.
Now the goddess-queen Parbuttee
Consort she of Mahadeva
On the mountain top was sleeping,
On the top of Dewalgiri.
Waked she shortly from her slumber,
Waked to find a something wanting
In the air of Dewalgiri.
Then she grieved, and thought within

her,
" Where can all my Gonds have gone

to?
Many days our hill is silent,
Once that echoed to their shouting ;
Many days no smell ascendeth,
Pleasant smell of Gonds ascending ;
My sweet-smelling Gonds, where are

they?
And my Mahadev, also,
Him I see not ; much I fear me
He has done my Gonds a mischief."
And she grieved, and took no dinner,
Prayed and fasted like a hermit,
Devotee-like penance doing
For her lost sweet-smelling Koitor.

* Dewalgiri is one of the highest peaks of the Himalaya range
used as identical with Kailas, the mythic heaven of Siva.

and is here

184

THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTKAL INDIA.

Six months thus she prayed and fasted,
Till the King of Gods, Bhagwantal,*
Swinging in a swing and snoozing,
By her penance greatly moved was
Moved to rise and look about him ;
Sent the messenger Narayan,
Sent him forth to Dewalgiri,
Sent to see what she was np to,

Why so sadly she was grieving.
Soon she told her little grievance,
How her pleasant- smelling Gonds had
Disappeared from Dewalgiri.
Then Bhagwantal sent and told her
He would try if he could find them ;
And betook him to his swinging,
And bethought him how to do it.

II. THE COMING OF LINGO.

On the mountain Lingawangad,
Grew the flowering-tree Pahindi.
Flowers budding, still unopened,
Yellow flowers of the Pahindi,
Saw the King of Gods Bhagwantal ;
Saw and thought him of the Koitor,
Wandering sadly in the mountains,
Pining deep in Dewalgiri ;
Saw, and came as comes a raincloud,
Spreading fanlike, came in thunder.
Lightning flashed, the sky was dark-
ened,
Thus the God came to the Flower.
Darkness spread around her cover,
Gently oped the flower her blossom,
Softly fell the quickening shower
Thus conceived the flower Pahindi.
In the fourth watch of the night
time
Fell a heap of yellow saffron ;
Fell beneath the tree Pahindi.
Morning dawned, the clouds were

opened ;
Thundering still the clouds were

opened.
Burst the yellow flower Pahindi,
Cracking burst it in the sunlight.
Sprang to life from it my Lingo,
Sprang into the heap of saffron ;
Sat and wept among the saffron,
Till his tears the God Paternal
Dried with sprinkling of the saffron ;

Sent the Gular tree beside him,
Honey dropping from its branches,
Dropped it in the mouth of Lingo.
Sweetness drinking then he cried not.

Blew around him noontide zephyrs ;
Grew my Lingo in their breathing.
In a God-sent swing reposing
Gently slept he till the evening.

Purest water may be stained ;
Stainless ail and pure was Lingo.
Diamond sparkled on his navel ;
On his forehead beamed the Tika,
Mark divine of fragrant sandal,
Mark of godhead in my Lingo.
Playing grew he in the saffron,
Swinging slept he in his cradle,
Honey sucking, nothing eating
Of the wild fruits in the forest.

Nine years old became my Lingo,
When his soul began to wonder
Whether all alone his lot was
In that forest shade primeval.
There no wild deer cropped the herbage,
Manlike form there none appeared ;
Somewhere they must be, thought

Lingo ;
I will seek them, I may find them.
Then he rose and wandered onwards,
Wandered on by brook and meadow,
Through the forest shade primeval,
Till before him rose a mountain,
Mountain pointed like a needle.

* This is intended for Bhagwan, the unworshipped Creator of the Hindus
(vide p. 144). His introduction here as a mythical personage is not consonant
with the usual practice in Hindu writings.

THE LAY OF SAINT LINGO.

185

Thither climbing, on the summit
Lingo saw the tree Mandita,
Saw beneath it Kirsadita,
Sweetly flowering Kirsadita.
There its perfume sweet inhaling
Lingered Lingo for a little.
Then he climbed the tree Mandita,
Climbed and looked forth o'er the forest,
To the valley Kachikopa,
To the Bed Hills, Lahugada.
Saw a little smoke ascending,
Saw and very greatly marvelled
At this circumstance portentous.
Wandered on, and soon discovered
In that forest shade primeval,
Manlike forms four discovered-
Saw the four Gonds that remained
Hiding fearful of the Great God.
Forest quarry having stricken,
Steaks of venison were roasting,
Pieces raw at times devouring.

Seeing Lingo up they started ;
Seeing them our Lingo halted ;
Long time gazed they at each other.
But the brothers inwards pondered,
Brothers four we are, bethought them,
Let us take him for a fifth one,
Let us take him to our wigwams.
Then they brought him to their wig-
wams,
To their wigwams in the forest,
And set meat before their brother.
But he asked them whence the meat

was,
And they answered, " Of a wild boar."
Then he asked them for its liver ;
And they sought long for the liver,
But no Liver could discover.
Then they told him, " Lo, a strange

thing !
Without liver is this creature
We have slain in the forest."
Lingo laughed at this conception
Of a creature without liver,
Asked to see it in the forest
Living creature without liver.

Then the brothers much considered
Where on earth they might discover
In the forest or the mountains
Living creature without liver.
One suggested, ' ' He is little,
We are big, and practised roamers
Of the forest shades primeval.
Let us take him to the mountains
Eough and stony, to the thickets
Close and thorny ; he will fagged be,
Thirst for water, get so hungry,
Glad he will be to sit down, and
Give up looking for a creature,
Living creature, without liver."

Then they took their bows and
arrows
Bows of bamboo from the mountains,
Shafts of bulrush from the marshes ;
And they went by deepest thickets
Of that forest shade primeval.
Kurs the Antelope they saw it,
Killed it, found it had a liver.
Mawk the Sambar found and slew it,
Found it also had a liver.
Malol the Hare they saw and kiiju ' H,
In it too they found a liver
All the creatures had a liver.
Tired and weary were the Brothers ;
Lingo only was not wearied.
Thirsty very were the Brothers ;
Clambered up upon a hill-top
Seeking water, but they found none.
Clambered down again, and wandered
Through a close and thorny jungle,
Where a man could scarcely enter.
There they found a spring of water,
Cool and sparkling in the shadow.
And they plucked the leaves of Pulas,
Making cups, and drank the waters,
And refreshed were from their labours.
Then said Lingo, " Wherefore stay ye?
We have not yet seen the creature,
Living creature without liver.
Without liver creature is not."

And he said, ' ' Here in the forest
Let us clear a field and plant it.

186

THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTRAL INDIA.

Down the trees here let us fell them;

And the ground here let us dig it;

Seed of rice here let us sow it.

I will sleep here for a little

While ye clear away the forest."

Then slept Lingo, slept and dreamed
he,

Dreamed he of twelve threshing-places,

Threshing-floors that full of Gonds
were.

And his soul was greatly troubled ;

And he rose and looked about him.

Found the Brothers sadly hewing,

Hewing sadly at a big tree ;

And their hands had blisters on them,

Blisters large as fruit of Aola.

And their hatchets down they threw
them;

And went off and down they squatted.
Then our Lingo up an axe took,

Took and hewed he at the big tree,

Hewed and levelled all the forest,

Felled the trees and grubbed their
roots out

In an hour the field was finished.

And the Gonds said, " Mighty Lingo !

Lo our hands were sore and blistered,

Hewing sadly at one big tree,

Which we left still undemolished.

In an hour has Lingo done it !

He has levelled all the forest ;

Black the land appears below it ;

Thick the rice is sown upon it ;

High a hedge is raised around it ;

Single left an entrance to it ;

Strong a gate is placed before it."

Then they rose and turned them home-
wards,

Homewards went they to their wig-
wams.
Soon the rainy season cometh,

Black a little cloud appeareth,

Strong the winds from heaven are
loosened.

All the sky is clouded over ;

Now the rain begins to patter.

In a while the streams run knee- deep,
All the hollows flooded brimfull.
Thus three days and nights it raindd,
Then it stopped as it begun had.
And the rice began to shoot up ;
Green became the field of Lingo.
High as fingers four it sprouted,
Sprouted thus high in a day's time.
In a month 'twas somewhat higher,
With a man's knee it was level.
In the forest shade primeval
Sixteen scores of Deer were dwelling ;
Chief among them Uncle Maman ;
Nephew Bhasyal heir apparent.
Eich the odour reached their noses
Of that rice-field in the clearing.
First the Uncle sniffed the odour,
And the Nephew sniffed it after.
Then the Nephew fetched a gambol,
Upwards leaped he, joints all cracking,
And his ears with pleasure cocking.
To his Uncle near he trotted,
And he said, ' ' My ancient Uncle,
See this lovely field of green stuff.
May we have it for our dinner ? "
But the Uncle, ancient Maman,
Warning, chiding, spake in this wise
" Ere you leap 'twere wise to look well.
In the valleys of the forests
Many fields there are of green stuff;
Touch ye not the field of Lingo
Go and graze on some one else's.
Sixteen scores of Eohees are ye ;
But of all your noble sixteen
Neither buck nor doe will left be
If ye touch the field of Lingo."
Then spake Bhasyal the Nephew,
Spake disdainfully in this wise
" Old are you and somewhat feeble,
We are young and rather frisky ;
Seven- foot- six about the mark is
We can clear a running high jump
Stay behind, Old Ninkampupo !
They might catch you if you tried

it."
Then his ears pricked twitchy-witchy,

THE LAY OF SAINT LINGO.

187

And his tail cocked jerky-perky,
And went forward to the rice-field.

And the Uncle, deeply thinking,
Greatly grieving, left behind was.
But he slowly followed after.
At the fence the Nephew halted,
And prospected for an entrance ;
But an entrance nowhere found he,
For the sixteen scores of Eohees.
And the sixteen scores to mutter
'Mong themselves began in this wise
" Left behind is ancient Maman,
He the very wise among us.
Now this Bhasyal, youthful Nephew,
He must show us how to do it.
Uncle Maman spake of Lingo,
Said that very sapient uncle,
Look behind and look before you,
Ere ye touch the field of Lingo."
Answered them the valiant Nephew
" Keep not company with ancients,
Full of years and slack of sinews,
Follow me " and then he bounded
O'er the hedge into the rice-field.
After him the Eohees leapt all
Leapt the sixteen scores of Eohees ;
Leapt they straight into the rice-field,
And the rice began to graze on.

Soon the Uncle coming after
By the hedge stood and looked over ;
And his mouth began to water
Like a dripping spring in summer.
But no entrance seemed to offer,
And his joints were stiff and feeble ;
So he stayed outside, reproachful,
While those sixteen scores of Eohees
Eat up all the field of Lingo.
Eat it up, and back they leapt all,
Stood beside that ancient Maman,
Who in words of solemn wisdom
Warning, chiding, spake in this wise
1 Hear, ye sixteen scores of Eohees !
O my children, my poor children !
Very nicely ye have done it
Eaten up the field of Lingo.
Father Lingo, he the powerful,

When he comes to see his rice-field,
What on earth will he think of it ? "

Then the very youthful Bhasyal,
To the sixteen scores of Eohees
Counsel offered, spake in this wise
" Listen, brethren! let us speed now
To our forest shades primeval.
On the stones our feet well placing,
On the leaves our footsteps keeping,
On the grass our way selecting,
On the soil no footmarks leaving,
Let us cunningly our way take
To our forest shades primeval."
As he said so did the Eohees,
Lightly stepping left no traces*
Marks of footsteps none appeared ;
Eeached their forest shades primeval.
Some to sit down, some to sleep went,
Some to stand up in the cool shade,
'Gan these sixteen scores of Eohees.

Midst the perfume sweet of flowers,
Swinging in a swing, was Lingo;
Swinging slept he, and he dreamed,
Dreamt of sixteen scores of Eohees,
Of a devastated rice-field.
And his soul was greatly troubled;
And he rose and looked about him.
Looked, and went to reconnoitre
By the way of Kachikopa ;
Went he through the Iron Valley,
To the Eed Hills Lahugada,
Went the very valiant Lingo ;
Saw the devastated rice-field ;
Thence returning, to the Brothers,
Brothers sleeping in their wigwams,
Spake our Lingo " Listen, Brothers,
Listen to my doleful story,
How these sixteen scores of Eohees
All our rice-field have demolished."
Then the Brothers, greatly troubled
By this doleful tale of Lingo,
Wailed a wail of disappointment,
Spake the words of bitter anguish >
' ' To the gods our yearly firstfruits,
Firstfruits that we yearly offer,
Now of what shall we give firstfruits,

188

THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTRAL INDIA.

Since our rice- field is demolished ? "
Answered Lingo " Lo a firstfruit
To the Gods of Rohees' livers,
Of the sixteen scores of Rohees
Liver firstfruits shall we offer.
On the perfume of the flowers
I, a devotee, can prosper ;
Ye are Gonds with hungry stomachs,
Wherewithal shall they be filled,
Now these sixteen scores of Rohees
All our rice-field have demolished ? "
Then the Brothers took their wea-
pons
Bows of bamboo from the mountains,
Shafts of bulrush from the marshes ;
And in wrath they sought the rice-
field,
Where the soil was black and naked,
Saw they nothing but the stubble
Of the rice that waved so greenly.
Then a flame of mighty anger,
From the heels of Lingo rising,
To his matted head ascended.
Reddened were his eyes like firebrands,
Bit his fingers till the blood came ;
Said he " Search ye for the footprints
Of these sixteen scores of Rohees."
Then the Brothers bent them down-
wards,
Searching closely for their traces,
Traces nowhere that appeared
Of the sixteen scores of Rohees.
Searched they long and found a foot-
mark,
Single footmarks scarce appearing,
Thence the jungle trodden down was
To the forest shades primeval.
East they followed on the traces,
But the sixteen scores they saw not.
Soon a Peepul tree appeared
Towering high above the forest ;
Clambered Lingo to its summit,
Looked he from it o'er the forest,
Spied the sixteen scores of Rohees,
Rohees in the shade reclining,
Rohees sleeping, Rohees frisking

In the forest shade primeval.
Then said Lingo to the Brothers
' ' Take .your bows and take your

arrows ;
Quickly get ye round about them,
To the four sides of the Rohees.
Slay and spare not, smite the rascals !
Hence my bolts I will deliver."
Then the Brothers stalked around

them,
To the four sides of the Rohees ;
Thence their bulrush shafts delivered ;
Shot our Lingo from the Peepul.
Smitten were the herd of Rohees,
Only Maman, Uncle Maman,
And one little female Rohee,
Of those sixteen scores remained.
Then our Lingo aimed an arrow
At that Uncle, ancient Maman ;
But the arrow from his hand fell.
Thought he, surely here's an omen
That this veiy ancient Maman
Of our rice has nothing taken.
Then to run began the Rohee,
Female Rohee that remained;
And to run began the Uncle.
Brothers all behind them followed,
Shouting " Catch them " to each other.
But they vanished and were seen not.
And the Brothers, much disgusted,
Back returned to their Lingo.

Then said Lingo, ' ' Search ye,

Brethren,
For a firebox in your waistbelts."
Flints and steel they forthwith brought

out,
Struck a spark among the tinder,
But the tinder would not burn.
Thus the whole night long they tried it,
Tried in vain until the morning,
When they flung away the tinder.
And to Lingo said, " Brother,
You're a prophet, can you tell us
Why we cannot light this tinder ? "
Answered Lingo, " Three coss onward
Lives the Giant Rikad Gowree,

THE LAY OF SAINT LINGO.

189

He the very dreadful Monster,
He the terrible Devourer.
In his field a fire is smoking ;
Thither go and fetch a firebrand."
Then the Brothers went a little,
Went a very little, onwards ;
Thence returned, and said to Lingo
" Nowhere saw we Eikad Gowree,
Nowhere have we found this Giant."
Then said Lingo, " Lo my arrow,
By its pathway see ye follow."
Then he fitted to his bowstring
Shaft of bulrush straight and slender ;
Shot it through the forest thickets,
Shot it cleaving through the branches,
Shot it shearing all the grass down ;
Cut a pathway straight and easy ;
Fell it right into the fireplace
Of the Giant Eikad Gowree ;
Fell, and glanced it from the fireplace,
Glanced, and sped into the doorway
Of the wigwam of the Giant ;
Fell before the seven daughters,
Seven very nice young women,
Daughters fair of Eikad Gowree.
Then those seven nice young women
Took the arrow and concealed it.
For they oft had asked the old man,
Asked him when they would be mar-
ried;
And he always answered gruffly,
11 When I choose that you be married
Good and well, if not you won't be."
And they thought this was an omen.
Now the Brothers, greatly fearing
Lest they all should eaten up be,
Counsel taking, sent the youngest,
Sent Ahkeseral the youngest,
To prospect the Giant's quarters.
By that pathway straight and easy
Went this very young Ahkeseral ;
Saw the Giant's smoke ascending ;
Coming nearer saw the Giant.
Saw him, like a shapeless tree trunk,
Sleeping by the fire and snoring
By the fire of mighty tree stems,

Stems of Mohwa, stems of Anjan,
Stems of Sajna, stems of Tekta ;
Blazing red, its glow reflected
From that form huge and shapeless
Of the Giant Eikad Gowree,
Of that very dreadful Bakshis,
Of that terrible Devourer.
Then his knees began to quake all,
O'er his body came cold shudders,
Leapt his liver to his throat all,
Leapt the liver of Ahkeseral.
But he crept up to the fireplace,
Crept and snatched a blazing firebrand,
Blazing brand of Tamadita.
Groaned the Giant, fled Ahkeseral,
Dropped the firebrand, and a spark

flew,
Flew and lighted on the Giant,
On his shapeless hip it lighted.
Eaised a blister like a saucer ;
Started up the Giant swearing ;
Also feeling very hungry,
Feeling very much like eating.
Saw that very young Ahkeseral,
Plump and luscious as a cucumber,
Saw him running and ran after,
Ean and shouted loud behind him.

But in vain he followed after.
For the very young Ahkeseral,
Speeding swiftly through the forest,
Shortly vanished and was seen not.
And the Giant, much disgusted,
Then returned to his fireside.
And Ahkeseral, returning,
Told his greatly trembling brothers
Of that very dreadful Giant.
But the very valiant Lingo
Said, u Eepose ye here a little,
I will go and see this monster
That so much has discomposed you."

At the crossing of a river,
In that straight and easy pathway,
Lingo saw the stick Waduda
Floating down upon the current.
Saw he too a bottle-gourd tree,
Saw it growing by the river ;

190

THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTEAL INDIA.

Pulled a bottle-gourd from off it,
Pished Waduda from the river,
Stuck the one into the other,
Plucked two hairs wherewith to string

it,
Made a bow and keys eleven,
Played a tune or two, and found he
Had a passable guitar.
Pleased was Lingo, and proceeded
To the field of Eikad Gowree ;
Eikad Gowree lying snoring
By the fireside, mouth wide gaping,
Tushes horrible displaying,
Lying loglike with his eyes shut.

Close by grew the tree called Peepul,
Peepul tall with spreading branches.
Quickly Lingo clambered up it,
Climbed aloft into its branches ;
Sat and heard the morning cock crow,
Thought this Giant soon would waken.
Then he took his banjo Jantur,
Struck a note that sounded sweetly,
Played a hundred tunes upon it.
Like a song its music sounded ;
At its sound the trees were silent ;
Stood the mighty hills enraptured.
Entered then that strain of music
In the ears of Eikad Gowree,
Quickly woke him from his slumber ;
Eubbed his eyes and looked about him ;
Looked in thickets, looked in hollows,
Looked in tree-tops ; nothing finding,
Wondered where on earth it came from,
Came that strain of heavenly music,
Like the warbling of the Maina.
Back returning to his fireside,
Sat down, stood up, sat down, stood up ;
Listened, wondered at the music ;
Jumped and danced he to the music,
Sung and danced he to the music ;
Eolled and tumbled by the fireside
To the warbling of the music.

Soon at daybreak his old woman
Heard that strain of heavenly music ;
Came she wondering to the fireside,
Saw her old man wildly dancing

Hands outstretching, feet uplifting,
Head back reeling, dancing, tumbling,
To that strain of heavenly music.
Saw and wondered, saw and called

out
"Ancient husband, foolish old man!"
Looked he at her, nothing said he,
Danced and tumbled to the music.
Said she, listening to that music,
" I must dance too." Then she opened
Loose the border of her garment,
Danced and tumbled to the music.

Then said Lingo, " Lo my Jantur !
To thy strain of heavenly music
Dance this old man and his woman ;
All my Koitor thus I teach will,
Thus in rows to sing and dance all,
At the feasting of the Gond Gods,
At the feast of the Dewali,
At the feast of Bu-dhal Pena,
At the feast of Jungo Eeytal,
At the feast of Pharsa Pena
Salutation to the Gods all
From this various tuneful Jantur ! "
Then he ceased the wondrous music ;
Hailed the old man from the treetop,
Saying " Uncle, Eikad Gowree,
See your nephew, on this tree-top ! "
Then the Giant, looking upwards,
Saw our Lingo on the tree-top ;
Called him down, shook hands, and

said that
He was very glad to see him.
Asked him in and made him sit down;
Eang and called for pipes and coffee ;
Apologized for having thought of
Making breakfast of Ahkeseral ;
Thanked our Lingo very kindly
For his offer of the livers
Of those sixteen scores of Eohees ;
In return proposed to give him
All those seven nice young women,
"With their eyes bound, will they nill

they,
To be wedded to the Brothers.

And those seven nice young women

THE LAY OF SAINT LINGO.

191

When they heard about the young

men,
Of those young men faint and fasting
Waiting fireless by the Eohees,
Forthwith packed they up their ward-
robes,
On their heads they took their beds up,
Back to Lingo gave his arrow
Arrow of the truthful omen
Saying good-bye to their parent,
Followed Lingo to the forest,
To that forest- shade primeval.
Eeached those young men by the

Eohees,
Made a fire, and had some luncheon
Of the livers of the Eohees.

Then the Brothers 'gan to squabble
O'er those seven nice young women.
Holy Lingo, virtuous very,
Quite refusing to be wedded,
Somewhat easier made the problem ;
And he soon arranged it this wise
That the eldest of the brethren
Each should take two nice young

women,
While the very young Ahkeseral
Should be fitted with the odd one.
Then returning from the forest,
By the valley Kachikopa,
To the Eed Hills Lahugada,
Holy Lingo joined the Brothers
To those seven nice young women,
To the daughters of the Giant.
Water brought and poured it o'er them,
Bowers of branches raised around

them,
Garlands gay he threw about them,
Mark of Turmeric applied he
And declared them duly wedded.
Then the Brothers mighty pleased
were
With their good and virtuous Lingo ;
Said they'd go forth to the forest,
Go and smite the bounding red-deer,
Bring its liver to their Lingo,
Gather wild flowers for their Lingo,

While those Sisters seven should swing

him,
Swing him gently as he slumbered.
Then their bows and arrows took they,
Took and started to the forest.
And the sisters swinging Lingo
Thus began to say among them
1 ' See this Lingo ! who so solemn
As this brother of our husbands ?
Neither laughs he, neither speaks he,
Neither looks he even at us.
He must laugh, and speak, and

gambol,
Must this very solemn Lingo ;
Let us pinch and pull and hug him."
And they pulled him by the arms,
Pulled his feet and pinched his arms ;
But the more they pulled and pinched

him
All the sounder slept our Lingo.
Till the sisters, vexed to find him
Nothing caring for their toying,
Took to hugging rather closely,
Hugged that very virtuous Lingo,
Till they woke him from his sleeping.
Wrathful then was holy Lingo,
At those wanton Giant's daughters;
Eose the flame of indignation
From his boots up to his topknot ;
Looked about him for a weapon,
For a weapon to chastise them ;
Saw a pestle hard and heavy,
Pestle made for husking rice with ;
Bounded from his swing and seized it,
With it thrashed those Giant's daugh-
ters;
Thrashed them till they bellowed

loudly,
Fled and roared like Bulls of Bashan,
Fled and hid them in their wigwams.
Soon the Brothers back returning,
Bringing game and bringing wild

flowers,
Found their Lingo quietly sleeping ;
Sisters none his swing were rocking.
Much astonished, they betook them

192

THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTRAL INDIA.

To the wigwams of the Sisters.
But had scarce begun to scold them
Ere they found the tables turned
" Pretty fellows are you truly !
Thus to leave your wives behind

you
And go hunting in the forest,
"While your very holy Lingo
Tries his arts upon our virtue.
We have quite made up our minds now
Not to stay another minute,
But to take our beds and wardrobes,
And return to where we came from
To our poor deceived papa ! "
Then the Brothers said among them
" O that sinful, wicked Lingo !
How the villain has deceived us !
When we offered him the fairest,
No, he wanted none, he told us ;
Called them sisters, called them

mothers ;
Now to play so mean a trick on
Us when hunting in the forest !
Let us get him to the jungle,
Kill him there, and pull his eyes out.
Hares and antelopes we've hunted,
Now we'll hunt our little Lingo.
Bread or water let us touch not
Till we've played a game of marbles
With the eyes of faithless Lingo."
Then they went and wakened Lingo,
Saying, "Rise, our youngest brother."
And he rose, and wondering asked

them
Why so late they had returned,
Bringing nothing from the forest.
And they answered, " Lo, a Creature,
Mighty strong, appeared before us ;
And we fought him with our arrows,
But this mighty Creature fell not,

Neither fled he ; come then with us."
Then rose Lingo, and before them
Stalked he on into the forest,
To the forest- shade primeval.
Looked for traces of the Creature
In the grass, among the bushes;
But this mighty Creature saw not.
Then they sat them down and rested
By the tree called Sarekata.
And the Brothers went for water,
Went and pondered how to kill him ;
And returning softly, hidden
By the stem of Sarekata,
From their bows four arrows sped they,
Bulrush shafts, at holy Lingo.
Split his skull was, pierced his neck

was,
Cleft the liver was of Lingo.
Down he dropped, and out his life

By the Tree called Sarekata.

Then a knife they took and gouged
him,

Out the eyes they bored of Lingo ;

In a hole they put the body ;

Strewed it over with some branches ;

Pulled some leaves and made a goblet

For the bored-out eyes of Lingo ;

Tied it up into a waistcloth,

Hied them homeward to their wig-
wams;

Called their wives, and lit some torches,

Blazing torches made of flax-stalks ;

Played their horrid game of marbles

With the bored-out eyes of Lingo.
So the Brothers four of Lingo

And those seven nice young women

Chucked his eyes about like marbles

For an hour's time by the torch-
light.

THE LAY OF SAINT LINGO.

193

III. THE EESUEEECTION OF LINGO, AND DELIVEEY OF

THE GONDS.

In the Court of great Bhagwantal

Sat the Deities assembled ;

Sat they in the Upper World,

Wondering where, in earthly regions,

Lay the body of their Lingo :

Wondered much, but nothing knew
they

In what region it had fallen.

Then Bhagwantal took a basin,

Washed a little of his body,

Washed a little of the dirt off:

Took and made of it an image ;

Breathed the breath of life into it ;

Made KagSsur, Lord of Ravens.

Amrit * sprinkled he upon it.

From his hand released it, saying

" Search the forests, search the moun-
tains,

Search the valleys, search the rivers,
For the body of my Lingo."

Then Kagesur, Lord of Eavens,
He the very black and cunning,

Swiftly sped him on his errand ;
Searched he first the Upper Eegions,
Thence descended to the Lower ;
Searched their hills and glens and

forests,
Till he reached the Iron Valley,
In the Eed Hills Lahugada.
Peered among the forest thickets,
Saw the twigs that covered Lingo,
Looked below them, found our Lingo,
Looking horrid, with his eyes out,
Split his skull, and pierced his liver.
Hied him back to great Bhagwantal,
Told the doleful tale of Lingo.

Then the God said, " Ha ! I see it,
By his birth-place has he fallen,
By the flowering tree Pahindi."
Then he sent for Karto Subal,
Gave a flask of heavenly Amrit
(Bade him well to shake the bottle),
For external application
To the skull and neck and liver
Of the gouged and butchered Lingo ;
And despatched him with Kagesur
To the valley Kachikopa,
To the Eed Hills Lahugada.
Flew the Eaven straight before

him';
Eeached the place ; then Karto Subal
Took the flask of heavenly Amrit,
Poured it o'er his wounds and bruises,
Stitching up the chiefest openings
In his head and his abdomen.
Soon his eyes began to open,f
And he saw the Lord of Eavens ;
Thought he'd slept a little soundly ;
Asked them, " Had they seen his

Brothers ? "
And was. very much astounded
When they told him how they found

him
Gouged and butchered by his Brothers.
Then he thought perhaps t'were better
Now to leave this lot of Brothers,
And their seven nice young women ;
And go seek those other Sixteen,
Sixteen thr&shing-floors of Koitor.

So the Strong God and the Eaven
Hied them back and told Bhagwantal
Of their surgery successful.

* The water of immortality.

f It is not related how these organs were restored to him.

194

THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTKAL INDIA.

And our Lingo Redivivus
Wandered sadly through the forest.
Wandered on across the mountains
Till the darkening of the evening,
Wandered on until the night fell.

Screamed the panther in the forest,
Growled the bear upon the mountain,
And our Lingo then bethought him
Of their cannibal propensities.
Saw at hand the tree Niruda,
Clambered up into its branches.
Darkness fell upon the forest,
Bears their heads wagged, yelled the

jackal
Kolyal the King of Jackals.
Sounded loud their dreadful voices
In that forest-shade primeval.
Then the Jungle-Cock Gugotee,
Mull the Peacock, Kurs the Wild-
Deer,
Terror-stricken screeched and shud-
dered
In that forest shade primeval.

But the Moon arose at midnight,
Poured her flood of silver radiance,
Lighted all the forest arches,
Through their gloomy branches slant-
ing;
Fell on Lingo, pondering deeply
On his Sixteen Scores of Koitor.
Then thought Lingo, I will as.k her
For my Sixteen Scores of Koitor.
" Tell me, Moon ! " said Lingo,
" Tell, Brightener of the darkness,
Where my Sixteen Scores are hidden."
But the Moon sailed onwards, upwards,
And her cold and glancing moonbeams
Said, "Your Gonds, I-have not seen
them."
And the Stars came forth and
twinkled
Twinkling eyes above the forest.
Lingo said, " Stars that twinkle !
Eyes that look into the darkness,
Tell me where my Sixteen Scores are."
But the cold Stars, twinkling ever,

Said, "Your Gonds, we have not seen

them."
Broke the morning, the sky reddened,
Faded out the star of morning,
Bose the Sun above the forest,
Brilliant Sun the Lord of Morning.
And our Lingo quick descended,
Quickly ran he to the eastward,
Fell before the Lord of Morning,
Gave the Great Sun salutation
" Tell, Sun ! " he said, " discover
Where my Sixteen Scores of Gonds

are."
But the Lord of Day reply made
" Hear, Lingo, I a Pilgrim
Wander onwards through four watches
Serving God, I have seen nothing
Of your Sixteen Scores of Koitor."

Then our Lingo wandered onwards
Through the arches of the forest ;
Wandered on until before him
Saw the grotto of a hermit,
Old and sage, the Black Kumait.
He the very wise and knowing,
He the greatest of Magicians,
Born in days that are forgotten,
In the unremembered ages.
Salutation gave, and asked him
" Tell, O Hermit ! Great Kumait !
Where my Sixteen Scores of Gonds
are."

Then replied the Black Magician,
Spake disdainfully in this wise
" Lingo hear, your Gonds are asses,
Eating cats, and mice, and bandicoots,
Eating pigs, and cows, and buffaloes ;
Filthy wretches ! wherefore ask me ?
If you wish it I will tell you.
Our Great Mahadeva caught them,
And has shut them up securelv
In a cave within the bowels
Of his mountain Dewalgiri,
With a stone of sixteen cubits,
And his bulldog fierce Basmasur.
Serve them right too, I consider,
Filthy, casteless, stinking wretches ! "

THE LAY OF SAINT LINGO.

195

And the Hermit to his grotto
Back returned, and deeply pondered
On the days that are forgotten,
On the unremembered ages.

But our Lingo wandered onwards,
Fasting, praying, doing penance ;
Laid him on a bed of prickles,
Thorns long and sharp and piercing;
Fasting lay he devotee-like,
Hand not lifting, foot not lifting,
Eye not opening, nothing seeing.
Twelve months long thus lay and

fasted,
Till his flesh was dry and withered,
And the bones began to show through.

Then the Great God Mahadeva
Felt his seat begin to tremble,
Felt his golden stool all shaking
From the penance of our Lingo.
Felt, and wondered who on earth
This devotee was that was fasting
Till his golden stool was shaking.
Stepped he down from Dewalgiri,
Came and saw that bed of prickles
Where our Lingo lay unmoving.
Asked him what his little game was,
Why his golden stool was shaking ?
Answered Lingo, " Mighty Ruler!
Nothing less will stop that shaking
Than my Sixteen Scores of Koitor,
Rendered up all safe and hurtless
From your cave in Dewalgiri."
Then the Great God, much disgusted,
Offered all he had to Lingo,
Offered kingdom, name, and riches,
Offered anything he wished for,
" Only leave your stinking Koitor
Well shut up in Dewalgiri."
But our Lingo all refusing
Would have nothing but his Koitor ;
Gave a turn to run the thorns a
Little deeper in his midriff.
Winced the Great God, "Very well

then,
Take your Gonds but first a favour.
By the shore of the Black Water

Lives a bird they call Black Bindo ;
Much I wish to see his young ones,
Little Bindos from the sea- shore ;
For an offering bring these Bindos,
Then your Gonds take from my moun-
tain."
Then our Lingo rose and wandered,
Wandered onwards through the forest,
Till he reached the sounding sea-shore.
Reached the brink of the Black Water.
Found the Bindo birds were absent
From their nest upon the sea-shore,
Absent hunting in the forest,
Hunting elephants prodigious,
Which they killed and took their

brains out,
Cracked their skulls, and brought

their brains to
Feed their callow little Bindos,
Wailing sadly by the sea-shore.
Seven times a fearful serpent,
Bhawamag the horrid serpent,
Serpent born in ocean's caverns,
Coming forth from the Black Water,
Had devoured the little Bindos
Broods of callow little Bindos
Wailing sadly by the sea-shore,
In the absence of their parents.
Eighth this brood was. Stood our

Lingo,
Stood he pondering besido them
" If I take these little wretches
In the absence of their parents
They will call me thief and robber.
No ! I'll wait till they come back here."
Then he laid him down and slumbered
By the little wailing Bindos.

As he slept the dreadful serpent,
Rising, came from the Black Water,
Came to eat the callow Bindos,
In the absence of their parents.
Came he trunk-like from the waters,
Came with fearful jaws distended,
Huge and horrid. Like a basket
For the winnowing of corn
Rose a hood of vast dimensions
02

196

THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTRAL INDIA.

O'er his fierce and dreadful visage.
Shrieked the Bindos young and callow,
Gave a cry of lamentation ;
Rose our Lingo ; saw the Monster ;
Drew an arrow from his quiver,
Shot it swift into his stomach,
Sharp and cutting in the stomach,
Then another and another ;
Cleft him into seven pieces ;
Wriggled all the seven pieces,
Wriggled backwards to the water.
But our Lingo, swift advancing,
Seized the head-piece in his arms,
Knocked the brains out on a boulder,
Laid it down beside the Bindos,
Callow wailing little Bindos.
On it laid him, like a pillow,
And began again to slumber.

Soon returned the parent Bindos
From their hunting in the forest ;
Bringing brains and eyes of camels,
And of elephants prodigious,
For their little callow Bindos
Wailing sadly by the sea- shore.
But the Bindos young and callow
Brains of camels would not swallow ;
Said " A pretty set of parents
You are truly ! thus to leave us
Sadly wailing by the sea-shore
To be eaten by the serpent
Bhawarnag the dreadful serpent
Came he up from the Black Water,
Came to eat us little Bindos,
When this very valiant Lingo
Shot an arrow in his stomach,
Cut him into seven pieces
Give to Lingo brains of camels,
Eyes of elephants prodigious."
Then the fond paternal Bindo
Saw the head -piece of the serpent
Under Lingo's head a pillow.
And he said, "0 valiant Lingo,
Ask whatever you may wish for."
Then he asked the little Bindos
For an offering to the Great God.

And the fond paternal Bindo,
Much disgusted, first refusing,
Soon consented ; said he'd go too
With the fond maternal Bindo
Take them all upon his shoulders,
And fly straight to Dewalgiri.
Then he spread his mighty pinions,
Took his Bindos up on one side
And our Lingo on the other.
Thus they soared away together
From the shores of the Black Water.
And the fond maternal Bindo,
O'er them hovering, spread an awning
With her broad and mighty pinions
O'er her offspring and our Lingo.

By the forests and the mountains
Six months' journey was it thither
To the mountain Dewalgiri.
Half the day was scarcely over
Ere this convoy from the sea-shore
Lighted safe on Dewalgiri ;
Touched the knocker on the gateway
Of the Great God Mahadeva.
And the messenger Narayan
Answering, went and told his master
" Lo this very valiant Lingo !
Here he is with all the Bindos,
The Black Bindos from the sea-shore."

Then the Great God, much disgusted,
Driven quite into a corner,
Took our Lingo to the cavern,
Sent Basmasur to his kennel,
Held his nose, and moved away the
Mighty stone of sixteen cubits ;
Called those Sixteen Scores of Gonds

out,
Made them over to their Lingo.

And they said, "O Father Lingo !
What a bad time we've had of it,
Not a thing to fill our bellies
In this horrid gloomy dungeon."
But our Lingo gave them dinner,
Gave them rice and flour of millet,
And they went off to the river,
Had a drink, and cooked and eat it.

THE LAY OF SAINT LINGO.

197

IV. SETTLEMENT OF THE GONDS,

LINGO.

AND PASSING OF

Then they rose and followed Lingo,
Followed onwards to the forest,
From the mountain Dewalgiri ;
Followed on till night descended,
And before them saw a river,
Dark and swollen with the torrent
Bursting down from Dewalgiri,
From the snows of Dewalgiri.
On that river nothing saw they,
Boat nor raft, to waft them over.
Nothing saw they in the torrent
But the Alligator Puse,
And the Eiver-Turtle Dame,
Playing, rolling, in the water.
Then our Lingo called them to him,
Called them brother, called them mo-
ther ;
Bound with oaths to bear them over.
And the Alligator Puse,
Looming long upon the water,
Bore the Gonds into the torrent,
Through the black and roaring water :
And the Eiver-Turtle Dame
With our Lingo followed after.
Soon the faithless Alligator,
In the deep and roaring water,
Slipping from below his cargo,
Left them floundering in the water.
Then our Lingo stretched his hand out,
Fished them out upon the Turtle ;
Faithful Dame bore them onward
O'er that black and roaring torrent,
Bore them on across the river.
And the Sixteen vowed to cherish
Name of Dame with them ever,
Who had borne them safe and hurtless
O'er that dark and foaming river.
Then they travelled through the
forest,
Over mountain, over valley,

To the Glens of Seven Mountains,
To the Twelve Hills in the Valleys.
There remained with Holy Lingo.
He, the very wise and prudent,
Taught to clear the forest thickets,
Taught to rear the stately millet,
Taught to yoke the sturdy oxen,
Taught to build the roomy waggon,
Eaised a city, raised Narbumi ;
City fenced in from the forest.
Made a market in Narbumi.
Eich and prosperous grew Narbumi
So they flourished and remained.

Then our Lingo called them round
him,
Eanged them all in rows beside him,
Spake in this wise "Hear, Bre-
thren !
Nothing know ye of your fathers,
Of your mothers, of your brothers,
Whom to laugh with, whom to marry ;
Meet it is not ye should be so
Like the creatures of the forest."

Then he chose them from each other,
Chose and named their tribes distinc-
tive ;
Chose the first and said, "Manwajja."
Thus began the tribe Manwajja.
By the hand took Dahakwali,
Bard he called him " Dahakwali."
Koilabutal named another,
And another Koikobutal
Koikobutal wild and tameless.
Thus he named them as he chose them,
Till the Sixteen Scores were numbered,
Till the Tribes had all been chosen.
Next among them chose the eldest,
Chose an old man hoary headed,
Chose and called his name ' 'Pardhana, ' '
Priest and Messenger he called him.

198

THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTEAL INDIA.

Called and sent him on a message

To the Eed hills Lahugada,

The Iron Valley, Kachikopa ;

To those Brothers four he sent him,

Sent to ask them for their daughters

To be wedded to his Koitor

Thus the Tribes our Lingo mated.

Thus they grew and multiplied.

Then he chose them into houses,

Into families of seven,

Of six, of four, he chose them.

And he said, " O Koitor listen !
Nowhere Gods of Gonds are wor-
shipped ;
Let us make us Gods and worship.
Then made Ghagara the Bell- God,
Made and gave he to Manwajja.
Brought the Wild Bull's Tail and

named it
Chiiwardeo ; brought the War God -

God of Iron, Pharsa Pena;
Manko Eeytal, Jango Eeytal
Thus their tribal Gods he fashioned.
Taught them how to raise their altars ;
Taught to offer sacrifices
Hoary goats, white cocks a year old,
Virgin cows, and juice of mhowa ;
Taught to praise with voice and psahVr,
Twang of Jantur, sound of drumming
Drum of Beejasal resounding
Dancing, singing, by the altars.

Thus he taught them, Holy Lingo ;
And his last words then he uttered
u Keep your promise to the Turtle,
To the Eiver-Turtle Dame ;
To the Gods I now am going."
Then he melted from their vision ;
And they strained their eyes to see

him-.
But he vanished, and was seen not.

Gonds of the Sahpura Eaoge. (From a photograph.)

CHAPTEE VI.

THE TEAK REGION.

The Trap Country Condition of the Teak Forests Other Timber Trees The
Tapti Valley The Frankincense Tree Aspect of the Forests in the Trap
Region Jungle Fires Ancient Settlements The Korkus of the Tapti
Valley Difficulty of Exploration Wild Sports The Sambar Deer Its
Habits and Food Death of the Bori Stag Horns of the Sambar Curious
Occurrences in Shooting Incidents in Tiger Shooting Stalking the Sam-
bar The Hatti Hills The Bheels A Bheel Fort Mahomedan Archi-
tecture Difficulty of finding Sambar Dhiaotea Disappearance of the
Sambar Return to the Plains The Valley of the Vultures Return to the
Sambar Ground Shoot a Stag Miss Another The Four-horned Ante-
lope Bison Scouting The M Shrimp "and the " Skunk " Find a Herd-
Kill a Bull A Dangerous Position A Solitary Bull We miss the Water
Another Bull Killed A Herd of Sambar Account of a Bag.

On the 28th of March, having seen our forest lodge in a
fair way to completion, I left the Puchmurree plateau, and
entered on the first of many long journeys of exploration
among the forests of the Seoni, Chindwara, and Betul districts.
I have already described these as being situated on the great
central table-land of this mountain range, from the centre of
which juts up the still higher formation called the Mahadeo
(or Puchmurree) group. The general elevation of the table-land
is about 2,000 feet above the sea ; but this general level is
broken by numerous minor projections, besides the great one
of the Mahadeo range, which generally exhibit the peculiar
flat-topped outline of hills of the trap formation.* The

* Many of these isolated hills, being flat-topped and surmounted by precipi-
tous scarps, and frequently furnished with depressions in which rain-water

200 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTJJAL INDIA.

overflow of basalt lias indeed been nearly universal over
all this vast region, the great MaMdeo sandstone block, and a
few isolated peaks of granite, known at once by their sharp and
splintered peaks, being the only notable breaks in the great
volcanic ocean. To judge from the great extent of table-land
lying at about the elevation of 2,000 feet, this would appear
to have been the original level of the trap overflow, the higher
peaks of that formation, which reach in a few places to 3,000
feet, being more probably the result of subsequent upheaval.
The plateau has, however, been generally denuded by the
larger streams to a depth of about 1,000 feet, where they
still run over volcanic beds at the level of the great southern
plain of the Deccan. The extent of level plateau is thus
much diminished, on the one hand by the ramifications of
the drainage system, and on the other by the higher ranges,
and the long sloping valleys which connect them with the
plateau.

I have called this volcanic region also the region of the
teak tree in Central India. It is so generally, but, strictly
speaking, the teak tree does not accurately confine itself to
the trap formation ; nor, on the other hand, is the teak the
only, or even the principal, timber tree of the trap country.
No such close lines of distinction exist in nature, but the
coincidence is, I think, sufficient to warrant the inference of
some link of connection between them, an attempt to discover
which has already been made in the first chapter. More or less
teak is scattered all over this region, but the principal forests
are found clinging to the skirts of the higher ranges rising
from the general level of the plateau. The more extensive

collects, are natural fortresses of an almost impregnable strength; and, with
the addition of some rude masonry works, were generally occupied for this
purpose by the hill Chiefs in former times.

THE TEAK KEGION. 201

level portions of the country have long been cleared of jungle
for purposes of cultivation, and for a long way around these
settlements the forests have been hacked down into mere
scrub for the common requirements in timber and fuel of
the people. The outer slopes of the plateau, towards the
lower plains, have also been long ago swept of all valuable
teak ; and, moreover, from their sterile nature, have pro-
bably at no time produced any large quantity of timber.
Even in the higher and more secluded tracts, where forests
of teak yet remain, the causes already referred to have
now reduced the number of mature and well-grown trees
to a very small proportion of the whole, so small that
in few places are there more remaining than will suffice to
reproduce the forests by their seed in ' a period of fifty to a
hundred years. Everywhere the teak grows very much in
patches intermixed with other species, the principal hard-
woods of which in these forests are the Saj (Pentaptera),
the Bijasal (Pterocarpus), the Dhaora (Conocarpus), and in a
few localities the Anjan (Hardwickia). Many other species
have been observed, of which a list will be found in an
Appendix,

The mature teak tree of Central India attains a girth of
from ten to fifteen feet, with a boll of seventy or eighty feet
to the head of branches. Perfect specimens are, however, rare,
the majority of such trees as remain having suffered injury
in the sapling stage from fire or axe, so as to permanently
contort their form. The soft scaly bark, large flabby leaves,
and generally straggling and "seedy" habit of growth of the
teak, are certainly, I think, disappointing to those accustomed
to the trim firm aspect of other hardwood forests, and parti-
cularly to such as have had the opportunity of comparing it
with the striking appearance of the evergreen Sal forests of

202 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTEAL INDIA.

the more eastern regions. In the rainy season the teak tree
is surmounted by a heavy head of large green leaves, sup-
porting masses of yellowish white flowers ; and when in con-
siderable masses it then gives a peculiar and not unpleasant
character to the scenery. The large umbrella-like leaves are
admirably fitted for the great function of vegetation at that
season, in breaking the direct impact of the rain torrent on
the soil of the hill slopes, which would otherwise soon end in
depriving the rocky skeletons of the hills of their covering of
earth and vegetation. But this foliage is very deciduous,
and by the month of March little of it remains on the tree.
Then the yellow brittle fallen leaves in many places strew
the ground so thickly as to make silent walking impossible.
As a facetious friend once expressed it, in a very unnecessary
whisper, when we were trying to creep up to a stag sambar
in such a cover " It was like walking on tin boxes."

Forests containing any great number of tolerably large teak
trees are, however, now extremely few ; and, as I have said,
the teak has been indiscriminately hacked down for every
sort of purpose, for many generations, over nearly the whole
area where it is found. Among its numerous other valuable
qualities, however, it includes that of rapidly throwing up a
head of tall slender poles from the stumps, if they are allowed
to remain in the ground. In five years this coppice wood will
attain a height of twenty-five or thirty feet, and a girth of one
to two feet. Such poles are invaluable in a country where
habitations are in great measure very small, and built of wood
alone far more valuable, in fact, than larger timber, which is
only useful for the exceptional class of structures comprising
the residences of wealthy persons, European houses, and public
edifices. It was thus, perhaps, scarcely very surprising that
when we suddenly demanded from the forests a large and

THE TEAK REGION. 203

permanent supply of large timber for our railway system, we
found that they could not afford it, though it by no means
follows that the forests were not in a useful state to meet the
ordinary requirements of the country.

Our treatment of this question of the teak forests is a good
example of the difficulties in Indian administration which
arise from the absence of accurate information on the real
requirements of the country, and the obstacles in the way of
reconciling the conditions of a low and almost stationary stage
of society with nineteenth-century " progress," and high-pres-
sure civilization. In the cry for great timber for our railways
we totally forgot, or neglected, the demand of the masses of
the population for small timber for their houses and many
other purposes. We shut up every acre of the teak-producing
country we could, and referred them to inferior sorts of wood,
all the best species besides teak having been tabooed along
with it. The other species of timber, when used young,
mostly decay in a year or two in an Indian climate ; and so
the people were put to a vast unnecessary expenditure of
labour in renewals, while we strove, by pruning and pre-
serving, to make large timber grow out of the scrubby
coppice wood which had before supplied their wants ; and,
as it proved, strove entirely in vain. This pollarded teak
will not grow straight and large, prune we never so wisely.
It will grow well to a certain size, the size the natives
require it, but after that it decays and twists into every
variety of tortuous shape. What we should have done was
to reserve the best forests for timber purposes proper, and
apply to the rest the vastly greater part of them only such
measures as would ensure the best and quickest production
of coppice wood for the requirements of the people. It has
been said that they should learn to do as European nations

204 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTRAL INDIA.

do, convert large trees to smaller scantlings by the saw, as it
is an undoubted fact that forests yield a larger aggregate
supply of timber when the trees are allowed to mature. The
argument is oue of a sort too readily applied to many Indian
subjects. Theoretically it is true enough, and in the distant
future it may be realised. But in the meantime the people
have not the capital wherewith to do it, even if the large
timber were growing ready for them, which it is not. We
have taken one step rightly enough, in strictly reserving
limited areas of the best forest to reproduce large timber.
But we have not released the rest, nor applied to it a method
which aims at the continued reproduction of small timber, for
which the teak tree is so admirably fitted by nature. Vast
expense is still incurred in attempting to conserve it all after
a fashion, and the problem of cheap and efficient management
of these forests will never, in my opinion, be satisfactorily
worked out until we revise our system altogether, with this
object kept in view.

Of other trees than teak these forests produce a great variety,
some producing highly ornamental woods for fancy purposes,
others useful in the arts, and a good many, when fully ma-
tured and seasoned, capable of almost supplanting teak for
ordinary building purposes. The useful sorts, however, on
the whole, bear a very low proportion to the great mass for
which no general use has as yet been found. Eound the settle-
ments the valuable sorts have mostly been exterminated ; and
such parts as are not actually under tillage are covered with
a scrub composed of such thorny species as Acacia Arabica,
A. catechu, Zizyphus Jujuba, and others. It is remarkable, I
think, how the thorny species, which are the best armed to
resist destruction, have thus won the race for life in such
tracts.

THE TEAK EEGION. 205

Vast areas, again, do not produce, and do not seem to be
capable of producing, any species but such as are, from the soft-
ness of their timber, almost useless to the carpenter. A typical
example of such a tract is found in the upper valley of the Tapti
river, a river which forms so good an example of the streams of
this region as to be worthy of some description. Kising among
the western spurs of the Mahadeo range, it flows for a short
distance over the level plateau of the Betul district, in a
shallow channel, which, in the hot season, forms a chain of
silent pools fringed by great Kowa trees and by the thick green
cover of Jaman and Karonda, in which tigers delight to dwell.
The surrounding country in this part of its course is partially
cleared and cultivated with rice and sugar-cane. Presently,
however, it commences its descent towards the level of the
lower plains, plunging into a glen riven through the basalt,
and assumes the character of a mountain torrent. Here and
there it widens out into little bays of level valley land ; but is
henceforth, for a hundred miles or so, generally shut in be-
tween high banks rising from the edge of its channel. Through
these the rapid drainage of the higher hills has cut innumer-
able narrow channels down to the level of its bed, which
spread out above into an interminable series of rocky gullies,
seaming in every direction a long succession of rolling basaltic
waves. The surface of these tracts has been weathered in
places into a penurious soil, bearing multitudes of round black
boulders of trap, ranging in size from an egg to a small house,
and salted over with small white agate splinters, both
apparently eliminated from the mother rock in the process
of decomposition. This surface is covered with a growth
of coarse grass, varying according to the depth of the
soil from a few inches to several feet in height, and is
studded with small trees, of which ninety-nine in every

206 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTRAL INDIA.

hundred are the Salei, or frankincense tree (Boswellia thuvi-
fera).

This tree has hitherto been regarded as a mere incumbrance
to the ground. Its timber is soft and spongy, and is certainly
valueless for building and such purposes. It has also been
rejected as firewood, its specific gravity being so low that a
great bulk of it has to be transported in comparison with teak
and other hard w^oods to produce a given effect. Yet it pro-
duces excellent charcoal, and is perfectly adapted for most
ordinary purposes of fuel ; and, wherever the carriage of better
sorts from remote parts has rendered their use more expensive,
the Salei has been actually used instead. This points to
another mistake we have hitherto made in our Indian forestry.
Undoubtedly this and other soft wood trees should have been
forced into common use by the people as fuel long ago,
instead of our giving way to their outcry for hard woods and
bamboos, the use of which should be confined to certain special'
requirements. The Boswellia possesses other properties, which
will probably at some future time render these great desolate
tracts of high economical value. It yields a fragrant gum
resin, which is burnt as incense in Hindu temples. It was long
thought to be the Olibanum of the ancients, employed for a
similar purpose ; but Dr. Bird wood has, in a recently published
pamphlet, attempted to show that this substance was procured
from other species of the Boswellia in countries to the west of
India. It is, however, singular that its Sanscrit name, labdnd,
should still so closely resemble that of antiquity ; and it may
perhaps be doubted if our knowledge of the ancient com-
merce of India suffices to exclude India from the list of
countries which contributed the frankincense of the Boswellia
to the fanes of heathen gods. It is highly probable that some
much more general utility would be found in this gum resin,

THE TEAK KEGION. 207

were the attention of persons capable of testing it drawn to
the subject. It is also not unlikely that the soft woody fibre
of the tree would prove to be adapted for the manufacture of
coarse paper or cloth. Should any economic value be found
to attach to any portion of the tree, the supply would be
practically unlimited ; and reproduction of the forests would
be easy in the extreme, large stakes when stuck in the ground
during the rainy season rapidly taking root and shooting into
trees. This quality of the tree has recently been taken advan-
tage of by the railway company for the construction of live
fence-posts on which to stretch their fencing wires. The Salei
is of a highly social character, emulating in this respect the Sal
(Shorea), but admitting in a greater degree than it the com-
panionship of other species. The principal of these are the Saj
(Pentaptera) ; the Torchwood tree (Cochlospermum), with its
bright yellow solitary flowers gleaming on the extremities of its
naked branches; and the Iron wood tree (Hardwickia binata),
which is perhaps the most graceful forest tree in these regions.
The aspect of these vast forests of the Boswellia, of which
the country about the Tapti is a specimen, and which cover,
I should say, fully one half of the whole of this trap region,
is very remarkable. During the height of the monsoon
(July to October) the grass is green, and the trees have
thrown out a thin foliage of small bright green pinnated
leaves. The river beds, too, are then filled by foaming tor-
rents, and the fervor of the sun is moderated by a canopy of
grey clouds. At this season one might almost mistake the
valley for a scene in some northern primeval wilderness. But
gradually, as the clouds clear off and the rain ceases, a change
occurs. The rivers shrink in their beds, till a trickling stream
in a wide bed of boulders represents the resistless mountain
torrent of a month before, while the higher gullies are

208 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTRAL INDIA.

utterly dried up. The grass turns from green to yellow,
and bristles with a terrible armature of prickles, like needles
of steel with the barbs of a fish-hook, which catch in
each other and mat together into masses. Woe betide the
undefended pedestrian in grass like this. Unless defended
by leather, before he has gone half a mile every stitch
of his clothing will be run through and through, and pinned
to his flesh by multitudes of these barbs, causing the most
intolerable pain. The foliage of the Salei withers and droops
after a few weeks of sunning ; and its naked yellow stems then
fill the prospect like a vast army of skeletons. But this stage
is not even the worst. It continues till the month of April
introduces the torrid summer season, when the fierce sun laps
up the last particle of moisture in these basaltic regions. Then
the grass has become like tinder, and a thousand accidents may
set it on fire. The traveller dropping a light from his pipe, the
wind carrying a spark, from an encampment of jungle-haunt-
ing Banjaras, the torch of the belated traveller, and, should it
escape these accidents, then certainly the deliberate act of the
graziers who bring herds of cattle with the first fall of rain in
June into these tracts to graze on the resulting new crop of
grass, will start a jungle fire which nothing can stop till it
burns itself out. Early in the hot season it is a fine sight to
watch at night the long creeping red lines of the jungle fires
on distant hill-sides. From the hill fortress of Asirgarh the
eye ranges over the whole of the upper Tapti valley ; and at
this season the whole country appears at night ringed with
these lines of fire, curving with the curvature of hills ;
here thin and scarcely visible where the grass is scanty on a
bare hill-top ; there flaring through tracts of long elephant
grass, or wrapping some dried and sapless tree-stem in im-
mense tongues of flame. By night a ruddy glow colours all

THE TEAK EEGION. 209

the heavens above the spot; while by day a thick pall of
smoke hangs over the valley. Near the scene the air is
stifling and thick with falling flakes of ash. Wild animals
have fled the neighbourhood ; and clouds of insects rise before
the advancing flames, to be devoured by myriads of birds col-
lected seemingly from every end of the country. Innumer-
able snakes and noxious vermin of all sorts perish in the fire,
including many of the curious grass snake of these regions,
which a diligent search will frequently discover twined among
the matted masses of the spear-grass. It is a harmless crea-
ture, living on insects, and changes its colour from green to
yellow along with the grass. When the fires are burnt out
the spectacle is a dismal one indeed. Hill-side after hill-side
of blackness, relieved only here and there by a long streak of
white ashes where a prostrate trunk has been consumed, and
by the wilderness of S&lei skeletons, scorched at the base, and
above more yellow and ghastly than ever.

Yet, even in the heart of those parts of the basaltic region
to which this description most fittingly applies, there are few
tracts where, at a little distance, some oasis will not be found.
The larger ravines are often filled with clumps of bamboo
which never entirely lose their verdure ; and here and there a
sheltered valley will be met, where there is either a pool of
water, or moisture not far below the surface, with its fringe of
verdure, and a few Mhow& or Mango trees, perhaps marking
the site of some old village, deserted long ago beyond the
memory of living man. In the central valley of the Tapti
also will be found at intervals bays of rich deep soil, with a
moist substratum that is never entirely parched up, and carry-
ing a greener grass which it is hard to burn, and often a
covering of forest trees. Most of these tracts have been at
one time reclaimed to the plough and thickly populated. That

210 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTRAL INDIA.

was in the days when the Mahomedan Viceroy of the Deccan
held court at the city of Burhanpiir, some fifty miles lower
down the valley, and great armies marching between the Dec-
can and Hindostan had to be fed. The bays in the valley are
still dotted over with the sites of the villages of those times,
and with the ruined forts and tombs and mosques of their
Mahomedan rulers. Near the ancient site of Sajni, the chief
town of one of these tracts, may be seen a banyan tree of im-
mense spread, whose trunk has embraced and lifted bodily up
from off the ground the domed masonry tomb, about twelve
feet in all dimensions, of some Moslem notable, and so en-
veloped it with its thousand folds that not one stone of it is to
be seen outside, while, passing inside by a narrow opening,
the arch of the dome and the wall will be seen to be almost
perfect. A Moslem could scarcely desire a fitter entombment
than to be suspended thus between heaven and earth, like the
prophet of his faith.

It is now some seventy years since the malaria of the en-
croaching jungle and famine in the country caused by the
failure of the rains of heaven and the still more terrible strife
of men desolated these settlements in the Tapti valley. The
rank jungle then sprang on the deserted clearings, rendered
fertile to weed as to cereal by the labour of man, and has now
clothed them with a thicket of vegetation of such thickness,
and guarded by a miasma so deadly, as to baffle all attempts
at renewed occupation by the Hindu cultivators densely
crowded in the adjoining open country. Here and there the
Korkus, whose constitutions seem impervious to malaria, have
settled down on some neighbouring rising ground, and built a
neat little village of Swiss-like cottages of bamboo, and have
cleared and tilled the opener parts of the valley, raising such
crops of wheat on the unexhausted black soil as are the envy

THE TEAK EEGION. 211

of the laborious tiller of the hard-used lands in the outer valley.
But it is a terrible and unequal struggle between the aborigine,
even so far reclaimed as these Korkiis are, and the jungle with
its immense and unremitting strength of vegetation, and
tribes of noxious wild beasts. Every now and again the heart
of the Korku fails him, and he abandons the contest, flitting
off to some hill-side where he may more easily contend with
axe and fire against the less exuberant vegetation of the thin
mountain soils. On the whole, however, the habits of the
Korkiis of the Tapti valley are a great advance on those of the
tribes inhabiting the Mahadeo hills further east. Their culti-
vation is performed with the bullock plough instead of the axe,
and is of a much more permanent character. Their villages and
houses are much more substantial, and are seldom changed ;
and habits of providence and steady industry have been de-
veloped among them which are unknown to either Gond or
Korku of other parts. Much of this may, no doubt, be due to
their fortunate occupation of a country where cultivation by
annual cutting down the forest is scarcely possible, owing to
the scantiness of timber and of soil on the slopes of the hills,
while the neighbourhood of so large a city as Burhanpiir must
always have furnished them with a regular and remunerative
market for their produce.

The grass burning universal in the jungles of these pro-
vinces is undoubtedly beneficial in a great variety of ways.
It allows, and assists by the manure of the ashes, a crop of
green and tender grass-shoots to appear for the grazing of
vast herds of cattle, which form great part of the wealth of
the people in the neighbourhood of jungle tracts. It kills
multitudes of snakes and noxious insects. It probably pre-
vents much malaria that would arise from the vegetation if
gradually allowed to decay. It destroys much of the harbour

p 2

212 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTEAL INDIA.

for wild beasts. And the ashes no doubt form a valuable in-
gredient in the deposits of soil carried down by the drainage
of these hills to lower regions, and in the cultivable crust
gradually forming in these uplands themselves. It has been
held by some that these fires are very injurious to the growth
of saplings of teak and other valuable trees. But it is an
undoubted fact that teak seeds will germinate and produce
seedlings where the grass has been fired better than where it
has not ; and it is not well established that much permanent
injury is afterwards done to the seedlings. By great efforts
fires were kept out of one or two favourably situated teak
forests for some years, but no result of consequence to the
young trees has been observed. On the other hand there
is no room for doubt that in unburnt tracts the forests
must become greatly more malarious, and wild beasts
will multiply exceedingly. The discussion, however, can
never assume much practical value, since it would be quite
impossible, with any means at our command, to keep fires
out of any but a few very limited and peculiarly favourable
localities.

The labour of exploring such forests as those I have de-
scribed during the hot season, when alone they are sufficiently
open and free from malaria, is immense day after day toiling
over those interminable basaltic ridges, where many marches
have often to be made without meeting an inhabitant, without
often a single green tree for shelter, and dependent for water
on a few stagnant pools puddled up by the feet of wild ani-
mals. This was what often fell to the lot of the forest officers
of those early days. I doubt if many of them would have
gone on with the task but for the love of sport and adventure
which probably led to their original selection of a jungle life ;
and there is not one of them whose health did not, after a

THE TEAK EEGION. 213

few years, give way under the combined assaults of malaria
and a fiery sun.

Vast* tracts of the most sterile portion of this region are
absolutely without water during some months of the hot
season ; and in many others there is no more than perhaps a
single small pool, in some shaded hollow of the rocks, for many
miles on end. The only animal which can inhabit such wastes
as these is the nilgai, which can and does pass many days
without drinking; and scattered herds of them are accord-
ingly found even in the driest parts. The bison wanders over
the whole of the forest and hilly portion of the tract, wherever
the absence of man and cattle, and abundance of bamboo
cover and water, afford him the needful conditions. The deer
tribe comprises the Sambar (Rusa aristotelis) and the Axis or
Spotted Deer {Axis maculatus) in large numbers, and, more
rare, the Barking Deer (Cervulus aureus), besides the little
four-horned antelope already mentioned. The Hog Deer
(Axis porcinus) does not, I believe, occur so far to the
south-west as the trap country. The spotted deer is never
found except in the neighbourhood of the larger rivers.
Abundance of water and green shade appear to be first con-
ditions of its existence. A few barking deer are found scat-
tered all over the tract, though never very far from water.

Sambar are rarely found in the very dry interior, but som e
times travel to rest during the day to a long distance from the
water hole or stream where they drink at night, On the level
table land they are not very numerous, preferring the slopes
and summits of the hills. But no animal changes its location
so much, according to the season of the year, abundance of
food, etc., as the sambar. Wherever the bison is found, the
sambar is certain to be as well ; but his range is not so con-
fined as the bison's, being much more tolerant of the propin-

214 THE HIGHLANDS OF CBNTEAL INDIA.

quity of man and of grazing herds of domestic cattle. While
the crops of the table land and lower plains are green the
herds of sambar come out to feed on them at night, remaining
during the day near the edge of the jungle, unless disturbed
and driven into the depths of the forest by man. They also
feed, however, on a great variety of jungle products ; and
move about in apparently the most capricious manner in search
of them. The short green grass that clothes the banks of
pools and springs, and the tender shoots of young trees and
bushes, may be said to be at all times the foundation of their
fare, and during the rainy season almost their only resource.
Later on, in late autumn, the young wheat and grain crops of
neighbouring clearances are made to pay heavy toll ; and with
the commencement of the hot season comes a great variety of
wild fruits, all greatly relished by the deer. At one time
(March and April) it is the luscious flower of the Mhowa tree
(p. 75), which they share with the G6nd and the bear and
most other animals and birds. The Tendfi, the Chironji, the
Aola, the Bher, and many other trees, also fruit plentifully in
spring ; and a little later the pods of numerous species of
acacia, chiefly Babul*, Keunjaf, KheirJ, and of the tamarinds
which have overgrown many deserted village sites, and the
fruit of several species of wild fig , amply support the sambar
through the hot season. Wherever any of these are plentiful,
there the marks of nightly visits by sambar will be found in
the morning. But by the earliest break of day the animals
will have disappeared ; and, having drunk well at some
neighbouring water, will probably be well on their way to
their resting-place for the day. For the next hour or two
they are often to be found at a few miles' distance, apparently

* A. Arabica. J A. catechu.

t A. Leucophlcea. F. indica, F. religiosa and F. guleri.

THE TEAK KEGION. 215

loitering about, but all the time slowly making their way in a
certain direction, higher up the hills and towards denser cover,
and keeping a heedful watch on possible pursuers. As they
penetrate deeper into the waste country their watchfulness
diminishes, but they generally take a long and keen survey of
all their surroundings before lying down for the day. At all
times but the rutting season (October and November) the
heavy old stags remain mostly solitary, a few young animals
only remaining with the herd, which consists of ten to fifteen
individuals. The old stags usually travel deeper into the forest
and higher up the hills before lying down than the herd, which
is often found within a mile or so of their feeding ground.
In all cases a patch of longish grass is selected, and a regular
form like that of a hare is made by each individual. Each
form is usually in the shade of a small tree, the side or top of
the hill, where grass is long but trees not very numerous or
thick, being preferred to very dense thickets ; and it is curious
with what skill the spot is selected, so that the deepest shade
shall fall on the form at about three o'clock in the afternoon,
which is the hottest portion of the day. Hundreds of forms
will sometimes be found in one locality, every one of them at
precisely the same point of the compass from its sheltering
tree. The large stags do not seem to care so much about
shade, and generally lie on the side of some little depression
on a hill top, sheltered only by long grass. Their forms can
be readily distinguished from those of the others by their
greatly superior size. These forms are generally made when
the grass is green, and are occupied at intervals all the rest of
the year. More than one herd and a few solitary stags will
not usually be found in the same tract of country ; but in the
rutting season they collect together in much larger numbers
on the tops of the high plateaux ; and the hoarse roar of the

216 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTRAL INDIA.

stags may then be heard echoing far and wide in the silent
night. When lying down for the day, sambar, and par-
ticularly the solitary stags, will frequently allow one to
approach and pass them quite close without getting up, trust-
ing to concealment in the grass ; and it is really almost
impossible in many places for the sportsman on foot to see
them unless he actually stumbles on their forms. The hard
yellow grass, while unburnt, leaves next to no trail of the
passage of a single deer, and thus the search for sambar on
foot after the hour when they lie down is seldom very suc-
cessful.

If information can be got from the people who frequent the
jungles for wood cutting, etc., of whereabouts the sambar are
feeding and resting at that particular season, capital sport can
be got with them in the day time with the aid of a riding
elephant. This enables you to see over the grass, and gene-
rally starts any sambar that may be lying down within about
a hundred yards. The elephant must be thoroughly trained
to stop dead short on deer getting up, and should not be
furnished with a howdah, the simple pad or xhdrjdmd being
preferable for this sort of shooting ; and the smaller and more
active the elephant is the better. You should start about
eleven o'clock and hunt till sundown, proceeding as silently
as possible through the longest patches of grass, with rifle on
full cock, for you do not generally get much time to make
ready once the deer get up. The presence of recently used
forms (which will be known by the droppings) will indicate
the probable proximity of deer; and it is better to beat
thoroughly a limited area than hastily a large extent of
country. Where the hills rise by steps, as is often the case
in the trap country, the outer edge of each step is the most
likely place, and the sambar will almost always run up hill.

THE TEAK REGION. 217

A standing shot may sometimes be had during a few seconds
after the sambar first rise, but more generally they dart off at
full speed at once, and then comes into play the most difficult
of all the arts of the rifleman snap shooting at running
game off an elephant. The elephant is never perfectly still
for more than a moment, and its short swing must be allowed
for as well as the pace of the deer. The sambar is, of course,
from its great size and distinct colour, much more easy to
hit than the spotted deer, or barking, or hog, deer ; but still
it is amazing what a preponderance of clear misses the best
shots will make at even running sambar off the elephant,
until long and constant practice has given the peculiar knack
which is so difficult to attain. It is, however, by far the
most deadly as well as one of the most enjoyable ways of
hunting the sambar. The best stags will, however, seldom
be obtained by this method, lying as they do on the tops of
remote hills, where one might search for and not find them
for a week,

Driving a large extent of country with a long line of
beaters is the commonest method of hunting sambar. It is
frequently successful, and often secures a good stag ; but for
my own part I have very rarely resorted to it. It is difficult
often to get a sufficient number of beaters without oppression,
and accidents often occur to them from the enclosure of
dangerous wild beasts. The whole country is disturbed ; the
shooting of a creature driven up to you, without the exercise
either of skill or any other manly quality on your own part,
is not sport ; and lastly, to prove successful, a large number
of sportsmen are required to guard the numerous passes ; and
it never has been my fortune (not that I have much regretted
it) to be out with a large hunting party in India. A few
times however I have helped to drive a jungle, generally

218 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTKAL INDIA.

for some other game than sambar, and these have sometimes
proved memorable occasions.

In 1861, in the Jubbulptir district, I was beating a wooded
hill side for sambar as the shades of evening were drawing
on, and the beaters had nearly reached the end of the drive
when I suddenly saw them swarming up trees, and the shout
reached me of " Two tigers are afoot ! " I was then trying
for the first time a rifle made on Jacob's principle for explo-
sive shells, and congratulated myself on having so good an
opportunity for testing it. Anxiously I waited behind my
little green bush, the beaters creating a din enough to
deafen a dozen tigers, till at last I saw a striped form glide
across an open spot in front, and advancing in my direction.
With finger on the trigger I was awaiting his appearance
at the next break in the low jungle, when suddenly I heard
the bushes crashing on my left, and a large tiger bounded
into the jungle pathway on which I was standing, and
cantered towards my position. Wheeling round, I delivered
the right barrel of the Jacob in his left shoulder, on receiving
which he rolled over like a rabbit. At the moment I fired
my eye caught a glimpse of the other tiger close by, in the
direction I had first seen him ; so, seeing the first disposed of,
I again fronted, and, with a steady aim, gave No. 2 the left
barrel through the neck. As luck would have it, the spine was
broken, and he dropped on the spot. All this occupied but a
few seconds, being as quick a right and left as ever I fired.
On turning my attention again to the first tiger, I was just
in time to see him reach the thick jungle some twenty paces
off, and, before I could seize another gun, he had disappeared.
I had time to perceive, however, that his right hind leg was
broken in the body ; the shell must, therefore, as he was hit
in the left shoulder, have traversed his body from stem to

THE TEAK REGION. 219

stern ; and yet here were none of the immediate paralysing
effects ascribed to these shells at close quarters. On walking
up to the second " tiger," what was my disgust to find that it
was not a tiger after all, but only a huge striped hyaena I had
shot, having mistaken his disproportionately large head in the
imperfect light for that of the jungle king ! The shell had
passed completely through his neck, but, if it exploded at
all, must have done so after passing out. The other was a
veritable tiger, however. We followed him a little way by
his footprints and blood, but it was getting very dark, and
prudence compelled us to leave him till the morning. We
failed, however, to find him then, though we hunted about
the whole day ; and it was not till some days after that a
cow-herd found his rotting remains beside a pool of water,
many miles away.

On another occasion I secured the largest sambar horns I
have ever seen, in a drive. It was in the Bori teak forest,
a lovely little valley nestling under the northern scarp of the
Mahadeo hills, and surrounded on three sides by its mural
precipices. Being very inaccessible from the plains, more teak
trees have here escaped the destroying timber contractor than
almost anywhere else ; and E., D., and myself were engaged
in demarcating its boundaries as a reserved forest. Having
toiled for some days putting up cairns of stones along the
open southern border, where it is not enclosed by precipices,
and completed the business, we decided to wind up with
a drive in the forest itself for sambar, and the chance of a few
bison whose tracks we had seen during our work. The grass
was so long and the forest so thick that driving was then
almost the only possible way of getting game. We had had
a number of Gonds and Korkus out with us at the boundary
work, and the prospect of abundance of meat readily induced

220 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTBAL INDIA.

them to beat for us. A long slope of broken ground between
the foot of the scarp and the bottom of the glen was to be
beaten crossways; D. took the post just below the scarp,
E. remained near the bottom, and I had the middle place.
I screened myself behind the thick double trunk of a teak
tree, forking from the ground. The beat was a short one,
and I had not waited long before a tremendous crashing on
the hill side above me, followed by a shot from D., an-
nounced the approach of some heavy animal. I thought it
was a bull bison at least, and was surprised when a sambar
stag burst through the underwood just in front of me, and,
with horns laid along his flanks, clattered down the steep
hill side. He was going full speed, and was much screened
by the long grass and dry bamboos, which he scattered on
every side in his passage, so that I had not much confidence
in the broadside shot wherewith I greeted him proving suc-
cessful. Something told me I had hit him, however, a
sportsman who has shot much is seldom mistaken in his
inward heart as to the truth of his aim, and though he
crashed away apparently untouched I ran eagerly to the
place where he had passed to look for blood. Before I arrived
I heard the ring of a rifle in R's direction, and then a long
holloa which told me that the stag was down. Though
greatly disappointed at losing the magnificent head which I
saw he carried, I went on to the trail, and there I found great
gouts of the red and frothy blood that tells of a shot through
the lungs. Some of the Gonds now came up, and I left them
to run the trail down hill, while I hastened down to where
the stag had fallen. He lay on his side, close to E.'s post,
which he had been passing full speed when he fired and
toppled him over. The shot hole was, however, in his haunch
and that wound I knew would never stop a stag like this. So

THE TEAK BEGION. 221

we turned him over and found my bullet hole on the other
side, just a little too high for the heart. It was a true enough
shot after all, and I was very glad when I measured by spans
his splendid horns, though sorry for the disappointment of a
brother sportsman.

Though not a very large stag he was very old and rather
mangy, and had a perfect head with the usual three points
on each horn, and measuring from base to tip forty-one inches,
round the base ten inches, and eight and a half at the thinnest
part of the beam. I have never seen a larger head altogether
than this in Central India. It is figured at the end of the
present chapter. The horns of sambar vary greatly in deve-
lopment, some being very massive but short, and others very
long but slender. Keally good heads every way like this one
are the rare exception, and would not be seen once out of
perhaps fifty animals shot. About thirty to thirty-five inches
is the average length of the horns even of mature stags.
Occasionally more than three tines are seen on one or both
antlers ; but this is an abnormal development, and such
heads will generally be found of stunted growth and devoid
of symmetry. Sometimes the inner and sometimes the outer
tine of the terminal fork will be found the longer.

I have taken much pains to assure myself of a fact, of
which I am now perfectly convinced, namely, that, neither in
the case of the sambar nor the spotted deer (both belonging
to the Asiatic group of Kusinse as distinguished from the
Cervidae or true stags), are the antlers regularly shed every
year in these Central Indian forests, as is the case with the
Cervidse in cold climates.* No native shikari, who is engaged

* Probably on the higher hill ranges they shed them more regularly ; on the
Nilgherry hills I saw a number of stags in the month "of July, and none of
them had full grown horns. I may add here that but one species of this deer

222 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTRAL INDIA.

all his life in the pursuit of these animals, will allow such to
be the case ; and all sportsmen out at that season must have
seen stags with full-grown horns during the hot weather and
rains, when they are supposed to have shed them. Hornless
stags are seen at that season, but the great majority have per-
fect heads. I have also known certain stags for successive
years always about the same locality, and which I have repeat-
edly stalked at intervals during this time along with natives
who constantly saw them, so that I could not be mistaken as
to the individual ; and all the time they never once dropped
their horns.

One of these was a very peculiar animal, almost jet black
in colour, and with large horns so white as to look almost like
a cast pair bleached by the weather. He frequented, during
several years I knew him, an open part of the Mona valley, a
good deal resorted to by wood, and grass cutters. He never
could be found like other stags in the morning ; but seemed
to lie down before daylight in some strategical position whence
he always managed to effect an escape without being seen till
far out of shot. I had never even fired at him though I had
seen him often, when very early one morning I was walking
over the grassy plain where he was often seen, and some cart-
men who were loading hay told me they had seen a stag lie
down on the side of a hillock not far off. I made a long
circuit to get to the other side of it, and then slowly, inch by
inch and with beating heart, drew myself over the brow.
Nothing was to be seen from there, and, with finger on the
trigger of my little single "Henry," I crawled down the
slope. Just then a stick cracked on my left, and looking

is now recognized as inhabiting all India, including the Oeroiv of the Hima-
layas, and that I believe, after inspecting large collections of horns, &c, it
nowhere attains greater development than in Central India.

THE TEAK KEGION. 223

round I saw the stag running in a crouching tiger-like fashion
along the bottom of a water-course I had not noticed, but
which doubtless had been duly considered in the selection of
his position. I had only time for a snap shot, which caught
the top of his shoulder and heavily lamed him. He could go
just a little faster than myself after this, and had frequently
to stop. But he always got the start of me when I came up,
and thus carried me some four or five miles towards the base
of the hills, before a lucky shot at a very long range caught
him in the centre of the neck and finished the business.

It is curious how often incidents like that one with the
Bori sambar occur. A beast shot in the lungs will run on,
particularly down hill, for several hundred yards before he
drops, though then he will generally fall stone dead ; and the
collapse frequently occurs just when he receives another
wound, though it may be a very slight one, or when anything
occurs to interrupt his impetus. I remember when shooting
in the Rohilkhund Terdi, a hog deer ran the gauntlet of a
whole line of elephants. I had fired at him first on the right
with a little rifle carrying a very peculiar bullet, but we all
thought we had to register a miss when he fell to the Joe
Manton of old Col. S. on the extreme left of the line ;
and it was not till we were examining the goodly heap of
slain brought in by the pad elephants on our return to camp
that I thought of looking for my shot, and found that the
death wound was from my rifle after all, as we cut out the
little bullet from the top of its shoulder, while the Colonel's
round ball had only just grazed its quarter. On another
occasion I had fired at a large tiger sneaking through some
thin jungle in the Betul district. The brute dashed ahead out
of sight with loud roars, but presently came wheeling round
in a circle, galloped along the bottom of a small ravine,

224 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTKAL INDIA.

and came up the bank of it right opposite me, as I thought
with the determination of making a home charge. As his
head appeared over the top I fired at it, at the distance of
only some dozen paces, and he tumbled back again to the
bottom, where he lay dead. My astonishment was not
small to find that I had missed him clean the last time, and
that he had died just in the nick of time from the first shot
through the shoulders.

By far the finest sport afforded by the sambar is when he
is regularly stalked in his native wilderness, without either
elephant or beaters. I will not waste a word on so vile a
practice as that of shooting him at night, when he comes to
the crops or drinking places. None but a native shikari, or
an European with equally poaching proclivities, would ever
think of such a thing. To succeed in stalking, the camp
must be pitched as near as possible to where they have
been ascertained to resort at night to feed and drink. A
party of the aborigines of the place must be entertained to
act as scouts, people who thoroughly know the country and
the haunts and habits of the deer, and who are not afraid to
traverse any part of the jungles in the dark. These must be
sent out in couples long before daylight to crown the most
commanding hill tops in the neighbourhood, with instructions
to mark any sambar they may see on the way from their
feeding grounds to the midday resting place. When deer are
observed one should remain to watch them, while the other
hastens with the news to some well-marked central point,
whither the sportsman himself must leisurely proceed, starting
half an hour or so before daybreak, accompanied by one or two
of the wild men. It is very likely he may fall in with deer
himself by the way, and get a stalk ; but if not some of the
scouts are almost certain to bring information in time to get at

THE TEAK KEGION. 225

the deer before they have lain down. This method of scouting
also succeeds well with bison in the thin jungles where they
are sometimes found ; and I do not know any place where the
sport of stalking the bison and sambar in this fashion can be
followed with better chance of success than in the jungles on
either side of the upper Tapti valley. Indeed, the very best
of this sport can be had within an easy morning's ride of the
large city of Burhanpur, in the Nimar district, situated on the
Tapti, a few miles below the point where the narrow rugged
valley opens out into a wide basin of fertile and highly culti-
vated black soil. Here the Tapti is joined by the Mona, a
beautiful stream which flows clear and sparkling out of a
branch of the Satptira range called the Hatti hills. It is one
of the most singular parts of the great basaltic formation, and
forms the extreme westerly termination of the highland region
I am describing. Last year I traversed the whole of this
range from end to end, on boundary settlement business,
in company with a friend Captain T., of the Survey ; and
though, being on duty, our first object was of course the
public service, we found leisure for a little of our favourite
sport at different times.

In the end of February we rode out from Burhanpur to
our camp, which was pitched at the last village in the open
plain. Next morning a small tent was sent up to a little fort
called Gharri, that crowns the northern face of the Hatti range,
and we ourselves took different lines through the hills on
foot to the same place. The inhabitants of these hills are all
Bheels, a good deal spoilt by " civilization," being mostly lazy
and thriftless, and confirmed opium eaters. They are the
descendants of ancestors who were nominally converted to
Mahomedanism, in the days when a strong Moslem power was
established at Burhanpur, but now retain scarcely anything of

226 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTRAL INDIA.

their faith besides the name of the Prophet, and the practice of
its most elementary rites. In Mahomedan times the chiefs
of these Bheels were subsidized and constituted wardens of
the hill passes in this range, over which ran the main high-
ways between the valley of the T&pti and Ber&r ; and they still
continue to receive from our Government this subsidy, which
is nothing but a compensation for the blackmail levied by
their turbulent ancestors from the adjoining plains. A few un-
converted Bheels still remain in this country, who are chiefly
the hereditary village watchmen of the Hindu villages border-
ing on the hills. They are usually a good deal Hinduized in
manners, but retain much of the keen natural qualities that
render the wilder members of the race such excellent hunters.
Bheels of the wildest character are also found in the moun-
tainous region west of Asirgarh, depending for subsistence
much on their bows and arrows, and still ready for any under-
taking of lawlessness and peril. It is scarcely, however, within
the province of this work to devote space to this tribe,
which is but scantily represented in the highland region of
which it treats.

The road to Gharri lay up a fine level, though narrow,
valley in the Hatti hills, containing the sites of several old
villages marked by ancient trees and Mahomedan tombs. As
we overlooked, from the height of Gharri, its long level reach,
and the narrow gorge formed by a transverse chain of little
hills at its mouth, with the level black-soil plain of the Tapti
valley stretching away into the distant haze beyond, the
thought suggested itself at the same time to both of us,
how remarkably suited the spot was for an irrigation
reservoir. Without the land thirsting for water, being
underlaid by a sandy subsoil so deep that no well can
tap the stratum of moisture below it, and crowded with a

THE TEAK EEGION. 227

dense population, who pay for their dry and unfertile acres the
rent that in many places is given for irrigated sugar-cane land.
Within a natural reservoir, fed by the drainage of forty square
miles, and only wanting an embankment of a few hundred yards
to hold back sufficient water to convert the whole of the plain
without into an evergreen garden. Such sites as these, though
not always so favoured by a combination of circumstances as
this one, are met with at intervals along almost the whole of
the frontier line between the highlands and the open plain.
But, alas ! the means at the command of so poor a country as
India are unequal to the task of realising her own future ;
and the wealth of life-giving water that annually escapes
through these unguarded outlets must still, for many a genera-
tion, it may be feared, be allowed to waste itself in destructive
inundations and fruitless floods. We are only just beginning
to realise that at the bottom of all India's wretched poverty
and backwardness lies the exceeding unfertility of her
land in the absence of artificial irrigation. A return of
wheat no more than four or fivefold the seed, and but forty
pounds of clean cotton to the acre, from the deep black
soils of the Narbada valley, such is the boasted fertility
of one of the finest tracts of soil in all India ! What might
be the changes in the physical conditions and economy of
India were the annual rainfall saved which now escapes to
the sea it is impossible to foresee. An almost incredible
increase in the productiveness of the low country, and the
final banishment of the famine demon that now claims its an-
nual thousands and quinquennial millions throughout the land,
would probably be combined with a great amelioration of the
climate, and improvement of the forests of the higher regions.*

* I would not here be understood to affirm the opinion that such a country as
the bulk of the Central Provinces are as yet ripe for large irrigation works. A

228 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTRAL INDIA.

Gharri is situated on the edge of a table-land of considerable
extent, but of very irregular outline ; on the north winding
round the heads of long ravines which drain down into the val-
ley below, and to wards the south coming suddenly to a steep drop
into the plains of Berar. The more open parts of this table-land
have at some remote period been cultivated, the trap boulders
having been cleared off and piled into rough walls enclosing
large square fields. The land is in many places very deep
and rich, and, the elevation being about two thousand feet, it
would no doubt grow tea and coffee well. Now it is utterly
waste, the lazy Bheels being satisfied with their subsidy from
Government, while want of roads, and probably a bad climate,
deter the cultivators of the neighbouring plains. There is
plenty of water on the top, and one day it will doubtless be
the seat of a considerable settlement.

At Gharri T. went out in the evening, and found two
sambar stags feeding on the pods of some acacias on the site
of a deserted village. Being a capital stalker and a good
shot, he got close in upon them, and bagged both with a right
and left shot. Next day we crossed the plateau to a place
called Bingara, near which T. had a survey station to put
up. The road for some distance lay over a tolerably level
plain of black soil, covered by a thin scrub of teak poles and
thorny bushes ; but presently, leaving the plateau, passed on
to a very narrow ridge which forms the backbone of these
singular hills throughout their length. In some places an
exceedingly steep slope of a thousand feet or so led down
from this saddle-back to the plains on either side, leaving

much denser population, and more farm stock, will be required before such can
be the case. The old district of Nimar however and particularly the basin of
the Tapti valley surrounding the large city of Burhanpur which is here
referred to is an exceptional tract, fully prepared for the general introduction
of irrigation, and ready to pay for it.

THE TEAK KEGION. 229

scarcely room for the path we were treading. It was a terrible
business getting the baggage camels along these narrow places,
studded as they were with trees, and encumbered with boulders
of trap ; and though we had a number of Bheels with axes to
clear a passage for them they did not get in till nightfall.
The views at the turns where the plains on both sides could
be seen were remarkable, though scarcely to be called pic-
turesque. At our feet steep hill-sides of crumbling basalt,
covered with long yellow grass beaten almost flat by the
western blasts that sweep the hills at this season, and studded
over with large black boulders and the naked yellow stems of
the Salei tree. Above, short scarps of dark grey trap leading
up to the flat tops of the range ; and below, so near looking
that you would expect a stone thrown over to light on it, and
yet so far beneath that towns and groves and corn fields
were all melted in one indistinguishable blue haze, the long
level cotton-yielding plains of Berar.

At Bingara the Mahomedan Nawdbs of Berar had, some
hundreds of years ago, constructed a pleasure house after their
earnest fashion, which, despite the effects of a destructive
climate, and the searching roots of the peepul and banyan
figs, remains to this day, though probably never repaired, an
example of the solidity of their style of construction. The
massive domes, thick walls, and narrow openings combine in
these buildings to form the coolest structures to be found
in India. The building at Bingara is erected on the banks of
a small artificial lake, the waters of which, however, now
escape a good deal through the rotten embankment, leaving
behind a slime which by no means adds to the attractions of
the place. The building itself was the habitation of bats and
owls ; and so we pitched our little tent a short way back from
the lake under the shade of some immense banyan trees

230 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTEAL INDIA.

Just as we arrived some dogs belonging to the Bheels, which
had been ranging in the jungle, passed across the dry bed of
the lake in full cry after a doe sambar they had roused. Of
course we flew to our rifles, but were just in time to miss her
handsomely as she dashed into the thick jungle, followed for a
little way by the dogs, who soon came limping back however.
Next morning we took different directions to explore and
hunt, each with a few Bheel attendants. My way lay along
the backbone of the range beyond Bingara. After walking
some miles, examining carefully with glass and eye the
declivities on either side, my Bheel henchman, a sharp lad
called Chand, or " the Moon," fixed a longer look than usual
on the slope of a distant hill-side, and after a while motioned
me up to him, and directed my binocular to the centre of a
scrubby patch of teak forest. Presently I caught the glint of
the sun on something moving, and made out a noble sambar
stag standing under the trees motionless, except that he slowly
turned his antlered head from side to side, sweeping with keen
vision the whole semicircle within his ken. He was not more
than a mile off in a direct line ; but to get to the spot it
would be necessary to go several miles round the head of a
long ravine. As he was almost certain to lie down where he
was we carefully marked the spot, and slipping back over
the edge of the saddle started off at a brisk walk to circum-
vent him. The sun was well up now, and it is very hot in
March even at that early hour ; so that by the time we had got
round into the ravine below our temperature was considerably
higher than when we started. Now commenced an excru-
ciating advance on tiptoe, with bended backs, over a stratum
of fallen teak leaves of the " tin box " description, to step on
a single one of which would be fatal to the stalk. As the only
alternative foot ground was on rounded trap boulders, given

THE TEAK EEGION. 231

to rolling away from beneath the unwary foot, the heat deve-
loped by the exertion was greatly out of proportion to the
progress made. At last, however, we sighted the red-topped
tree under which we had marked our stag ; and then " the
Moon," stripping himself of next to his last fragment of rai-
ment, swarmed up a teak pole to look out ahead. Nothing
was seen however, and so we stole on again, friend Chand
swarming up trees at intervals, and I balancing myself in fear
and trembling on the rounded boulders. We were not to
succeed however ; for the Bheel in coming off a tree acci-
dentally stepped on a leaf, and the game was up. Though I
dashed ahead at once, knowing that we could steal in no
further, it was too late ; and all I saw was a dark form run-
ning low, but at a great pace, through -the teak scrub, too far
off for a shot. I believe that this was about the only sambar
then on the hills ; for though the forms where they had been
lying were numerous, and both T. and I hunted the livelong
day for them, not another hoof or horn did we see. The
Bheels said they had all gone to " Dhowtea" a place which
we afterwards found was so difficult of access that very few of
them had ever been there ; and so they used it, much as we
do " Jericho," to express an indefinite region where everything
that can't be found elsewhere must certainly have gone.

Greatly to the surprise of the Bheels, we did shortly after
this go to Dhowtea ; and if its name was great before it
certainly became much more so after we had been there.
Neither of us ever saw anything so extraordinary in our lives ;
and to the Bheels there was nothing short of magical devilry
in what we found, or rather did not find. Dhowtea was a
hollow on the top of the range surrounded by flat plateaux of
small elevation, with a fine stream of water in the centre, and
long grass all about. After a long struggle through thick jungle

232 THE HIGHLANDS OE CENTEAL INDIA.

and over desperate rocky ground we reached it long after sun-
down, and encamped uncomfortably in the open plain for the
night. The place was perfectly puddled up with the feet of
sambar, the footmarks ranging from a day to weeks old ; and in
the grass around were literally thousands of sambar forms, while
every second or third tree was peeled of its bark by the rub-
bing of the stags' horns against them. Next morning we
started off, with an extra supply of ammunition, in different
directions, our only fear being that we had not people enough
to carry in all the enormous stags we expected to bag. For
my part, I wandered round and round the plateaux, and over
their tops, and through the hollow ground, and everywhere
within six miles on my side of the hill ; and though the
sambar signs were everywhere plentiful and recent, and there
were droppings of bison also of some weeks old, not a dun
hide of stag or hind did my eyes behold that morning. It
was truly amazing, and I almost feared to return to camp
lest all the beasts should have gone across to T.'s side, and I
should find him smoking the pipe of satisfaction amid a heca-
tomb of slain. He had returned before myself, however ; and
mutual delight was no doubt displayed in our countenances
when we found that each was in precisely the same plight as
the other, not having seen hoof or horn between us ! Half
believing with the Bheels that the place was enchanted, we
stayed and tried again next day, but the result was precisely
the same. Then we vowed that Dhowtea of the Bheels should
be written down with the blackest of spots in our mental map.
We were utterly ruined, of course, with the Bheels. Having
seen these multitudes of ghostly sambar tracks, we never
again found any place vacant of game but to be told with a
grin, " Oh, they are gone to Dhowtea, of course ! "

We were utterly beaten, and, the unburnt jungle having

THE TEAK EEGION. 233

also proved too thick for our boundary operations, we
determined to retreat to the plains. But we were unwilling
to return by the awful road we had come ; and, a possible
way down the northern face of the hill being reported,
we left Dhowtea behind us the next morning, march-
ing along the top of the range for eight or ten miles
to a place called Jamti, the residence of another of these
petty Bheel chieftains, and marked by a conspicuous banyan
tree which is visible from every part of the surrounding
country. Thence we descended the next day to the Tapti
valley, intending to return to the hills when the jungle should
be clearer. The truth was we had happened to visit Dhowtea
just when nearly all the sambar had gone down the hills to
feed on some jungle fruits that had ripened in the valleys ;
and the few that remained were not to be found among the
long unburnt grass. I believe that the immense number of
marks we saw were caused by the collection of large numbers
of deer there during the rutting season (late autumn). I
intended to investigate this had I remained in that part of
the country; but neither of us ever got back there again.
T. is, I believe, now surveying in the Himalayas, and I am in
old Scotland, content with much smaller game than sdmbar.
" Such is life," as the poet says !

The path we went down by wound along the top of a long
spur of naked basalt. On either side were deep and almost
coal-black rifts in the rock, the summits clothed scantily with
thin yellow grass, and here and there a Salei tree stunted and
twisted like a corkscrew. At one point the rock assumed the
form of a sheer cliff, many hundred feet in height, of the
columnar structure seen occasionally in this volcanic forma-
tion, where the rock seems composed of a vast conglomeration
of pentagonal pillars standing together and broken off at

234 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTEAL INDIA.

different lengths. This singularly favourable situation for
nest building had been occupied by an immense colony of
vultures, the whole face of the rock for miles being whitened
by their droppings, while numbers of the birds were perched
on the cliff or sailing over the ravine. Among them were a
good many of the common brown carrion vulture ; * but the
majority were the foul white scavengers f to be seen on every
dunghill in the villages of the plains. I had often wondered
where these birds bred, for although there are myriads in all
inhabited tracts of Central India only a few nests are to be
seen here and there in the tops of trees. Here was the puzzle
solved, in the grim and retired solitude of the Valley of the
Vultures. But a single hill, a few minutes' flight, separated
them here from the thickly peopled plain where they find their
repulsive food ; and yet that ravine is probably as seldom
looked on by the eye of man as if it were a guano island in
the Pacific Ocean.

A few weeks after our unsuccessful trip to the Hatti hills, I
heard from T. that the grass was mostly burnt, and sambar were
plentiful on the northern slope of the hills. He had also come
across a preserve of bison, out of which he had bagged a bull.
Early in April, therefore, I rode out to his camp at Chondi
one of the deserted village sites in the valley below Gharri. A
lovelier spot for a hunting camp in the hot weather could not be
found. Close by a clear and beautiful pool of water stood an
enormous banyan tree, so old that many of the suckers thrown
out by the branches of the parent tree had themselves become
mighty stems, with branches which again had given birth to
trunks of considerable girth, while the stem of the original
tree had utterly decayed away. Beneath its copious shade
were sheltered from the sun several tents, and numerous

* Gyps Bengalensis. f Neophum Perenopterus.

THE TEAK REGION. 235

servants, lascars, and Bheels, besides our horses, dogs, etc.
The grass on the lower hills had mostly been burnt since we
were last here, and the Mhowa flowers had been falling for
some time. Sambar nightly visited some fine clumps of that
tree in the bottom of the valley, a little higher up than the
camp.

The next morning we sent out about half a dozen pairs of
Bbeels to look out on the hill tops long before daybreak ; and
soon after ourselves started up the valley to a point where we
intended to separate and take different beats. A colony of
monkeys in the trees overhanging the river were " swearing"
lustily about half a mile to our left, and presently we found
the remains of a sambar that had been killed during the night
under the Mhowa trees by a tiger. The brute himself was
doubtless making off up the valley when seen by the mon-
keys. Many sdmbar had been feeding on the Mhowd, and
fresh tracks led off in almost all directions. Just where we
were about to separate a long spur ran down from the hills
on the right to the valley up which we were proceeding ; and
as we approached it we saw in the dim grey light a long line
of deer file over the top, each pausing for a second on the sky
line before passing over to the far side. Watching them for
a few seconds, we saw that they were followed by a large stag
at a good distance in the rear. In fact he had just com-
menced to climb the spur when we saw him ; and at the
same time he must have seen us pausing on the path, for his
leisurely walk then became a run, the low crouching run,
almost like a tigers, with antlers thrown back, often adopted
by a stag who wants to escape quickly and without being
seen. We only saw the ridge of his back and the tips of his
horns as he stole up the other side of the spur after the hinds
It is of no use for two men to follow one lot of sdmbar ; so, as

236 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTEAL INDIA.

it lay in my beat, I took after these deer, while T. held on
up the valley. When I got to the top, a stiff climb of five
or six hundred feet, the eastern heavens were suffused with
that beautiful greenish yellow flush which immediately pre-
cedes sunrise in an Indian sky. It was light enough (it never
is very dark at any time of night at this season of the year)
to distinguish a couple of the Bheels perched on a higher peak
of the same range ; and on seeing me top the rise one of
them stole softly down to me, and said that the herd, followed
by the stag, had proceeded leisurely down the thickly wooded
declivity on the opposite side. After a consultation, it was
determined that I should keep along the top of the ridge,
while two of the Bheels were to follow the track of the herd,
and if they saw them come up and let me know. I went
along slowly from one commanding point to another, keeping
a little ahead of the Bheels, who tracked the herd along the
slope, not very far below the top. In the course of one of
these moves I started the herd from some long grass near the
top. There were fifteen or twenty of them, but no good stags,
so far as I could see as they bustled away along the hill side
in a confused mob, the round light-coloured patches on their
rumps looking like so many targets as they switched their
tails in the air. It was very tempting, but I wanted the fine
horns of the stag and let them go. I was rewarded soon
after by the appearance of the stag, walking slowly along in
the same line, and showing by his dignified gait that he had
no suspicion of danger. He was passing about a hundred
yards below me when I pulled on his shoulder with the little
single " Express ' rifle, and he fell to the shot without a sound.
The Bheels came running up at once, and as I had not gone
down to the stag proceeded to cut his throat in the orthodox
Mahomedan fashion, though I am certain he was stone dead

THE TEAK EEGION. 237

long before they arrived. He was one of the finest harts I
ever saw, in beautiful condition, with much of the cold-
weather mane remaining, and of a peculiar and rare rich
chestnut colour. His horns were very stout and hand-
some, though about four inches shorter than those of the
Bori stag. The colour of the smbar of these open light
jungles is generally decidedly lighter than that of those
which inhabit the more shady forests further east. Some-
times a very black stag will be found, however, even here ;
and the colour of all varies a good deal at different times of
the year. I did not get another shot that morning, and T.
returned with an empty bag, having lost the stag he followed
in the long grass on the tops of the hills.

The next day we again went out long before daybreak. I
was beckoned up a very steep hill by the Bheels on the top ;
and when I got there some time after the sun was up, and a
good deal fatigued by the climb, I found it was only to tell
me that they had seen two stags go up the opposite hill slope,
between which and our hill there lay a valley as deep as that
from which I had come up. They had never been at this
scouting work before, or they had well deserved a thrashing
for their pains. There was nothing for it but to descend to
the valley again, which was almost severer work than coming
up. The slipperiness of these trap hills when every particle
of grass on them has been burnt into fine charcoal is dreadful.
I never found the deer that had been seen, and soon got in-
volved in a troublesome series of cross ravines, so that by
about nine o'clock I was pretty hot and wearied in the April
sun. I had almost given up hunting, and had turned for
home, when something caught my eye in the bottom of a
slight hollow in the hill. It looked exactly like one of the
bunches of twigs that grow out of old teak stumps on these

238 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTRAL INDIA.

hills, with one or two dried leaves attached to them ; and yet
I fancied I had seen it move. I looked at it intently for at
least a minute, trying to make out if it was a bunch of teak
twigs or a sambar's head and horns. It never moved the
whole of this time ; and, as the Bheels who were with me said
it was only a stump, I turned to pass on. The glint of my
rifle barrel must then have caught in the sun, for a noble stag
started up from his lair, and without pausing for a second
wheeled round and clattered away. My hasty shot missed
him clean, and he then plunged into a ravine that lay at the
back of the hollow he had been in. I followed across, think-
ing I might find blood, but there was no sign, and I turned
for home, swearing to expend a bullet in future on every teak
stump that bore the most distant resemblance to a deer's head.
Both T. and I were often mistaken in these hills in the same
manner, and have frequently gone up within a few yards of
a stump to make sure. The resemblance is so very close
between the two objects that I cannot but think that the
instinct of the animal leads him to dispose of his head so as
to resemble the bunch of teak. Even the motion of the large
ears of the sdmbar, which they restrain only when actually in
the presence of danger, answers exactly to the stirring of a
dried teak leaf in a light breeze. Indeed no one can hunt in
these scantily covered hills without wondering at the extreme
difficulty of making out such large animals as s&mbar, bisoo,
and bears on the open hill-side. The bison and bear precisely
resemble the large black trap boulders that thickly strew
every hill ; and thus the glaring contrast of their black hides
with the bright yellow grass frequently attracts no attention
whatever. T. again returned without a stag, but he had shot
a fine fat young doe for the pot.

On my way back I knocked over a four-horned antelope,

THE TEAK REGION. 239

with very perfect horns, a long distance across a valley with
the " Express." These little creatures are very common in the
hills we were hunting in, living solitary or in small groups in
all parts of the range. The female is hornless, while the buck
has four distinct sheathed horns. The posterior pair are four
or five inches long, and set upon high pedicles covered with
hair. The anterior pair are generally mere knobs, and never
exceed in length an inch and three-fourths. In some speci-
mens they are even absent altogether. The animal is found
throughout India ; and appears to be generally without the
anterior horns in the South. Here, in Central India, some
have them and some have not. I never could see any other
difference between them ; but it is not altogether certain that
there are not two distinct species. The preponderance of
females appears to be very great, quite as great as in the case
of the ordinary Indian antelope, though, from their not con-
gregating in large herds, it is not so much observed. To kill
a buck at all is rare, and to kill one with four well developed
horns is much rarer still. They seem to be very retiring little
creatures, never coming to the crops, and moving very little
out of the limited area where they find food and water. There
is scarcely a water-hole in all these regions which is not fre-
quented by one or more, and they are nearly certain to be
found during the day lying in the nearest patch of grass.
They make little forms like those of the sambar, and allow
themselves almost to be trodden on before they start. They
run for a short distance at an incredible velocity, with their
necks low and making themselves as small as possible, till they
suddenly stop, but always with such art that a tree stump, or
mound, or thick bush shall screen them from the observer ;
then another short dash, and another halt, and so on till out
of sight. They are nearly sure to be found in the same place

240 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTRAL INDIA.

next day however. When seen walking about undisturbed in
the jungle their pace is most curious, raising their feet absurdly
high as if stepping over large stones, and putting them down
with a fastidious delicacy and softness as if they were walking
on eggs, a simultaneous " bobbing " action of the head and
neck giving them altogether very much the gait of "that
generous bird the hen." They live on the green shoots of
bushes, young grass, and fallen jungle fruits ; and their venison
is coarse and tasteless.

The same afternoon two of the Bheels who had been out
scouting in a very solitary part of the hills to the east of the
valley came in and reported a large herd of bison as always
to be found where they had been. Nothing is more difficult
than to get really reliable news about the haunts of animals,
until you can get the few jungle people who do know
thoroughly enlisted in your interests. If you ask any one
else, or even them when they don't care to tell you, ten to
one they will charge their faces with a stare of utter vacuity,
and ask you "if it is not a jungle," implying that, if you
allow so much, of course you must know where to find beasts.
The little block of hills we were going to visit is quite shut
in from all the ordinary lines of travelling in these parts.
There is no road into it by which carts can be taken ; cattle
are never sent to graze there by the neighbouring villagers ;
and thus no one ever goes into it, excepting a single family of
Bheels who are the hereditary Turvees* of an ancient village,
said to have existed in the palmy days of Mahomedan rule in
one of its valleys, and now represented by half a dozen Mhowa
trees, the fruit of which these Bheels still go annually to
gather. Two of the family happened to be among our scouts,

* The Turvee is the chief of a Bheel clan or settlement ; and all heads of Bheel
villages in this part of the country are so called by courtesy.

THE TEAK EEGION. 241

and knew every inch of the country. The one who brought
us the news rejoiced in the name of Jhingra Or " The Shrimp;"
and really, by some fortuitous accident, his long attenuated
arms and legs, and curiously shrivelled features, with a few
long feeler-like bristles in the place of a beard, gave him a
very strong resemblance to that innocent crustacean. The
name of the other, who had been left perched in a tree to
watch the beeves, cannot be handed down to fame, having
been lost in the secondary appellation of " The Skunk." I
must say the olfactory powers of the bison lost greatly in my
estimation when I found that they had remained quietly
grazing for half a day within a mile or so of this most odorous
of Turvees ! The Shrimp was very anxious that we should
proceed there and then to attack the bison, urging how un-
comfortable the Skunk would be if left clinging to the upper
branches of a tree all night, and patting his shrivelled stomach
to show how delighted they both would be to be at close
quarters with a bison steak. We pitied the Skunk, and
pointed out to the Shrimp a quarter of sdmbar venison hang-
ing up from which he might satisfy his own cravings ; but
we had no idea of starting off after bison six miles away in
that country at three o'clock in the afternoon.

It wanted a good deal of arrangement, in fact, to hunt that
country ; and we never found out the proper way to do it till
just as we were leaving it. As it was we sent round a tent
and the needful supplies by a very circuitous road, down our
valley to the plain, along the foot of the hills for a good many
miles, and then up another valley that was said to run into
the heart of the bison country. The people had directions to
go as far up the valley as they could find water, and pitch
there. We were to go straight across next day, and, after
hunting up the bison, come down the head of the further

242 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTRAL INDIA.

valley to the camp ; and dearly we paid for giving such
indefinite instructions before we were done.

Next morning we started under the guidance of the Shrimp,
and mounted on two redoubtable Deccanee ponies, who we
had found could go in these hills wherever we could and
saved us a good lot of hard work in the sun. The way lay
up a long burnt valley, in which tracks of s&mbar, and the
pug of a large tiger who had been following them during the
night, were plainly visible. It was too late, however, to see
any game out in such open country ; and we wound up the
rugged pathway leading to the top of the hill without having
come across a single animal.

We now came on to a tolerably level plateau, and rode on
for some miles, keeping a sharp look-out for animals. The
plateau was beginning to shelve down towards a ravine
filled with clumps of bamboo, beyond which rose another flat-
topped ridge, when my eye rested on a spot of denser shadow
in the thin salei jungle that topped the further ridge. Pull-
ing up to use the binocular, I discovered the whole herd
of bison grazing quietly in the cover. We were a
couple of miles away at least, and silently withdrew into a
hollow that would lead us down into the ravine. T. and I
now advanced, with the Shrimp, leaving our ponies and
the other Bheels to follow us on hearing a shot. We had a long
hot stalk, and on reaching the plateau found that the herd
had disappeared. The place was evidently a regular resort
of the wild cattle, the long grass being twisted about into
wisps by their feet, and all the bushes broken and grazed away.
We stalked over the plateau with cocked rifles, the Shrimp
swarming trees to look out ahead ; but no beeves did we see,
except a cow and her little calf making off over a distant rising
ground at a slow trot, the sunlight glancing every now and

THE TEAK REGION. 243

again on their beautifully bronzed hides. There were so
many tracks that to follow the herd was hopeless ; the Skunk
was nowhere to be seen ; and so we coasted round the edge
of the plateau, peering down among the bamboo clumps in
the hope of discovering the herd. After going about half
round I suddenly almost ran up against a cow in some long
grass ; and immediately T., who was a little to my right,
called out that the whole herd was standing down below
among the bamboos. My cow had bolted off in a great
fright, and I ran up to T. in time to see ten or twelve bison
scrambling up the opposite side of the ravine a long shot
from where we were. A bull brought up the rear, and there
was another covered by the clump of cows ; so we opened fire
on the former, and the third shot broke, his leg. He had the
other shots too, and, after limping on a bit, staggered and fell
over down the hill. Being much fatigued by the heat of a
very sultry April day, we waited there till the people came
up with our leathern water-sack to have a drink, and then
went over to the bull, who was still alive but unable to rise.
The Skunk, who had luckily been exactly in the line of the
herd's retreat, now came running up, and, standing afar off
by special request, told us whither they had gone.

There was a mighty black bull among them, whose horns
we determined to have, if possible ; so, sending the ponies,
and with them, alas ! the water, under the guidance of the
Skunk, to wait us at a point in the valley beyond for
which we thought the herd was making, we started off on
their tracks. In going along the edge of a spin: T. saw three
or four of the bison standing under the ridge of the hill, and
we went round to stalk them. It was a long way and the heat
was really fearful, so that we were not perhaps so cautious in
our approach as we should have been, and the result was that

E 2

244 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTEAL INDIA.

before we got up we heard the alarmed snort of the sentry,
and the crash of the herd through the jungle. We now
walked along a ridge between two deep valleys on the
right hand that in which the camp should be, and on the left
another leading down to where we had started from in the
morning. We saw the startled herd far below us in the
latter, crossing over at a swinging trot, and afterwards
mounting the range beyond. The Shrimp said they were
doubtless making for " Dhowtea " ! Further on, the Shrimp
pointed to a motionless coal-black form standing against the
sky-line, which the telescope showed to be a mighty bull.
He stood for a few minutes till the cows came up and passed
across him, and then stalked solemnly after them. He, too,
was no doubt going to Dhowtea ! We were walking on dis-
gusted when my eye caught another jet-black figure among
the trees ahead of us, and we crouched into nothing as
another bull walked slowly into an open space about half a
mile ahead. After gazing round in every direction he slowly
began to descend to the same valley. He, too, appeared, like
the rest of them, to have started for Dhowtea. But he was not
there yet, and we determined at least to give him a run for
it; so, waiting till he was concealed by the fall of the
ground, we doubled down a rocky watercourse to cut him
off, if possible, from the valley. We succeeded ; for he evi-
dently got our wind, and sheered off from the pass down to the
river, walking slowly and magnificently along the edge of a
precipitous fall, apparently looking for another way down.
There was none such, however ; and we followed him along
in short running stalks, gaining on him every time he got
hidden for a minute by inequalities of the ground. The
hill we were on gradually narrowed to the saddleback form
so common in this range, and not far ahead seemed to ter-

THE TEAK EEGION. 245

minate in an abrupt descent to the valley. There seemed to
be no doubt we Jiad him in a trap if we would only have
patience ; for he must either take that header to reach the
valley, or charge back along the ridge over our mangled
corpses ! He became very cautious as he neared the end,
zigzagging across the narrow ridge, and using all his senses to
detect the pursuer he evidently suspected. We were slowly
roasting on the bare shadeless sheet of basalt that topped the
ridge, lying as we had to do prone on it to escape his sight.
I would have given a rupee per drop for the contents of our
water-sack just then. At last, after what seemed an age, the
tall black form of the bull slowly sank over the end of the
hill. He was going down, then, after all, and there was
nothing for it but a rush. A rush we accordingly made ;
but suddenly pulled up, much taken aback, as we saw the
bull again emerge and stand in full sight of us, though much
covered about the body by scrubby salei stems, on the ex-
treme point of the ridge. It was really a most ticklish situa-
tion. Had he charged, and our shots failed to stop him, T.
might have escaped with a few broken bones by rolling
down on his side of T the hill ; but on mine there was a sheer
descent of a hundred feet, and the ridge itself offered not the
slightest shelter. But we each had a double-barrelled, breech-
loading, twelve-bore rifle a battery against which few animals
can stand. I saw T. sighting him, and heard the bull emit a
low tremulous moan that sounded like mischief. His vitals
were protected from me by the salei stems, so I kept my double
shot in reserve in case of accidents. The ball thudded against
something, as it turned out probably a salei tree ; and the bull at'
once disappeared over the edge. We now ran to the spot, and
saw him below thundering down the steep hill-side at a tremen-
dous pace* Utterly winded by running, and half dead with

246 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTEAL INDIA.

heat and thirst, the remaining three shots had no effect ; and
then we sat down perfectly exhausted, to watch the bull as he
gained the valley and crossed the stream-bed halting for a few
seconds under a shady tree to look back ere he set himself to
mount the further slope, which he did in the line taken by
the other bison. He, too, was fairly off for Dhowtea and, as
it seemed and we hoped seeing that we could not have him,
without a wound.

Life was now a blank. The Shrimp had lingered far
behind, and there was no one to show us the way, while the
Skunk was goodness knows where with the ponies and water.
So we slowly and sadly descended the hill to our own valley,
and walked on in the probable direction of camp, chewing grass
in our speechless mouths. About a mile further on we were
joined by the villainous Shrimp, who had taken a line of his
own for home when he saw us bent on pushing the big bull to
extremities. There was no water in all this valley, he said,
excepting one pool miles ahead where our camp should be.
After getting the direction, we started him off to find the
ponies and water and bring them to meet us. It was now
mid-day, and the sun was blazing hot a quivering haze
that made the eyes twinkle playing along the surface of the
earth. After plodding along for some miles more, we came
to a pathway by which we thought the ponies must pass ;
and there we sat down completely exhausted in the
scanty shade of a wild fig-tree. A mhowa grew close by,
and some of its luscious flowers tempted us to try if they
would assuage our raging thirst. Bah ! never was anything
more horrible than the clammy taste and fetid odour of that
sickening product. Our mouths were now glued up as well
as parched, and when at last the people came we could only
make signs for the water, and replied not at all to the Skunk

THE TEAK REGION. 247

when he assured us that a big bear had been besieging him
and the ponies on the road for ever so long not very far from
where we were. After a draught that no one could appreciate
unless he has hunted the "bounding bison" through an April day
in the trap hills of Nimar, we jumped on the welcome ponies
and galloped up the valley to our tent. Kevived by
breakfast and cold claret cup, we spent the rest of the day
in skinning and preserving the head of the bison we had shot.
A fine solemn look have the features of a dead bull. The
horns alone are nothing of a trophy compared to the complete
head, which should if possible be saved entire.*

Next morning our Bheels were out early, and we ourselves
made for the hill of Alf-Bal-K6t, or the "High Exalted
Fort," which being translated means the ruinous little mud
keep of one of these pensioned Bheel chiefs. They are all
" R&jas " of course, and maintain standing armies of one or
two ragamuffins apiece. We always had the " king " of the
territory we were in in our camp, and it was really dis-
appointing to find how little Hia Majesty differed from
any other of these debauched-looking, opium-eating, and
utterly ignorant and brutal Mahomedan Bheels. Our
shikaris and scouts Shrimp, Skunk, and Co. were ordinary
unconverted Bheels, and far superior in every respect to
the converts, who, however, looked down upon them as an
unregenerate lot.

We had not proceeded far towards the foot of the hills when
a Bheel on a hill-top waving a cloth caught our sight ; and on
going up we saw about five or six stag sdmbar slowly wend-
ing their way along the far side of a valley towards the

* I cannot speak too highly of the artistic manner in which some of these heads
have been set np by Mr. Edwin Ward, Naturalist, of 49, Wigmore Street. A
woodcut from a photograph of one of them was appended to Chapter IIL

248 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTRAL INDIA.

interior of the hills. Our yesterday's shooting had no doubt
cleared this part of the hills of all the bison, so we made
after these deer, watching them over the rising grounds and
then running close in behind them. At last we saw them
apparently halted for the day in a shady place. Two of them
appeared to have first-rate antlers, and we stalked round a
long way to get in on them from above, and without giving
them our wind. We blundered it, however, coming down at
the wrong point, and the herd broke a long way to our left
hand. T. fired into their backs as they struggled up the
opposite slope in a confused gang, but without apparent
effect ; and the last of them was disappearing over the brow
when I took a long shot at him with my single " express." It
was two hundred and fifty yards at the least, but I had often
before killed as far with this rifle, and down he dropped.
Crossing over, we found the stag lying dead ; but though it
was one of the two we had marked his antlers were very
inferior. Nothing is more deceptive than the apparent size of
smbar s horns while stalking : as they have all the same
number of points, the guide to size and quality afforded by
the branches of the red deer is here wanting. On examina-
tion we found this to be still another instance of the curious
occurrences before mentioned; for it wasT.'s ball after all that
had killed him, while mine had missed !

After this we made a long round through the hills looking for
bison, but without success ; and were descending towards the
camp by a long narrow spur of bare basalt, when we saw the
Skunk near the top of an isolated eminence rising out of the
valley violently signalling to us ; and soon after we were scan-
ning the proportions of a fine bull bison lying down on the
further side under the shade of a small tree. It was a very easy
stalk, and we crept in to about seventy yards in the grass. T.

THE TEAK KEGION. 249

fired both barrels at him as he lay, which is always a mistake,
the vital regions being then greatly shielded by the enormous
development of the shoulder and dorsal ridge. He sprang up
and plunged away across our front, swerving round towards us
in a fashion that made the Bheels take to their heels. On
receiving my shots, however, he turned again ; and, executing
a most extraordinary series of plunges, with his head between
his fore-legs and hind-quarters and tail in the air, disappeared
down a small ravine. We were soon up, and followed along
the side. I was rather ahead, and found him lying very
sick in the bottom of the hollow. When he perceived me he
staggered up and shook his horns in a threatening manner ;
but it was all up with the poor brute, and a shot in the neck
rolled him over finally on his back. I think if our yester-
day's bull had been as viciously inclined as this fellow we
might have had more of it than we bargained for on that
narrow ledge.

We had to return next day to the station, and bid adieu to
these singular hills. The hot season was fairly on, when no one
can long endure the exertion of hunting on foot the sdmbar and
bison in hilly country. My readers will probably think I have
described to them but poor sport compared to what they have
often read of before. It is so easy to throw in half a dozen
bull bison in a day's sport by a stroke of the pen that the
temptation to meet the wishes of the reader is difficult to.
resist. I have, however, stuck to the exact facts of a by no
means heavy bag, on purpose to give a more accurate idea of
what such shooting really means namely very hard work
and much exposure for an average of certainly not more than
one head of game a day, and often much less. One of the
hardest workers and best shots I ever knew, who had only time
for a few weeks' bison and s^mbar shooting in the year and

250 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTRAL INDIA.

then went at it tooth and nail, told me he was always proud
if he could keep his average up to one a day for the time he
was out ; and I am certain that very few ever do so much.

(Sambar Horns. Scale, one tenth.)

By taking every chance at cow bison and doe sambar of course
the bag could be largely increased ; and I heard of two men
who one year murdered in this way twenty-eight bison in a
week. This is not sport, of course, nor are the performers
sportsmen. The bison is already, it would seem, diminishing

THE TEAK EEGION. 251

in numbers ; certainly his range is becoming greatly con-
tracted. He is one of the most harmless animals in the whole
world to the industry of man, and, fairly hunted, affords per-
haps the best sport in India ; it would be a pity, then, if
his numbers should be .unduly diminished by unsportsmanlike
conduct.

CHAPTEE VII.

THE TIGEE.

Tiger- shooting in the hot Weather Different Sorts of Tigers The Game-
killer The Cattle-eater The Man-eater Haunts of the Tiger Destruc-
tiveness of Tigers Native Shikaris Beating for Tigers Shooting on
Poot Shooting with an Elephant Difficulty of Finding Tigers Method
of Hunting Search for Information Viceregal Tiger-shooting A Tiger
in a Tobacco-field The Hot Weather Camp The Village Shikari -Spy-
ing out the Land Nocturnal Life of Wild Animals Tyranny of the
Tiger Tiger Tracks The Monkeys Inform Death of a Tiger Pranks of
Juvenile Tigers The Monkeys Prevaricate Almost too Close Singular
Effect of a Shell An Abrupt Introduction A Man-eating Tigress The
Monkeys are Eight Alarm Cries of Animals A Beef-eater Slain Terrific
Heat Size of Tigers Baits for Tigers Caste Objections Tiger Shikaris
The " Lalla" He is killed by a Tiger Eevenge What a Shikari should not
be The Tiger in his Lair Trained Elephants Purchasing Elephants Their
" Points" Selection of a Hunting Elephant A Man-killer Entering Ele-
phants Elephantine Vices Keeping Elephants A Bag of Tigers Eavages
of a Man-eating Tiger Unfortunate Delay Denizens of a Mango Grove
Sharp Treatment effects a Cure Start after the Man-eater Deserted Vil-
lages A Pilgrim Devoured Unsuccessful Hunt A Bait Proposed
Another Victim On the Trail A long Day's Work Eenew the Chase
Exciting Sport An Elephant killed by a Tiger Find the Man-eater He
charges Home Blown up by a Shell Elephant Anecdote Destructive-
ness of Tigers Proposals for their Extermination What can be Done
Get Jungle Fever Eeturn to Puchmurree A cool Climate Completion
of "Bison Lodge" Burst of the Monsoon Advantages of Puchmurree
Selected as a Sanitarium Eeturn to Jubbulpur.

While wandering about in 1862, during the months of
April and May, in the teak forests of the Betul district, I de-
voted a day now and then to the sport of tiger-shooting ; and
it was the laudable custom of the forest officers to spare, if
possible every year, a few weeks during the height of the

THE TIGER. 253

hot season for the purpose of making an impression on the
numerous tigers which at that time rendered working in the
forests and carrying timber so dreaded by the natives, and
consequently costly to Government.

Although there is much in the sport of tiger-hunting that
renders it inferior as a mere exercise, or as an effort of skill,
to some other pursuits of these regions (for many a man has
killed his forty or fifty tigers who has never succeeded in
bagging, by fair stalking, a single bull bison or a stag sdmbar),
yet there is a stirring of the blood in attacking an animal
before whom every other beast of the forest quails, and un-
armed man is helpless as the mouse under the paw of a cat
a creature at the same time matchless in beauty of form and
colour, and in terrible power of offensive armature which
draws men to its continued pursuit after that of every other
animal has ceased to afford sufficient excitement to undergo
the toil of hunting in a tropical country.

It will have been gathered from previous descriptions that
the hot season, the height of which is in April and May, is
the most favourable time for hunting the tiger. Then the water-
supply of the country is at its lowest ebb ; and the tiger, being
very impatient of thirst, seeks the lowest valleys, where, too,
much of the game he preys on has congregated, and where
the village cattle are regularly watered. In Central India
tigers vary a good deal in their habits and range ; and they
may be roughly classed into those which habitually prey on
wild animals, those which live chiefly on domestic cattle, and
the few that confine their diet to the human species. Not,
of course, that any tiger adheres invariably to the same sort of
prey. But there are a large number that appear to prefer
each of the former methods of existence, and a few that select
the latter.

254 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTRAL INDIA.

The regular game-killing tiger is retired in his habits, living
chiefly among the hills, retreating readily from man, and is alto-
gether a very innocuous animal, if not even positively beneficial
in keeping down the herds of deer and nilgai that prey upon
the crops. His hot- weather haunt is usually some rocky ravine
among the hills, where pools of water remain, and shelving
rocks or overhanging trees afford him shelter from the sun.
He is a light-made beast (called by shikdxis a lodhia bdgh),
very active and endurhig, and, from this as well as his shy-
ness, generally difficult to bring to bag.

The cattle-lifter, again, is usually an older and heavier
animal (called oontia bdgh, from his faintly striped coat re-
sembling the colour of a camel), very fleshy, and indisposed
to severe exertion. In the cool season he follows the herds of
cattle wherever they go to graze ; and then, no doubt, in the
long damp grass brings many a head of game also to bag. In
the hot weather, however, the openness of the forest and the
numerous fallen leaves preclude *a lazy monster of this sort
from getting at game ; and he then locates himself in some
strong cover, close to water, and in the neighbourhood of
where the cattle are taken to drink and graze about on the
greener herbage then found by the sides of streams, and,
watching his opportunity, kills a bullock as he requires it,
and drags it into his cover. Of course a good many head of
game are also killed by such a tiger when they come to drink,
but so long as he can easily procure cattle he does not trouble
himself to hunt for them.

Native shikans recognize more or less two kinds of tigers, with
the names I have given above. It may be matter for specu-
lation which is cause, and which is effect. Is it that as tigers
grow old and heavy they take to the easier life of cattle-lift-
ing ? Or has the difference of their pursuits, continued for

THE TIGEE. 255

generations, actually resulted in separate breeds, each more
adapted for its hereditary method of existence ? I myself be-
lieve the former to be the truth, and that there really is only
one variety of tiger in all peninsular India. It is only to ex-
treme specimens that the above distinctive names are applied ;
and the great majority are of an intermediate character, and not
distinguished by any particular name. The larger and older
the animal the more yellow his coat becomes, and the fainter
and further apart are the stripes. Small tigers are sometimes
so crowded with the black stripes as almost to approach the
appearance of a rnelanoid variety. A few specimens of white
tigers with fulvous stripes have also been mentioned, though
I never heard of one in Central India. The tiger, like all
animals that I am acquainted with, is subject to slight varia-
tions of appearance and conformation amongst individuals ;
and local circumstances, and perhaps " natural selection," may
tend to give the race something of peculiarity in different
localities. But none of these has as yet, I believe, reached the
point of even permanent variation.

It is useless to devote much time to hunting the hill tigers
that prey on game alone. They are so scattered over extensive
tracts of jungle, and are so active and wary, that it is only by
accident that they are ever brought to bag.

Favourably situated covers are almost certain to hold one or
more cattle-eating tigers during the hot weather ; and how-
ever many are killed, others will shortly occupy their place. A
favourite resort for these tigers is in the dense thickets formed
of j&man, karondd, and tamarisk evergreen bushes whose
shade is thickest in the hot weather, and which grow in islands
and on the banks of the partially dried-up stream-beds. A
thick and extensive cover of this sort, particularly if the
neighbouring river banks are furnished, as is often the case,

256 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTRAL INDIA.

with a thick scrubby jungle of thorny bushes, through which
ravines lead up to the open country where cattle graze, is a
certain find in the hot season. Sometimes considerable gather-
ings of tigers take place in such favourable places. I have
twice known five, and once seven, tigers to be driven out of
one cover at the same time ; and I think the season of love-
making has something to do with these meetings. More
usually it is a solitary male tiger, or a tiger and tigress, or
a tigress with her grown-up cubs, that are found in one
place. The tigress cannot breed more than once in three
years, I believe ; for the cubs almost invariably stay with her
till they are over two years old, and nearly full grown. The
greatest number of cubs I have ever found with a tigress was
three. These were small, however, and I never saw more than
two grown-up along with the female.

A single tiger will kill an ox about every five days, if not
disturbed, eating, if very hungry, both hind quarters the first
night. He will not go further than he can help after this
meal, but will return again next night to the carcass, which
in the meantime he often stores away under a bank, or covers
with leaves, etc. This time he will finish all but the head ;
next night he will clean the bones ; and then for a couple of
days he will not take the trouble to hunt for a meal, though
he will strike down another quarry if it comes near him.
Should he have been fired at, however, when thus returning
to his kill, he will frequently abandon such measures of eco-
nomy, and kill a fresh bullock whenever he is hungry. A
tigress and grown cubs are also far more destructive, finishing
a bullock in a night, and like the daughter of the horse-
leech always crying for more. The young tigers seem to
rejoice in the exercise of their growing strength, springing
up against trees and scratching the bark as high as they

THE TIGEK. 257

can reach by way of gymnastics, and, if they get among a
herd of cattle, striking down as many as they can get hold of.
The tiger very seldom kills his prey by the " sledge-hammer
stroke" of his fore paw, so often talked about, the usual
way being to seize with the teeth by the nape of the neck,
and at the same time use the paws to hold the victim, and
give a purchase for the wrench that dislocates the neck.

Tigers that prey on cattle are generally perfectly well known
to the cowherds and others who resort to their neighbourhood.
They seldom molest men, and are often driven away from
their prey, after killing it, by the unarmed herds. Frequently
they are known by particular names ; and they really seem
in many cases to live among the villagers and their herds
much like a semi-domesticated animal, though, from a mutual
consent to avoid direct interviews as much as possible, they
are chiefly known by their tracks in the river beds and by
their depredations on the cattle. They do not, of course,#con-
fine their attacks to the cattle of a single village, usually
having a whole circle of them where they are on visiting
terms, and among which they distribute their favours with
great impartiality. The damage they do on the whole
is very great, sixty or seventy head of cattle, worth from
5 to 10 apiece, being destroyed by one such animal
in the course of a year. Generally there is at least one native
in every circle of villages whose profession is that of
" shikdri," or hunter, and who is always on the outlook to
shoot the village tiger. When he hears of a bullock having
been killed he proceeds to the spot, and, erecting a platform
of leafy boughs in the nearest tree, watches by night for the
return of the tiger, who, though he may kill and lap the blood
during the day, never feeds before sunset. Generally he does
not get a shot, the tiger being extremely suspicious when

258 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTBAL INDIA.

approaching his " kill," and the shikaris being usually such
bunglers at their work as to disturb him by the noise of their
preparations. Often he misses when he does shoot, the jungle-
king being somewhat trying to the nerves ; and if he kills one
tiger in the course of the year he considers himself lucky.
His weapon is a long matchlock, which he loads with six
" fingers " of powder and two bullets. These fly a little apart,
and if they hit are usually the death of the tiger. His
method of shooting is sometimes imitated by lazy European
sportsmen.

Another way of hunting ordinary tigers is to beat them out
of their mid-day retreat with a strong gang of beaters, sup-
plied with drums, fireworks, etc., the guns themselves being
posted at likely spots ahead. This plan is often successful,
when the operations are directed by someone who knows the
ground. Frequently, however, the tiger is not found at all,
and b moreover he very commonly manages to escape at the
sides, or break back through the beat, without coining up to
the guns at all. It has also the disadvantage of exposing the
beaters to much danger ; and there are few who shoot in this
fashion who have not had more than one beater killed before
them. To stalk in on a tiger in his retreat on foot is generally
impracticable, as a man commands so little of a view in thick
cover that he rarely sees the tiger in time for a shot. In some
places, however, where tigers lie in rocky places inaccessible to
elephants, this is the only way to do ; and a very certain one
it then is, there being generally little cover and plenty of
commanding elevations whence to see and shoot. The best
way of hunting the tiger is undoubtedly that usually adopted in
Central India namely to bring in the aid of the trained
elephant, and follow and shoot him in his mid-day retreat.
Anyone who thinks he has only got to mount himself on the

THE TIGEE. 259

back of an elephant, and go to a jungle where he has heard of
tigers, to make sure of killing one, will find himself very much
mistaken on trying. A number of sportsmen with a large line of
elephants may kill tigers if they simply beat through likely
covers for a long enough time ; and many tigers are thus killed,
or by driving the jungle with beaters, without the possession of
any skill in woodcraft whatever. But no sort of hunting requires
more careful arrangements, greater knowledge of the habits of
the animal, perseverance, and good shooting, than the pursuit
of the tiger by a single sportsman with a single elephant.

At the outset of one's experience in forest life it is impossible
to avoid the belief that the tiger of story is about to show
himself at every step one takes in thick jungle ; and it is not
till every effort to meet with him has been used in vain
that one realises how very little danger from tigers attends
a mere rambler in the jungles. During ten years of
pretty constant roaming about on foot in the most tigerish
localities of the Central Provinces, I have only once come
across a tiger when I was not out shooting, and only twice
more when I was not actually searching for tigers to shoot.
In truth, excepting in the very haunts of a known man-eater,
there is no danger whatever in traversing any part of the
jungles of this, or I believe any other, part of India.

Some people affect to despise the practice of using elephants
in following tigers, and talk a good deal about shooting them
on foot. As regards danger to the sportsman, nine-tenths of
the tigers said to be shot on foot are really killed from trees
or rocks, where the sportsman is quite secure. The only
danger then is to the unfortunate beaters, if used ; and when
this is not the case the sport generally resolves itself into an
undignified sneaking about the outskirts of the covers, in the
hope of getting an occasional pot-shot from a secure position. In

s 2

260 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTEAL INDIA.

this method of hunting many more tigers are wounded than are
finally secured, the only danger lying in following up a wounded
animal, which is usually avoided ; and thus an innocuous animal
is often converted into a scourge of the country side. A very
few sportsmen do, for a short period of their lives, make a prac-
tice of hunting and shooting tigers really on foot ; but they are
seldom very successful, and sooner or later get killed, or have
such narrow escapes as to cure them of such silly folly for the
remainder of their days. A man on foot has no chance what-
ever in thick jungle with a tiger that is bent on killing him.
He cannot see a yard before him, and is himself conspicuous
to every sense of the brute, who can completely hide in a
place that looks scarcely enough to conceal a rat, and can
move at will through the thickest cover without the slightest
sound or stir. At the same time the sportsman who as a rule
uses an elephant in thick cover will find quite enough oppor-
tunities, in special cases, of testing his nerve on foot, particu-
larly if he marks down and tracks his own game instead of
employing shikans to do so. Even on the elephant all is not
perfect safety, instances being not rare of elephants being com-
pletely pulled down by tigers, while accidents from the run-
ning away of the elephant in tree jungle are still more com-
mon. Much of the excitement of the sport depends on the
sportsman's method of attacking the tiger. Some men box a
tiger up in a corner and push in at all hazards, getting
repeatedly charged, while others keep at a distance, circling
round and offering doors of escape to the tiger, and never get
a charge at all. As a rule, when on an elephant in fair ground,
the object should be to get the tiger to charge instead of
letting him sneak away, as the hunt is then ended in a short
and exciting encounter, while if let away it may be hours
before he is found again, if he ever is at all.

THE TIGER. 261

The first difficulty is to get reliable information of the
presence of tigers in a particular neighbourhood. A great
many reasons, besides the simple one to which it is usually
attributed, namely that " they are cursed niggers," combine to
make the natives in most places very unwilling to give infor-
mation about tigers. Firstly, it is likely to bring down a large
encampment of " Sahibs " on their village, which they, very
justly in most cases, dislike. The military officer who scorns
to learn the rural language, and his train of overbearing
swindling servants, who fully carry out the principle that
from him who hath not what little he hath shall be taken
away, and that without a price too, stinks in the nostrils of
the poor inhabitants of the tracts where tigers are found. The
tiger himself is in fact far more endurable than those who
encamp over against them to make war upon him, and de-
mand from them grain and other supplies which they have
not, and carts, etc., to carry the camp, which they want to
use for other urgent purposes. Then they fear that they will
be made to beat for the tiger both those who are willing and
those who are not with a considerable chance of getting
killed, and very little of being paid for their services. There
are few well-known resorts of tigers where some story of the
sort has not been handed down among the people. The first
essential towards getting sport is to conciliate the willing
co-operation of the people, and make it plain to them that
your arrangements for supplies are such as to throw no un-
bearable burden on a poor country, and that your method of
hunting is not one to lead to the constant risk of life. Such,
however, is the want of sympathy often engendered in the
naturally generous Englishman by the fact of his becoming a
member of the ruling caste in India, that sportsmen will some-
times be heard on their return from an unsuccessful expedition,

262 THE HIGHLANDS OE CENTEAL INDIA.

in which they had harried a quiet population who did not want
their tigers killed at all on their terms, cursing and swearing
at them, and perhaps even expressing little regret that a few
of them had been sacrificed to their bungling ardour. On the
other hand a properly organised expedition, where the sports-
man provides his own supplies and his means of hunting the
tigers, is certain to meet with every co-operation from the
people. They will even crowd in to help in driving the
jungles, when they know they are to work for a good sports-
man and shot who will not unnecessarily risk their lives.

With luck and first-rate arrangements a few tigers may be
got in the cold weather. A good many persons will remember
a hunt in the month of January, 1861, when we secured a
royal tiger for the Governor- General of India, on his first visit
to the centre of his dominions, within a mile or two of the
cantonment of Jubbulpur. I mounted sentry over that beast
for nearly a week, girding him in a little hill with a belt of fires,
and feeding him with nightly kine, till half a hundred elephants,
carrying the cream of a vice-regal camp, swept him out into
the plain, where he fell riddled by a storm of bullets from
several hundred virgin rifles. He had the honour of being
painted by a Landseer, by the blaze of torchlight, under the
shadow of the British standard ; and my howdah bore witness
for many a day, in a bullet hole through both sides of it, to
the accuracy of aim of some gallant member of the staff !

At this season tigers sometimes venture very close to large
towns, and even to the European stations. Several tigers have
been shot within the walls of the town and station of Mandla,
and in the " Pdu " gardens round about ; and at Seoni, in
1864, I formed one of a party who drove a large tiger out of a
tobacco field, within a stone's throw of a considerable village,
and shot him in the main street thereof. There was nothing

THE TIGEK. 263

but fields of short green wheat for many miles round about
this place ; and the only reason we could discover for so
singular an appearance of a tiger among the habitations of
man was that he had received a slight wound a few days
before.

But it is not until the greater part of the grass has been
burnt in the jungles, and a hot sun has contracted the supply
of water to the neighbourhood of the great rivers, that regular
tiger hunting can be commenced with a fair prospect of success.
At this season, having discovered a tract where tigers are
reported, a good central place should be selected for a camp,
in the deep shade of some mango grove near a village, or
under the still more grateful canopy of some spreading banyan
tree. The graciousness of nature in furnishing such plentiful
shade at this arid season cannot but be admired. It is just
at the time when all nature begins to quiver in the fierce sun
and burning blasts of April that the banyan and peepul figs,
and the ever present mango, begin to throw out a fresh crop
of leaves, those of the first tree being then moreover charged
with a thick milky juice that forms an impenetrable non-con-
ductor to the sun's rays.

Kiding up to his camp, pitched in the cool shadowy depths
of some grove like this, the sportsman will probably find
assembled the village headman, with a small train of culti-
vators and cowherds, waiting to receive him with some simple
offering a pot of milk, or a bunch of plantains from his
garden. If he is welcome, tales will not be wanting of the
neighbouring tigers how Earn Singh's cow was taken out of
the herd a few days before, or Bhyron the village watch, going
on an errand, went down for a drink to the river, and there
came on a tigress with her cubs bathing by its brink. That
youth himself will chime in, and graphically describe how he

264 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTKAL INDIA.

took to a tree and was kept there all night the same being
probably a euphemism for a night passed with some boon
companions at a neighbouring grog-shop. The usual haunts
of the tiger will be described ; and the size of his footprints
and width of his head be drawn to a greatly exaggerated
scale. The shikari of the neighbourhood will be present, or
can be sent for a long gaunt figure clad in a ragged shirt of
Mhowa green, with a dingy turban twisted round his shaggy
locks, and furnished with the usual long small-bored match-
lock, with its bulky powder-flask of bison horn, and smaller
supply of fine priming powder kept carefully in a horn of the
gazelle. Eupees, or a prospect of them, will be wanted to
loosen his tongue, and then his statements will likely be
studiously vague. His hearty services must be secured, how-
ever, for he alone knows intimately the ways and haunts of
the tiger, and he alone will have the pluck to accompany you
or your shikari to mark him down. If you are known to be
a good paymaster he will willingly serve you, otherwise you
must promise him a handsome douceur in case of success, to
induce him to spoil his own chance of claiming the Govern-
ment reward. This reward was, till financial difficulties re-
duced it to half, fifty rupees (5) ; and, as all sportsmen were
entitled to claim it, it used to go far to cover the cost of the
hunt. I used always to divide it equally between the village
shikari, if he worked well, and my own shikari and elephant
driver. Now, however, the sportsman will find himself a good
deal out of pocket by every tiger he kills.

More precise information must be sought for by the sports-
man himself. The village shikdri knows nothing of our system
of hunting by attacking the tiger in his midday lair. His
personal experience of him has probably been confined to
nocturnal interviews from the tops of trees ; but he will be

THE TIGEE. 265

certain to know his habits and usual resorts, and also where-
abouts he is at the time being. It is necessary, therefore, for
some one to go out with him who knows our style of work
and what particulars to note for guidance when the actual
hunt commences ; for it is absolutely necessary to have some
preliminary knowledge of the ground, and habits of the parti-
cular tiger, to ensure success. In my earlier sporting days I
always went out to make the preliminary exploration for
tigers myself ; and this is the only way to learn the business
thoroughly, so as to be able afterwards to devolve the labour
on your shikaris. A sportsman who is not thoroughly master
of this business will never have a reliable shik&rf ; and the best
men are those who have been trained up in it along with their
masters.

The morning is the best time for this work. It is then cool,
and every footprint of the previous night is sharp and clear.
All the wild animals, from whose movements much is to be
learnt, are then on the move. The movements of the tiger
even may often be traced up to eight or nine o'clock by the
voices of monkeys and peafowl, the chatter of crows and
small birds, and the bark of sambar and spotted deer. The
whole nocturnal life of the beasts of the forest is then dis-
played in the clearest manner to the hunter whose eye has
been trained to read the book of nature ; and I know nothing
more interesting than a ramble in the cool grey of a summer
morning along the stream-beds of a tract in which live a great
variety of wild animals. The river beds usually contain large
stretches of sand and gravel, with here and there a pool of
water, the margin of which will be covered with tracks of
deer, wild hogs, bears, etc., and here and there the mighty
sign manual of the jungle king himself. AH must come here
to drink in the cool night succeeding a burning day ; and in

266 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTEAL INDIA.

the neighbourhood of the water occur most of the tragical
interviews between the herbivora and their carnivorous foes.
Everywhere the cruel tyranny of the tiger has imprinted itself
on the faithful page. His track to the water is straight and
leisurely, while that of the nilgai or spotted deer is halting
and suspicious, and apt to end in a wild scurry to right and
left where it crosses the tiger's. Here and there bleaching
skulls and bones show that the whole herd have not always
made good their escape. The ambush of dried leaves by the
pass down the bank marks, perhaps, an unsuccessful stratagem ;
and not seldom the trampled soil and patches of blood and
hair show where a stubborn boar has successfully resisted the
attack of a tiger. Bruin alone is tolerably safe from the
assault of the tiger ; but he too gets out of his way like the
rest, and drinks at a different pool.

The sportsman wil] not be long under the guidance of the
village shikari before he comes on tracks of tigers. Where
one or more have been living some time in the neighbourhood
footprints of many dates will be found in the sandy bed of
almost every nala\ The history and habits of the tigers will
generally ooze out of the local hunter at the sight of these
marks. When the fresh tracks of the previous night are
found his impassive features will be lighted into interest, and,
as he follows the trail with the end of his gun, his speech
will be low and hurried from suppressed excitement. There
is little chance, however, of coming on the brute himself at
that early hour. He is probably lying somewhere on an
elevated place commanding the approaches to his favourite
lair, sunning himself in the soft morning light, and watching
against the approach of danger, until the growing heat about
ten o'clock shall have extinguished all signs of movement in
the neighbourhood, when he will creep down into some shady

THE TIGER. 267

nook by the water, and, after a roll in the wet sand, proceed
to sleep off the effects of his midnight gorge. Sometimes,
however, if the sportsman be out early enough, he will find,
from the cries of animals, that the tiger is moving not far
ahead of him, and he may then by cutting him off even
obtain a shot.

On one occasion I followed a tiger in the early morning for
several miles up the bed of a stream, entirely by the demon-
strations of the large Haniiman monkey,* of which there were
numbers on the banks feeding on wi]d fruits. As the tiger
passed below them the monkeys fled to the nearest trees, and,
climbing to the highest branches, shook them violently and
poured forth a torrent of abuse f that could be heard a mile
away. Each group of them continued to swear at him till
he passed out of sight, and they saw their friends further on
take up the chorus in the tops of their trees, when they
calmly came down again and began to stuff their cheeks full
of berries as if nothing had happened. The river took a long
sweep a little further on, and by cutting across the neck I
managed to arrive very much out of breath in front of the
tiger, and crouched behind the thick trunk of a Kawd tree till
he should come up. He came on in a long slouching walk,
with his tail tucked down, and looking exactly like the guilty
midnight murderer he is. His misdeeds evidently sat heavily
on his conscience, for as he went he looked fearfully behind
him, and up at the monkeys in a beseeching sort of way, as
if asking them not to betray where he was going. He was
travelling under the opposite bank to where I was, in the

* Presbytia entellus.

t The voice of the monkeys on snch occasions is quite different from their
ordinary cry. It is a hoarse barking roar something like that of the tiger. Is
it the first beginning of imitative language ?

268 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTKAL INDIA.

deep shadow of the overhanging trees ; but, when nearly
opposite me, he came out into the middle, in the faint yellow
light of the just risen sun, and then he looked such a picture of
fearful beauty with his velvety step and undulating move-
ments, the firm muscles working through his loose glossy
skin, and the cruel yellow eyes blinking in the sun over a
row of ivory teeth, as he licked his lips and whiskers after
his night's feed. He passed within about twenty yards of me,
making for a small ravine that here joined the river from
the hills. I let him get to the mouth of this before I fired ;
and on receiving the shot he bounded forward into its cover
a very different picture from the placid creature I had just
been looking at, and with a roar that silenced the chattering
of every monkey on the trees. I knew he was hit to death,
but waited till the shikaris came up before proceeding to see ;
and we then went round a good way to where a high bank
overlooked the ravine in which he had disappeared. Here
we cautiously peeped over, but seeing nothing came further
down towards the river, and within fifty yards of where I
had fired at him I saw a solitary crow sitting in a tree, and
cawing down at an indistinct yellow object extended below.
It seemed like the tiger, and sitting down I fired another
shot at it ; but it never stirred to the thud of the ball, while
the crow, after flying up a few feet, perched again and
cawed away more lustily than before. We now went down,
and found the tiger lying stone dead, shot very near the
heart.

I think it is the pranks of juvenile tigers, rather than the
serious enmity of old ones, that cause such a terror of
them to exist among the monkey community. The natives
say that the tigress teaches her cubs to stalk and hunt by
practising on monkeys and peafowl. The gorgeous plumage

THE TIGEE. 269

of the latter, scattered about in a thousand radiant fragments,
often marks the spot where a peacock has thus fallen victim
to these ready learners, but the remains of a monkey are
seldom or never seen. Indeed these sagacious Simians rarely
venture to come down to the ground when young tigers are
about, though this sign is not always to be relied on as de-
noting the absence of tigers. I thought so for a long time,
till one day in the BeUul country, in 1865, after hunting long
in the heat of a May day for a couple of tigers whose marks
were plentiful all about, we came up to a small pool of
water at the head of a ravine, and saw the last chance of
finding them vanish, as I thought, when a troop of monkeys
were found quietly sitting on the rocks and drinking at the
water. I was carelessly descending to look for prints, with
my rifle reversed over my shoulder, and another step or two
would have brought me to the bottom of the ravine, when
the monkeys scurried with a shriek up the bank, and the
head and shoulders of a large tiger appeared from behind
a boulder, and stared at me across the short interval. I
was meditating whether to fire or retreat, when almost from
below my feet the other tiger bounded out with a terrific roar,
and they both made off down the ravine. I was too much
astonished to obtain a steady shot, and I was by that time '
too well acquainted with tiger shooting to risk an uncertain
one, so they escaped for the time. I quickly regained my
elephant, which was standing above, and followed them up.
It was exceedingly hot, and we had not gone more than a
couple of hundred yards when I saw one of the tigers
crouched under a bush on the bank of the ravine. I got a
steady shot from the howdah, and fired a three ounce shell
at his broad forehead at about thirty yards. No result. It
was most curious, and I paused to look ; but never a motion

270 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTEAL INDIA.

of the tiger acknowledged the shot. I then went round a
quarter of a circle, but still the tiger remained motionless,
looking intently in the same direction. I marchecl up, rifle
on full cock, growing more and more amazed but the
tio-er never moved. Could he be dead ? I went round to
his rear and approached close up from that direction. He
never stirred. Then I made the elephant kick him, and he
fell over. He was stone dead converted, without the
movement of a hair, into a statue of himself by the bursting
of the large shell in his brain. It had struck him full in the
centre of the forehead. We then went on with the track of
the other. It led down into the Moran river, on the steep
bank of which there was a thick cover of Jaman bushes in
which the tiger was sure to stop. I had just before come
through it, and found the place as full of tracks as a rabbit
warren. Having a spare pad elephant out that day, I sent
her round to keep down the bottom of the bank and mark,
while I pushed my own elephant -Futteh Rani (Queen of
Victory) through the cover. About the centre I came on
the tiger, crouched like the other, with his massive head
rested on his forepaws, the drawn-up hind quarters and
slightly switching tail showing that he meant mischief. At
the first shot, which struck him on the point of the shoulder,
he bounded out at me ; but the left barrel caught him in the
back before he had come many yards and broke it, when he
rolled down right to the bottom of the bank, and fell, roaring
horribly, right between the fore legs of the pad elephant.
She was a new purchase for forest work, called Moti Mala or
" Pearl Necklace " (such are the fantastic names given to ele-
phants by their Mahomedan keepers), and quite untried ; but
she stood admirably this rather abrupt introduction to her
game, merely retreating a few steps and shaking her head at

THE TTGEE. 271

the contortions of the tiger. There is no more striking inci-
dent in tiger shooting than to witness the fearful and impo-
tent rage of a tiger with a broken back. He cannot reach
beyond a short circle, but within that limit stones, trees, and
the very earth are seized and worried with fearful savageness,
and the wretched brute will horribly mangle even his own
limbs. It is too ghastly to look on long ; and, though the
agony is that of a monster who has caused so much himself,
a merciful bullet in the head should quickly end the horrid
scene.

These were regular cattle-eating tigers, and perhaps had
not been molesting the monkeys. On another occasion, how-
ever, I was much struck with the caution of the monkeys
under very trying circumstances. In May, 1864, I had
tracked a man-eating tigress into a deep ravine near the
village of Pali in the Seoni district. She was not quite a
confirmed man-eater, but had killed nine or ten persons in the
preceding few months. She had a cub of about six months
old with her, and it was when this cub was very young and
unable to move about that want of other game had driven her
to kill her first human prey. I knew when I entered the
ravine that this was her regular haunt ; for, though every bush
outside had been stripped of its berries by a colony of
monkeys, I saw them perched on the rocks above the ravine
wistfully looking down on the bushes at the bottom, which
had strewed the ground with their ripened fruit. They
accompanied me along the ravine on the top of the rocks, as
if perfectly knowing the value of their assistance in getting
the tigress and better markers I never had. I should pro-
bably have passed out at the top without seeing her, as she
was lying close under a shelving bank, but for the profane
language of an ancient grey-bearded Hantiman, who posted

272 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTRAL INDIA.

himself right above her, and swore away until he fairly-
turned her out of her comfortable berth. The excitement of
the monkeys soon told me she was on the move ; and
presently I saw her round face looking at me from behind a
tree with a forked trunk, through the cleft of which I caught
sight of about a square foot of her striped hide. It seemed
about the right place, so covering it carefully I put in a
shell at about forty yards, and she collapsed there and then,
forming a beautiful spread-eagle in the bottom of the nala.
The youngster now started out, roaring as if he were the
biggest tiger in the country ; and, though I fired a couple of
snap shots at him as he galloped through some thick bushes,
I could not stop him. It is important to extinguish
a brute, however young, who has once tasted human flesh ;
and I followed him up till it grew nearly dark, when I
returned to the ravine to take home the tigress, and there I
found my monkey friends tucking into the berries in all
directions, and hopping about close to the body of the dead
tigress. The cub was met, much exhausted with its run, by
a gang of wood-cutters, and killed with their axes.

The barking of deer, and the alarm cry of peafowl, also
frequently indicate the movements of a tiger. The s^mbar,
the spotted deer, the barking deer, and the little four-horned
antelope, all " bark " violently at a tiger suddenly appearing in
the daytime. In April, 1865, having marched nearly a thou-
sand miles exploring in the forests almost without firing a
shot, I halted to hunt a very large cattle-eating tiger near
Chandvel in the Nimar district. This animal was believed
by the cowherds to have killed more than a thousand head of
cattle ; and one of the best grazing grounds in all that country
had been quite abandoned by them in consequence. His
haunts lay in a network of ravines that ]ead down to the,

THE TIGER. 273

Narbada" river now included in the Pondsa Reserved Forest,
which I was then exploring. The herds of cattle having been
withdrawn from the grassy glades on the banks of the Nar-
badd, where he usually preyed on them, he had lately been
coming out into the open country, and had been heard for
several nights roaming round about the village of Chandvel
on the edge of the forest. I found his tracks within a hundred
yards of the buffalo pens of the village the morning I arrived ;
and a few nights before he had broken into aBanj^ra" encamp-
ment a little way off, and killed and dragged away a heifer,
which he eat within hearing distance of the encampment,
charging through the darkness and driving back the Banj^r&s
and their dogs' when they tried to interrupt him. I picketed
a juicy young buffalo for him the night I arrived, about half
a mile from the village where his tracks showed he regularly
passed at night. Next morning it was found to have been
killed and dragged away about a hundred yards to a small
dry watercourse ; and, after having been cleaned as scienti-
fically as any butcher could have done it, eaten up all but the
head, skin, feet, and one fore quarter. If his footprints had not
already shown him to be an unusually large tiger, this feat of
gormandizing would have sufficiently done so. We started
about ten o'clock on his trail. It was the 12th of April, and a
hotter day I never remember. Long before midday the little
band of cowherds and shik&ris who accompanied me had
most of their wardrobes bound round their heads to keep off
the sun ; and I looked for a tussle with such a heavy old
tiger, long accustomed to drive off the people he met, if we
found him well gorged on such a grilling day as this. We
took the track down fully five miles till it entered a long
narrow ravine with pools of water at the bottom, and shaded
over with a thick cover of trees and bushes. We could not

274 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTEAL INDIA.

go into so narrow a place to beat him out with an elephant ;
and after much deliberation we decided to leave a pad ele-
phant at the head of the ravine, and post the people we had
with us on the trees round about to mark, while I went down
to the other end and quietly stalked along the top of the
bank on the chance of finding him asleep below. There never
was such a beautiful retreat for a tiger I think. In many
places I could not see through the dense shade at the bottom,
and several times had to fling down stones to assure myself
whether some indistinct flickering object were the tiger or not.
I was proceeding quietly along, probing the ravine in this
fashion, when the pad elephant we had left at the further end
gave one of those tremendous screams that an untrained
elephant sometimes emits when suddenly put in pain. She
had stumbled over a stone when swinging about in their im-
patient fashion. There was little chance of finding the tiger
undisturbed after this, and I had only to stand and watch for
a chance of his coming down the ravine or being seen by
the scouts on the trees. The first intimation I had of his
presence was from a couple of peafowl that scuttled out of a
little ravine on the opposite side ; and then I saw the tiger pick-
ing his way stealthily up the face of a precipitous bauk, where
I could hardly think a goat would have found footing. He
was about a hundred and fifty yards from my rifle ; and the first
bullet only knocked some earth from the bank below him.
"When I fired the other he was just topping the bank, and clung
for a second as if he would have come over backwards, but by
an effort recovered himself and disappeared over the top. Eun-
ning to a higher piece of ground I saw him trotting sullenly
across the burnt plain, and looming as large to the eye as a
bull buffalo. He certainly looked a very mighty beast ; but
he was a craven at heart, or he would never have left such a

THE TIGER. 275

stronghold to face the fearful, waterless, burnt-up country he
did. I lost no time in getting round the head of the ravine
and giving chase on the elephant. His tracks in the ashes of
the burnt grass were clear enough, and we followed him for
about two miles, sighting him on ahead every now and then,
till he disappeared in a little ravine, and we lost the track in
its bare rocky bottom. I was going along the bank, with the
other elephant in the bottom of the ravine, when I heard the
bark of a s&mbar to my left on some high ground, and, urging
Futteh Ed-ni at her best pace in that direction, shortly came on
the tiger slouching across the open plain, evidently suffering
from a wound, with his tongue hanging out, and wearing alto-
gether a most woebegone look. He made an effort when he saw
me, and galloped a hundred yards or so into a patch of bamboo
jungle. I knew from the local shik&ri that he was making for
a water-hole about half a mile ahead, and cut across with the
elephant to intercept him. I had the pace of him now, and
got clean between him and his water. I never saw such an
air of disgust worn by any animal as that tiger had when he
came down the hill and saw the elephant standing right in
front of him. He said as plainly as possible, " Come what
will, I don't mean to run another yard ; and it won't be the
better for anybody that tries to make me." So he lay down
behind a large Anjan tree, showing nothing but one eye and
an ear round the side of it. I marched up within fifty yards,
and now saw the switching end of a tail added to the eye and
ear. I could not fire at him thus, and therefore sidled round
till I saw his shoulder. He saw the opening thus left, and
eyed it wistfully, as if he would rather escape that way, if he
could, than fight it out. But I planted a ball in his shoulder
before he had time to make up his mind ; on which he rose
with a languid roar, and lumbered slowly down the hill at the

T 2

276 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTEAL INDIA.

elephant. So slowly ! He actually hadn't steam left in him
to get up a proper charge when he tried. A right and left
stopped him at once, and another ball in the ear settled him ;
and then Futteh went up and kicked him, and it was all over.
He was a very large tiger, measuring ten feet one inch in length
as he lay, and was a perfect mountain of fat, the fat of a thou-
sand kine, as the cowherds lugubriously remarked when they
came up. He had a perfect skin, clear red and white, with the
fine double stripes and W mark on the head, and long whiskers,
which add so greatly to the beauty of a tiger trophy. The
whole of the pads of his feet were blistered off on the hot
rocks he had been traversing, and his tongue was swollen and
blue. We were nearly dead ourselves, and went down to the
water he had been making for, while a messenger went to the
village for more men, the dozen lusty cattle-herds and my
own men together being totally unable to put him on the pad-
elephant to carry home. An ordinary tiger will weigh about
four hundred and fifty or five hundred pounds, but this beef-
fed monster must have touched seven hundred pounds at least ;
and a tiger, from his length and suppleness, is a very awk-
ward object to lift off the ground.

I have said that ten feet one inch is the length of an un-
usually large tiger. The average length from nose to tip of
tail is only nine feet six inches for a full-grown male, and for a
tigress about eight feet four inches. The experience of all sports-
men I have met with, whose accuracy I can rely on, is the same ;
and it will certainly be found, when much greater measure-
ments than this are recorded, that they have either been taken
from stretched skins or else in a very careless fashion. The skin
of a ten-feet tiger will easily stretch to thirteen or fourteen
feet, if required ; and if natives are allowed to use the tape they
are certain to throw in a foot or two " to please master." Master

THE TIGER. 277

also, no doubt, sometimes pleases himself in a similar manner.
A well-known sportsman and writer, whose recorded measure-
ments have done 4 more to extend the size of the tiger than
anything else, informed me himself that all his measurements
were taken from flat skins. But the British public demands
twelve-feet tigers, just as it refuses to accept an Indian land-
scape without palm-trees. So a suppressio veri went forth ;
and not only that, but his picture of a dead tiger being
carried into camp was improved by a few feet being added to
the length of the beast, while, to make room for it, the most of
the bearers were wiped out, leaving about four men only to
carry a tiger at least fifteen feet long ! Populus vult decipi,
etc.

Sporting stories are apt to breed each other, incident leading
on to incident, so that I find I have already killed some frve
or six tigers while yet only on the threshold of my subject
discoursing of the preliminary exploration of the tigers
haunts. I have little more to say on that matter, however,
the sum of it all being that every information regarding the
tiger s country, the route he usually takes from one haunt to
another, the points where he may be most easily intercepted
or come upon unawares, good points for scouts, etc., must be
obtained. Places must also be fixed on for tying out baits for
him at night. He' must be induced, if possible, to kill a
buffalo or an ox so tied out ; and it must be in such a position
that he can be easily tracked from there to one of his usual
haunts.

It may seem cruel thus to bait for a tiger with a live animal,
but there is no doubt that the death of a tiger saves much
more suffering than is caused to the single animal sacrificed to
effect it. A natural kill will not do so well for many reasons.
It will probably not be discovered in time to hunt the next

278 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTEAL INDIA.

day, and the day after it would be useless. Further, it would
seldom be conveniently situated with respect to some haunt
of the tiger favourable for finding him in, and the whole day
might be lost in trying to find him in wrong places. In fine,
experience shows that no bag can ever be made worth speak-
ing of without tying out baits. I usually purchased at the
commencement of the season a dozen or fifteen half-grown
buffaloes, these being the cheapest as well as the most readily
killed by tigers. A thin old brute of an ox, or a tough full-
grown buffalo, a well-fed tiger will scorn to touch, and often
in the morning his footprints will be found all round such a
bait, which he has come and smelt, and (metaphorically)
poked in the ribs, and left untouched. But a tender juicy
young buff, of about three and a half feet high would
tempt the most blase of tigers to a meal. The cowherds,
being good Hindus, will not sell cattle avowedly to be
tied up for tigers ; nor will your Hindu shikdris tie them
up with their own hands, though few will object to super-
intend the operation. The flimsiest disguise is, however,
sufficient to quiet the consciences of the cattle men, who
will sell a herd of young buffaloes in open market to your
Mahomedan shik&ri dressed up as a trader in kine, though
they may have known him for a bloody-minded baiter for
tigers all their lives. I remember being very hard up for a
bait once in the Nimar district, having come to a place where
tigers were very destructive when I had none of my own.
All I could say would not induce the Gaolis (cow-keepers) of
the place to sell me a single head during the day-time, the
owner of the village being a Baghel Edjpiit, a clan which
claims descent from a royal tiger, and protects the species
whenever they can. I was standing outside my tent in the
evening, when the village cattle were being driven in, having

THE TIGER. 279

given up all idea of halting for the tigers another day, when
a fine tall young Gaoli stepped up with a salaam and said,
" Sahib, I have lost a very fine young buffalo in the jungle,
and it will very probably be snapped up by the tigers ; but if
you would send some one along that road perhaps he might
find it, and we will be pleased if your Highness will keep it,
as you are going away from this to-morrow.' He grinned a
broad grin as he finished, and I spotted his game ; so sending
along the " Lalla " about a quarter of a mile we found a very
sufficient young wall-eyed buffalo tied by a piece of straw
rope to a little tree ! We had barely time to get the little
brute put out in a proper place before nightfall ; but he was
duly taken, and we shot a fine tigress, and wounded and lost
a tiger, the next day !

The morning after the baits have been tied out a shikdri
should go to see the result, untying and bringing in those that
have not been taken, and following up the tracks from any
that have, so far as to ascertain fully whereabouts the tiger is
likely to be found later in the day. 'I have mentioned above
" the Lalla," and that brings me to the subject of shikdris.
A really first-class tiger shikdri is extremely rare. The
combination of qualities required to make him is seldom
found in a native. I shall best explain what he should
be by describing the Lalla. And first as to his name. " Lalla"
means in Upper India a clerk of the K&yat caste, to which
our friend belonged; so that though utterly ignorant of all
letters save those imprinted on a sandy ravine-bed by a tiger's
paw, he was nicknamed the Lalla by the people, and there-
upon his real name disappeared for ever ; and, when he was
afterwards killed by a tiger, no one had any idea what it was.
He was a little, wee man, so insignificant and so dried and
shrivelled up that, as he used to say, " No tiger would ever

280 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTRAL INDIA.

think of eating me." His early days had been passed in
catching and training falcons for the nobles of Upper India,
and in shooting birds for sale in the market. He had come
down to Central India to make a bag of blue rollers and
kingfishers, whose feathers are so much valued in the
countries to the east for fancy work, when he was caught,
nobody knows how, by a gentleman with a taste for bird-
stuffing, from whom he passed into the possession of a sports-
man who put him on tigers, and eventually he came to me
with a little experience of the business. His early training
had made him exceedingly keen of eyesight and in reading
the signs of the forest ; while in his many wanderings he had
accumulated a store of legends of demons and devilry, and a
wild jumble of Hindu mythology, that never failed, when re-
tailed over a fire at night to a circle of gaping cowherds and
village shik&ris, to unlock every secret of the neighbourhood in
the matter of tigers. Such an oily cozener of reticent Gonds
never existed. Then, miserable as he looked, he could walk
about all day and every day for a week in a broiling sun,
hunting up tracks, with nothing but the thinnest of muslin
skull-caps on his hard nut of a head, and would fearlessly
penetrate into the very lair of a tiger perfectly unarmed. He
had a particular beaming look which he always wore on his
ugly face when he had actually seen or, as he said, " salaamed
to " a tiger comfortably disposed of for the day ; and in late
years, w T hen I had to leave all the arrangements to him, I
hardly recollect ever going out when he reported the find a
likely one without at least seeing the game. He could shoot
a little, say a pot shot at a bird on a branch at twenty paces,
and kept guns, etc., in beautiful order. But he soon came to
utterly despise and contemn everything except tiger-hunting,
for which he had, I believe, really an absorbing passion. Even

THE TIGER. 281

bison-hunting he looked down on as sport not fit for a gentle-
man to pursue. For ten months in the year he moped about
looking utterly wretched, and taking no interest in anything but
the elephant and rifles ; and woke up again only on the first of
April, opposite which date "Tiger-shooting commences"
will be entered in the Indian almanack of the future,
when the royal animal shall be preserved in the Keserved
Forests of Central India to furnish sport for the nobility of
the land !

Poor old LalM ! He fell a victim in the end to contempt of
tigers, bred of undue familiarity. I was very ill with fever
in the June of 1866, and meditating a trip home, and had
sent out the Lalla* with a double gun to shoot some birds
for their feathers with a view to salmon flies. He came
upon the tracks of a tiger, and, contrary to all orders,
tied out a calf at night as a bait, and sat over it in a
tree with the gun. The tigress came and received his
bullet in the thigh, going off wounded into a very thick
cover in the bed of a river. The plucky but foolish Lalla*
followed her in there the next morning by the blood ; but
soon found that tracking up a wounded tiger with a gun is
a very different thing from following about uninjured tigers
without intent to disturb them. Before he had gone a dozen
paces the tigress was upon him, his unfired gun dashed from
his hands and buried for half its length in the sand, his turban
cuffed from his head to the top of a high tree by a stroke of
her paw that narrowly missed his head, and himself down
below the furious beast, and being slowly chewed from shoulder
to ankle. He was brought in a dozen miles to Khandwri.,
where I was, by some men who had gone in for him when
the tigress left him. The fire of delirium was then in his
eye, and he raved of the tiger's form passing before him, red

282 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTEAL INDIA.

and bloody. But he recognised me when I came to him, and
conjured me to go out forthwith and bring in her body next
day if I wished to see him live. I knew that the natives have
a superstition to this effect ; and, though I was then in a high
fever, I sent off my elephant at midnight to a village near the
spot, following myself on horseback at daybreak. Much rain
had fallen, and all old tracks were obliterated. The jungle
was also very green and thick, and I spent the whole day
till the afternoon, hunting, as I afterwards found, in a wrong
direction. At last I came on a fresh trail, with one hind foot
dragging in the sand, and then I knew I was near the savage
brute. We ran it up to a dense j^man cover in the river-bed,
and I had barely time to get the people on foot safely up trees
when the tigress came at me in the most determined manner.
She looked just like a huge cat that had been hunted by dogs
her fur all bedraggled and standing on end, eyes glaring with
fury, and emitting the hoarse coughing roar of a charging tiger
that no one, to the very close of his tiger-shooting, hears with-
out a certain quickening of the blood. The first two shots hit
fair, but did not stop her ; and she was not more than a few
yards from the elephant's trunk when the third ball caught her
clean in the mouth, knocking out one of her canine teeth
and passing down the throat into the chest. She could do no
more, but lay roaring and worrying her own paws till I put an
end to her with another shot in the head. She was a lean
greyhound-made brute scarcely bigger than a panther. The
Lalla" was avenged, but the poor fellow was beyond any help
that the sight of his enemy might have afforded him ; and not-
withstanding every care for he was the favourite of every-
body who knew him he sank under the exhausting drain of
so many fearful wounds.

Very different from the old Lalla is the usual pattern of

THE TIGEK. 283

tiger shikari. He will probably be a tall swaggering Maho-
medan, brushing out his whiskers to the likeness of a tiger's,
and to add ferocity of expression dyeing them when young a
steely blue and when old a rusty red ; clad in elaborate jungle-
coloured raiment, and hung with belts and pouches of sambar
leather supporting a perfect armoury of cut-throat weapons
which he has not the faintest idea of using ; bragging sky
high of his own and his master's doughty exploits ; insuffer-
able to the people and lazy as a pampered lap-dog ; with just
enough knowledge of his work, gained in his early days by
carrying the water-bottle of some real sportsman, to concoct a
plausible but utterly fictitious story at every place he comes
to ; and convicted at every turn of lying, stealing, and every
deadly sin ; yet possibly the admiration of a gullible master,
on whom a portion of m the glory of his whiskers and tall talk
is reflected, as he struts about his house in cantonments in
full war-paint, snapping the locks of his bran-new sixty -guinea
rifles.

How the tiger marked down in the morning is to be hunted
and killed at mid-day, when all life in the forest is still be-
neath the scorching heat of the sun, and the brute himself is
least on his guard and most unwilling to move, will have been
seen from previous descriptions. To read, the hunting of one
tiger is like that of every other ; but a different set of inci-
dents marks each day's sport in the memory of the hunter,
who pictures vividly the death of each long after the incidents
of his sport with every other sort of game have faded away.
The main features are the careful preliminary arrangements,
the settling the direction of approach so as to cut off all
roads of escape to inaccessible fastnesses, the posting of
scouts to notify the possible retreat of the tiger, and the
cautious silent approach, the excitement gathering as the

284 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTKAL INDIA.

innermost recess of the cover, where the brute is expected to
lie, is approached by the wonderfully intelligent and half-
human elephant.

A strange affection springs up between the hunter and his
well-tried ally in the chase of the tiger ; and a creature seem-
ing to those who see him only in the menagerie, or labouring
under a load of baggage, but a lumbering mass of flesh, be-
comes to him almost a second self, yielding to his service the
perfection of physical and mental qualities of which a brute
is capable, and displaying an intelligent interest in his sport
of which no brute could be thought to be possessed. No one
who has not witnessed it would believe the astonishing caution
with which a well-trained elephant approaches a tiger,
removing with noiseless adroitness every obstacle of fallen
timber, etc., and passing his huge bulk over rustling leaves, or
rolling stones, or quaking bog, with an absolute and marvel-
lous silence ; handing up stones, when ordered, for his master
to fling into the cover ; smelling out a cold scent as a spaniel
roads a pheasant ; and at last, perhaps, pointing dead with sensi-
tive trunk at the hidden monster, or showing with short nervous
raps of that organ on the ground that he is somewhere near,
though not actually discovered to the senses of the elephant.
Then the unswerving steadiness when he sees the enemy he
naturally dreads, and would flee from panic-stricken in his
native haunts, perhaps charging headlong at his head, trusting
all to the skill of his rider, and thoughtless of using his own
tremendous strength in the encounter for a good elephant
never attempts to combat the tiger himself. To do so would
generally be fatal to the sport, and perhaps to the sportsman
too ; for no one could stick to an elephant engaged in a per-
sonal struggle with a tiger, far less use his gun under such
circumstances. The elephant's business is to stand like a rock

THE TIGEE. 285

in every event, even when the tiger is fastened on his head as
many a good one will do and has done.

It is not one elephant in a thousand that is so thoroughly
good in tiger-shooting as this ; and such as are command very
high prices in the market. From 200 to 400 is now the
value of a thoroughly first-rate shooting-elephant, though much
sport may be had with one purchased for a much smaller sum.
The supply of elephants has much fallen off in late years,
since the Government ceased to capture them in the forests of
the north of India. In 1864 I visited the great annual fair
at Sonpur, on the Ganges, to purchase elephants for our forest
work in Central India. This fair is decidedly one of the sights
of India, and well worthy of a longer description than I can
give it now. It occurs on the occasion of a great congrega-
tion of Hindu pilgrims to worship at a noted shrine of Sivd,
and bathe in the Ganges at the full 'moon of the month of
Kdrtik (September October). Several hundred thousands of
Hindus from every part of India are then collected on the
banks of the holy river ; and such a gathering together of
people is of course seized by traders in every sort of ware,
from wild ydks' tails of Tibet to croquet implements in lac
varnish, and dealers in every sort of animal, from white mice to
elephants. The European gentlemen of Bengal have also here
constructed an excellent race-course, with grand stand com-
plete ; and some of the best races in India are run during the
fair. The year I was there something like twelve thousand
horses were brought by dealers for sale ranging from the tiny
woolly-haired pied pony of Nepal, which makes the best child's
pony in the world, to Australian thorough-breds and u made-
up " casters from the Indian cavalry.

About five hundred elephants offered a considerable choice
in my particular department. It is difficult to buy horses

286 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTRAL INDIA.

at a fair; but the difficulty is ten times greater in the
case of elephants. Every one connected with the keeping
of elephants (and camels) is by nature and training from
his youth upwards a consummate rascal ; and the animal
himself is subject to numerous and often obscure vices
and unsoundnesses. I have given in an appendix (A)
some hints regarding these, as well as on the management of
elephants, which would scarcely interest the general reader.
Elephants differ as widely in their " points " as do horses ; and
it is very difficult for an uneducated eye to distinguish these,
particularly in the fattened-up condition the animals generally
carry at the fair. Furthermore, and fortunately enough for
us, a native's idea of good points in an elephant (as in a horse)
differs in toto from ours. He looks not at all to shape, or
good action, or likelihood of standing hard work ; but first of
all to the presence or absence of certain accidental marks,- such
as the number of toe-nails on the foot, which may be five or six
but not four ; the tail, which must be perfect and with a full
tuft ; and the colour of the palate, which must be red without
spot of black. Some of the best elephants I have known
failed in each and all of these points. Then a female or tusk-
less male is of small value to a native, who wants big white
tusks. A rough high action, and a trunk and forehead of very
light colour, are greatly in request by the native buyer, who
looks entirely to show, and covers up every part of the animal
except the face with an enormous parti-coloured cloth. We,
on the other hand, dislike the high rough action, and never by
any chance purchase a tusker, who is nearly certain to be ill-
tempered. We look for a small well-bred-looking head and
trunk, and a clear confident eye devoid of piggish expression,
fast easy paces, straight back and croup, wide loins, and gene-
rally well-developed bone and muscle a great test of which

THE TIGEE. 287

is the girth of the forearm, which should measure about three
feet eight inches in an elephant nine feet high. A very tall ele-
phant is seldom a good working one, and generally has slow
rough paces ; so that in a male nine feet, or a female eight feet
four inches at the shoulder, should not be exceeded. A smaller
animal than eight feet two inches will be undersized for tiger-
shooting purposes. A female makes the best hunting-elephant
when she is really staunch with game, as her paces and temper
are generally better, and she is not subject to the danger of
becoming " must " and uncontrollable, as male elephants do
periodically after a certain age. But females are more un-
certain as to courage than males ; and it is a risk to buy the
former untried for shooting purposes. Most " muknas " (tusk-
less males) can, I believe, be relied on to become staunch with
tigers when properly trained and entered ; and for my own
part, if buying an entirely untried elephant, I would always
select a "mukna." They are generally more vigorous and
better developed than tuskers, though not usually so tall. A
not improbable explanation of this was given me by a wild
inhabitant of the forests to the east of the sources of the
Narbada, where wild elephants then existed in large numbers.
He said he had noticed that the young tuskers, after their sharp
little tusks began to prick the mother in the process of sucking,
were driven off by her and allowed to shift for themselves,
while females and muknas continued to be nourished by her
until she got another young one.

After some trouble I bought the ten elephants I wanted
eight of them muknas and two females. Their average price
was 150, the dearest being 200, and the cheapest 100.
The highest price I heard of being obtained at the fair was
800 for a noble tusker, bought for a Raja' in the Punjab.
So far as I know, none of them had ever seen a tiger ; but they

288 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTEAL INDIA.

all became excellent shikaris, except one large mukna in whom
I found I had been stuck with a regular man-killing brute.
He was quite quiet at the fair, having been probably kept
drugged with opium ; but on the march down to Central India
he broke out and killed a man, and afterwards became quite
uncontrollable. He fetched his full price, however, for a
native notable ; for he was a very handsome animal, and a
wealthy native is rather proud of having an elephant that
no one can go near chained up at his gateway for an orna-
ment.

All elephants intended to be used in hunting tigers must
be very carefully trained and entered to their game. A good
mahout, or driver, is very difficult to obtain. They differ as
much in their command over elephants as do riders of horses ;
and a plucky driver will generally make a staunch elephant,
and vice vend. The elephant should first be accustomed to
the firing of guns from his back, and to seeing deer and other
harmless animals shot before him in company with a staunch
companion. He must not be forced in at a tiger, or at a hog
or bear which he detests even more, until he has acquired some
confidence, though in some few cases he will stand to any
animal from the very first. When they have seen a few tigers
neatly disposed of most elephants acquire confidence in their
human allies, and become sufficiently steady in the field ; but
their ultimate qualities will depend much on natural tempera-
ment. The more naturally courageous an elephant is, the
better chance there is of his remaining staunch after having
been actually mauled by a tiger an accident to be avoided, of
course, as long as possible. It will occur sometimes, however,
in the best hands ; and then a naturally timid animal, who
has only been made staunch by a long course of immunity
from injury, will probably be spoilt for life, while a really

THE ' TIGER. 289

plucky elephant is often rendered bolder than before by such
an occurrence.

Some elephants which are in other respects perfect shikdris
will retain some ineradicable peculiarity which may almost
unfit them for use in hunting. For some time I had a female
who would stand anything in the way of animals (I once had her
charged close up by a whole family of bears a terrible trial
for any elephant), but who bolted invariably in the utmost
panic from the loud shout of a human voice. On one such
occasion she carried a cargo of native clerks into the middle
of a deep river, and left them to swim for their lives. On
another, I thought I should die of laughing, though her prank
nearly ended in the death of an unhappy Gond. He had been
taken out with her by the attendant whose business it is to
cut branches of trees for fodder, and was left on her back to
pack the load, while the other went up the tree to cut down
branches. In the meantime a loud shout in the neighbour-
hood sent her off at full speed for camp, and, a deep weedy
tank lying in the way, she marched right into it, and began
to surge up and down in the water, her unwilling rider
piteously screaming at every plunge. He was half drowned
and nearly finished with fright before we could release
him by sending in two other elephants with their drivers,
who drove her with their spears into a corner and secured
her.

The keeping of an elephant is very costly at the present
prices of the wheaten flour on which they are chiefly fed,
coming in Central India to about 80 or 90 a year. Few
people do so, therefore, though, it is far more satisfactory if
one is pretty constantly in the jungles. The Government has,
however, great numbers of elephants, many of them trained
shikaris ; and there is seldom much difficulty in obtaining the

290 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTEAL INDIA.

use of one for a few weeks. They may also be frequently
borrowed from wealthy natives ; but in that case will seldom
be found to possess the hard condition necessary for severe
work in the hot season. In the later years of our forest
work we always had several Government elephants allowed
for the carriage of baggage and riding purposes ; and, as I
always kept one of my own besides, I could generally
muster enough to drive effectively any tiger ground in
Central India. .But I rarely took out more than one elephant
besides my own when shooting alone, finding that quiet
hunting was far more successful than the bustle of many
elephants and the rabble of men that usually accompany a
tiger hunt.

In the end of April and May of 1862 I bagged six tigers
and one panther in the Betul jungles, wounding two more
tigers which escaped. I was unable regularly to devote myself
to tiger-shooting, having much forest work to do, and my shoot-
ing was also much interfered with by accidental circumstances.
A sprained tendon laid me up for fifteen days of the best
weather (the hottest), and there was so much cholera about
that many of the best places had to remain un visited.
Another party was also shooting in the same district ; and,
though they arrived after me in the field, contrary to the well-
understood rule in such circumstances, proceeded ahead and
disturbed the whole country by indiscriminate firing at deer
and peafowl. It is scarcely necessary to say that when after
tigers nothing else should be fired at. The Lalla came out strong
under these unfavourable circumstances, working ahead and
securing by his plausible tongue a monopoly of information,
in which he was well seconded by the conduct of our rivals
in harassing the people in the matter of provisions, and
thrashing them all round if a tiger was not found for them

THE TIGEE. 291

when they arrived. On one occasion I reached their ground
just as their last camel was moving off to a new camp. They
had stayed here a week trying in vain to extort help in finding
a couple of tigers whose tracks they had seen. The tigers
were all the time within half a mile of their tents ; and before
ten o'clock that day I had them both padded. During
whole month I believe they only succeeded in getting one
tiger, and that by potting it from a tree at night. Some
years afterwards, when I shot the same country under much
more favourable circumstances, the number of tigers had
greatly diminished, owing to the high rewards and the steady
attentions of the forest officers, and my bag was then just the
same as in 1862. Five or six tigers may, in fact, be considered
a very fair bag for one gun in a month's shooting, even in the
best parts of the Central Provinces ; but two or three guns,
with a proportionate force of elephants, should of course do
much better.

I spent nearly a week of this time in the destruction of a
famous man-eater, which had completely closed several roads,
and was estimated to have devoured over a hundred human
beings. One of these roads was the main outlet from the
Betul teak forests towards the railway then under construc-
tion in the Narbada* valley ; and the work of the sleeper-con-
tractors was completely at a standstill owing to the ravages of
this brute. He occupied regularly a large triangle of country
between the rivers Moran and Ganjal ; occasionally making a
tour of destruction much further to the east and west ; and
striking terror into a breadth of not less than thirty to forty
miles. It was therefore supposed that the devastation was
caused by more than one animal ; and we thought we had
disposed of one of these early in April, when we killed a very
cunning old tiger of evil repute after several days' severe

u 2

292 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTRAL INDIA.

hunting. But I am now certain that the brute I destroyed
subsequently was the real malefactor even there, as killing
again commenced after we had left, and all loss to human
life did not cease till the day I finally disposed of him.

He had not been heard of for a week or two when I came
into his country, and pitched my camp in a splendid mango
grove near the large village of LokartaMe, on the Moran river.
Here I was again laid up through over-using my sprained
tendon ; but a better place in which to pass the long hot days
of forced inactivity could not have been found. The bare
brown country outside was entirely shut out by the long droop-
ing branches of the huge mango-trees, interlaced overhead in a
grateful canopy, and loaded with the half-ripe fruit pendent
on their long tendril-like stalks ; while beneath them short
glimpses were seen of the bright clear waters of the Moran
stealing over their pebbly bed. The green mangoes, cooked
in a variety of ways, furnished a grateful and cooling addition
to the table ; and the whole grove was alive with a vast
variety of bird and insect life, in the observation of which
many an hour that would otherwise have flown slowly by was
passed. A colony of the lively chirping little grey-striped
squirrel lived in every tree, and from morning to night per-
meated the whole grove with their incessant gambols. My
dogs would have died of ennui, I believe, but for the unremit-
ting sport they had in stalking and chasing these unattain-
able creatures, whose fashion of letting them get within two
inches of them while they calmly sat up and ate a fallen
mango, and then whisking up and sitting just half a foot out
of reach, jerking their long tails and rapping out a long chirp
of defiance, seemed highly to provoke them. Clouds of
little green ring-necked paroquets flew from tree to tree,
clambering over and under and in every direction through

THE TIGEK. 293

the branches to get at the green mangoes. A great variety of
bright-coloured bulbuls, several species of woodpecker, and
the golden oriole or mango-bird, flashed about in the higher
foliage, while an incessant hum told of the unseen presence of
multitudes of the insect world.

I was much amused by the result of my tent being pitched
between two trees inhabited respectively by colonies of the
common black and red ants, so plentiful in all wooded parts
of the province. Each side sent detachments down the ropes
of the tent attached to their trees, and numerous were the
skirmishes and reprisals I watched between them. At last,
on coming in from a short stroll one morning, I found the
top of my tent had been the scene of a pitched battle between
the entire forces of each party, multitudes on each side having
been killed and wounded. Their telegrams to head-quarters
in the tops of the trees must have much resembled those of
the French and Prussians, for both sides seemed to claim the
victory, and each was busily engaged in carrying off the
fallen of the other side, perhaps with a view to provender in
case of a siege ! There were far more of the black ones, how-
ever, killed than of the red. The latter are most unflinching and
venomous little devils, and prefer to leave their heads and
shoulders sticking where they have bitten rather than loose
their hold. I shall never forget disturbing a nest of these
red ants in an overhanging tree when hot on the fresh foot-
prints of a tiger. In an instant the elephant, howdah, and
myself were covered with a multitude of the creatures rearing
themselves on end and watching for a tender place in which
to plunge their nippers. No philosophy not even in the hot
pursuit of a tiger could stand this ; and everything was for-
gotten in a wild rush to the nearest water, where half an hour
was lost in clearing ourselves and the half-maddened elephant

294 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTRAL INDIA.

of the tormentors, and in picking out the fangs they had left
behind.

A few days of a lazy existence in this microcosm of a
grove passed not unpleasantly after a spell of hard work
in the pitiless hot blasts outside ; but when the Lalla brought
in news of families of tigers waiting to be hunted in the
surrounding river-beds I began to chafe ; and when I heard
from a neighbouring police post that the man-eater had again
appeared, and had killed a man and a boy on the high road
about ten miles from my camp, I could stand it no longer. I
had been douching my leg with cold water, but now resorted
to stronger measures, giving it a coating of James's horse-
blister, which caused of course severe pain for a few days,
but at the end of them resulted, to my great delight, in a
complete and permanent cure. In the meantime, while I was
still raw and sore, I was regaled with stories of the man-eater
of his fearful size and appearance, with belly pendent to the
ground, and white moon on the top of his forehead ; his pork-
butcher-like method of detaining a party of travellers while
he rolled himself in the sand, and at last came up and in-
spected them all round, selecting the fattest; his power of
transforming himself into an innocent-looking woodcutter,
and calling or whistling through the woods till an unsus-
pecting victim approached ; how the spirits of all his victims
rode with him on his head, warning him of every danger, and
guiding him to the fatal ambush where a traveller would
shortly pass. All the best shikaris of the country-side were
collected in my camp ; and the landholders and many of the
people besieged my tent morning and evening. The infant of
a woman who had been carried away while drawing water
at a well was brought and held up before me ; and every offer
of assistance in destroying the monster was made. No useful

THE TIGER. 295

help was, however, to be expected from a terror-stricken popu-
lation like this. They lived in barricaded houses ; and only
stirred out when necessity compelled in large bodies, covered
by armed men, and beating drums and shouting as they passed
along the roads. Many villages had been utterly deserted ;
and the country was evidently being slowly depopulated by
this single animal. So far as I could learn, he had been
killing alone for about a year another tiger who had
formerly assisted him in his fell occupation having been shot
the previous hot weather. Be'tul has always been unusually
favoured with man-eaters, the cause apparently being the
great numbers of cattle that come for a limited season to graze
in that country, and a scarcity of other prey at the time when
they are absent, combined with the unusually convenient cover
for tigers existing alongside most of the roads. The man-eaters
of the Central Provinces rarely confine themselves solely to
human food, though some have almost done so to my own
knowledge. Various circumstances may lead a tiger to prey
on man ; anything, in fact, that incapacitates him from kill-
ing other game more difficult to procure. A tiger who has
got very fat and heavy, or very old, or who has been disabled
by a wound, or a tigress who has had to bring up young cubs
where other game is scarce, all these take naturally to man,
who is the easiest animal of all to kill, as soon as failure with
other prey brings on the pangs of hunger ; and once a tiger has
found out how easy it is to overcome the lord of creation, and
how good he is to eat, he is apt to stick to him, and, if a tigress,
to bring up her progeny in the same line of business. The
greater prevalence of man-eaters in one district than in
another I consider to be that I have mentioned. Great
grazing districts, where the cattle come only for a limited
season, are always the worst. Where the cattle remain all

296 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTRAL INDIA.

the year round, as in Nimar, the tigers rarely take to man-
eating.

As soon as I could ride in the howdah, and long before I
could do more than hobble on foot, I marched to a place called
Chirkher^, where the last kill had been reported. My usually
straggling following was now compressed into a close body,
preceded and followed by the baggage-elephants, and protected
by a guard of police with muskets, peons with my spare
guns, and a whole posse of matchlocked shikaris. Two
deserted villages were passed on the road, and heaps of stones
at intervals showed where a traveller had been struck down.
A better hunting-ground for a man-eater certainly could not
be. Thick scrubby teak jungle closed in the road on both
sides ; and alongside of it for a great part of the way wound a
narrow deep watercourse, overshadowed by thick j&man
bushes, and with here and there a small pool of water still left.
I hunted along this nali, the whole way, and found many old
tracks of a very large male tiger/ 5 " which the shikaris declared
to be the man-eater. There were none more recent, however,
than several days. Chirkherd was also deserted on account
of the tiger, and there was no shade to speak of ; but it was
the most central place within reach of the usual haunts
of the brute, so I encamped here, and sent the baggage-
elephants back to fetch provisions. In the evening I was
startled by a messenger from a place called Ld, on the
Moran river, nearly in the direction I had come from, who
said that one of a party of pilgrims who had been travelling
unsuspectingly by a jungle road had been carried off by the
tiger close to that place. Early next morning I started off

* A little practice suffices to distinguish the tracks of tigers of different ages
and sexes. The old male has a much sqiiarer track, so to speak, than the female,
which leaves a more oval footprint.

THE TIGEE. 297

with two elephants, and arrived at the spot about eight o'clock.
The man had been struck down where a small ravine leading
down to the Moran crosses a lonely pathway a few miles east of
Le\ The shoulder stick with its pendent baskets, in which the
holy water from his place of pilgrimage had been carried by the
hapless man, were lying on the ground in a dried-up pool of
blood ; and shreds of his clothes acihered to the bushes where
he had been dragged down into the bed of the nala\ We
tracked the man-eater and his prey into a very thick grass
cover, alive with spotted deer, where he had broken up and
devoured the greater part of the body. Some bones and
shreds of flesh, and the skull, hands, and feet, were all that
remained. This tiger never returned to his victim a second
time, so it was useless to found any scheme for killing him on
that expectation. We took up his tracks from the body, and
carried them patiently down through very dense jungle to the
banks of the M6ran, the trackers working in fear and tremb-
ling under the trunk of my elephant, and covered by my
rifle at full cock. At the river the tracks went out to a long
spit of sand that projected into the water, where the tiger had
drunk, and then returned to a great mass of piled-up rocks
at the bottom of a precipitous bank, full of caverns and
recesses. This we searched with stones and some fireworks I
had in the howdah ; but put out nothing but a scraggy hyena,
which was of course allowed to escape. We searched about
all day here in vain, and it was not till nearly sunset that I
turned and made for camp.

It was almost dusk, when we were a few miles from home,
passing along the road we had marched by the former day
and the same by which we had come out in the morning, when
one of the men who was walking behind the elephant started and
called a halt He had seen the footprint of a tiger. The elephant's

298 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTKAL INDIA.

tread had partly obliterated it ; but further on where we had
not yet gone it was found plain enough the great square pug
of the man-eater we had been looking for all day ! He was on
before us, and must have passed since we came out in the
morning, for his track had covered that of the elephants as
they came. It was too late to hope to find him that evening ;
and we could only proceed slowly along on the track, which
held to the pathway, keeping a bright look-out. The Ldlld in-
deed proposed that he should go a little ahead as a bait for the
tiger, while I covered him from the elephant with a rifle ! But
he wound up by expressing a doubt whether his skinny corpora-
tion would be a sufficient attraction ; and suggested that a plump
young policeman, who had taken advantage of our protection
to make his official visit to the scene of the last kill, should
be substituted, whereat there was a general but not very
hearty grin. The subject was too sore a one in that neigh-
bourhood just then. About a mile from the camp the track
turned off into the deep nala" that bordered the road. It was
now almost dark, so we went on to the camp, and fortified it
by posting the three elephants on different sides, and lighting
roaring fires between. Once in the night an elephant started
out of its deep sleep and trumpeted shrilly ; but in the morn-
ing we could find no tracks of the tiger having come near us.
I went out early next morning to beat up the nala" ; for a man-
eater is not like common tigers, and must be sought for morn-
ing, noon, and night. But I found no tracks, save in the one
place where he had crossed the nadd the evening before, and
gone off into thick jungle.

On my return to camp, just as I was sitting down to break-
fast, some Banjaras from a place called Dekna about a mile
and a half from camp came running in to say that one of their
companions had been taken out of the middle of their drove of

THE TIGER. 299

bullocks by the tiger, just as they were starting from their
night's encampment. The elephant had not been unharnessed ;
and, securing some food and a bottle of claret, I was not two
minutes in getting under way again. The edge of a low
savanna, covered with long grass and intersected by a nala,
was the scene of this last assassination ; and a broad trail of
crushed-down grass showed where the body had been dragged
down towards the nala. No tracking was required. It was
horribly plain. The trail did not lead quite into the nala,
which had steep sides ; but turned and went alongside of it
into some very long grass reaching nearly up to the howdah.
Here Sarju Parshad (a large Government mukna I was
then riding) kicked violently at the ground and trumpeted,
and immediately the long grass began to wave ahead.
We pushed on at full speed, stepping as we went over
the ghastly half-eaten body of the Banjara. But the cover
was dreadfully thick ; and though I caught a glimpse of
a yellow object as it jumped down into the nala it was not
in time to fire. It was some little time before we could get
the elephant down the bank and follow the broad plain foot-
prints of the monster, now evidently going at a swinging
trot. He kept on in the nala for about a mile, and then took
to the grass again ; but it was not so long here, and we could
still make out the trail from the howdah. Presently, how-
ever, it led into rough stony ground, and the tracking became
more difficult. He was evidently full of go, and would carry
us far ; so I sent back for some more trackers, and with orders
to send a small tent across to a hamlet on the banks of the
Ganjal, towards which he seemed to be making. All that day
we followed the trail through an exceedingly difficult- country,
patiently working out print by print, but without being
gratified by a sight of his brindled hide. Several of the

300 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTEAL INDIA.

local shikaris were admirable trackers; and we carried the
line down within about a mile of the river, where a dense
thorny cover began, through which no one could follow a
tiger.

We slept that night at the little village ; and early next
morning made a long cast ahead, proceeding at once to the
river, where we soon hit upon the track leading straight
down its sandy bed. There were some strong covers reported
in the river-bed some miles ahead, near the large village of
Bhadugaon, so I sent back to order the tent over there. The
track was crossed in this river by several others, but was
easily distinguishable from all by its superior size. It had
also a peculiar drag of the toe of one hind foot, which the
people knew and attributed to a wound he had received some
months before from a shikari's matchlock. There was thus no
doubt we were behind the man-eater ; and I determined to
follow him while I could hold out and we could keep the track.
It led right into a very dense cover of jaman and tamarisk,
in the bed and on the banks of the river, a few miles above
Bhadugaon. Having been hard pushed the previous day, we
hoped he might lie up here ; and, indeed, there was no other
place he could well go to for water and shade. So we circled
round the outside of the cover, and, finding no track leading
out, considered him fairly ringed. We then went over to the
village for breakfast, intending to return in the heat of the
day.

There I was told by one of the mahouts a story, which I
afterwards heard confirmed from the lips of one of the prin-
cipal actors, regarding a notable encounter with tigers in the
very cover where we had ringed the man-eater. It was in
1853 that the two brothers N. and Colonel G. beat the cover
for a family of tigers said to be in it. One of the brothers

THE TIGEE. 301

was posted in a tree, while G. and the other N. beat through
on an elephant. The man on the tree first shot two of the tigers
right and left, and then Colonel G. saw a very large one lying
in the shade of a dense bush, and fired at it, on which it
charged and mounted on the elephant's head. It was a small
female elephant, and was terribly punished about the trunk
and eyes in this encounter, though the mahout (a bold fellow
named Eamzan who was afterwards in my own service) bat-
tered the tiger's head with his iron driving-hook so as to leave
deep marks in the bones of his skull. At length he was
shaken off, and retreated ; but when the sportsmen urged in
the elephant again, and the tiger charged as before, she turned
round, and the tiger, catching her by the hind leg, fairly pulled
her over on her side. My informant, who was in the howdah,
said that for a time his arm was pinned between it and the
tigers body, who was making efforts to pull his shikari out of
the back seat. They were all, of course, spilt on the ground
with their guns ; and Colonel G., getting hold of one, made
the tiger retreat with a shot in the chest. The elephant had
fled from the scene of action, and the two sportsmen then went
in at the beast on foot. It charged again, and when close
to them was finally dropped by a lucky shot in the head. But
the sport did not end here ; for they found two more tigers in
the same cover immediately afterwards, and- killed one of
them, or four altogether in the day. The worrying she had
received, however, was the death of the elephant, which was
buried at Bhadugaon one of the few instances on record of
an elephant being actually killed by a tiger.

About eleven o'clock we again faced the scorching hot
wind, and made silently for the cover where lay the man-eater.
I surrounded it with scouts on trees ; and posted a pad-ele-
phant at the only point where he could easily get up the high

302 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTEAL INDIA.

bank and make off ; and then pushed old Sarju slowly and

carefully through the cover. Peafowl rose in numbers from

every bush as we advanced ; and a few hares and other small

animals bolted out at the edges, such thick green covers being

the midday resort of all the life of the neighbourhood in the

hot weather. About the centre the jungle was extremely

thick, and the bottom was cut up into a number of parallel

water- channels among the strong roots and overhanging

branches of the tamarisk. Here the elephant paused and

began to kick the earth, and utter the low tremulous sound by

which some elephants denote the close presence of a tiger.

We peered all about with nervous beatings of the heart ; and

at last the mahout, who was lower down on the elephant's

neck, said he saw him lying beneath a thick jaman bush

We had some stones in the howdah, and I made the Lalla,

who was behind me in the back seat, pitch one into the bush.

Instantly the tiger started up with a short roar and galloped

off through the bushes. I gave him right and left at once,

which told loudly ; but he went till he saw the pad-elephant

blocking the road he meant to escape by, and then he turned

and charged back at me with horrible roars. It was very difficult

to see him among the crashing bushes, and he was within

twenty yards when I fired again. This dropped him into one

of the channels ; but he picked himself up, and came on again

as savagely though more slowly than before. I was now in the

act of covering him with the large shell rifle, when suddenly the

elephant spun round, and I found myself looking the opposite

way, while a worrying sound behind me and the frantic

movements of the elephant told me I had a fellow-passenger

on board I might well have dispensed with. All I could do

in the way of holding on barely sufficed to prevent myself and

guns from being pitched out ; and it was some time before

THE TIGEE. 303

Sarju, finding he could not kick him off, paused to think
what he would do next. I seized that placid interval
to lean over behind and put the muzzle of the rifle to the
head of the tiger, blowing it into fifty pieces with the
large shell. He dropped like a sack of potatoes ; and then I
saw the dastardly mahout urging the elephant to run out of
the cover. An application of my gun-stock to his head,
however, reversed the engine ; and Sarju, coming round
with the utmost willingness, trumpeted a shrill note of
defiance, and rushing upon his prostrate foe commenced a
war-dance on his body that made it little less difficult to stick
to him than when the tiger was being kicked off. It con-
sisted I believe of kicking up the carcass with a hind leg,
catching it in the hollow of the fore, and so tossing it back-
wards and forwards among his feet, winding up by placing
his huge fore foot on the body and crossing the other over it,
so as to press it into the sand with his whole weight. I found
afterwards that the elephant-boy, whose business it is to
stand behind the howdah, and, if necessary, keep the elephant
straight in a charge by applying a thick stick over his rump,
had had a narrow escape in this adventure, having dropped
off in his fright almost into the jaws of the tiger. The tiger
made straight for the elephant, however, as is almost invari-
ably the case, and the boy picked himself up and fled to the
protection of the other elephant.

Sarju was not a perfect shikan elephant ; but his fault was
rather too much courage than the reverse, and it was only
his miserable opium -eating villain of a mahout that made
him turn at the critical moment. He was much cut about
the quarters ; but I took him out close to the tents two days
after and killed two more tigers without his flinchiDg in the
least. The tiger we had thus killed was undoubtedly the

304 THE HIGHLANDS OP CENTKAL INDIA.

man-eater. He was exactly ten feet long, in the prime of
life, with the dull yellow coat of the adult male not in the
least mangy or toothless like the man-eater of story. He had
no moon on his head, nor did his belly nearly touch the
ground. I afterwards found that these characteristics are
attributed to all man-eaters by the credulous people.

Before dismissing Sarju. from these pages, I would like to
record an anecdote of his sagacity which I think beats every-
thing I have heard of the elephant's intellect. He was a
consummate thief; and had grown so cunning that he could
unfasten any chains or ropes he was tethered with, which he
often would do of a dark night if not watched, and proceed
to roam about seeking what he might devour. His favourite
object on such occasions was sugar-cane ; and if he got into
a field of this would trample down and damage the greater
part of it. Many a long bill have I paid for such depre-
dations. He would never allow himself to be caught again
after such an escapade while his keepers pursued him with
sticks and threats, but surrendered at once as soon, as they
resorted to persuasion, and promised not to beat him. One
night the people of the camp were sitting up late over a small
fire, and saw Sarju unloose his foot-chain and stalk off through
the camp. Presently he appeared sniffing about the place
where a grain-merchant had brought out his sacks during the
day to supply the wants of the camp. A sack of rice, nearly
empty, lay under the head of a sleeping lad; and Sarju
paused and seemed to ponder long how he might annex its
contents. At last he was seen to gradually withdraw the bag
with his trunk, while he replaced it with the sloping edge of
his big fore foot in supporting the head of the boy. Having
gobbled up the rice with much despatch, he then rolled up the
bag, and returning it under the boy's head stalked away ! I

THE TIGEE. 305

was told this story next morning by several respectable
natives who saw the whole affair, and who had no object in
telling a lie about it. For my own part, knowing what Mr.
Sarju was capable of, I believe it.

Before quitting the subject of tigers I may notice the
obstacle presented by the number of these animals to the
advance of population and tillage. Between five and six
hundred human beings, and an uncalculated number of cattle,
are killed by wild beasts in the Central Provinces alone every
year. This enormous loss of life and property has been the
subject of much discussion; and many schemes for their de-
struction have been proposed, most of them unpractical, and
some even absurd. For some years heavy rewards were given
for every tiger and other dangerous animal killed, special
rewards being placed on the heads of man-eaters ; and I am
convinced that many more were killed during that time than
previously, though statistics of former years when there was
no reward are not available for comparison. The number
destroyed increased every year under this stimulus. Kewards
for the killing of 2414 tigers, panthers, bears, and wolves
were claimed in 1867 (the last year for which statistics are
available), against 1863 in 1865. Tigers are certainly not
now so numerous by a great deal in many parts with which I
am personally acquainted as they were even six or eight years
ago. The reward has now again been much decreased ; and
the experience of a few years will show whether the tigers
again get the upper hand. It is practically only the cattle-
killing and man-eating tigers that are productive of injury,
those which principally subsist on game being probably more
useful than noxious. Poison has sometimes been successful in
destroying a man-eater, a famous tigress, that long ravaged
the western part of Ohindwilra district having been killed

306 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTRAL INDIA.

with strychnine in 1865, just a day before I arrived after
a forced march of a hundred miles to hunt her. More
commonly, however, poison is of no avail with these
cunning brutes ; and, as a rule, man-eaters can only be
killed by the European sportsman with the help of an ele-
phant, the native shikaris rarely attempting to molest them.
Elephants have been made more available than formerly, some
of the jungle districts having a Government one attached to
them, besides many possessed by various public departments ;
and man-eaters of a bad type now rarely survive long. I know
of eight or ten that have been killed by European officers since
1862, and I have not heard of any more for the last few
years. It is a great point to extinguish those brutes at the
outset of their career ; for, if not killed when he commences
to prey on human beings, a tiger becomes so cunning that it
is afterwards a most difficult thing to circumvent him.

While, then, I believe that the greater outcry made of late
years about the ravages of wild animals is simply due, like
many other circumstances of old standing that have dis-
covered themselves of a sudden in India, to more careful
gathering of statistics, I certainly think that the evils shown
still to exist are sufficient to call for some action on the
part of the State. There is no doubt that an application to this
matter of the same administrative ability which has reformed
other evils would speedily reach to the root of this. Every
tiger which really does mischief is perfectly well known
locally ; and his destruction should be merely a matter of time
and arrangement. It should be as much the business of the
local officers of Government to kill off destructive tigers as to
capture dacoits and murderers. To do this they must, of course,
have the means. In a bad district one at least of the resident
officers, police or magisterial, should be a known sportsman ;

THE TIGEK. 3

and a staunch elephant should be a part of the regular establish-
ment of every such district. The sums now allowed for rewards
should be placed more at the disposal of the local officers than
they are. If expended according to local requirements, in
obtaining information, organizing and arming shikdris, paying
for the destruction of particular tigers, etc., far more could be
done with the money by a competent officer than by the
present method of a hard and fast reward for every animal
brought in. More than this, I would have the vast resources
of the Government in sportsmen and elephants regularly
utilised in an annual campaign against the tigers. Every
cantonment contains some dozen of ardent sportsmen, who do
nothing whatever of value to the state after the drill season is
over, and throughout the hot season when tigers can best be
destroyed. They would all be only too happy to give their
services in this work if their extra expenses were paid. Also,
in every commissariat yard are some scores of Government
elephants, many of them staunch already, and nearly all capable
of being made so. After the marching season they have
nothing whatever to do, and from want of sufficient work go
out of condition and frequently die. What so obvious then
as that these idle riflemen and these idle elephants should be
sent forth into the jungles all over India for three months,
from March to June, to fetch in their tale of tigers ? All that
is wanted is a little organization. The different departments
of Government must be made to work together the com-
missariat officers must be over-ruled when they prophesy the
ruin of their dearly beloved elephants. They will in fact be
all the better for it. The military authorities must be in-
formed that they can have their officers and animals back
again on two days' notice should they require them. The
civil officers of the country to be hunted must be got to work

x 2

308 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTEAL INDIA.

in concert with the expeditions. Without their, co-operation
nothing can be done. A thorough sportsman, well acquainted
with the country, and known to get on among natives, must
be placed with sole power at the head of each party. I need
not go farther into details. The scheme is so simple, and so
certain of success, without even the least extra expense to the
state, that it is only surprising that, among so many schemes
which have received notice, this, the only possible method
of making a real and speedy impression upon the wild
animals, should not have been brought forward. Of course
it is unnecessary to say that partial and timid experiments
of the sort can lead to no result worthy of notice. The scale
of operations must be large, while at the same time the
arrangement of the details of organization must be careful,
and free from anything resembling jobbery. I have said that
no extra expenditure need be incurred. The pay of the
officers employed and expenses of the elephants would not of
course be charged to this work, while all the other expenses
of camp equipage, carriage, hunting expenses, etc., should be
defrayed from the existing provision for rewards.

On the 27th of May I shot my last tiger for that season in
the famous cover of Dapdrd,, being seized the next day with
the preliminary symptoms of what turned out to be a severe
attack of jungle fever, brought on by constant exposure to
the hot sun by day and the malarious air of these close
valleys by night ; cholera, too, was raging all around us, and
so I determined to return to the cool heights of Puchmurree,
which I did by the Bori route, in four longish marches. I
was sick of the constant severe heat of the burnt-up plains
below, and parched with the coming fever as well, and I
think I never enjoyed anything so much as when I bared my
head to the cool breeze that swept over the Puchmurree

THE TIGER. 309

plateau, as I topped its edge after climbing up the stiff ascent
of the Eori GMt. The thermometer in my tent below had
been ranging from 98 degrees to 110 degrees during the heat
of the day, and had once reached 120 degrees, when I went
out and lay like a tiger under some jdman bushes by the
water-side. In the verandah of the lodge on Puchmurree,
which was now nearly finished, it stood at 86 degrees, while
the nights, which below had not for weeks been free from
hot winds, were cool and delicious up here. Soon after com-
ing up I was fairly prostrated with fever, and remained
delirious for about a couple of days, emerging at last, thanks
to a very attentive native doctor we had, much shaken and
weak, but free from the fever. Nearly all my servants and
the camp followers who had been through the hot weather
with me also got fever on coming up to Puchmurree, and the
place presented much the appearance of an extensive hospital
for some weeks.

The first rain of the monsoon fell on the 12th of June, a
smart shower, that, as if by magic, covered the plateau with
the greenest of tints. The wild flowers, too, again burst
forth on all sides, under the influence of the gentle showers
that now almost daily visited the hill. It was inexpressibly
delightful to be up here, in a perfectly English climate, with
cool grey skies, and greenery all about, after the terrible
grilling we had suffered for two long months down below.
My Korku friends seemed glad to see me back again, and I
tried to go out after the bison with them, but I found myself
far too weak to negotiate the formidable slopes of Dhupgarh.
The early part of the rainy season which was now approach-
ing is the very best time of all for hunting the bison, tracks
being easily followed, while the sky is generally overcast with
clouds, and the weather cool in these high regions. Towards

310 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTEAL INDIA.

the end of the month the clouds began to bank up into deep
purple masses behind the higher peaks, and at night lightning
played incessantly round the horizon. By great exertions we
got the house roofed just in time to hang a bison's frontlet
over the door, and christen it " Bison Lodge," before the full
force of the monsoon broke upon the plateau on the last day
of June. I must not now tell of the many pleasant days and
jovial nights passed between those four walls in after years,
when the fire blazing in the arched grate I had builded with
my own hands, and the jorum of whisky toddy imported from
my native hills, deluded us into the belief that we were far
away from the exile, if still a pleasant exile, of the highlands
of Central India. Such a terrific storm I never saw as on the
night of the breaking of the monsoon, crash after crash seem-
ing to burst within the rooms, while a blaze of green light-
ning incessantly lit up the whole features of the hill. It lasted
about the whole night, and nearly four inches of rain fell
along with it, but on its clearing up in the morning, such is
the beautiful drainage of this plateau that in less than an hour
a horse could have galloped over it comfortably in any direc-
tion. Eain clouds continued to shroud the higher peaks, and
roll round the edges of the plateau, the whole time I remained
on the hill, but we never had another heavy storm, and, what
is very unusual at such altitudes, the clouds never invaded
the centre of the plateau at all. I had repeated returns of
the fever, and neither could my people shake it off. Con-
veniences to help recovery were also wanting, and I left
the plateau on the 20th of July to march to Jubbulpur. It
was a melancholy procession down the hill, that march of my
gaunt and fever-stricken followers, crowded on the backs of
the elephants that carried them in several trips to the carts
that awaited them below.

THE TIGER. 311

Another officer relieved me at Puchmurree, and remained
nearly till the end of the rainy season ; meteorological obser-
vations being kept up, in order to compare with others which
were being taken at the same time by a party resident on the
rival plateau of Motiir. The result was that a mean tempera-
ture of about 73, and a rainfall of rather more than 60 inches,
were registered for both places during the four months from
June to September, which shows a range of heat about 8 or
10 lower than on the plains, and nearly double the rainfall.
Unfortunately, however, the comparative difficulty of access to
Puchmurree was allowed to tell against its infinitely superior
beauty and suitability in other respects ; and swampy, jungly,
hideous Motiir, which lies on the trap formation, and very
much resembles the country along the T&pti river described
in the last chapter, was preferred to this beautiful plateau for
trial as a sanatarium for European troops during the ensuing
season. It was an utter failure, the climate being bad, and
there being nothing to interest the men in such a place. It
seems to have been forgotten that in a year or two the rail-
way would pass within thirty miles of Puchmurree on the
north, from which side a wheel-road up the hill might be
made at small expense.

Since then the Forest Department has regularly occupied
the lodge on the hill, and laid out extensive gardens round
about. Attempts to cultivate the quinine-yielding cinchona
made on a small scale have failed, owing probably to want of
the needful attention and knowledge, rather than to un suita-
bility of the place and climate. The potato, and all sorts of
European vegetables and flowers, have been found to thrive
admirably at Puchmurree. Another house has been built,
and many European and native officials have enjoyed
excellent health during visits to the place for some years.

312 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTEAL INDIA.

Lately a wheel-road up the hill from the railway station of
Bankheri has been constructed, and one of the loveliest spots
in India is now in a fair way of having justice done to it
at last*

Horns of Hog-deer, Barking-deer, male and female Cbikara, and Four-horned Antelope.
(Scale, one tenth.)

I shall not say much of my long ride of a hundred miles to
Jubbulpiir in the soaking rain, through the stiff black mud
and unbridged streams of the Narbada" valley. It was very
miserable, with the chills of ague in one's bones. A luxuriant
seat in a first-class saloon now whirls the visitor to Puch-
murree over those weary miles ; and the pioneers of earlier
days must not prate of their hardships. "With the exception
of a few days, when I had the excellent society of my friend

Since writing the above I have seen that Government has sanctioned the
experimental establishment of a sanatarium for European soldiers at Puch-
murree. It cannot fail to prove a success if properly managed.

THE TIGER, 313

Captain Pearson, I had not seen a white face during these six
months of jungle wanderings ; and though by no means tired
of the wild, independent life of a forester, or of the company
of the hill people and the kindly little band of dependants I
had gathered about me, the society of a pleasant station like
the Jubbulpur of those days was no doubt an agreeable
change. .

CHAPTEE VIII.

THE HIGHER NARBADA.

Jubbulpur Transformed Effects of the Railway along the Narbada A Station
Shikaii The Panther and Leopard Dangers of Panther Hunting A
Man-eating Panther Curious Legend Cunning of Panthers A Deter-
mined Charge Baits for the Panther A Hot- weather Excursion Dance
of the Peacocks Deer Shooting from a " Dug-out " The Spotted Deer
An Interview with a Tiger The Monkeys' Leap Immense Herd of
Deer A Famous Tiger A Successful Beat A Midnight Intruder The
Man-eater of Pouhri Ghostly Legend Coursing the Sambar Native
Dogs The Wild Dog Banjara Dogs The Black Bear A Family Charge-
Bear Shooting Large Python.

JuBBULPtJR is now rather an important place, being the
point of junction of the two lines of railway which between
them connect the political with the commercial capital of
India, Calcutta with Bombay, and over which pass all the pas-
sengers, and much of the goods, in transit between England
and Upper India. At the time of which I write it was a
small civil and military station, of which few who had not
been there knew anything, except that it was situated some-
where in the wilds of Central India. I remember when we
first got our orders to march there from Upper India no one
could give us a route to it. It was trooped from Madras at
that time, and so of course the Bengal authorities could not
be expected to know anything about it. We found it the
pleasantest of Indian stations ; situated in a green hollow
among low rocky granite hills always covered with verdure ;
with tidy hard roads and plenty of greensward about them ;

THE HIGHER NARBADA. 315

with commodious bungalows embowered in magnificent clumps
of bamboo ; remarkable for the delicacy and abundance of its
fruits and other garden products, including the pineapple,
which* will not grow anywhere else in Central India ; and
withal, from its land-locked condition forbidding exports, a
most absurdly cheap sort of place to live in. All this is now
changed. The steam-horse has torn his way through the
parks, and levelled the bamboo clumps that were the glory
of the place. Hideous embankments, and monstrous hotels,
and other truly British buildings, stare one in the face at
every turn. Crowds of rail-borne " picturesquers " assail the
Marble Kocks and other sights about the place. Everything
has run up to the famine prices induced by the rapid " pro-
gress" of the last ten years. And progress it is, in every
proper sense of the word. The Narbada* valley is now a part
of the great bustling world outside, instead of being a mere
isolated oasis in a desert of jungle, thinking and caring only
about its own petty wants and concerns. The agriculturist,
the merchant, and all who " paddle their own canoe " on the
great ocean of life, are all the better for it. Their gains have
grown in more than proportion to their outgoings. Only such
wretches as sail in "foreign bottoms" have to regret the
change ; their fixed incomes have not grown with the growth
of their expenses. The poor clerk, who could barely in the
old times keep body and soul together on his pittance of ten
rupees a month, gets no more now that his expenses are
doubled. Government schools have flooded his market with
competitors, who prevent' his wages from rising by their im-
portunity for office ; and the Government, not having yet
discovered the way to raise its own income, when appealed to
for more, buttons up its pockets, and points to the crowds
ready and willing to serve for less. The poor clerk has his

316 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTRAL INDIA.

remedy ; lie can pick and steal enough to make up the de-
ficiency ; and he does so. But the subaltern of infantry, or
the young civilian, being incommoded with the troublesome
commodity called honour, have no such resource ; aftid so
they have nothing for it but to knock off their Arab, and
other little luxuries, and fag away through an ill-concealed
period of indigence to higher grades and better pay.

All this civilisation has of course greatly deteriorated the
place as a residence for him whose pleasures lie with the
jungle and its wild inhabitants. In the old times, Jubbulpur
was almost the perfection of a sportsman's headquarters. It
lay nearly at the head of the last of the great basins of the
Narbada* valley, which have been reclaimed by population and
agriculture. These basins are a characteristic of the valley,
and within the limits of our province are four in number ;
great circular plains surrounded by steep hills, filled with
deep alluvial soil, through which the river moves slowly in
long silent reaches, with here and there a gentle stream. Be-
tween them lie shorter sections of rugged ground, where the
hills on either side converge, and through which the river
tumbles in a less placid course, short pools being connected
by long broken rapids. -A little way above Jubbulpur, the
last of these basins is terminated by the again converging hills,
and from this point up to the little civil station of Mandla* the
river flows through a narrow valley, very scantily cultivated
here and there, and generally covered along the river-side
by bamboos, and on the hills by a low jungle composed of the
commoner sort of trees. Many little tributary streams joined
the river in this part of its course. These ran up into the
partially cultivated uplands on either side of the valley ; and
in the cold season, when they contained water and green vege-
tation, afforded cover to great numbers of wild animals of

THE HIGHEK NARBADA. 317

all sorts. When the hot season advanced their waters gradu-
ally dried up, and then the game all moved down into the
Narbada valley, congregating at that time, when the great
mutiny had for some years prevented their molestation, in
very great numbers.

In January, 1863, I marched up this valley, on my way to
explore the Sal forests in the eastern part of the province.
But want of time then prevented my lingering to shoot. The
year before joining the forest department, however, I had
made an excursion up this valley during the hot season ; and
while cantoned at Jubbulpur, made many excursions through
the hilly regions surrounding the valley. Several sorts of
game which have not yet been much mentioned were then
met with in great abundance ; and before taking my readers
towards the Sal forests I will devote a little space to these
excursions.

I was then a good deal of a " griffin," and was obliged to
rely much on the assistance of native shikans in finding game.
The chief of these about Jubbulpur was an arch- villain who
haunted the purlieus of the cantonment messes, and hawked
about his news of panthers, bears, deer, etc., to the highest
bidder. I don't think I ever heard his name. He was always
called " Bamanjee," or the " Brahman," for such was his
caste. He knew intimately every inch of the jungle for
twenty miles around, and had sons and nephews in close
relations with the tigers and other wild animals in all direc-
tions. He was thoroughly acquainted with all the different
sorts of game and their habits, and really could, when he
chose, furnish first-rate sport to his clients. But he was by
nature a rogue of the first water, generally taking his informa-
tion all round the station for offers ; and taking out the
highest bidder to a hunt which almost invariably ended,

318 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTEAL INDIA.

through some perverse accident, in the escape without scathe
of the object of pursuit, which he would very likely bring in
the next day himself to claim the Government reward. He
had "stumbled on it" of course, quite by accident, and in
self-defence, etc., he was compelled to shoot it !

His great quarry was the panther, of which he was known
to have killed an almost incredible number in the course of
his long life. He lived in a little village about four miles out
of the station, just under one of the steep isolated granite hills
that rise at intervals from the plain ; and he once showed me
a notched stick, on which fifty- two cuts recorded the number
of panthers he had killed on this hill alone. The number of
these animals in the districts round about Jubbulpur is very
great. The low rocky hills referred to, full of hollows and
caverns, and overgrown with dense scrubby cover, afford them
favourite retreats ; while the numbers of antelope and hog
deer, goats, sheep, pariah dogs, and pigs, supply them with
abundant food. A large male panther will kill not very
heavy cattle ; but as a rule they confine themselves te the
smaller animals mentioned. They seldom reside very far
from villages, prowling round them at night in search of prey,
and retreating to their fastnesses before day-break. Unlike
the tiger, they care little for the neighbourhood of water even
in the hot weather, drinking only at night, and generally at*a
distance from their mid-day retreat.

There has been much confusion among sportsmen and
writers as to the several species of Cat called "Panther,"
" Leopard," and " Hunting Leopard." Jerdon, in his " Mam-
mals of India," has at last correctly distinguished them under
the above names, recognising two varieties marked with
rosettes (the fulvous ground of the skin showing through the
black), instead of plain black spots, which are peculiar to the

* THE HIGHER NAEBADA. 319

Hunting Leopard (F. Jubata). He calls both F. Pardus,
considering them only as varieties, not distinct species. In
English he calls the larger the panther and the smaller the
leopard, and it will be well if sportsmen will avoid future con-
fusion by adopting this appropriate nomenclature. The points
of difference between the two varieties of F. Pardus he states
to be the larger size of the panther, which reaches in fine
specimens seven feet eleven inches in length from nose to tip
of tail, the leopard not exceeding five feet six inches ; the
lighter colour, and taller and more slender figure of the
panther, and the rounder more bull-dog like head of the leo-
pard. These distinctions I myself recognised, and described
in "The Field," of 17th May, 1862.

In my early sporting days I fell into the mistake of most
sportsmen in supposing that the panther might be hunted on
foot with less caution than the tiger. On two or three occa-
sions I nearly paid dearly for the error ; and I now believe
that the panther is really by far a more dangerous animal to
attack than the tiger. He is, in the first place, far more
courageous. For though he will generally sneak away un-
observed as long as he can, if once brought to close quarters
he will rarely fail to charge with the utmost ferocity, fighting
to -the very last. He is also much more active than the tiger,
making immense springs clear off the ground, which the tiger
seldom does. He can conceal himself in the most wonderful
way, his spotted hide blending with the ground, and his lithe
loose form being compressible into an inconceivably small
space. Further, he is so much less in depth and stoutness
than the tiger, and moves so much quicker, that he is far
more difficult to hit in a vital place. He can climb trees,
which the tiger cannot do except for a short distance up a
thick sloping trunk. A few years ago a panther thus took a

320 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTEAL INDIA. |

sportsman out of a high perch on a tree in the Chindwara
district. And lastly, his powers of offence are scarcely inferior
to those of the tiger himself; and are amply sufficient to be
the death of any man he gets hold of. When stationed at
Damoh near Jubbulpur, with a detachment of my regiment, I
shot seven panthers and leopards in less than a month, within
a few miles of the station, chiefly by driving them out with
beaters ; all of them charged who had the power to do so ; but
the little cherub who watches over " griffins" got us out of it
without damage either to myself or the beaters. One of the
smaller species, really not more than five feet long I believe,
charged me three several times up a bank to the very muzzle
of my rifle (of which I luckily had a couple), falling back
each time to the shot, but not dreaming of trying to escape,
and dying at last at my feet with her teeth closed on the root
of a small tree. This animal had about six inches of the quill
of a porcupine broken off in her chest. Another jumped on
my horse, when passing through some long grass, before she
was fired at at all ; and after being kicked off charged my
groom and gun carrier, who barely escaped by fleeing for their
lives, leaving my only gun in the possession of the leopard.
I had to ride to cantonments for another rifle, and to get to-
gether some beaters. When we returned, I took up my post
on a rock which overlooked the patch of grass ; and the beaters
had scarcely commenced their noise before the leopard went
at them like an arrow. An accident would certainly have
happened this time had my shots failed to stop this devil
incarnate before she reached them. She had cubs in the
grass, which accounted for her fury ; but a tigress would have
abandoned them to their fate in a similar case. The last I
killed was a man-eater, which took up his post among the
high crops surrounding a village, and killed and dragged in

THE HIGHER NARBADa. 321

women and children who ventured out of the village. He
was a panther of the largest size, and had been wounded by a
shikari from a tree, the ball passing through his external ear
and one of his paws, and rendering him incapable of killing
game. I was a week hunting him, as he was very careful not
to show himself when pursued ; and at last I shot him in a
cowhouse into which he had ventured, and killed several head
of cattle, before the people had courage to shut the door.

When a panther takes to man-eating, he is a far more
terrible scourge than a tiger. In 1858 a man-killing panther
devastated the northern part of the Seoni district, killing
(incredible as it may seem) nearly a hundred persons before
he was shot by a shikari. He never ate the bodies, but
merely lapped the blood from the throat ; and his plan was
either to steal into a house at night, and strangle some sleeper
on his bed, stifling all outcry with his deadly grip, or to climb
into the high platforms from which watchers guard their fields
from deer, and drag out his victim from there. He was not
to be baulked of his prey ; and when driven off from one end
of a village, would hurry round to the opposite side and secure
another in the confusion. A few moments completed his
deadly work, and such was the devilish cunning he joined to
this extraordinary boldness that all attempts to find and shoot
him were for many months unsuccessful. European sports-
men who went out,, after hunting him in vain all day, would
find his tracks close to the door of their tent in the morning.
When, a few years later, I passed through the scene of his
chief depredations (Dhiima), a curious myth had grown round
the history of this panther. A man and his wife were travel-
ling back to their home from a pilgrimage to Benares, when
they met on the road a panther. The woman was terrified ;
but the man said, " Fear not, I possess a charm by which I

322 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTRAL INDIA.

can transform myself into any shape. I will now become a
panther, and remove this obstacle from the road, and on my
return you must place this powder in my mouth, when I will
recover my proper shape/' He then swallowed his own
portion of the magic powder, and assuming the likeness of
the panther, persuaded him to leave the path. Eeturning to
the woman, he opened his mouth to receive the transposing
charm ; but she, terrified by his dreadful appearance and open
jaws, dropped it in the mire, and it was lost. Then, in
despair, he killed the author of his misfortune, and ever after
revenged himself on the race whose form he could never
resume.

The Seoni panther is not a solitary case, several other man-
eating panthers having done scarcely less amount of mischief
in other parts of the province. Their indifference to water
makes it extremely difficult to bring them to book ; and,
indeed, panthers are far more generally met with by accident
than secured by regular hunting. When beating with ele-
phants they are very rarely found, considering their numbers ;
but they must be frequently passed at a short distance, unob-
served, in this kind of hunting. In 1862, I was hunting for
a tigress and cubs near Khapa, on the Lawa river, in Betul.
Their tracks of a few days old led into a deep fissure in the
rocky banks of the river, above which I went, leaving the
elephant below, and threw in stones from the edge. Some
way up I saw a large panther steal out at the head, and
sneak across the plain. He was out of shot, and I followed
on his tracks, which were clear enough for a few hundred
yards, till, at the crossing of a small rocky nald,, they dis-
appeared. I could not make it out, and was returning to the
elephant, when I saw the driver making signals. He had
followed me up above, and had seen the panther sneak back

THE HIGHER NAEBADA. 323

along the little nala, which Ted into the top of the ravine, and
re-enter the latter. I then went and placed myself so as to
command the top of the ravine, and sent people below to fling
in stones ; and presently the panther broke again at the same
place, this time galloping away openly across the plain. I
missed with both barrels of my rifle, but turned him over
with a lucky shot from a smooth-bore, at more than two
hundred yards. I then went up to him on the elephant, and
he made feeble attempts to rise and come at me, but he was
too far gone to succeed. The panther will charge an elephant
with the greatest ferocity. In 1863, near Sambalpiir, a party
of us were beating a bamboo cover for pigs, with a view to
the sticking thereof, my elephant accompanying the beaters,
when a shout from the latter announced that they had
stumbled on a panther. They took to trees, and I got on
the elephant to turn him out, while the others exchanged
their hog-spears for rifles, and surrounded the place on trees.
She got up before me, bounding away over the low bamboos,
and I struck her on the rump with a light breech-loading gun
as she disappeared. Several shots from the trees failed to
stop her, and she took refuge in a very dense thorny cover on
the banks of a little stream. Twice up and down I passed
without seeing the brute, but firing once into a log of wood
in mistake for her, and was going along the top of the cover
for the third time, when the elephant pointed down the bank
with her extended trunk. We threw some stones in, but
nothing moved, and at last a peon came up with a huge stone
on his head, which he heaved down the bank. Next moment
a yellow streak shot from the bushes, and, levelling the ad-
venturous peon, like a flash of lightning came straight at my
elephant's head, when just at the last spring I broke her back
with the breech-loader, and she fell over under the elephant's

Y 2

324 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTEAL INDIA.

trunk, tearing at the earth and stones and her own body in
her bloody rage. She had a cub in the cover, about the size
of a cat, which I shot on the way back.

The method usually resorted to by old Bamanjee and other
native shikaris for killing panthers and leopards was, by
tying out a kid, with a line attached to a fish-hook through
its ear, a pull at which makes the poor little brute continue to
squeak, after it has cried itself to silence about its mother.
No sentiment of humanity interferes with the devices of the
mild Hindu. A dog in a pit, with a basket-work cover over
it, and similarly attached to a line, is equally effective. I
have known panthers repeatedly to take animals they have
killed up into trees to devour, and once found the body of a
child, that had been killed by a panther in the Betul district,
so disposed of in the fork of a tree. They are very often lost,
I believe, by taking unobserved to trees. Beating them out
of cover with a strong body of beaters and fireworks is, on the
whole, the most successful way of hunting these cunning
brutes ; but it is accompanied by a good deal of risk to the
beaters as well as to the sportsman, if he is over-venture-
some ; and it is apt, also, to end in disappointment in most
instances. My own experience is that the majority of pan-
thers one finds, are come across more by luck than good
management.

In April, 1861, old Bamanjee, with whom 1 had often been
out on short trips with considerable success, induced me to
take a month's leave, and accompany him up the Narbada"
valley from Jubbulpur to shoot. The game promised con-
sisted of tigers, bears, sambar, and spotted deer ; and I found
that all these were really attainable in no small numbers.
The sambar and bears lived on the hill ranges on either side
of the river; while the spotted deer, as usual, kept to the

THE HIGHER NAR13ADA. 325

banks of the river, where a network of ravines, covered with
clumps of bamboo, afforded them the plentiful shade and
abundance of water they delight in. In attendance on them
was the tiger, who revelled in the abundance of game then
congregated about the river. The herds of cattle and buffa-
loes that were grazing in the valley were seldom touched,
excepting in one place, where I found a family of tigers
wholly subsisting upon them ; but nearly every day we
stumbled on the remains of spotted deer, s^mbar, and nilgai,
which had fallen victims to the destroyer. The destroyer
himself, however, kept, with a good deal of success, out of
our way. I was too green a hand to hunt him then with
the silent perseverance which alone ensures success, and could
rarely resist a promising shot at other game on the distant
chance of finding a tiger. Nor do I think that Mr. Bamanjee
much desired to have very many interviews with his jungle
majesty. Spotted deer were in immense numbers, and the
bucks were everywhere bellowing along the banks, and in the
bamboo-covered ravines that radiate from the river. It was
very easy to shoot the poor brutes at that time, the best plan
being to embark in a canoe dug out of a single log, and
paddle slowly down the reaches a little way from the bank,
between daybreak and ten or eleven o'clock. The air of
repose worn by the whole scene at that time is scarcely
broken by the movement of animal life. The lazy plunge of
a crocodile, the eddying rise of a great fish, the hover of a
gem-like kingfisher, the easy flight of the dark square-winged
buzzard, all add to, rather than diminish, the sense of quietness
in the scene. Immense numbers of peafowl live on the banks.
This is the season of their loves, and almost every bare knoll
may be seen covered with a flock of them, the hens sitting
demurely in the centre, while the cocks ruffle out their magni-

326 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTRAL INDIA.

ficent plumage, and spread their gorgeous trains, and waltz
round and round them in a most absurd fashion. The boat-
men are fond of trying to catch them when absorbed in this
dance of love ; and, though I have never seen one actually
secured, I have seen an active fellow get so near as to pluck
some feathers from the tail of the collapsed and retreating
swain. No riotous sounds offend the ear in this peaceful
valley. The Koel, bird of the morning, raises now and then
his staccato note from some overhanging tree, or the giant
Sarus crane floats his tremulous cry along the calm surface of
the lake-] ike river.

But hark ! From a clump of tangled bamboos, overhang-
ing the mouth of a little burn that joins the river, rings the
loud bellow of a spotted buck. The boatman sticks his long
pole down to the bottom, and anchors the dug-out, while the
sportsman, with cocked rifle, watches in the bow. Presently
a rustle and a motion in the fringe of bright-green jdman
bushes that edge the river, and the head and shoulders of a
noble buck emerge, one fore foot advanced hesitatingly to the
strip of yellow sand beside the water. Another instant and
he stands, a statue of grace and beauty, on the open beach.
Now he has seen the boat, and his careless mien is changed
for an attitude of intense regard. Motionless, head thrown
up, and antlers sweeping his flanks, he might be photographed
for the second or two he stands at gaze. In an instant more
he will wheel round and plunge into the thicket, unless
stopped by the deadly bullet. The true sportsman will often
spare the beautiful creature, even when thus at the point of
his rifle, when a week or two of the easy sport has satiated
his ardour, and filled his camp with meat and trophies of
graceful antlers. It was impossible in those days to walk
half a mile along the river bank without seeing deer, and I

THE HIGHER NARBADA. 327

have known an indifferent shot kill six bucks here in a

morning.

There was some excitement in the chance of stumbling
on a tiger in the cool thickets of green cover by the river, or,
like the sportsman, stalking the spotted deer. I was following
a wounded buck once, when I thus almost trod upon a tiger
doing the very same thing. It was in the dusk of the evening,
when I saw him about twenty paces ahead of me, roading up
the bloody trail like a retriever on a winged pheasant. He
was passing over a low ridge between two ravines, and I was
below him a situation awkward for a foot-encounter with
any dangerous animal. I, therefore, waited till he disappeared
on the other side, and then running softly up, peered down
from behind a clump of bamboos. Presently I saw the
wounded buck and two does start out of some cover beyond
the further ravine, and then a motion of the tiger, who had
been standing a little below them, as he quickly crouched out
of their sight, revealed him to me. I sat down, and took a
steady shot at his shoulder at about seventy yards. He rolled
back into the nald, above which I was standing, and, after a
good deal of growling and struggling among the leaves, all
w r as still. It would have been folly to go down to him in
such uncertain light, so I returned to the boat, going back
next morning with an elephant to see the result. It was just
as well I had not ventured down in the dark the night before ;
for, after lying some time where he fell, and leaving a great
pool of blood .on the ground, he had afterwards recovered
himself, and gone slowly and painfully off towards the river.
We followed up the track, and about three hundred yards
further down found him, by the chattering of birds, lying stiff
and stark under a bush. He had never reached the water he
sought.

328 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTEAL IXDIA.

About twenty-five miles above Jubbulpur is a curious place
called the " Monkeys' Leap." A small tributary of the Narbada,
called the Baghora (or " Tiger Kiver"), here comes down from
the southern hills, and, after approaching the Narbada within
about a hundred yards, sheers off again, and runs sonle miles
before it finally joins it. Deep water fills both the channels
opposite the narrow neck, and the strip of cover between the
rivers is a favourite resort for all sorts of game in the hot sea-
son. I was invited by a neighbouring thakur, a Kajput, to
join a drive for game he was arranging at this place, in which
he hoped to secure a famous tiger that had long defied every
effort to kill him. Long will "Whitehead" of the Gaira
Baira be remembered on the banks of the Narbada. He fur-
nished sport to a whole generation of the sportsmen of Jub-
bulpur, and, so far as I know, never was killed. He disap-
peared in the course of time. Several hundred beaters were
assembled to beat the leg-of-mutton shaped tract, of which the
narrow " Monkeys' Leap" between the two rivers formed the
shank. A large old stump of a banyan tree stood right in the
centre of the neck, hollowed like a cup at the top by the
weather, and filled a few inches deep with drift sand: A
better post for the gunner could not be, and here the thakur
and I took our places. It was a long drive, and it was not
for an hour or more that the game began to appear, and
groups of spotted deer gradually collected on all the knolls
within sight on the inward side. They grew and grew in
numbers, gazing back at the beaters and forward at the tree,
where they had often run the gauntlet before. They were
very unwilling to come on, but the drive was strong and not
to be eluded. I watched for the tiger till many of the deer had
gone past ; at first a straggling doe with her fawn, then small
groups, and finally a great hustling mass of dappled hides and

THE HIGHER NABBADA. 329

tossing antlers. There was no tiger evidently in the beat.
Tjx: thakurs long matchlock had already been the death of a
buck, and he was painfully reloading its long tube from his
primitive charging implements. I had a couple of rifles,
single and double, and it was the work of as many seconds
only to fire the three barrels, killing two and wounding
another. There were no breech-loaders in those days ; but I
had time to reload the double while the stream of deer poured
past, and secure two more bucks before the beaters came up.
The wounded buck was afterwards recovered. There cannot
have been less than a thousand spotted deer in this beat ; and
I never before or since saw such a sight. With a breech-
loader twenty or thirty bucks could easily have been killed.
One of the bucks I killed had the largest horns I have
ever seen, measuring each thirty-eight inches round the
curve.

I had another beat for " Whitehead" afterwards, near the
same place. The beaters came on him in a patch of long
grass jungle, from which he obstinately refused to move. He
had been once wounded in a drive, and never would face
the guns again. At last we set fire to the jungle, while I
awaited him on a tree at one end. The raging flames must
have passed completely over him, and it was not till they had
nearly reached my post, and the heat was exploding the dried
fruits of a leael tree* next to me, with reports like pistol shots,
that I retreated from my post. I had barely reached the
ground when I heard a shout from the beaters, who were all
in the trees round about the cover, and the tiger broke out
among them. Then ensued a dra wing-up of black legs, and a
perfect Babel of abuse of his remotest ancestors was poured on
him from the trees as he halted below, and looked up at them

* ASgh marmalos.

330 THE HIGHLANDS OF OENTKAL INDIA.

with a longing gaze. I hurried round, but was just in time
to see him pause for a moment on the top of a ridge, his grand
form appearing dilated to an unnatural size, from the bracing
of the muscles, lashing tail, and bristling coat, bathed in the
red glow of the setting sun and the blazing jungle. The next
instant, before my rifle could be got to bear on him, he
plunged down the farther side and disappeared.

I had one piece of really wonderful luck in this trip, which
compensated for a good deal of heavy fagging in vain after
the monarch of the jungle. I will quote the account as
written at the time, which betrays an enthusiasm I should
scarcely be able to call up in such a description now-a-days,
and which gives the details of a method of hunting tigers
which in later years I abandoned as involving too great a risk
of human life, namely, driving with beaters. In such a
country as the Upper Narbadd valley, however, the more legi-
timate method of stalking with the elephant could scarcely be
followed, owing to the extent and density of the cover and
the abundance of water.

Three tigers, namely, a tigress and her two nearly full-
grown cubs, had long been the plague of some villages on the
banks of the river. Their depredations extended over about
five miles of country, where they found beef so plentiful and
easily got that they seldom wandered above that distance from
their usual haunts, which lay in a mesh of most difficult
ravines bordering the Narbadd., and running up towards the
hills. The covert here was of the densest description, though
thinner, of course, at this time of the year than at any other.
On my arrival in the neighbourhood, I was immediately
solicited to go and rid it of these pests, and every assistance
promised. So I pitched my camp at the village nearest to
their haunts, and began to lay plans for their destruction.

THE HIGHER NAEBADA. 331

There was no need to tie animals out as baits for the tigers,
as is sometimes done, for here they killed a cow or two every
other day, although, food being so plentiful, they seldom re-
mained long near the carcasses. The third evening after I
came, two cows were killed about a mile from camp. I would
not allow them to be touched, trusting that, having eaten well
during the night, the tigers would lie up in some place close
at hand, to which we might track them next morning, and
beat them out in the heat of the day.

When any tracking has to be done, it is of great importance
to be at the spot very early in the morning, as the breezes,
which generally rise shortly after daybreak, are apt to destroy
the fine edges of the impressions left, and by nine o'clock it is
often impossible to tell whether the marks are old or new.
We accordingly started for the " murrees" before daylight,
and had no difficulty in finding the place, which was deeply
marked by the feet of both tigers and cows, and a broad trail
led off in the direction the tigers had dragged the carcasses.
Following this up, it led us shortly into a ravine, where we
found the remains of both cows deposited in different narrow
clefts, where the tigers had retired to dine at their leisure.
Of one the head alone was left, and the head and fore quarters
of the other. The carcasses had evidently been most scienti-
fically cleaned out by these professional butchers before setting
to work, the dung and other refuse being carefully piled up at
a little distance, so as not to come between the wind and their
nobility during the repast. Vultures, kites, and crows had
already commenced to demolish the remainder a sure sign
that our game had left the immediate neighbourhood.

Taking up the tracks, we followed them for about half a
mile along the ravine towards the river. The prints of the
old lady and her daughters were nearly the same in size, and

332 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTEAL INDIA.

scarcely distinguishable. The G6nds who were tracking
declared that they could tell that the cubs were both females.
This, I confess, I was somewhat incredulous of, although I
had frequently had occasion to admire their extraordinary skill
in tracking ; and I thought they were merely trusting to the
well-known preponderance of female over male cubs,* to get
a little kudos in the event of their prediction turning out
true. This was subsequently the case, but I have since
learned that the footmarks are really distinguishable. On in-
quiry, I found that while the foot of the male leaves an im-
pression nearly round, that of the tigress is almost oval. On
seeing them both together the difference is at once perceived.
This is likewise true of the male and female panther. With
a single exception, the footprints of all these great cats can be
distinguished with certainty after a little practice, which is no
small assistance to the hunter at times. The exception is,
that a large male panther and a young male tiger leave marks
absolutely identical, and not to be distinguished by the best
native trackers.

After following the easily-read trail in the sandy bottom of
the ravine for some half-mile or so, the ravine branched off
into two ; the main branch leading straight down to the
river, and the other a narrow rock-bound gully striking off
almost at right angles to the left. The sturdy little Gond
who was then leading seemed to grow somewhat anxious as
we approached the junction, and his swarthy countenance
lighted up with a smile pleasant to see, when he found that all
three tigers had entered the gorge to the left.

* Natives account for this by saying that the old male tiger kilh all the
male cubs he comes across when they are young; and they describe so similarly,
in different parts of the country, the manoeuvres of mamma to protect her
young " hopefuls " against their unnatural papa, that I have little doubt of the
truth of the story.

THE HIGHER NARBADA. 333

" We have them ! " he exclaimed ; " they are in the dewur,
and as good as killed."

Dewur is the local name for a place where two or three
nal&s meet, and form a hollow in which water remains through-
out the hot weather ; if sufficiently shady and cool, it is a
favourite haunt of the tiger ; and it really seemed very likely
that the tigers, having gorged themselves at night, had pro-
ceeded to lie up in the dewur, as surmised by the Gond. To
make all sure, we described a circle round the place, carefully
examining all the nal^s that led from it, and finding no marks
to indicate their exit, returned to camp, pretty confident of
having "ringed" the family, and that we would find them
asleep about twelve o'clock. A scorching hot wind was
blowing fiercely across the plain when I left my tent after
breakfast, and mounted the howdah. It was fearfully hot,
and the flickering haze that plays over the bare ground at this
season, like an exhalation of gas from its surface, playing the
strangest pranks with houses, trees, and figures, was exceed-
ingly painful to the eyes. Never mind ! all the more chance
of finding the tigers at home, and we were soon under way
for the dewur. About 150 beaters had collected, for, the
whole wealth of these people lying in their herds, they were
naturally anxious for the destruction of the family of pests.

On arriving at the scene of operations, they were told off
into four parties, each placed under charge of one of the more
respectable inhabitants ; and, after strict injunctions about
taking to trees, etc., were dispatched to their several posts.
There were only two places where the tigers were likely to
break, of which one led to the river, and the other, a dry
watercourse, towards the neighbouring hills. Some peculiari-
ties in the ground induced me to select the latter for my own
post, while I intrusted the former to the old shikari with his

334 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTEAL INDIA.

matchlock. I got an excellent position in a thick covert of
jaman bushes, while at the same time effectually commanding
the pass.

Half an hour elapsed, as agreed on, and then burst forth
from the beaters the most terrific Babel of barbarous noises
ever heard out of Pandemonium. I had engaged a " band,"
that had come from some distance to assist at the marriage of
a wealthy merchant in the village, and we were, consequently,
powerful in instrumental music. Fancy-drums, great and
small, " ear-piercing fifes," * rumtoolahs" of formidable dimen-
sions (a hideous copper wind instrument, indescribable in
simple English, but which I fancy must be identical with the
" cholera horn " of Southern India), mingled with a tempest
of watchmen's rattles (each of fifty landrail power), and
abundantly supplemented by vocal abuse of the tigers' ances-
tors to the tenth generation, delivered in the loudest key of
native Billingsgate, and you have a faint idea of the row !

As they approached, it of course got more and more ex-
citing, and soon the various inhabitants of the dewur began
to make their appearance. First came a peacock and two
hens, pattering over the fallen leaves. Sharper in eyesight
than any other denizen of the forest, they soon observed me,
and, rising in a panic, sailed off with their beautifully steady
flight towards the river, the gorgeous plumage of the cock
flashing in the sun six feet of living gold and purple !

Another rustle, and a herd of spotted deer came trotting
over a little eminence ahead, led by a well-antlered buck,
with two more good 'ones bringing up the rear. Entirely
taken up by the noise of the beaters, they never observed me,
and, passing within fifteen paces of my elephant, disappeared
in the jungle. I could have shot any one, or perhaps two, of
the bucks, but seeing what was more interesting at the time,

THE HIGHER NAEBADA. 335

held my hand. This was a troop of baboons hoary-bearded
old fellows, and matrons with their young ones in their arms
who were perched on the trees ahead, and had already
commenced their angry warnings that the tigers were there.

Then came the glorious moment of excitement, ample
reward for days of bootless toil. The tigress came sneaking
along amongst the bushes that fringed the nala, and, halting
about sixty paces off, turned round her head for a moment
towards the beaters. Steady now ! the bottom of the neck is
exposed, and the sight of the big rifle bears full upon the
proper spot. Bang ! and with a gurgling roar, over she rolls
into the nala\ Is it she ? or the devil, or what 1 Certainly
she fell ; but, from the very spot she stood on, bounds forth
the image of herself, with blood pouring in torrents from a
gaping wound in the neck ! More still : a third leaps the
nala" just in front of my elephant, and the jungle seems
alive with tigers. I had instantly exchanged the single for
the double rifle, and as this one passed me at full speed,
I rolled her over with a broken back and a bullet through the
shoulder. Meantime the wounded one had disappeared behind
me, and I proceeded to inspect the field, and count the killed
and wounded. The last shot was a cub ; so was the one that
had rolled into the nala to the first shot ; and it was the
old tigress that had escaped behind me. This was all a
mystery, till I found that the first one was shot through the
heart, the ball entering through the ribs, whereas, the first
tiger I had fired at was standing almost facing me when
I pulled ; and then it was explained. One ball, the crashing
two-ounce one, had passed through the tigress, and killed cub
No. 1 on the other side.

My little elephant, a female called Kali, quite untried,
which I had borrowed from the Jubbulpiir commissariat, had

336 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTEAL INDIA.

behaved nobly. Curling her trunk out of harm's way, and
placing her sturdy fore legs firmly before her, she stood like a
rock in the midst of all the noise (for the trio roared like very
bulls of Bashan). I had therefore perfect confidence in pro-
ceeding to follow up the wounded tigress. We soon found
blood in plenty leading along the nala" towards the hills. I
had taken the precaution of placing scouts on all the prin-
cipal trees, some of whom had seen her cross an open space
and enter the nala" where it debouched from a cleft in the
hill side ; she was going quite strong, they said, although
bleeding freely from the neck. On inquiry I found that the
gorge in the hill was a mere cul-de-sac, having no exit at
the other side, except on to an elevated plateau, as bare
as my hand, which a wounded tiger would never dare to face.
There was no doubt, therefore, that she had stopped in this
gully and would fight, so I proceeded to make arrangements
for the attack. The first thing done was to send men up the
hill, by a circuitous route, to post themselves on trees all
round the top of the ravine, as outlooks. This done, I
advanced along the nala" till I found the blood again, which
I followed up slowly, keeping a bright look-out ahead. The
ravine was densely covered on both banks by clumps of
bamboo jungle, and I had just reached the first of these when
up jumped the tigress with a roar, and galloped off as fresh
as ever towards the head of the ravine ; I had two snap shots
at her, which made her speak still louder, but otherwise had
no effect. The people above now shouted out that she had
again lain down higher up the nala, among some bamboos
half-way up the banks. It would not do to approach her in
this position from below, as a charge would probably have
resulted in a general roll to the bottom of the ravine ; so,
with considerable labour, we climbed up to the table-land,

THE HIGHER NAEBADA. 337

and went round till we were right above her. Here, however,
the bank was too steep to admit of a descent ; so, getting a
supply of stones into the howdah, I commenced bombarding
the bamboo clumps, and at the third shot the tigress charged
out. On she came within twenty paces, when her heart
failed her ; she turned sharp off to the left, .and I got two
pretty fair shots at her, which told loudly, but still she went
on as strong as ever. This time she crossed quite over to
the opposite side of the ravine, and ascended the bank, as if
with the intention of bolting across the open ground. The
scouts kept shouting out to me to come round, which I did,
and found them in a terrible panic, for the tigress, seeing
them on the trees, kept walking about and eyeing them in a
cat-and-mouse sort of manner, growling fearfully and lashing
her tail about. The first of them I came to told me she was
then lying down at the foot of a tree further on, watching
two Gonds in the branches. I soon reached the place : the
wretched Gonds were too much frightened to speak, but
pointed to the ground below the tree, and sat jabbering like
monkeys as I approached. I now made out the tail of the
tigress impatiently switching up and down ; she herself being
crouched in the long grass, I could not see her body. On
perceiving the elephant, she jumped up, and, making a short
run forwards, crouched again. We steadily advanced, and,
finding she could not put us to flight, she took to it herself,
and suddenly bounded again towards the ravine. I had
another shot as she was disappearing over the bank. This
time it was the large rifle, and she caught it unmistakably ;
for, on coming to the place where she had vanished, we could
hear her down below, growling and struggling on the ground.
The descent here was more gradual, though the bamboo cover
was dreadfully thick. The elephant was sliding down on her

338 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTEAL INDIA.

haunches, stones and earth rolling down before her. The
growling grew deeper as we descended, and the noise of
struggling ceased, as if the tigress had collected herself for
a last charge. The bamboo stems kept whipping me in the
face as I stood in the howdah with my double smooth-bore
ready for the coup de grace. My face was soon covered with
blood, and my shooting jacket torn to ribands. A raging
thirst parched my throat, for I had now been some five hours
in the sun ; and my hat having been swept off on first enter-
ing the bamboos, its rays had been for some time beating
full on my unprotected skull. I felt my head begin to swim,
and the bamboo stems to dance before me in an indistinct
maze. Had it lasted much longer, I feel certain I must have
had a sunstroke ; but the last act was playing out. Crash
went the elephant into a dense clump of bamboos ; a jagged
stem seized me by the neck ; and as I raised my hand to
disengage it, the roar of the tigress burst forth in my very
face ; a striped form rose in the centre of the clump, in the
act of bounding on the elephant's head. Leaning over the
railing of the howdah, I levelled the gun, double-shotted in
both barrels, at her chest ; and the next moment was shout-
ing out : " For God's sake, bring that claret and water, will
you, and come down, half a dozen of you, and take up this
carcass ! "

So I bagged the whole family, to the no small delight of
the cattle-keepers of the place.

A large panther was making himself very troublesome at
that time in the neighbourhood of the Jubbulpur and Mandld,
road. He had killed several children in different villages,
and promised, unless suppressed, to become a regular man-
eater. I encamped for some days : in the neighbourhood of
his haunts, and the very first night the villain had the im-

THE HIGHEE NAEBADA. 339

pudence to kill and drag away a good-sized baggage pony-
out of my camp. The night being warm, I was sleeping out-
side, for the sake of coolness, and was awakened by the riving
gurgling noise close to my bed. It was too dark to see ; so I
pulled out the revolver, that in those uncertain times always
lay under my pillow, and fired off a couple of shots to scare
the intruder. Getting a light, I was relieved to find it was
only the pony, instead of a human being, as I had half
feared, and we proceeded to investigate the condition of the
deceased.

The brute had seized him by the neck, which was dis-
located ; the jugular was also divided, and he had evidently
been drinking the blood when my shots, or perhaps the light,
scared him off. The night was too dark for any attempt to
kill the panther, who moreover had probably been scared com-
pletely away from the neighbourhood of the camp. It was,
however, very probable that he would return next evening in
quest of the pony before it was too dark to shoot, and I was
persuaded by the old shikari to sit up on a " machan " and
watch for him. A small nala" ran from the river nearly up
to the camp, as is always the case when a misadventure like
this occurs. This I had overlooked when selecting a site for
my tent. We dragged the carcass, without touching it our-
selves, to the head of this nala, where there was a con-
venient tree. The shikari an old hand at this sort of work
strewed the ground for some paces round the pony with
fresh white wheat chaff, which he said would not prevent the
panther coming to feed, while it certainly rendered the chance
of hitting in the dark much greater ; and about sunset he and
I took our places on the machan. There was small chance of
the panther making his appearance so early in the evening, so

I commenced a whispered conversation with the old man about

z 2

340 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTEAL INDIA.

machan-shooting in general, which he evidently considered the
finest sport in the world, as well as the safest. He was full
of stories of curious events that had occurred to himself and
others ; and told me many as we sat through the long hours
together, of which I only remembered one next morning suffi-
ciently well to note it down in my journal. Somehow we got
on the subject of man-eating tigers, and I happened to ask
him if he had ever watched for a man-eater over the body of
a man he had killed.

" Yes," said he, " but I didn't much fancy it, as it stinks
abominably ; and besides I don't care to have more to do with
ghosts than I can help, after what happened to P&d&m Singh,
Th^kur of Ponhrf."

With much pressing, I got him to tell me this wonderful
tale, which was much as follows : " The village of Ponrhi,
about thirty coss from here, was haunted a few years ago by a
perfect shitan of a man-eating tiger. He was very old and
very cunning. There were two ghats that led from the vil-
lage to the open country, and on the hill between these he
used to live. Whenever he saw any persons leave the village,
he would rush across to the gMt they .selected, and waylay
them there ; springing out with a roar, and carrying off one of
the party like a flash of lightning. Often did the people of
the village see him thus stalking some wretched traveller, and
sometimes were in time to warn him to take to a tree ; but
still oftener the monster was too cunning for them, and ap-
proached his victim in the stealthy manner only a man-eater
can. He sometimes left his post for a few days, and was then
sure to be heard of at some one of the surrounding villages, at
his old tricks. The road by Ponhri was soon completely
blocked up, and no one would pass that way, although it was
the high road to several large villages. The tiger soon became

THE HIGHER NARBADA. 341

straitened for food, as, having become confirmed in his taste
for human flesh, he could now eat no other ; so he took to fre- .
quenting the outskirts of the village, and two or three times
stalked the Aheers who were driving home their cattle up to
the very doors. The buffaloes, however, which you know do
not in the least fear a tiger when in a body, always discovered
him and drove him off before he could do any mischief. Thus
repeatedly baffled, the man-eater conceived the bold idea of
lying in wait for one of the cowherds in his own house. This
he did, somehow managing to smuggle himself in unobserved ;
and when the wretched man, after securing his charge in their
shed, returned blithely home to his dinner, just as he reached
the door forth sprang the terrible scourge of the village, and,
racing off to the hills with the Aheer in his horrid jaws, disap-
peared in an instant !

" It was about the hour of sunset, and most of the villagers
returned from their work were collected by the image of Ma-
hadeo, under the village pepul tree, discussing the events of
the day. Amongst them was a G6nd Thakur, named Pdd&m
Singh, who had killed his tiger, and was consequently con-
sidered the village authority on sporting matters. He was a
man of determination, as his after-conduct will show, and at
once proposed that they should proceed in a body and rescue
the remains of their fellow-villager from the maw of the
spoiler. Arming themselves as best they could, and taking
all the drums and other noisy instruments in the village, they
sallied forth and approached the spot where the man-eater
had retired to devour the Aheer. Bold and undaunted as the
tiger is when himself the aggressor, the most terrible man-
eater wants the courage to stand the approach of a body of men
like this ; so he retreated (as indeed the villagers very well knew
he would). They found the corpse half eaten, the upper half

342 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTEAL INDIA.

remaining untouched. Pdm Singh, the possessor of the only
.matchlock in the place, proposed that the remains should be
left untouched, that he might sit up in a tree, and, awaiting
the return of the tiger, rid the village for ever of the pest. To
this the dead man's relations yielded an unwilling assent, and
Pd,dd,m Singh was left to the ghastly company of the corpse?
perched high on a neighbouring tree. Ere long the man-
eater returned, and the Thakiir watched his approach with
immense satisfaction from his lofty position. The tiger ap-
proached within eighty yards or so thirty too far for a sure
aim with the rude matchlock. Then he paused, and to his
horror the Th&kiir saw the mutilated corpse slowly raise its
right arm, and point with a warning gesture at himself ! On
the signal, the man-eater instantly disappeared in the jungle.
Transfixed with horror, the Thakiir remained glued to the
tree. Shortly the tiger again returned, and again was the
same mute warning given by the dead man, the tiger disap-
pearing as before. A bright idea now struck the Thakur,
who had somewhat recovered his senses ; and cutting two
sharp stakes with his knife, he slipped down the tree and
pegged both hands of the corpse firmly to the ground.
Scarcely had he regained his perch when the man-eater again
appeared ; and, concluding from the absence of the signal that
the danger no longer existed, proceeded quietly to resume his
horrid feast. He had buried his jaws in the neck of the
corpse, when the matchlock of the avenger flashed forth its
contents. Struck full on the shoulder by the two bullets with
which Pddd-m Singh had loaded his weapon, the dreaded man-
eater rolled over dead on the body of his last victim."

It is singular how widely spread is this superstition regard-
ing the malice against their fellows entertained by the spirits
of persons killed by wild beasts. According to Sir J. Lub-

THE HIGHER NAEBADA. 343

bock, many other savage races, besides those of India, have
entertained it ; and it will be seen further on that it forms the
ground of a singular ceremony among the wild Byg&s of the
Mandla" district.

The panther of course never came to the carcass of the
pony. I never saw an animal do so yet ; but I have, I confess,
only tried it a few times. Some sportsmen have been very
successful in this machan-shooting by night ; but it would be
poor fun even if one killed a tiger every night.

Sambar were extremely numerous at that time on the hills
on both sides of the valley, but particularly on the north side.
Shots at them could be procured by driving almost any of the
hills with beaters, and I killed a number of them both this
way and by stalking. Although it was near the end of the
month of April, when, according to theory, both sambar and
spotted deer should have cast their horns \ yet, out of the im-
mense number of both species that I saw in this trip, only one
sambar, and two or three spotted bucks, were without horns.
Some of the most interesting sport I have had in this valley
has been in coursing the sambar with dogs. During this trip
I fell in with a gang of G6nd woodcutters, who possessed a
number of fine large red-coloured dogs, with the aid of which
they were able to run down and spear many deer and wild
pigs.

This red breed of pariahs is certainly the indigenous one of
these parts, whether or not, as I suspect, descended from the
wild species which frequents these jungles. The large parti-
coloured animals, seen about Hindu villages in the open val-
ley, were probably imported along with their masters. The
wild dogs live in packs of fifteen or twenty, and prey exclu-
sively on game, running down all sorts of deer like a pack of
hounds. Where a pack has been hunting for any time, most

344 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTEAL INDIA.

of the game naturally disappears. This applies to the tiger
even, which they are said to attack wherever they meet him.
Tigers would naturally follow the herds of deer on which they
prey, if they were moved by the wild dogs ; but there is such
a consensus of native opinion as to the wild pack actually
hunting, and even sometimes killing tigers, that it is difficult
altogether to discredit it. I do not believe that any number
of the dogs could overcome a tiger in fair fight ; but I think it
quite possible that they might stick to him, and wear him out
by keeping him from his natural food. Many stories are
related of tigers climbing into trees (which of course is quite
against their nature) to escape from them ; and I once saw the
bones of a tiger lying on a ledge of rock, where more than one
person assured me that they had seen him lying surrounded
by a large pack of the wild dogs.

The wild dog of this part of India* is about the size of a
small setter, and the colour of the old " mustard " breed of
terriers. In shape, however, he is more vulpine than any
European breed of dogs, with a long, sharp face, erect but
not very long or pointed ears, and slouching tail never raised
higher than the line of the back. In these respects he very
much resembles the red pariahs above mentioned, the most
noticeable distinction being that the latter raise their tails at
times a good deal higher, with something of a curl. Very
often, however, and particularly when moving fast, the pariahs
carry their tails just like the wild dog ; and so close is some-
times the resemblance between them, that I remember on one
occasion, near MandUi, I allowed what afterwards proved to
be really a wild dog to escape from before my rifle, as he
trotted across the road before me, thinking him to be one of
those red pariahs strayed from some village. There is of

* Cuon rutilans.

THE HIGHEE NAEBADA. 345

course the considerable distinction, that the wild dog cannot
bark, while the tame one can. But how readily the voice of
the latter reverts to the howl of the wild animal must have
been remarked by everyone who has passed by a village when
they came forth to salute him.

But to return to our muttons. I arranged with the owners
of some of these red dogs to have a morning's sambar-hunting
with them, assisted by two capital hounds of my own. Scouts
were out before daybreak, and marked down a herd of about
twenty sdmbar on a spur which jutted out into the plain from
the main range of hills. This spur was covered with mhowd
trees, the deciduous flowers of which have a strong attraction
for all sorts of deer, as well as bears and Gonds. The former
come long distances at night to eat the flowers that drop in
great profusion as soon as ripe, Bruin, if too late for the feast,
having no objection to scramble up and get some for himself.
The plan was to send a strong body of beaters round to the
neck of the spur, while we were to post ourselves with the
dogs where it ended in the plain. I call it plain, but it was
so only comparatively speaking. Broken and treacherous
"cotton-soil" it was, intersected by numerous ndUs, and
about as bad ground to ride over as could well be
wished.

We were wending our way down a somewhat precipitous
pathway that led from the village to the scene of operations,
when the Gond to whom I was talking dropped behind on
some pretence or other, and shortly afterwards we passed one
of the primitive altars they erect near almost every pathway.
This consists of a platform of hard mud, on which are con-
structed, of the same material, small models of the necessary
implements of their simple life, such as a cooking-place, flat
plate, etc. Near the platform is a stake planted in the

346 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTKAL INDIA.

ground, from which project two wooden arms, drilled with
holes; through these a peeled wand is passed, the top of
which is decorated with a streamer of red cloth. Close by is
a cairn of stones, to which every passer-by adds another.
These altars are generally erected to the manes of some one of
their race who bore a saintly reputation during life, and
offerings placed on them are supposed to propitiate his spirit.
On this occasion the Grond who had dropped behind, and who
was the leader and concocter of the present hunt, stopped
before the altar ; and, after a prostration, extracted from the
folds of his waistcloth, and placed on the plate constructed
for such purposes, a peeled onion ! Each of the band then
added a stone to the heap, muttering at the same time some-
thing I could not make out, and passed on. This was for
luck.

We soon reached our station, and taking up a properly
concealed position, awaited the approach of the game. The
beaters had a long way to go round, and we had waited about
an hour when their voices began to be heard, as they advanced
in a long line that stretched completely across the spur. They
were still about a quarter of a mile off, when I made out that
something unexpected had occurred, by their shouts suddenly
ceasing, and then breaking out into a terrific and concentrated
yell ! By my glass I saw that some of them had taken to
trees, and that all were looking down the hill-side to the left
of the line. Advancing my Dollond in that direction, I made
out some black objects trundling down the hill, and a few
moments afterwards, as they emerged on the plain, I saw that
they were a bear and two cubs ; they were making for another
spur of the hill that ran parallel to the one we were beating,
at a distance of about half a mile. Between them ran the
dry bed of a nala, formed of a natural pavement of huge flag-

THE HIGHEE NAEBADA. 347

stones, and strewn with boulders that had been rolled down
from the hills above. Jumping on my pony, I started up this
nala\ at a rattling pace, scrambling and sliding in a most
wonderful manner over the stones, till I again caught sight
of the bears going leisurely about two hundred yards ahead.
I had gained about fifty more on them before they saw me,
and was just going to pull up and fire, when they set off at a
shambling gallop, which, owing to the badness of the ground,
soon left me far in the rear. Coming to a better place, I
rapidly gained on them again, but the hill was too near, and
I was full 150 paces behind when they commenced the ascent.
Pulling up, I administered my two barrels with as much
steadiness as my panting steed would admit of ; the second
shot told somewhere, as testified by the growls it elicited from
the old " she," but it was too far for such a snap shot, and
their movements seemed to be only accelerated. Throwing
my bridle over a branch, I was reloaded in a few seconds, and
scrambling up in Bruin's tracks, I heard them above me on
the hill-side rustling among the dried leaves, but could not
get another shot ; nor did I find any blood. This was very
unlucky, for if I had had a suspicion of there being bears on
the hill, I would never have taken up the position I did, as a
bear would break back through an army of beaters rather
than take to an open plain, where he had no stronghold to
make for. The bear is very sweet upon the " mhowaV' and
these had evidently come down to feed on it ; for, had they
been regular residents, the villagers must have been aware of
it from seeing their tracks and excavations.

The beaters, who had suspended operations to witness the
result of the bear chase, now resumed their beating, while I
rode slowly along the bed of the nald, in case there might be
any more of the family left. We had reached within about

348 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTEAL INDIA.

200 yards of where the dogs were concealed, when I observed
a dun hide glance between two bushes, and shortly afterwards
the whole herd of sa^nbar filed slowly down the face of the
hill. Indecision still swayed them, and, fearing lest they
might yet break back, I fired off my rifle ; at the same time
a round stone from the beaters rolled down the hill among
them, and down they galloped straight for the hounds. The
Gonds, in their eagerness, slipped their dogs too soon, and
about half the herd broke back through the beaters after all ;
the rest took across the plain in the direction of the spur the
bears had reached. Shouting to my man to let loose the grey-
hounds, as the deer were in full view, I started off at the best
pace I could muster over such ground. Had it not been for
my own dogs, the sdmbar would probably have reached the
hills and been safe ; but, as it was, they shot ahead of the
Gondi pack, and the sambar, finding they could not make the
hills, turned off towards the river. By cutting off an angle
here I gained a good deal on the chase, and could see that my
hounds, dog and bitch, were well up. The dog is a heavy,
powerful, Kampur hound, while the bitch, more lightly made,
has considerably the speed of him. As I came up, she made
a gallant rush at the hindmost stag, and, springing at his
hocks, deer and dog rolled over together. She wanted power,
however ; and, before the dog was up to help her, the stag was
up and pegging away as fast as ever. Two or three of the
Gondi dogs now joined in at a respectful distance, but going
as if they meant something. Shortly afterwards I came
up to a deep nald, and missing the pass by which the
deer and dogs had crossed, lost a deal of distance in
trying to find it out. Everywhere else the bank was
about twenty feet deep, and nearly perpendicular. At last
I found the place, and, crossing over, had the satisfaction

THE HIGHER NAKBADA. 349

of finding that I was utterly alone, dogs and deer having
disappeared.

I knew the direction of the river, and rode for that, but soon
got into the labyrinth of nalds that fringe its bed, and had
the greatest difficulty in forcing my nag through amongst the
bamboos. The nalas themselves were a perfect puzzle; in
and out and roundabout, they twisted like the alleys in fair
Bosamond's bower ; and I several times found myself in the
place I had just left. At last I got into the bed of one of the
principal of them, that led straight down to the Narbada* ;
and, by dint of occasionally putting my head under my pony's
neck and forcing him through the bamboos, and here and
there leaping a fallen tree, I soon emerged on the shingly
banks of the river, and, pulling up to listen, I thought I heard
a faint yelp far, far up the stream.

A broad belt of sand and shingle intervened between the
jungle and the shrunken river, along which I galloped for
about a mile, the baying of the dogs becoming more and more
distinct as I rode. A few minutes after, I reached the scene
of conflict a shady nook of the river, arched in by the mas-
sive boughs of trees, interspersed with the feathering stems of
the bamboo. A giant forest tree lay felled by the brink of
the pool, worm-eaten and water-logged, as if it had lain there
for centuries, and beyond this stood the stag at bay, chest
deep in the water. Four of the G6ndi dogs and my grey-
hound bitch were baying him from the log; and just as I
arrived a black little Gond, spear in hand, emerged from the
forest and jumped on to the tree. Two or three prods he
made at him with his weapon failed to reach him ; and he
was just about to leap into the water, when the greyhound,
encouraged by our arrival, made a fierce leap at the stag,
falling short by about a yard of her intended mark. Instantly

350 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTEAL INDIA.

the deer bounded forward, and with his fore feet struck the
hound under water ; but in so doing he forgot his fence, and
exposed his flank within striking distance of his human foe.
The spear was buried twice in his side, and the dark water
was streaked with crimson as the blood poured from the
wounds. The poor brute now tries to struggle to the
shore, but in vain ; the dogs are upon him in a body, and
their united weight bears him down; a few more spear
thrusts, and the gallant stag is bubbling out his life under
water.

The distance run must have been about four miles, but I
had ridden probably double that distance. The dogs were a
good deal done up, as the heat was by this time tremendous ;
but a swim in the river, and half an hour in the cool shade
made them all right again. These Gondi dogs must have
wonderful noses to follow deer by scent over the burning
ground at full speed, as they are said to do. They had not
much trouble on this occasion, as the greyhound bitch had
never lost sight of the stag to the finish, and cut out the work
for the others.

At other times, I have had excellent sport with the fine
breed of dogs possessed by the Bunjard carriers referred to in
a former chapter. If the wild dog were available to breed
from, a still better hound for sambar-hunting might probably
be obtained. With more regular organisation, better dogs,
and more sportsmen, sambar-hunting in this country might
give admirable sport. The best breed, if the wild dog is, as
is probable, unavailable, would be the cross between the
Scotch deerhound and the Bunjard, dog, the former being the
mother. Pups of a Bunjdrd bitch almost invariably grow up
with "vernacular" habits, and a hatred of Europeans. A
real specimen of the Bunjard, should however be selected, and

THE HIGHEE NAEBADA. 351

this is not easy, the breed having got much mixed with the
common village pariah dog. The true Bunjdra" is a fine, up-
standing hound, of about twenty-eight inches high, generally
black mottled with grey or blue, with a rough but silky coat,
a high-bred, hound-like head, and well feathered on ears, legs,
and tail. He shows a good deal of resemblance to the Per-
sian greyhound, but is stouter built, and with a squarer
muzzle. Probably this wandering race of gipsies may have
brought the originals with them from Western Asia, the sub-
sequent modification of them being due to a cross with some
of the indigenous breeds. The Bunjai-a* breed possesses
indomitable pluck, can go about as fast as a foxhound, and
will run all day. His nose is superior to that of any other
domestic breed in a hot climate ; but he wants better speed
for coursing deer, and attachment to Europeans.

The common black sloth-bear of the plains of India* is
very plentiful in the hills on either side of the Narbadd,,
between Jubbulpur and Mandla\ Indeed, there are few parts
of these highlands where a bear may not at any time be
met with. They are generally very harmless until attacked,
living on roots, honey, and insects, chiefly white ants, which
they dig out of their earthen hillocks. The natives call them
ddam-zdd, or "sons of men/' and, considering them half
human, will not as a rule molest them. Eeally, their absurd
antics almost justify the idea. Sometimes, however, a bear
will attack very savagely without provocation generally,
when they are come upon suddenly, and their road of
escape is cut off. As a rule, in frequented parts, they do
not come out of their midday retreats, in caves and dense
thickets, until nightfall ; but, in remoter tracts, they may be
met with in the middle of the day. I was once charged by

* Ursus labiatus.

552 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTKAL INDIA.

four bears all at once, which I had come upon near the high
road between Jubbulpiir and Damoh,. feeding under a mhowd
tree. I had two guns, and hit three of them ; but had to
bolt from the fourth, who chased me about a hundred yards,
and then dived into a ravine. Eeturning to the scene of
action, I found one sitting at the foot of a tree, bewailing his
fate in most melancholy whines, and finished him with a ball
in the ear. The other two had gone down the slope of a hill,
and I started off to head them. The ground was rocky and
very slippery, and I had not gone far when I fell, my rifle
sliding away down the hill, to the considerable damage of its
stock and barrels. I picked myself up, however, and by dint
of hard running, arrived above and parallel to the bears, and
commenced a running fight with them, in which my chances
would have been a good deal better, had I had a breech
instead of a muzzle loader. As it was, I had to keep one
barrel unfired in case of a charge, and peg away at long
intervals with the other. At last, one of them came round
up the hill at me, rising on his hind legs, pulling down
branches, and dancing and spluttering in so ludicrous a
manner, that I could scarcely shoot for laughter. When I
did, he got both barrels through the chest, and subsided.
I never got the other, as it had sufficient headway to escape
into some hollow rocks near the river-side. A wounded bear
will often charge with great determination. He comes on
like a great cannon ball ; and the popular idea, that he will
rise on his hind legs in time to give a shot at the " horse-
shoe " mark on his chest, to penetrate which is fatal, is, as a
rule, a mistake. But a shot, when he is ten or fifteen yards
off, will nearly always turn, if it does not kill him. The
most successful way of getting bears is to get up very early,
and go up to some commanding position, that overlooks the

THE HIGHER NAEBADA. 353

pathways taken by the animals on their return from the low
ground, where they go nightly to feed. They can then either
be intercepted, or marked into some cover, and afterwards
beaten out. It is a sport of which a little is great fun ; but
one soon tires of it, the animals being generally so easily
killed, and furnishing neither trophy (an Indian bearskin
being a poor affair), nor food. Most sportsmen ere long come
to agree with the natives, and let the ddam-z&d alone, except
when they turn up by accident.

It was in these jungles that I first saw the great rock
python of India, which is the subject of so many wonderful
tales. I was following the track of a wounded deer, and, the
day being very hot, had mounted my horse, a chestnut Arab,
from which I could shoot, carrying a rifle. The horse almost
trod upon him, lying on a narrow pathway, and started back
with a snort, as the great snake slowly twisted himself off
the road, and down the slope of the hill, along which it
wound. A loud rustling, and here and there the wave of
a fold in the grass, told me that something was moving
down the bank, and I forced the horse after it, very unwill-
ingly on his part, till with a loud hiss, and a swish of his
folds, the serpent gathered himself into a great coil, just
under the horse's nose. A very unpleasant sound, like the
boiling of a big kettle, came from the gathered pyramid of
coils, and I lost no time in leaning over and firing both
barrels of the rifle into the mass, at the same time drawing
the horse back to the pathway, as I did not know the
customer I had to deal with. The snake made off down the
hill, and my horse refused to follow, so that, before I could
dismount and get down on foot, all trace of him was lost.
I was taken by surprise, or should perhaps have made a better
business of it. My impression was that the creature was

A A

354 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTKAL INDIA.

about twenty-five feet long, of a leaden colour, and about
as thick as a large man s thigh. I have seen one killed in the
same jungles, which measured sixteen feet in length. They
are of a very sluggish disposition, and do not molest man.
The stories of their swallowing spotted deer whole, antlers
and all, I believe to be utter myths.

Horns of Spotted Deer. (Scale, one tenth.)

CHAPTEE IX.

THE SAL FORESTS.

Head Streams of the Narbada The Mandla Plateau A Prairie Country
Character of the Uplands Scenery Climate Scanty Population Gonds
Bj'gas Their retired Habits Poisoned Arrows Courage of the Bygas
Patriarchal Institutions A singular Race The Byga Medicine Man
Tiger Charming A pleasant Custom Byga Seers Religious Senti-
ments Destruction of Sal Trees The Dammer Resin Traffic of the
Bygas Character of the Sal Forests Forest Products Lac Dye Tusser
Silk A grazing Country Value of Cattle Prospects of the Country Its
Resources Causes of Backwardness Wanting Population Distance of
Markets Malaria Advantages of the Tract for Settlers European Colo-
nisation Field for Enterprise A Missionary Attempt Land Jobbing
Prospects of Missions Wild Animals The Red Deer Its Habits Variety
of Game A Christmas Party Beating with Elephants A Tiger Shot
Flying The Halon Valley A Mendicant Killed by a Tiger Stalking the
Red Deer Kill a Stag A Run at a Hind A Wild Elephant Singular
Freak Range of Wild Elephants Tigers Roaring at Night A remarkable
Serenade Large Herds of Red Deer The Wild Buffalo.

Above Mandla, the valley of the Narbada opens out into a
wide upland country, the main river, between this and Jub-
bulpur, joined by few and unimportant tributaries, here
radiating like the fingers of a hand, and draining the rainfall
of an extensive triangular plateau, known as the Mandla dis-
trict. These converging valleys rise in elevation towards the
south', where they terminate in a transverse range of hills,
which sends down spurs between them, subdividing the drain-
age. The valleys themselves also successively rise in general
elevation, by a step-like formation from west to east. Furthest
to the west, that of the Banjar river possesses a general height

A A 2

356

THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTEAL INDIA.

of about 2,000 feet ; next is that drained by the Halon and
the Phen at about 2,300 ; still further to the east the basin of
the Khormdr has risen to about 2,800 feet ; and furthest east
of all is the plateau of Amarkantak, the chief source of the
Narbada, which attains a general altitude of about 3,300 feet,
with smaller flat-topped elevations reaching to 4,000 feet
above the sea. The hilly range which runs along the southern
border of the district is called the Mykat, and overlooks, in a
steep descent to the southward, a flat low-lying country called
Chattisgarh, or " the land of thirty-six forts."

Sal forests in the Halon valley.

The elevated cradle of the infant Narbada, thus described,
contains within its outer circle of hills an area of not less than
7,000 square miles ; mcuh of it, of course, of a broken and un-
culturable character, but comprising also in the valleys much

THE SAX FORESTS. 357

of what may properly be called virgin soil of the finest
quality. The M^kat range, and the radiating spurs which
separate the plateau, are mostly clothed with forests of the sal
tree, which, here as elsewhere, almost monopolizes the parts
where it grows. The saj alone grows in any quantity along
with it. Some of the hills are covered with the ordinary
species of forest trees of other parts ; the species of vegeta-
tion appearing, as I have said before, to depend much on the
geological formation.

The valleys themselves are generally open and free from all
underwood, dotted here and there by belts and islands of the
noble sal tree, and altogether possessing much of the character
ascribed to the American prairies. In their lowest parts the
soil is deep, black, and rich, covered with a growth of strong
tall grasses. As the valleys merge into the hilly ranges, the
soils become lighter and redder, from the lateritic topping
that here overlies the basaltic and granitic bases of the hills ;
the grasses are less rank and coarse ; and in many places
springs of clear cold water bubble up, clothing the country
with belts of perpetual verdure, and conferring on it an
aspect of freshness very remarkable in a country of such
comparatively small elevation in the centre of India. Every-
thing combines to deprive this region of the sterile and
inhospitable appearance worn by even most upland tracts
during the hot season. The sal tree is almost the only ever-
green forest tree in India. Throughout the summer its
glossy dark-green foliage reflects the light in a thousand
vivid tints : and just when all other vegetation is at its worst,
a few weeks before the gates of heaven are opened in the
annual monsoon, the sal selects its opportunity of bursting
into a fresh garment of the brightest and softest green. The
traveller who has lingered till that late period in these wilds

35S THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTEAL INDIA.

is charmed by the approach of a second spring, and it requires
no slight effort to believe himself still in a tropical country. The
atmosphere has been kept humid by the moisture from the
broad sheets of water retained by the upland streams, which
descends nightly in dews on the open valleys. The old
trasses of the prairie have been burnt in the annual conflagra-
tions, and a covering of youug verdure has taken their place.
Now and then the familiar note of the cuckoo* (identical
with the European bird), and the voices of many birds, in-
cluding the deep musical coo of the grand imperial pigeon,
heighten the delusion. But for the bamboo thickets on the ,
higher hills, whose light feathery foliage beautifully supple-
ments the heavier masses of the sal that cling to their skirts,
the scene would present nothing peculiar to the landscape of
a tropical country.

The climate of these uplands is very temperate for this part
of India, showing a mean of about 77 of the thermometer
during the hot season. The variation between the temperature
of day and night is however considerable, ranging from about
50 to 100 as extremes during the hot season under canvas.
It would of course be much more equable in a house, and the
range is also far less on the higher plateaux than in the lower
valleys. In the cold season (which corresponds to our wintej)
it generally descends at night to freezing-point in the open air,
rising in a tent no higher than 65 or 70 in the middle of the
day.

The country can scarcely be said to be populated at all,
except within a short distance of Mandla itself, where the
rich soil has been cultivated by an outlying colony of Hindus
from the Lower Narbadd valley. Mandla* was at one time the
seat of one of the Gond-Eajpiit ruling dynasties, and the

* Cuculus canorus.

THE SAL EOEESTS. 359

remains of their forts and other buildings still crown in
crumbling decay the top of many a forest-covered mound.
I think it very doubtful if any part of the interior was ever
colonized further than by the scattered religious settlements
of the advancing Aryans in early times. The wide open
valleys of deep soil are now utterly untilled ; while the hills
are scantily occupied by aboriginal races, who subsist in the
primitive and destructive manner, by cutting and burning
the jungle, described in Chapter III., on the Puchmurree
Hills.

The Gonds are here a very poor and subdued race, long
since weaned from their wild notions of freedom, with its
attendant hardships and seclusion ; but still unreached by
the influence of the general advancement which has in some
measure redeemed them in most parts from their state of
practical serfdom to the superior races. .They usually plough
with cattle, instead of depending on the axe, and are nearly
all hopelessly in debt to the money-lenders, who speculate in
the produce they raise. There is no local market, and the
difficulty of exporting grain over the seventy or eighty miles
of atrocious road to the open country is such that the prices
obtained for their produce are contemptible. They congre-
gate in filthy little villages, overrun by poultry and pigs, and
innocent of all attempt at conservancy.

Far superior to them in every respect are the still utterly
unreclaimed forest Bygds, another aboriginal race, whose
habitat is in the hills of the Mykat range and its spurs,
which intersect these valleys. The same tribe extends over
a vast range of forest-covered country to the west of Mandld,,
where we shall subsequently meet them again under the name
of Bhumi^s ; and in all this country they number no more
than about eighteen thousand souls. A few of these have

360 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTEAL INDIA.

somewhat modified their original habits, and live, along with
the Gonds, in villages lower down the valleys. These have
been slightly tainted with Hinduism, shave their elfin locks,
and call themselves by a name denoting caste. But the real
Byga of the hill ranges is still almost in a state of nature.
They are very black, with an upright, slim, though exceed-
ingly wiry frame, and showing less of the negretto type of
feature than any other of these wild races. Destitute of all
clothing but a small strip of cloth, or at most, when in full
dress, with the addition of a coarse cotton sheet worn cross-
wise over the chest, with long, tangled, coal-black hair, and
furnished with bow and arrow and a keen little axe hitched
over the shoulder, the Byga* is the very model of a hill
aborigine. He scorns all tillage but the dhy ^-clearing on
the mountain-side, pitching his neat habitation of bamboo
wicker-work, like an eagle's eyrie, on some hill-top or ledge
of rock, far above the valleys penetrated by pathways ; and
ekes out the fruits of the earth by an unwearying pursuit
of game. Full of courage, and accustomed to depend on
each other, they hesitate not to attack every animal of the
forest, including the tiger himself. They possess a most
deadly poison wherewith they tip their little arrows of reed ;
and the most ponderous beast seldom goes more than a mile,
after being pierced with one of these, without falling. The
poison is not an indigenous one, but is brought and sold
to them by the traders who penetrate these wilds to traffic
in forest produce. I believe it to be an extract of the root of
Aconitum ferox, which is used for a similar purpose by
some of the tribes of the eastern Himalaya. The flesh is
discoloured and spoilt for some distance round the wound.
This is cut out, and the rest of the carcass is held to be
wholesome food. Their bows are made entirely of the bam-

THE SAL FORESTS. 361

boo, " string " and all ; they are very neat, and possess
wonderful power for their size. A good shot among them
will strike the crown of a hat at fifty yards. Their arrows
are of two sorts ; those for ordinary use being tipped with
a plain iron head, and feathered from the wing of the pea-
fowl, while those intended for poisoning and deadly work
have a loose head, round which the poison is wrapped, and
which remains in the wound. These poisoned arrows are
altogether remarkably similar to those used by the Bushmen
of South Africa. Their axes are also of two sorts one, like
the ordinary axes of the Gonds, for cutting wood, and the
other, a much more formidable implement, called a tongid,
with a long semicircular blade like an ancient battle-axe
in miniature. All the iron for these weapons and for their
agricultural instruments is forged from the native ore of the
hills, by a class called Aguri^s, who seem to be a section
of the Gonds. A Byga" has been known to attack and destroy
a tiger with no other weapon than his axe. This little weapon
is also used as a projectile, and the Bygd will thus knock
over hares, peafowl, etc., with astonishing skill.

Though thus secluded in the wilderness, the Mandla Byga
is by no means extremely shy, and will placidly go on cutting
his dhya while a train of strangers is passing him, when a
wild Gond or Korku would have abandoned all and fled to
the forest. They are truthful and honest almost to a fault,
being terribly cheated in consequence in their dealings with
the traders ; and they possess the patriarchal form of self-
government still so perfectly, that nearly all their disputes
are settled by the elders without appeal, though these, of
course, under our alien system, possess no legal authority.
Serious crime among them is almost unheard of. The
strangest thing about them is that, though otherwise cer-

362 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTEAL INDIA.

tainly the wildest of all these races, they have no abori-
ginal language of their own, speaking a rude dialect of which
almost every word can be traced to the Hindi. They can
also communicate with the Gonds in their language, though
they do not use it among themselves. A similar case is that
of the Bheels, in the western continuation of these hills, who,
though also extremely wild, have no peculiar language of
their own, and never have had, so far as history informs
us. There are many points of resemblance between the
Bygas and the Bheels, and there seems to be no evidence
to connect either with the Kolarian or the Dravidian families
of aborigines. Further inquiry may show them to be rem-
nants of a race anterior in point of time to both, and from
which the Hindi may have borrowed its numerous non-
Sanscrit vocables. We know that, at an early period in
Hindu history, Bheels held the country up to the river
Jamnd, which they do not now approach within many hun-
dred miles.

There is every reason to believe that these Bygds are, if
not autochthonous, at least the predecessors of the Gonds- in
this part of the hills. They consider themselves, and are
allowed to be, superior to the Gonds, who may not eat with
them, and who take their priests of the mysteries, or medicine-
men, from among them. Theirs it is to hold converse with
the world of spirits, who are everywhere present to aboriginal
superstition ; theirs it is to cast omens, to compel the rain,
to charm away the tiger or disease. The Byga medicine-man
fully looks his character. He is tall, thin, and cadaverous,
abstraction and mystery residing in his hollow eyes. When
wanted, he has to be sent for to some distant haunt of
gnomes and spirits, and comes with charms and simples slung
in the hollow of a bottle-gourd. A great necklace, fashioned

THE SAL FOEESTS. 363

with much carving from the kernels of forest fruits, marks his
holy calling.

The Byga charmer's most dangerous duty is that of laying
the spirit of a man who has been killed by a tiger. Man-
eaters have always been numerous in Mandld, the presence
during a part of every year of large herds of cattle fostering
the breed, while their withdrawal at other times to regions
where the tigers cannot follow causes temporary scarcity of
food, too easily relieved in the abundant tall grass cover by
recourse to the killing of man ; the desultory habits of the
wild people, and the numbers of travellers who take this short
route between the Narbada* valley and the plains of Chattis-
garh, furnishing them with abundant and easy victims. The
Byga" has to proceed to the spot where the death occurred,
which is probably still frequented by the tiger, with various
articles, such as fowls and rice, which are offered to the
manes. A pantomime of the tragedy is then enacted by
the Bygd, who assumes the attitude of a tiger, springs on his
prey, and devours a mouthful of the blood-stained earth.
Eight days are allowed to pass ; and should the Byga* not, in
the interval, be himself carried off by the tiger, the spirit is
held to be effectually laid, and the people again resort to
the jungle. The theory rests on the superstition, prevalent
throughout these hills, that the ghost of the victim, unless
charmed to rest, rides on the head of the tiger, and incites
him to further deeds of blood, rendering him also secure from
harm by his preternatural watchfulness. To remove pesti-
lence or sickness, they have a pleasant notion that it must
be transferred to some one else ; and so they sweep their
villages, after the usual sacrifices, and cast the filth on the
highway or into the bounds of some other village.

The real Byga medicine-man possesses the gift of throwing

364 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTRAL INDIA.

himself into a trance, during which the afflatus of the Deity is
supposed to be vouchsafed him, communicating the secrets of
the future. I never saw the performance myself, but persons
who have affirm that it is too severe in its physical symptoms
to be mere acting ; and there is sufficient evidence from other
quarters, to prove that some persons can educate themselves
into the power of passing into such fits at will, to lead us to
credit the Byga at least with nothing worse than self-deception
in the matter. In religion the Bygas have admitted a few of
the Hindu, deities of the destructive type ; but their chief
reverence is paid to the spirits of the waste, and to Mother
Earth, who is their tribal god. One of their tribal names is
Bhumid,, meaning " people of the soil," and it is curious that
among every aboriginal tribe of these hills, including the
Bheels, the priests or medicine-men are called by the same
name. The rite of charming the souls of deceased persons
into some material object, before described, and which seems
peculiar to these hills, is practised also by these Bygas.

A male Byga" is easily distinguished from a Gond ; but
their women are scarcely in any respect different, perhaps a
little blacker, but dressing in a similar manner, wearing the
same ornaments (including a chignon of goat's hair), and like
them also tattooed as to the legs. Though the Bygd,s are, like
the Bheels, less given to congregate together in large villages
than some other tribes, often indeed living in entirely detached
dwellings, there are a good many villages of a considerable
number of houses. These are arranged with much neatness
in the form of a square, and the whole place is kept very
clean.

The Byga is the most terrible enemy to the forests we have
anywhere in these hills. Thousands of square miles of sal
forest have been clean destroyed by them in the progress of

THE SAL FORESTS. 365

their dhy^-cultivation, the ground being afterwards occupied
by a dense scrub of low sal bushes springing from the stumps.
In addition to this, the largest trees have everywhere been
girdled by them to allow the gum resin of the sal (the dammer
of commerce) to exude.

The dammer resin, called here dhok, is extensively used as
a pitch in dockyards, and for coating commercial packages.
It is extracted by cutting a ring of bark out of the tree three
or four feet from the ground, when the gum exudes in large
bubbles. Several half-circles are, however, equally effective,
and do not destroy the life of the tree, like the former method.
The ringing of sal trees has now been entirely prohibited
within our territories; but I do not think that any. more
economical method has as yet been substituted, the vast area
of sal in native states being sufficient to supply the present
wants of the trade. The dammer is collected, and, together
with lac dye, is exchanged for salt, beads, and arrow-poison,
brought by peripatetic traders with pack-bullocks, who
annually visit their wilds for the purpose. This may be said
to be the only commercial transaction of the Bygd, in the
whole year. He rarely visits the low-country markets like
the other tribes, and has scarcely a knowledge of coined
money.

Fortunately the sal tree, unlike the teak, is possessed of a
most inextinguishable reproductive power, the seeds being
shed by every mature tree in millions, and ready to germinate
at once in a favourable position. The seedlings shoot rapidly
above the danger of jungle-fires, and grow straight and tall
before branching out. Many of the young forests now spring-
ing up in these valleys resemble more the regularly tended
saplings of an English plantation than self-sown trees. The
country has never been surveyed, and we have no accurate

366 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTEAL INDIA.

information of the extent of the sal forests. The area they
already cover with good timber, and that which may with
conservation be recovered for the production of timber, is very
great ; and as, from its preferring the skirts and slopes of the
hills to the open valleys, it need never interfere with the
settlement of these splendid uplands, there is every reason to
believe that this must in future years be one of the chief
sources of timber-supply to the country. The timber of the
sal, if inferior to the teak for some purposes, such as carpentry
and transverse beams, is superior for others, such as wheel-
work and uprights, its straight firm grain giving it immense
power of resistance to crushing. It is almost the only timber
tree of Upper India, where teak is unknown. The unlimited
water-power of these rivers will supply the means of convert-
ing it on the spot ; and the Narbada will form a highway for
floating it to the open valley. Sal will not swim by itself,
until seasoned for several years ; but the hills produce an un-
limited quantity of the finest bamboos, a bundle of which tied
round a log will support it, and which are themselves of the
highest economic value. At present these forests have
scarcely been drawn on for the supply of timber, being distant
from the Narbada* some thirty or forty miles, without a road
capable of conveying heavy timber. I have already remarked
on the appearance of the sal tree. Singly it is a little formal
in outline, though possessing a fine firm aspect from its hori-
zontal branching, bright evergreen leaves like broad lance-
heads, and straight tapering stem covered with grey and
deeply fissured bark. Its great charm, however, resides in the
fresh cool aspect of the masses and belts in which it chiefly
grows.

Besides the dammer resin of the sal, several other kinds of
minor forest produce are collected here, as in other tracts, for

THE SAL FOEESTS. 337

sale to the traders of the plains. Some of these have already
been mentioned. Another is the stick-lac of commerce,
which is deposited by an insect on the smaller twigs of
several species of trees, among which Butea frondosa,
Schleichera trijuga, and Zizyphus jujuha are the principal.
The twigs are broken off, and sold as they stand, looking like
pieces of very dark red coral. About twenty pounds will be
procured annually from a tree, so long as any of the insects
are left on it to breed. But just as often as not the improvi-
dent wild man will cut down the whole tree to save himself
the trouble of climbing. The inborn destructiveness of these
jungle people to trees is certainly very extraordinary : even where
it is clearly against their own interest, they cannot apparently
refrain from doing wanton injury. A Gond or Bygd, passing
along a pathway will almost certainly, and apparently un-
consciously, drop his axe from the shoulder on any young
sapling that may be growing by its side, and almost every-
where young trees so situated will be found cut half through
in this manner. The stick-lac is manufactured into dye in
considerable quantities at a factory in Jubbulpur, established
by a gentleman (Mr. Williams) who has long since retired,
after realising the success so well deserved by his remarkable
foresight and enterprise. The agents of this factory penetrate
the remotest corners of these jungles in search of the raw
material ; and the development of this profitable business,
during many years of patient and fair dealing with these timid
savages, is a valuable example to those who would follow Mr.
Williams's steps in the development of the many latent
resources of these regions.

The cocoons of the wild tusser silk-moth are also collected
in great numbers for sale to the caste of silk-spinners who
live by this business in the villages of the plains. Experience

368 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTRAL INDIA.

has shown that these moths will not breed a second genera-
tion of healthy silk-producing insects in captivity, and a
fresh supply is therefore procured annually from their native
hills. They live chiefly on the leaves of the saj tree, whose
foliage, being deciduous, wou]d not afford safety to the insect
in its chrysalis stage, if the cocoon were attached, as other
pecies are, to the leaf alone. The instinct of the little
creature teaches it therefore to anchor its cocoon by a strong
silken rope to the leaf-stalk, where it sways about in safety
after every leaf has dropped from the tree. The cocoons
brought from the jungles by the breeders are attached to
pollarded saj trees, grown near their villages, till the moths
have hatched and paired, when the females are captured and
made to lay their eggs in close vessels, where they are in-
cubated by heat. The worms reared from the eggs are again
placed on the saj trees, where they form their cocoons, which
are then spun into the rough silk known as " tusser." The
business is a very precarious one, much depending for success
on favourable weather. Superstition of course seizes this un-
certainty for her own; and the purchased blessings of the
Byga" priest must accompany the cocoons from their native
hills, if the breeder of the plains is to expect success.

Besides such scanty exportation of the minor produce of
these wilds as I have described, almost their only economic
use has hitherto been the splendid grazing they afford for
countless herds of cattle, annually brought to them from great
distances in the open country on both sides during the hot
season. Fine grass and abundance of shade and water make
this one of the finest grazing countries in all India ; and the
amount of wealth which thus actually seems to depend on its
continuance as a waste is very great.

At first sight some hesitation might be felt at the prospect

THE SAL FORESTS. 369

of these great grazing-grounds being reclaimed for cultivation,
when it is considered how all-essential to the life of a country
like India is the breeding of large stocks of oxen. Here the
draught ox takes the place of the farm-horse and the steam-
engine of England. Cattle are bred, not as an article of food,
but as affording perhaps the only description of power by
which the operations of agriculture could be performed at all.
Horses could not take their place in converting the hard,
burnt-up soils, under the blazing sun of the season, when
ploughing and sowing the autumn crop goes on ; nor, so far
as we know the resources of the land, could steam power,
even if otherwise suitable, find sufficient fuel at anything like
a moderate cost. Thus it may not have been without a
teaching of far-seeing policy that the Hindu, has been pro-
hibited by his religion from converting the race of horned
cattle to the purposes of food. Few of -the precepts of any
religious system which are directed towards the regulation of
mundane affairs will be found to be wholly unconnected with
some object of sound policy. It may be true that the rigid
prohibition against touching the carcasses of such animals, or
in any way trafficking in their death, may have excluded the
Hindii cattle-owner from much legitimate profit in the way of
leather, horn, tallow, glue, etc. ; but it is impossible to draw
fine shades of distinction in religious sanctions ; and if, as is
probable, the slaughter of cattle useful for the plough could
not be otherwise prevented,, then the sanctification of the
animal from all such uses was probably a measure of the
highest policy. Even looked on as an article of food, it is
probable that the sacredness of the cow has been productive
of more gain than loss, milk and butter being much more
wholesome articles of diet than beef in a hot climate. Cer-
tainly, any measure which would be likely to endanger the

B II

370 THE HIGHLANDS OP CENTEAL INDIA.

existing supply of plough-cattle would be highly objectionable.
But I think that no apprehension of the sort need be enter-
tained from the probable reclamation of such tracts as the
Mandla" savannahs. Sufficient forest land must always remain
in the higher regions to furnish the green bite at the end of
the hot season, which is all that is necessary to tide the herds
over the most trying part of the year ; and, for the rest, the
people will soon learn to do as other countries have done, and
as other parts of India even have done, namely, devote a part
of the cultivated area to the raising of green pasture, by
irrigation, for the cattle. This fine natural pasture is no
doubt a great advantage ; but it is not at all indispensable
even in India.

It is indeed impossible that such a country as this can long
remain a wilderness occupied by herds of buffaloes and wild
beasts. In natural capabilities it is favoured beyond most
regions of India. Soil of every character abounds ; and almost
every known product of eastern agriculture thrives admirably
where trial has been made. Wheat, grain, rice, cotton, and
especially flax, have been proved to flourish; and there can
be little doubt that sites might be found in which every other
article that has been grown in India, including the potato,
tea, coffee, and cinchona, might be successfully raised. The
breeding of stock, including horses, but probably excepting
sheep, would no doubt be most profitable in a region where
natural pasture, shade, and water are so abundant.

The resources of the country in iron and other mineral
wealth have never been fully examined, though it is evident
on the surface that they are abundant. Gold is washed out
of the sands of more than one of the streams, in small
quantities, however, which barely repay the labour; and it
is probable that its lodes are buried in the quartz of the

THE SAL FORESTS. 371

primitive rocks deep below the flow of volcanic material that
has overlaid them.

What, then, it may be asked, has so long excluded this
favoured region from colonisation ? The reply is simple, if
the old conception of India, as being a country thickly popu-
lated by industrious races in fabled ages of the past, be
exchanged for the truer one that in great part it is a young
country, only now beginning .to be occupied by the slow
expansion from the north of that Aryan element which alone
has anywhere opened out the dark regions of the earth. The
wave of population which, within these last three centuries,
has driven the wild elephant from the Lower Narbada* valley,
and planted a white expanse of wheat where grew the virgin
forest, has not yet reached this more secluded tract. There
are unusual obstacles to its doing so ; but these would not
long stand in the way, were the population outside to attain
the density and straitness of means sufficient to induce so
domestic and unad venturous a race as the Hindus to throw off
another swarm, as they did when they overleaped the Vindhya
range in their first great emigration from the Gangetic valley.
Their natural unprogressiveness is not now tempered, as of
yore, by the spur of foreign invasion or domestic oppression ;
and as yet they but thinly occupy the fertile regions of the
lower valley, scratching its rich soils for a poor return of five
or six fold, and with abundance of nearly as good waste land
still to break up not far from their doors. It is natural, no
doubt, for the superficial observer to exclaim against the
unimproved condition of these vast uplands, and to feel
astonished when he sees the most tempting offers fall fruit-
less on the ears of the neighbouring people. The explanation
is simply as I have said. The pressure of population outside
is not sufficient to induce them to attempt to meet the diffi-

372 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTRAL HSfDIA.

culties in the way of their overflowing into this neighbouring
region.

Some of these difficulties I will now mention. They are
principally the inaccessibility of the tract, and the conflict
that awaits the new settler with the forces of nature, in the
shape of unhealthy climate, luxuriant jungle, and noxious
animals. Much of the popular dread of these matters is the
work of imagination, though not of course for that the less
a real influence ; but much, too, is undeniable fact. The
country is doubtless very difficult of access, the nearest
available wastes lying upwards of eighty miles from the
railway line or a market, without any road that is worthy
of the name. Towards the south some attempt has been
made, within a few years, to open out the lowest of the
valleys (of the Baiyar river), by constructing passes through
the hills which separate it from the Nagpiir plain. The
adjacent country is more thickly peopled than that of the
Narbada valley ; and the encouragement given them by this
road, and by the establishment in the middle of the wilds of
a European civil officer and his following, has now begun
to show some signs of result, in attempts to colonise portions
of the land above the pass. But much cannot be looked for,
even here, for many years. The nearest good market would
be a hundred miles away, and over very imperfect roads.
There is no great amount of population to spare, and there
is still plenty of waste land to take up much nearer at hand.
The experiment, I fear, is one of those which have always
ended in the same result heavy expenditure vainly en-
deavouring to support a naturally languishing settlement
that has been planted some distance ahead of the natural
expansion of the population.

In the matter of climate, like all uncleared regions in this

THE SAL FORESTS. 373

latitude at so low an elevation, the tract is subject to
malarious fever during the months of October to January.
But experience shows that this influence lasts only so long
as the country continues uncleared. It is probable that the
Lower Narbada valley was equally unhealthy at one time, yet
it is now as healthy as any part of the country. Several
stations in these provinces have been set down in the middle
of jungles with as evil a reputation as this, and along with
the clearance of the jungle the fever was found to disappear.
The Wynaad, Assam, and Cachar are also standing instances
of the successful occupation of malarious countries by the
help of European enterprise. The malaria excepted, the
climate is highly favourable to colonisation, considering
the situation of the tract. No region out of the great
mountain ranges could probably be pointed to as possessing
such advantages of coolness and freshness as are here con-
ferred by the elevated situation, abundance of moisture, and
its attendant evergreen verdure.

As for the obstacles supposed to be presented by the rank
vegetation and noxious animals, they are chiefly imaginary.
Immense plains lie ready for the plough, if merely the coarse
natural grasses were cleared away, there being no brush-
wood or heavy timber to speak of. The luxuriance of these
grasses is only evidence of the fatness of the land that lies
below ; and a torch applied in the month of May will, over
large tracts, remove all obstacle to the immediate application
of the plough. The wild animals, here as elsewhere, would
retire before the axe and plough of the settler. Such as are
noxious to human life are not really more so here than in
many other much more open parts of the country. In the
districts of Doni and Betul there is certainly a larger
number of tigers in the same area than in Mandki, and there

374 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTEAL INDIA.

they have not been found to constitute any serious obstacle to
the steady advancement of population and tillage.

I have thus remarked at considerable length on the pros-
pects, of this tract, because it furnishes an excellent though
perhaps extreme example of the difficulties in the way of
reclaiming the waste regions of these highlands. Many other
tracts besides this are almost similarly circumstanced, though
perhaps there are none which can be compared with it in
extent and importance, or in the advantages it offers to the
settler, and especially to the European settler. I am not one
of those who believe that Europeans can ever labour profit-
ably with their own hands in the " plains" of India ; and even
at this elevation I believe that the power of the sun, although
much alleviated by the coolness of the breezes, the low tem-
perature of the nights, and the freshness of the vegetation,
would still be prohibitive of severe manual labour by natives
of a temperate region. But I think that we have here a tract
eminently fitted to yield results from the application of Euro-
pean energy, intelligence, and capital to the supervision and
direction of native labour.

The great difficulty would be to obtain the labour to super-
vise. I doubt if the regular Hindu cultivators of the plains
outside could be induced to move into these wilds by any
temptation, so long as they can obtain a pittance where they
are. The aborigines are too timid and unstable to furnish
reliable workmen. I would rather look to the teeming mil-
lions of the coast districts to furnish the needful supply of
labourers, if these inland wastes are to be reclaimed within any
reasonable period of time. It really seems to be matter for
astonishment that these littoral races have for many years
shown themselves to be ready to cross the seas to the West
Indies, the Mauritius, and other distant countries, and have

THE SAL FOEESTS. 375

actually been transported thither in great numbers, while all
the time vast areas of the finest land are pining for labour in
the interior of their own country. There cannot be a doubt
which they would most willingly go to, in order to escape
from their densely crowded condition at home, were the in-
ducements offered to them the same. What has tempted
them to other countries has been the superior wages which
their industries could afford to offer ; and in India, wherever,
as in Assdm, Cachar, and the Wynaad, such articles of Euro-
pean demand as coffee, tea, etc., have attracted European
enterprise, and where similar wages have been held out, an
abundant supply of labour has been furnished by these
fountains of population. What appears to be necessary, then,
to effect the rapid reclamation of these wilds is the introduc-
tion of some special industry which will attract the European
energy and capital which alone can ever effect the movement
of Indian labour in large bodies from one part of the country
to another. That there are such industries capable of intro-
duction there cannot be a doubt. Leaving such exotic sub-
jects as tea, coffee, and cinchona out of the question, as not
having yet been proved to be suitable, India is fast attaining
a point at which it will pay imported capital to invest in the
culture of her old and well-tried staples, particularly under
such improved scientific conditions and methods as may be
hoped for from European knowledge. Improved communica-
tions have so much equalised values in different parts of the
country, that the extension of cotton tillage in Western India
alone has more than doubled the local value of all sorts of
agricultural produce throughout the greater part of India.
Cattle are worth about three times what they were ten years
ago. Such a rise in the value of the produce of the earth,
and all that is connected with it, as has taken place since the

376 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTRAL INDIA.

rebellion of 1857 is perhaps unprecedented in any country in
the world. It is so startling that cautious persons do not
believe that it can be permanent. Its permanency seems to
hang on the balance of what the next few years may bring
forth. If the price of cotton holds up, everything may be
hoped for ; and it is a symptom which every well-wisher of
India must rejoice to see, that this year we have nearly as
large an American crop as before the war, with the price of
cotton still remaining steady in the market, while the
American growers are refraining from extending their area
for fear of bringing down the price. No doubt some fall in
the price of cereals must be looked for in India in the next
few years. There is no doubt that something of the late
enormous rise in their prices has been due to actual scarcity
induced by the appropriation of the land for cotton. This is
being rapidly remedied by extension of tillage, and the prices
must shortly come down to their proper level. Many circum-
stances indicate this as the position of prices at present. It
may be hoped then that before long it will remunerate foreign
capital to engage in some one of the numerous agricultural
pursuits possible in these regions, on a sufficiently extensive
scale to lead to the importation of masses of labour from the
hives of population on the coast. At present cattle-breeding
would seem to be the most promising opening, both because it
wants the fewest hands, and because the absence of roads is
of less consequence in such a business. Whether it would not
remunerate the Government to take the first steps in the
settlement of these unimproved parts of their property may
be a question. The Indian Government has already led the
way in many such enterprises with success ; and signs are not
wanting of willingness to do so again where the case is made
sufficiently clear. It certainly appears to me that the con-

THE SAL FOEESTS. 377

struction of a decent road through the Mandla district, con-
necting its culturable wastes and its splendid sal forests with
the railway at Jubbulpur, is one of the most obvious necessi-
ties of the time. This has been often urged before, and its
urgency has as frequently been admitted. The money only
has always been wanting ; and so it may probably continue
for many a year to come.

We have heard much of the recent financial distress in
India, and much violent criticism has been levelled at the
Government in directions the most incompatible with each
other. It has been blamed equally for the imposition of
additional taxes and for its penury in expenditure on matters
affecting the development of the country. Few or none of
these critics have really seen the present situation of the
country. That situation is one of much peculiarity, which,
while creating the greatest embarrassment at the present
time, is yet full of hope for the future. I have referred to
the state of prices, and this appears to me to furnish the key
to all the existing difficulties. The value of labour has about
doubled in ten years, while the cost of provisions has nearly
trebled. Government derives most of its revenue from the
land ; and in such times of agricultural prosperity it should
be able, by a great increase in its rents, to meet the large
enhancement of its expenses, owing to the rise in prices and
wages. But it has been found impossible to raise its rents
very much without interfering with the advance of agri-
culture. The reason is plain. The appropriation of the land
for cotton unduly diminished the area under food. Several
dearths also occurred, and the food supplies of the country
were unduly contracted. Prices rose immensely, higher than
the -rise in wages, to a scarcity point, in fact. Land began
to be taken up to meet this, in consequence of the very great

378 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTEAL INDIA.

profits yielded to agriculture. This process is now going on,
but it requires all the existing profit to enable it to do so ;
and as to increase the Government rent very greatly would
be to diminish this profit, it proves to be impossible to do so
at present. Further, the scarcity has affected all incomes
from other sources than land, and thus all other branches of
taxation are also unproductive. The profits of commerce,
which mainly deals with the produce of the land, are also at
present low, and taxation of them is very difficult to effect.
But all this must pass away before long. The extension of
tillage having taken place, the people will soon have sufficient
food again ; prices will steady themselves at a somewhat
lower though still remunerative point ; and the Govern-
ment, if gifted with sufficient foresight, will be able to adjust
its income to the altered circumstances of the country. It
may then be expected that such enterprises as the opening
up of such extensive waste regions as the MandM district
will receive a share of the public attention. Another danger
to such enterprises is, however, looming in the distance.
Interprovincial jealousy bids fair to form a serious obstacle
to the proper development of the great public property vested
in the soil of India. It is scarcely credible that a clamorous
school of Indian public writers exists, whose continual cry
is levelled at the policy of expending any portion of the
revenues raised in one province of the empire on the deve-
lopment of another ; who would have wealthy thriving
Bombay or Madras allowed to expend the whole of its
revenues within itself, and such poor half-reclaimed regions
as the Central Provinces allowed nothing for their improve-
ment but what they can raise themselves. The policy aimed
at would be identical, it seems to me, with that of a gardener
who should refuse to expend anything in the cultivation of

THE SAL FORESTS. 379

one or two particular beds of his garden, because they had
previously been neglected in favour of the others, and yielded
no income towards his general funds.

Before leaving the subject of these waste lands, I should
refer to the only attempt ever made to form a settlement
in them under European supervision, and which ended in
lamentable failure. Some thirty years ago four German
missionaries attempted to form a colony among the abori-
ginal tribes, on the Moravian system, in one of these upland
valleys. They selected a spot just under the Amarkantals
plateau, near a small village called Karinjed,, in the middle
of a fine plain of rich soil, a few miles south of the Narbada.
The place had an elevation of about 2,700 feet, and was well
situated in every respect but one. In a country abounding
with shade and water they pitched on a bare mound without
an evergreen tree, and more than two miles distant from the
nearest running water. They went out in the hot weather,
and failed to prepare sufficient shelter before the arrival of
the rainy season. Thus they remained exposed to constant
damp and cold winds, and dependent for their water on a
small stagnant pool polluted by the drainage of decaying
vegetation. The result was the death from cholera, or some
other malignant bowel-complaint, of three out of the four,
and the retreat of the only survivor. However worthy of
praise, such an enterprise cannot be looked on as a fair
experiment. But it cast a gloom over the prospect of further
attempts of the same sort, and has never again been re-
peated. The example of the missions to the Kols of Bengal
and the Karens of Burma, where the combination of profit-
able industrial enterprise with theological teaching has been
found to be singularly effective in the propagation of the
Gospel among aboriginal races, may point to the desirability

380 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTRAL INDIA.

of some such system being attempted among the unsophisti-
cated savages of these wilds by those who are now preaching
in vain to the semi-Hindii tribes further west.

Some time ago a French gentleman took up a considerable
tract of the finest land in one of these valleys. But it soon
appeared that he had no intention of real colonisation, and
had in fact been merely speculating on the value of the forest
produce of the land. This and other symptoms of land-
jobbiDg have, I believe, induced some reconsideration of the
rules for the sale of the fee simple of waste lands. I have
given the existing rules in an Appendix ; but possibly
these may now be subjected to modification. One thing
may be relied on, however that whatever title a settler
may here obtain from the Government will be an absolute
one, every existing or possible private interest having been
fully determined before the available wastes were declared by
law to be state property.

In such a well- watered, shady, and grassy region as this
Upper Narbadi valley, it is inevitable that wild animals
should abound. The hilly ranges which separate the valleys
contain the bison, the sambar, and the black bear, like similar
tracts in other parts of the province. These are animals
peculiar to no part of India, and the same may be said of
the spotted deer, which affects the densely wooded banks of
the larger streams. But, as I have said, we are here within
the limits of the great sal belt, and come upon some animals
which I have noticed as coinciding in range therewith.

Chief in interest among these is the beautiful twelve-
tined deer (Rucervus Duvaucellii), called by some the Bara-
singha, a name which simply means " twelve-tined," and
which is applied also to the Kashmir stag (C. Cashmiriensis).
In size it is intermediate between the sambar and the spotted

THE SAL FOKESTS. 381

deer, and almost the same as the red deer of Scotland. In
colour it is a reddish brown during the cold season, passing
through a bright rufous chestnut in spring to a rich golden
red in summer. The antlers are very handsome, and diffe-
rently shaped from those of any other deer in the world.
They have but one basal tine over the forehead, no median
tines at all, and all the other branches arranged at the
summit of the beam. Here they show a tendency to
approach the Eusine type, to which belong the sambar and
the axis, the beam being first divided into a terminal fork,
each branch of which afterwards splits into several points.
Usually the outward or anterior branch bears three such
points, and the inward or posterior two, making, with the
brow-antler, six points on each horn. Very old stags some-
times have more ; but, as in the Rusince, when there are
more than three the extra ones are abnormal monstrosities,
and the antlers are usually unsymmetrical and stunted in
size. The horns are greyish in colour, and of a smoother
surface than those of the sambar. They are not nearly so
massive, nor so long, but have a very handsome outward
sweep, which renders them, I think, more effective as a
trophy for the deerstalker. They are very difficult to pro-
cure fully developed and perfect. They are cast more regu-
larly, I think, than those of the Rusince ; and as the stags
seem to be very combative, some of the points are usually
broken off soon after they lose the velvet at the close of the
rainy season, when their haunts first become accessible to the
sportsman. In form the Rucervus is one of the most beauti-
ful of the family, lightly and gracefully made, and with a
stately carriage ; and altogether, with his splendid golden
colour and finely shaped antlers, this stag is not surpassed, I
think, in appearance by any member of the deer tribe.

382 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTEAL INDIA.

This animal has been called in north-eastern India the
" swamp deer/' but here he is not observed to be particularly
partial to swampy ground. They graze in the mornings and
evenings, chiefly along the smaller streams, and by springs,
where the grass is green, in the open valleys, and rest during
the day about the skirts of the sal forest. A favourite mid-
day resort is in the shade of the clumps of sal dotted about
the open plain, at some distance from the heavy forest.
They are not nearly so nocturnal in habits as the sambar,
being often found out grazing late in the forenoon, and again
early in the afternoon ; and I do not think they wander about
all night like the sambar. Their midday rest is usually of a
few hours only, but during that time they conceal themselves
in the grass much after the manner of the sambar. I have
never heard of their visiting cultivated tracts, like the latter ;
nor can I learn that their apparent adherence to the sal forest
is due to their employing any part of that tree as food.

In the middle of the day the red deer (so they are called
by natives, and often by Europeans) may be shot by beating
the grass with elephants in the manner before described.
During the height of the cold weather many parts of this
tract can hardly be traversed except on an elephant ; and
in such places shooting would otherwise be impossible, owing
to the height and thickness of the grass jungle. In the
course of a day's beating of this sort in the Mandld district
a very great variety of game may easily be met with. On
one occasion, when spending the Christmas of 1864 with two
friends in the lovely Matiari valley, a day's march east of the
station of MandM, we secured, I think, a specimen of nearly
every kind of game to be found in the country, excepting the
bison and the panther. On the 26 th we marched from a
place called Bartold, to Gobri, both on the Matiari a clear

THE SAL FOEESTS. 383

sparkling stream that here rurs through a valley, filled with
long grass cover, and bounded on either side by chains of
low hills, flat on the tops, and clothed with low tree jungle
and bamboos on their sides. We took separate lines, F.
going by the pathway, D. along the tops of the hills on
one side, while I beat along the river below on an elephant.
I had not gone far before I put up a large herd of s&mbar
in long grass, and, firing right and left, dropped one small
stag, and heavily wounded a very large fellow with splendid
antlers and as black as a buffalo. I got off, and tracked the
wounded animal for about three miles by his blood through
the long dewy grass, till I was as thoroughly wetted through
as if I had been wading in a tank, when, as the deer had
reached heavy bamboo cover, and seemed to be still strong,
I gave it up, and again made for the river. On the way
I came on a herd of red deer, grazing a,bout in an opening
in the low jungle, where a fine spring kept the grass beauti-
fully green. They saw me before I was within shot, however,
and retreated into grass cover. Waiting a little, I got on
the elephant, and proceeded to beat the long grass ; and,
after going about a quarter of a mile, started the herd,
which must have contained fully thirty individuals. They
dived into a deepish hollow, filled with low brushwood, in
front of me, and I waited on the edge for their appearance
on the far side. Presently they clattered up in single file,
stags and does intermixed, the last of all being a very large
dark red stag, with beautiful antlers that seemed almost to
overpower him as he slowly trotted up the rise. I had the
sight of the double rifle bearing full on his broad back, and
was just touching the trigger, when the man behind me
seized and detained my arm in a vice-like grasp. The
moment was lost, and I turned viciously on the culprit,

3S4 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTKAL INDIA.

who, however, pointed silently to an object in a tree close
to our heads. It was a huge colony of bees the terrible
Bouhrd, whose swarms had, a march or two before, routed
our whole following, leaving a good-sized baggage-pony dead
upon the ground. Lucky it was I had not fired, and I
thought little of the lost stag in the hurry to get out of
so dangerous a vicinity. About half a mile further on, near
the river, a spotted doe leaped out of a patch of grass, and
scoured across the plain. It was too tempting, she looked
so round and fat ; and a snap shot rolled her over, shot
through the loins. We were now not far from camp, and
I was beating through some longish grass, when a full round
countenance was seen peering over the top of it at the
advancing elephant. I did not make it out for a while, and
presently it disappeared, the motion of the grass showing the
progress of a large body towards the river. A little further
on it stopped, and the round face again glared at me over the
grass. Surely it must be a tiger 1 A glimpse of a striped
red hide settled the question, and I moved a little down to
cut her off from the river bed. All was motionless for a few
minutes, and then again the slowly waving grass showed the
stealthy progress towards the deep gully in which ran the
river. A shallow ravine was a little ahead, down which she
could steal unobserved, except in one place, where a little
jungle pathway crossed it, and I took up a place commanding
this at about sixty yards, waiting with cocked rifle and
beating heart. Now she is close to the opening, the grass
rustling gently above her. Now she sneaks rapidly across,
crawling low, but halts for a moment to look again before
entering the further cover. Fatal pause ! A ball speeds
through her shoulder, and, turning with a roar, she gallops
back again up the hollow. I thought she meant a charge,

THE SAL FOBESTS. 385

and hastily reloaded the discharged barrel of my breech-
loader, as I had only one gun out, being on a pad. But she
left the nald,, when nearly opposite me, on the wrong side.
I think she must have forgotten, for she evidently looked
out for her assailant, jumping high above the grass at every
bound a really beautiful sight, with her very bright-coloured
skin, hair erect, and tail streaming behind her. About the
third bound I caught her with another bullet, and she fell,
crumpled up in mid-air, for all the world just like a partridge
struck full by a charge of shot. She was lying stone-dead
when I came up, and no wonder, for the ball had entered
near her tail, traversed the whole length of her body, and was
resting under the skin of her forehead. The rifle was a
twelve-bore breech-loader, on my own spherical ball prin-
ciple, the penetration of which may be judged of by this
performance. The first shot was a little .high on the shoulder,
but would soon have killed her, and fully accounted for her
confusion of ideas. She had evidently been lying on the
watch for spotted deer coming to drink. A large herd of
them broke out of the grass while our interview was in
progress. Coming to camp, I found that F. had shot a black
buck antelope on the road ; while D. returned with a young
bdrd-singhd stag and a spotted deer. In the evening F,
went out, and killed a large bear, which came down to the
river to drink beside him. Next day we were almost equally
fortunate, though no tiger was met with ; and we spent a
Christmas of considerable joviality in that remote wilderness,
the dinner consisting, as far as I recollect, of a (peacock)
turkey and sambar tongue, supported by roast haunch of
red-deer venison, as pieces de resistance, with cheetul cutlets
and fillet of nilgai veal as entrees, followed up by boiled
quails and roasted teal, and concluded by the orthodox plum-

386 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTRAL INDIA.

pudding and mince-pies out of Crosse and BlackwelTs tins.
Sundry glasses of whisky-toddy, imbibed round a rattling
bonfire lit in front of the tents, were fully justified by the
really severe cold after sunset. Stalking the bdrd-singhd,
however, affords the finest sport; and from the less exclu-
sively nocturnal habits of the animal, as well as the open
character of the country, resembles deer-stalking in Scotland
more than any other of our field sports.

When hurrying through this country in January of 1863,
en route to the eastern forests, I halted for two days in the
upper valley of the Halon to stalk the red deer, which I had
never before seen. The grass was very thick and long, and,
being still green, was entirely unburnt. At a place called
Motinald, where a deep branching watercourse crosses the
pathway several times, I was walking ahead of my followers,
when I came on the remains of a poor wanderer, who had
evidently not long before been killed by a tiger. He was
a religious mendicant ; and his long iron tongs, begging-bowl
hollowed from a skull, and cocoa-nut hooka were scattered
about in the bottom of the nald, where he had been resting
on his weary march, together with tresses of his long matted
hair and a shred or two of cloth. The bones were all broken
to pieces, and many of them were missing altogether. A
Bunjdra' drover had been taken off near the same spot about
a week before, so that it was not without some misgivings
that I wandered off the road through the long grass to look
for red deer towards the skirts of the hills. To hunt for the
tiger in such an ocean of grass-cover would have been hope-
less. I skirted the hills to the right of the road from here
to the camping-ground at Mangli, very soon getting drenched
to the skin in passing through the high grass dripping with
the morning dew. Towards the hills the grass was shorter,

THE SAL FOEESTS. 387

and the plain much cut up by deep fissures in the black,
heavy soil. I saw several small herds of deer, wending their
way towards the clumps of sal forest on the skirt of the hills,
before I found any in a position that would admit of stalking.
At last I marked a small parcel of hinds, with two fair-looking
stags, disappear over a low rising ground, slowly feeding their
way towards the forest ; and making a long detour to gain
the shelter of a deep crack, which led into the valley they
had entered, I stalked almost into the middle of them before
I was aware. My first intimation of the fact was the sharp
bark of a hind, who had observed the top of my head over
the bank, and the next moment a rush of feet informed me
that the herd was off. Stepping on to the bank, I made a
clean miss of the first running shot ; but, taking more time
with the second barrel, I saw the hindmost stag reel and
almost fall over to the shot. He made off, however, along
with the herd ; but presently left them, and took a line of
his own towards the long grass-cover in the middle of the
plain. I soon hit on his track where he had entered the
grass, and found a little blood ; but as the grass was a long
way over my head, I sent back for the elephant with which
to beat him out. Following the blood-marks on the yellow
stems for about a mile, we started him out of a patch of grass
near the river, and I shot him through the back as he ran
away.

The next day, being encamped at TopM, in the centre of a
wide valley among the sal forest, I went out' in the afternoon
towards the Halon river. Here the country was open and
prairie-like, short grass plains, dotted with clumps of sal,
intervening between the heavier masses of forest. The river
was very bright and clear, running over a pebbly bed. I
took out two young half-bred hounds, between the Rampur

C c 2

388 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTRAL INDIA.

breed and the Scotch deerhound, in the hope of getting them
a run at a wounded red deer, as they were as yet guiltless of
blood. Their mother, and the bull mastiff " Tinker," of wolf
renown, accompanied to help them in the kill. A couple
of lithe blacks, and nearly naked Bygas, with their war-
axes, guided the party. We wandered a good many miles
in the early afternoon without coming on game, but I, at
least, was gratified by the delightful park-like scenery. About
four o'clock, by the- advice of the Bygas, we sat down on a
little eminence crowned by a clump of sal trees, to watch for
deer coming out to drink or feed. Very soon a good-sized
herd suddenly appeared in the middle of a long flat stretch of
grass-land beyond the river ; and after stretching themselves,
and enjoying a game at romps, commenced feeding pretty
quickly down towards the banks of the river. We at once
retreated over the bank of our knoll ; and, getting into a
hollow protected by a fringe of bushes, crept up to the banks
and again reconnoitred. They were quite unsuspicious, the
wind being highly favourable ; and they seemed likely to come
and drink in our very faces. When within a few hundred
yards, however, they halted a long time behind a little rising
ground. I was in agony lest the dogs should make us known,
as they were dreadfully excited by the restraint of the stalks,
and seemed to know perfectly well that there was something
to hunt at hand. Presently a single hind topped the rise, and
for full five minutes stood sniffing round in all directions, her
great ears cocked in aid of her sense of smell. At last she
seemed to be satisfied, and moved slowly forwards, now
pausing to crop a mouthful of grass, and then again starting
and looking about as if she had heard or smelt something.
A stag now walked up past her, and without the least pre-
caution came boldly on to the water, which he entered about

THE SAL FOEESTS. 389

a hundred yards above our post. The rest of the herd were
still mostly hidden by the rise. Creeping through the bushes
I prepared to fire at the stag, and gave orders for the hounds
to be slipped at once after I should fire. I was barely in time
to secure a shot, before the stag, alarmed by a yelp from one
of the dogs, turned to flee up the bank. As it was I dropped
him on the pebbly bank, shot through the shoulder; and,
turning the rifle on the hind who was pausing startled at the
shot, the other bullet passed through her thigh, injuring the
hip joint. She fell on her hind quarters for a few moments,
but presently recovered, and made off after the herd across the
flat. The four dogs had sprung from the slips, and splashed
through the shallow stream before she had well got on her
legs ; and they very nearly had her before she got fairly into
her pace. Then, however, she distanced them at once for a
few hundred yards, when the old bitch "Bell," who was
extremely fast, began to draw steadily up to her. The pups
were a hundred yards behind, giving tongue like foxhounds,
and old Tinker laboured along scarcely half way from where
they had started. Bell was very near the hind, when I
saw her disappear bodily into a hole. But the deer was now
failing fast; and, seeing no chance of making the forest,
turned round and came back towards the river. The pups
and Tinker now made up considerably by cutting off the
corner, and very soon the brindled one, " Sheroo," who was
rather the faster, was racing alongside of her, making un-
certain snatches at the shoulder. The yellow dog soon joined
him, and together they managed to throw over the deer just
as she reached the bank of the river. They all three rolled
down the bank together ; and before the deer could recover
herself Tinker was up and pinned her by the throat. The
bitch was not far behind, and among them they nearly tore

390 THE HIGHLANDS OF OBNTEAL INDIA.

the poor animal limb from limb. Fearing a row between
Tinker and the young dogs I ran up as fast as possible ; but
a Byga with his axe was before me, and attempted to get the
quarry from the dogs. He didn't know Tinker, however, who
loosed his hold on the deer s throat only to fly at the Byga.
The latter defended himself as well as he could with his axe
handle, very thoughtfully for such a savage, not attempting
to use the head ; but he had several pretty severe bites in the
arms and legs before I could arrive to his rescue. As a rule
Tinker was as quiet as a lamb with men ; but when roused by
blood he was a perfect devil ; and as his size and weight were
immense I was often rather afraid of him myself. Poor fel-
low, his formidable aspect and a few outbursts of this sort
were the death of him, being poisoned by a dog boy a few
months afterwards. Bell broke her neck by chasing an ante-
lope down a blind well, a few marches after the hunt I have
related ; the best of the two pups was carried off by a leopard
or hyaena ; and altogether I was so disgusted with the bad
luck I had always had in keeping large dogs in India that I
gave it up altogether ; and I cannot say that I found very
much loss accrue to my sport in consequence. I believe they
lose more wounded animals, by driving them out of reach,
than they recover.

On the way back I shot another hind, who stood too long
to gaze at the unwonted intruders, and saw the tracks of a
wild elephant sinking deep into the soft black soil. I was
told afterwards that this elephant was one which had broken
loose from captivity about ten years previously, and had since
inhabited the dense covers about the head of the Halon river.
He afterwards annoyed the forest officers not a little by
systematically demolishing all the masonry boundary pillars
erected by them round the reserved forest. Keally wild ele-

THE SAL FORESTS. 391

phants do not now come so far west as this ; the country to
the east of Amarkantak (the source of the Narbada), or at the
most the Samni valley, a little nearer than that place, being
their most westerly range in this part of India. Formerly,
however, the whole of this country, and far to the west of it,
was the home of the wild elephant. The etymology of many
names, such as the " elephant enclosure," the " elephant pool,"
etc., would suffice to indicate this ; but besides we have it dis-
tinctly recorded, in that valuable work the " Institutes of
Akber," that in the 1 6th century elephants were found and cap-
tured in the Narbada valley as far west as the Bijagarh and
Handia" Sirkars,* which lie partly to the west of the meridian
of the present military stations of Mhow and Asirgarh. This
is probably the most westerly range of the wild elephant that
has been recorded ; and their subsequent disappearance over
so large a tract of country speaks volumes for the advance-
ment which has taken place in that period.

The night I was at Topla, two tigers roared loudly round
about the camp. We were pitched in a little glade in the
sea of grass, and the effect in the clear cold night was very
fine. The night voice of the tiger has a very impressive
sound, conveying, though not nearly so loud as the bray of a
jackass, the idea of immense power, as it rolls and trembles
along the earth. Four months later, when I was encamped
near Md-tin, in the forests of the far east, I listened one night
to the most remarkable serenade of tigers I ever heard. A
peculiar long wail, like the drawn out mew of a huge cat, first
rose from a river course a few hundred yards below my tent.
Presently from a mile or so higher up the river came a deep
tremulous roar, which had scarcely died away ere it was

* Gladwin's " Azeen Akbery," vol. ii. p. 249.

392 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTBAL INDIA.

answered from behind the camp by another pitched in a
yet deeper tone, startling us from its suddenness and proxi-
mity. All three were repeated at short intervals, as the three
tigers approached each other along the bottoms of the deep
dry watercourses, between and above which the camp had
been pitched. As they drew together the noises ceased for
about a quarter of an hour ; and I was dozing off to sleep
again, when suddenly arose the most fearful din near to where
the tigress had first sounded the love note to her rival lovers,
a din like the caterwauling of midnight cats magnified a hun-
dred fold. Intervals of silence, broken by outbursts of this
infernal shrieking and moaning, disturbed our rest for the
next hour, dying away gradually as the tigers retired along
the bed of the river. In the morning I found all the in-
cidents of a three-volume novel in feline life imprinted on the
sand ; and marks of blood showed how genuine the combat
part of the performance had been. For the assurance of the
timid I may as well say that I have never had my camp
actually irivaded by a tiger, though constantly pitched, with
a slender following, and without any sort of precaution, in the
middle of their haunts. It strikes a stranger to jungle ways
a little oddly perhaps to see a man in the warm summer
nights calmly take his bed out a hundred yards from the
tents, lie down under the canopy of heaven, listen, pipe in
mouth, for half an hour to the noises of wild animals, and
then placidly fall asleep. He soons learns to do the same
himself.

About the end of the rains, in September and October, the
red deer collect in large herds on the tops of the plateaux ;
and I have been told of assemblages of several hundred
head at that season. They are then beginning to rut, and
are very easy to get at, the Gonds and Bygas killing great

THE SAL FOEESTS. 393

numbers with their axes, aided by their strong tall dogs.
The best heads are to be got from these people ; and that
figured below, which is a very typical one, was killed
either thus or by a tiger. I myself never got a complete
head with more than ten points, though I have secured
some heavier than the twelve-pointed one figured below. Its

Horns of Bara Singha Deer. (Scale, one tenth.)

length is 33^ inches round the curve of each antler, and
extreme spread 36 inches. There are few larger in the
forests.

In the rains the wild buffalo wanders in herds all over
these Mandla highlands. They mostly disappear, how-
ever, when the tame cattle are brought up to graze in

394 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTRAL INDIA.

the open season, a few only lingering in the most secluded
valleys ; and they must then be sought in the less acces-
sible jungles' to the south and west. Thither I must carry
the reader to introduce him to the animal, as I never was in
the Mandla district at the time when the buffaloes are found
there.

CHAPTEE X.

AN EXPLORATION IN THE FAR EAST.

A Commanding Promontory The Source of the Narbadd Sivite Legends
Fine View A long Exploration The Wild Buffalo Its Eange and
Habits Criminal Trespass The Police called in We slay the Invader
Toughness of* the Buffalo Size of his Horns A Voyage down the Maha-
nadi The Country of the Khonds More Buffaloes A Feverish Region-
Buffalo Hunting on Horseback A Vicious Cow Upset by a Bull
" Tinker " to the Rescue A Curious Sentinel Treed by Buffaloes The
Enemy Retires Danger of Buffalo Shooting A Cumbrous Trophy March
for the Elephant Country A Decayed City An Unfortunate Seizure
Retire to Laafagarh A Hospitable Chief The Bygas again A Primitivo
Pipe An Amazing Spectacle The Elephant God Life at Laafagarh
The Doctor discomfited Jungle Delicacies The Thakur's Yarns A Tiger
Shot with an Arrow An Elephant done to Death A " Loathly Worm "
Wild Animals on the Hill An Irksome Prison Make another Start A
Splendid Game Country A Herd of Elephants A Solitary Tusker
Almost an Adventure A Villanous Termination Explore the Country
Bhtimia Trackers Fate of a Herd of Elephants A vast Sal Forest The
Way Lost Beat out a Bhtimia Habits of the Bhumias Aspect of the
Country A Primitive Measure of Distance Haunts of the Buffaloes
Capture of Wild Elephants Coal Measures Prospects of the Country
The Plateau of Amarkantak A Terrible March End of the Exploration
Effects of Exposure The Forest Question Utility of Forests Prospects
of the Forests Central India as a Field for Sport Where to Go Outfit
Guns and Rifles Conclusion.

The Highlands of Central India may perhaps properly be
said to terminate where the steep southern face of the Mykal
range, trending away to the north-east, culminates in the
high bluff promontory of Amarkantak. Standing here on this
prominent point, the very focus and navel of India, the eye

396 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTRAL INDIA.

ranges over a panorama perhaps inferior in extent to no out-
look in the whole peninsula. The rain that clothes this little
plateau of a few square miles with the greenest of verdure,
having the peculiarity of seldom ceasing for more than a few
days at any part of the year, forms the first beginnings of
three great rivers, whose waters flow in opposite directions to
the seas on either side of India. The infant Narbada bubbles
forth at the feet of the observer, enclosed by religious care in
a wall of masonry, and surrounded by Hindu temples, and
thence meanders on for some miles through a narrow glade,
carpeted with beautiful grass, and fringed by forests of sal ;
at first a tiny burn, but growing rapidly by union with others,
till, some three miles from the fountain, it leaps over the edge
of the plateau in a clear shoot of about thirty feet. Seven
hundred and fifty miles further on it rolls, a mighty river,
into the waters of the Arabian Gulf. In the local Sivite
Mythology the Narbada is the maiden Mykal-Kanya, daughter
of the Mykal Mountain, from whose brow she springs.
Eesistless in her divine might, at her first birth she over-
flowed the earth in a destructive flood, till, in answer to the
prayers and sacrifices of men, the Great God sent the Vindhya"
Mountain and his seven stalwart sons * to restrain her, when
she shrank into her present channel, leaving behind her the
Ganges and other rivers, as pools are left by the receding tide.
Hence the sanctity of the Narbada" is superior to that of all
other rivers, though the gods gave the preference for the first five
thousand years of the Kali-Yug to the Ganges. Twenty-eight
years only of this period now remain unexpired, when the
local Brahmans fully expect the Narbada" to surpass as a place
of pilgrimage all other rivers of India. As it is, the parent

Thence the name Sat-pura, applied to these highlands, Sat putrd meaning
literally the " Seven Sons."

AN EXPLORATION IN THE FAR EAST. 397

spring at Amarkantak and many places along its course, are
places of great sanctity to pilgrims from all parts of India ;
and the help of the railway, which is by no means scorned by
the devout Hindu (who likes to " boil his peas"), bids fair to
realize in some degree the prophecy of the Purdn^s. A little
to the north of the source of the Narbada" rises the JohilM, a
stream which shortly joins the Sone, also born in these hills,
and flows north into the Ganges ; while, still only a few steps
from these, another little stream, the Arpd,, bubbles forth, and
shortly tumbles over the sheer cliff to the south, and mingles
with the great M&Mnadi, which drains the plains of Chattis'-
garh into the Bay of Bengal. From this height of 4,000 feet
the eye embraces a view of three-fourths of a circle, uninter-
rupted by anything but the blue haze of distance which limits
the vision. Far below to the south, lying like a chessboard,
is the open cultivated plain of Chattis garh, stretching out to
the uttermost range of vision. To the east and north, 2,000
feet below, appears a flat sea of greenery, broken here and
there by an isolated peak that appears to reach the level of the
observer. In the faint distance beyond rises another wall of
rock, visible only on a clear day as a faint violet-coloured
shade across the sky. The green plain is a vast forest of sal,
unbroken by tillage, and scarcely inhabited by man, and the
rocky rampart beyond is the buttress of another table-land
called Sirguj&, the land of the K61 aborigines, and beyond the
limits of our province. My mission for the succeeding six
months was to explore this vast region of sal forest, lying to
the north and east of Amarkantak, and stretching far beyond
and to the south of the plain of Chattis'garh, in the semi-inde-
pendent country called the Qarhj^t States.

Over all this country roams the wild buffalo, and in the
forests north and east of Amarkantak were then found large

398 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTRAL INDIA.

herds of wild elephants, which descended at the ripening of
the crops of Chattis'garh to the skirts of the forest, doing
immense damage, and forming a serious obstacle to the culti-
vation of the country. To penetrate to their haunts, ascertain
their numbers, and propose means for their destruction, was
another object of our expedition.

In the end of January I descended the Kajddh&r pass from
the Mandla" district, and marched across the Chattis'garh plain,
where antelope, ducks, snipe, etc., afforded perpetual occupa-
tion for the gun, to the station of BaTpiir, where I met the
Chief Commissioner's camp and my future companion in this

expedition Captain B., of Her Majesty's Eegiment.

Thence we proceeded to the eastern and southern forests,
marching rapidly to get from one portion of these forests to
another, where days and weeks would be passed in tramping
about the hills and making notes, the great part of which
would possess no interest for the general reader. We never
allowed ourselves to linger for sport ; but the herds of buffa-
loes are in some parts of this country so numerous that it
would have been almost impossible to avoid encountering
them.

The extreme western range of the wild buffalo* in Central
India is almost exactly marked by the 80th meridian of longi-
tude, or in physical features by the Wyn-Ganga tributary of
the Goda>ari river, and below their junction almost by the
latter river itself. I say almost, because in a trip down the
God&vari river which I made during the rains of 1865 I saw
the tracks of a herd of buffaloes on the western side of that
river, at the " third barrier" \ south of the station of CMnd,

* Bubalus ami.

t These " barriers " are points in the course of this river where its otherwise
still, lake-like character is broken by spaces in which the river assumes more the

AN EXPLOEATION IN THE FAR EAST. 399

that is, a short distance to the west of the 80th meridian. The
natives, however, told me there that they only cross the river
in the rainy season, and that they do not penetrate very far to
the west, so that so slight an exception may fairly be held to
prove the general rule. So far. then from the cpmmon adage
of the sportsman being true that the wild buffalo does not
extend south of the Narbada* (see Shakspeare's " Wild Sports of
India," p. 210), the truth is that the animal is unknown to the
north of it, in the longitude of that river. It has been stated
that the feral buffaloes of these parts are only the descendants
of tame ones run wild, an idea that will not hold water for a
second. They have all the habits of fully wild animals, are
extremely numerous in the parts they inhabit, and exactly
correspond in size and every particular with the aboriginally
wild buffaloes of Eastern Bengal. Two varieties are recog-
nized in India, differing chiefly in the length and shape of the
horns. They have been called by Hodgson B. Macroceros,
and B. Speiroceros, the horns of the former being long,
straight, and more slender, and of the latter, shorter, thicker,
and more curved. All the Central Indian species that I have
seen pertain to the latter race, the average length of the horns
of a mature bull being three and a half to four feet. No
animal has changed so little in domestication as the buffalo.
In appearance the wild animal is extremely like the tame one,
but fully a third larger, and showing fine, plump, sleek con-
dition, instead of the slouching, scraggy appearance of the
domestic " buff," and possessing the free action and air of a
denizen of the wilds. I have never heard an authentic case
of their interbreeding with the domestic race, though indi-

character of a mountain stream. They interrupt what would otherwise be an
unbroken stretch of water-way into the heart of the country, and are now being
dealt with by a staff df skilful engineers. Probably a herd of buffaloes would
find it easier to cross at one of these barriers than elsewhere.

400 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTRAL INDIA.

viduals of the latter sometimes join the wild herds and be-
come difficult to reclaim. In height I have never seen a wild
buffalo exceed sixteen hands ; but though thus less in stature
than the bison, the buffalo stands on much shorter legs, and
is altogether a heavier-built . animal, so that in bulk and
weight he must a good deal exceed the wild bull of the hills.
They never interfere with each other, the bison adhering to
hilly tracts, while the buffalo is essentially a lover of plains
and level plateaux, where the extensive swamps he delights
in can be found. The very different structure of their hoofs
would suffice of itself to indicate this, those of the buffalo
being broad and platter-like, to support him on soft ground,
while those of the bison, who has to pick his way among
rocks, are wonderfully small for his size, as neat and game-
like and little larger than those of the sd-mbar deer. The
buffalo is also much less intolerant of man and his works than
the bison, invading the rice cultivation, and often defying all
attempts to drive him from the neighbourhood of villages.
They are altogether very defiant of man, and, unlike the bison,
will generally permit a close approach without any conceal-
ment where they have not been much molested, trusting
apparently to th&r formidable aspect to secure the retreat of
the invader, which is usually successful. If the attack be
followed up, however, they almost always make off at last,
and are then not so easily got at again. The favourite re-
sorts of the buffalo are on the skirts of the lower sal forests,
where they run out into the open plain, and between them
and the rice cultivation of these regions, in the great open
swampy plains where long rank grass affords the sort of cover
they like.

Our first introduction to the wild buffalo in this trip was
near the high road between RaTpiir and Sambalpiir, when B.,

AN EXPLORATION IN THE FAR EAST. 401

who liad the shot (in stalking a herd together we always
arranged by turns who should have the first shot), killed a
cow. We followed the herd a long way, and wounded another,
but could not bag. For a long time after this we were em-
ployed in the forests, and though we saw a few, never had
time to hunt them, until, near the MaMnadi river, we came
out on a cultivated plain, of which a large bull and four cows
had completely taken possession, devastating the rice, and
charging indiscriminately at all who approached. A Baboo
from the nearest police station had come out a little while
before to rid the place of the invader, but contented himself
with firing away all his ammunition at half a mile's distance
from the top of a house, and the bull remained monarch of
all he surveyed. We had scarcely entered on the plains when
the owner of the ruined rice-fields pointed out his enemy
looming against the horizon as large as an elephant, and we at
once made preparations for the attack. The place was as
level and open as a billiard-table, so we had to rely on our
rifles alone. We were both heavily armed with two-ounce
rifles, however, and several smaller guns in reserve, so we
marched straight on the foe, with our very miscellaneous pack
of dogs under orders to be let go at the first shot. The bull
and his harem came boldly down to meet us, and as we ap-
proached commenced his usual demonstrations to put us to
flight, pawing the earth with his feet, tossing his mighty
horns, and making short runs in our direction. But we
steadily advanced, and when within about eighty yards
separated a little, so that one should get a flank shot, the full
front of the buffalo being practically proof against lead It
was my turn for first shot, and when about sixty yards in-
tervened I knelt down and brought the heavy rifle to bear on
the point of his shoulder. Crash went two ounces of lead,

D 1)

402 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTRAL INDIA.

propelled by eight drachms of powder, against his tough hide,
and he fell upon his knees. Bang went several more of our
shots, and he stumbled off dead lame and very much crest-
fallen. Following him up with the dogs, who were now
baying round him, we overhauled him in an open field, and
repeated the dose again and again till he fell heavily against
the embankment of a rice-field, and then, stepping up, I put
a three-ounce shell behind his shoulder, and with a quiver of
the limbs he gave it up. He was a fine animal, in the prime
of life, and we were amazed at the bulk and strength ex-
hibited by his massive form. The horns were each three feet
ten inches long, which is nearly the extreme length they ever
attain here.* He had sixteen bullets in him before he died,
several of large calibre, and at close quarters. "We were, how-
ever, shooting with bullets of plain lead, and I found that my
first two-ounce ball, propelled by eight drachms of powder,
had flattened out on his shoulder, pulverising the bones, how-
ever, and completely laming him. After this we shot with
hardened projectiles.

Next day we embarked in a long canoe, hollowed from the
stem of a mighty sal tree, on the bosom of the MriMnadi,
and sailed down to Sambalpiir in two days and a night. It
was mighty exciting work, the stream passing at intervals
over long rapids, where the water, broken into many channels,
rushed between narrow banks overhung with bushes, the boat-
men steering the canoe with long poles in the most dexterous
manner, now warding her bows from a rock on which the
stream broke in a sheet of foam, then prostrating themselves
at the bottom of the boat to avoid the sweep of the branches
while the canoe shot through some narrow passage, and pre-

* Fossil horns of much larger size have been found in the Narbada gravels,
along with bones of the hippopotamus, &c.

AN EXPLOEATION IN THE FAR EAST. 403

sently emerging, after a final shave against a sunken rock,
into a deep and silent pool, where the plash of huge fish, and
the eye-knobs and serrated backs of crocodiles sailing about,
showed that we had entered one of the long silent reaches
that break at intervals the torrent of these mountain rivers.
My companion had got a severe attack of fever, which marred
what would otherwise have been a sufficiently jolly trip.
After resting awhile at this most secluded of stations (they
get their supplies from Calcutta, several hundreds of miles
away, on men's heads, and a convoy had just been trampled
up by wild elephants before we arrived), we started again for
the Garhj&t States, where the next month was spent in unre-
mitting toil among their rugged hills. Here we were among
the Khond aborigines, famous for the Meria" sacrifices of
human beings to the dread goddess Kali. How they can
have been confounded with our Central Indian Gonds I can-
not imagine. They are much blacker and more negro-like in
their physique, and speak a wholly different language, a few
words only of which approximate, like G6ndi, to the Tdmil of
the south. Their country is wholly beyond the limits of the
central highlands ; and it would be out of place to enter here
into a detailed description of the tribe, even did the few
weeks I passed among them justify such an undertaking. We
returned from this trip with most of our following severely
ill of fever, contracted ' in these close jungles, where water is
so scarce and bad at this time of year (April) that we rose,
like river gods, from our daily bath hung with the green slime
of the fetid pools from which our supplies were drawn. As
we marched northward again we entered the valley of the
Jonk river, a tributary of the MiMnadi, and here we fell in
again with great herds of buffaloes, and halted for a day or
two to recruit our followers and shoot. Our camp was pitched

D D 2

404 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTRAL INDIA.

below a great spreading tree at the deserted site of the village
of Jilda\ Eaten up by the buffaloes, the people had moved
off to a less open place. Around us was a sea of long grass,
bounded by low hills and sal forests on the far horizon. Here
our poor fever-stricken people paraded themselves in rows to
let the sun into their shivering bones, and three times a day
got a dose of quinine all round, a course of treatment (pre-
ceded by a smart dose of jalap) which soon frees a native from
this hot-weather fever.

When marching in the morning, about a couple of miles
from camp we saw a herd of fifty or sixty buffaloes standing
up to their knees in a swamp among long grass. It was B.'s
turn for the shot, and we spent several hours trying to get
near enough to shoot. The buffaloes were very wild, having
been much fired at a few weeks before by a sportsman with
long-range small-bore rifles. As we approached on one side
they waded through the swamp and went out on the other,
reversing the process when we changed the direction of
approach. At last I got on my horse, and took a light breech-
loading gun, to try and get round and drive them across to B.
They now got alarmed, and made off towards the head of the
swamp ; and on our following them on either bank, left it alto-
gether, and started at their best pace across a rising ground.
The ground seemed very favourable for riding for that
country, so I could not resist the temptation to breathe my
little nag at them, and was soon galloping full speed in their
rear. My animal was an Arab pony, about thirteen three in
height, but game as a bantam, and wonderfully sure-footed
over bad ground. To my surprise and delight, I found myself
ahead of them in less than half a mile ; and, shooting past,
looked out for a worthy quarry among the labouring mass. I
fixed on a bull with long horns, whose shining tips danced in

AN EXPLORATION IN THE EAR EAST. 405

the sunlight conspicuous above them all, and was just ranging
alongside to fire when a tremendous bound of my little nag
nearly unseated me, and we just escaped the long pointed
horns of a lean brute of a cow that shot past my quarter, and
then pulled up beyond me, shaking her head and looking very
wicked indeed. I sheered off, and let her proceed to rejoin
the herd, giving her a broadside of two barrels as she passed,
which was followed by another end-on charge for several
hundred yards. Eventually she went off again towards the
retreating herd ; but, though the ground had now become very
bad, cut up in all directions by deep rifts in the black soil and
pitted by the old footmarks of the buffaloes, I was not going
to decline the challenge of this fighting cow. So after reload-
ing my breech-loader, which was a very light snipe gun
pressed into ball service, and wholly unfit for this sort of
work, I cantered after her, and, when within distance, made a
rush past, intending to fire into her at close quarters. But
she was too quick for me, and we almost met, my gun going
off, I believe harmlessly, in her face. I had another narrow
shave as she again charged me, the little horse stumbling
heavily several times in the frightful ground. Again she
sheered off, and once again I rode up, though not so close as
before, and gave her both barrels, holding the gun out like a
pistol. She felt these, and, though shaking her head in a
threatening manner, did not charge again. She now held on
slowly behind the herd ; and as I felt I could not kill her with
this weapon, I waited behind, hoping she would lie down and
the heavy rifles come up. Presently she slackened her pace to
a walk, and I watched her from behind a bush. Peering
cautiously all round, she went on a little further, and then,
after standing about five minutes' watching, lay down in the
long grass. I marked the spot carefully, as I thought, by a

406 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTRAL INDIA.

bush, and then rode back full split for a heavy rifle. About
a mile behind I met B. with the rifles and dogs, and we pro-
ceeded together to finish off the cow. My large rifle had got
bulged in one barrel some time before, being unable to bear
the proper charges for buffalo-shooting, so I had only one
barrel to depend on. "We walked up through the grass close
to the spot I had marked, but she was not there. 1 soon lost
the bearings, there being fifty bushes just like the one I had
marked her by, and we wandered about, a little apart, looking
for her. I had stood up on an ant-hill to get a better look,
when just below me up started her savage-looking head and
long horns, and she plunged towards me in the grass. A ball
from the heavy rifle in the neck turned her, and she passed
between B. and me, preventing both of us from further firing.
The dogs now tackled her, " Tinker" in particular (whose
deeds of valour in the wolf line have already been recorded)
striving to seize her by the nose as she tore along. A
couple of hundred yards further on she stopped in another
patch of grass, the dogs baying round her, and Tinker,
exhausted by the great heat, lying down in the shade of a
bush, but flying at her the moment she tried to move. We
marched up, at a short interval from each other, and, arriving
first on her blind side, I saw her glance at B., shake off the
dogs, and creeping forward in a stealthy manner like a tiger,
watch for him, with horns laid back, behind the screen of grass
and bushes that intervened. Before he arrived, however, I
took a steady shot at her neck with the little double fourteen -
gauge rifle, dropping her stone dead. We found she had an
old bullet wound in the flank, which was full of maggots,
accounting for her extremely poor condition and unusual
savageness. The small-bore rifle of our predecessor in these
hunting-grounds was probably the cause. Her horns were of

AN EXPLOEATION IN THE FAR EAST 407

full cow length, the pair measuring eight feet four inches
round the curve and across the skull.

The herd was now clean gone of course in the meantime,
and we turned towards camp. On the way B. shot a cow,
and I wounded a bull, and lost him in the long grass. While
smoking our pipes after breakfast, one of the men who had
remained to look after B.'s wounded bull came in to say that
he had been found lying down in an open plain, about a mile
away, looking very savage. We sallied forth immediately to
encounter him, and found him lying close to a little ridge
that had been the embankment of a rice field when the country
was cultivated, and was now overgrown with tall grass. He
had taken up a position which commanded all approaches,
and, as there was no cover, there was nothing for it but to
march up on foot. When within about sixty yards I took a
shot with a small rifle, on the accuracy of which I could rely,
at his broad forehead reclining on the bank. But the angle
was wrong, and the ball glanced off without injury to the bull,
who sprang on his feet and retreated to the middle of the
field. The dogs were now loosed, and bayed round him till
he began to chase them all round the* field ; but as soon as
our heads appeared over the fringe of grass, he left them and
charged down at ourselves. There was no sort of shelter, and
everyone had to look out for himself. I stood till he was
within about half-a-dozen paces, and then jumped out of his
course in the grass, not a moment too soon, my rifle being
whirled out of my hands and its ramrod broken. Eecovering
it, I fired the undischarged barrel into the back of his shoulder,
and at the same time the report of B/s rifle in front of him
rang in my ears. Next moment I saw B. fall spinning to one
side, while the bull came down on his knees, Tinker, who had
dashed past along with him, clinging nobly to his nose.

408 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTRAL INDIA.

Neither spare gun, gun-bearer, nor dog-boy was within sight,
as I dashed about, looking for the wherewithal to finish the
struggling bull. At last I saw them, shrunk into nothing, in
a shallow hollow in the black soil, and, seizing a couple of the
guns, was hurrying up to the scene of action, when I met B.,
safe and sound, though rather pale, and at the same time
heard the report of a rifle, and saw the bull fall over dead.
My Mahomedan shikari, a man accustomed to shoot, had for-
tunately ensconced himself with my spare rifle close to where
the bull stopped after knocking B. over; aud putting the
muzzle to his head had pulled the triggers of both barrels at
once ! Tinker was covered with mire and blood from the
bull, but otherwise uninjured, while the nose of the buffalo
showed how determined had been his grip. B. had been
caught fortunately with the outside edge of his horns, and but
slightly, in the arms and ribs, and was not hurt beyond loss of
wind and the shock of his fall.

The next day B. had fever, and was so shaken as to require
a rest, and I went out alone in another direction. I came on a
herd of about forty, grazing in an open plain some two miles
south of the camp, and proceeded to stalk them. I had an
elephant with me, and sent him round a long circuit to at-
tract their attention while I crept in. Getting within about
a hundred yards I saw that the buffaloes had a bull nilgai
along with them, which maintained a sharp outlook all round,
while the buffaloes gazed stupidly at the elephant* I was
crouched in grass about three feet high, and could not get
any nearer for this singular sentinel. So I remained still, and
presently the elephant disappeared in some low jungle, and
the herd began again to graze. They fed down towards me,
and when about seventy yards off* I fired at the leader, who
was standing end on to me, and was raked fore and aft by

AN EXPLORATION IN THE FAR EAST. 409

the heavy hard ball, falling prone, toes upwards, on the ground.
Instead of retreating, the herd now gathered about their com-
rade, and trotted round, snuffing the blood, and looking about
for their concealed enemy. The wreathing smoke of my rifle
betrayed our position, and it was not without some alarm
that I saw them draw up in a semicircle of pawing hoofs and
snorting nostrils, surmounted by forty pairs of monstrous
horns. My gun-bearer, Peer Kh&n, and I thought discretion
the better part of valour under such circumstances, and espy-
ing, some way to our right, the pollarded trunk of a saj tree,
we retreated, snake fashion, through the grass, and clambered
up it. Getting to the top, I sat on its smooth summit, while
Peer Khan roosted crow-like on a branch, the only one, a foot
or two lower down. I now opened fire on the herd, the first
shot from the large rifle almost knocking me off my perch
with the heavy recoil ; I believe Peer Khdn, who had reloaded
it, had put in a double charge of powder. I then fired two
rounds from the fourteen-bore, the herd pausing irresolute,
and finally breaking into panic-stricken flight. The bal]s had
knocked the dried mud in clouds from their hides, and one
remained standing on the ground, while another lagged, very
lame, behind the retreating herd. I went up and finished the
first, and then tracked up the other a long way, till it went
with the herd into a heavy swamp, when I returned to camp.
I did not see in the confusion what became of the nilgdi ; but
he was not with the herd when it retreated.

Our experience of the wild buffalo was thus different from
that of some, who have reported it to be a timid, inoffensive
animal. As is the case with most wild beasts, it all depends,
I believe, on whether you press them hard or not ; and probably
many might be slaughtered at long ranges without even elicit-
ing a charge. If followed up on foot, I believe the buffalo to

410 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTRAL INDIA.

be a much more dangerous opponent than the bison, being
less timid, and also found in country where there is usually
no protection to be derived from trees or rocks. In Bengal
they are scarcely ever shot in any way but from elephants ;
and then have been known to prostrate an elephant in their
charge. The prime sport with buffaloes is on horseback ; but
it is rare that ground is found fit to ride them on with any
degree of safety, and I never heard of its having been accom-
plished excepting on the occasion above related. I am sure,
though, that with a horse clever over rough ground, and a
light breech-loading carbine, capital runs at buffaloes might
often be secured by watching them into favourable ground.
To kill them with the spear would, I conceive, be utterly out
of the question. We cut open one bull down the chest with
an axe, to see what stopped our balls so strangely in front
shots, and found that a bullet fired into the chest has to pass
through more than two feet of hide, bone, and gristle before
reaching the cavity of the lungs. Nor is the brain more
accessible, the animal holding its head either elevated till the
nose is level with the eyes, or, if charging, down between its
fore legs and quite protected from a shot. A plain leaden
bullet of an ounce weight, with three drachms of powder, will
go clean through the skull if hit perpendicularly, which, how-
ever, it is nearly impossible to do. The best places to fire,
both at bison and buffalo, are through the point of the
shoulder, if the rifle be powerful enough, or, if not, then be-
hind and a little above the elbow. The centre of the neck is
also very deadly, if the aim be true ; natives almost always
fire there with their matchlocks. The skull and horns of a
bull buffalo are so large and heavy as to form a considerable
encumbrance as a trophy to the sportsman marching fast with
a light camp. Its value is completely spoilt, however, by

AN EXPLOEATION IN THE FAR EAST. 411

sawing off the horns, and throwing away the skull, as is often
done. The better way is to boil away the flesh, and wait a
few days till the horn-sheaths loosen on the bony cores, when
they can be taken off, and the cores sawn down, leaving only
a few inches to give the set of the horns. In doing this, the
wonderful provision for giving requisite strength to the struc-
ture, without undue weight, by constructing the bony cores
like hollow cells, crossed by stays in every direction, will not
fail to be perceived.

We marched on down the valley of the Jonk through tracts
of sal, mostly devastated by dhya* cultivation, to the Mahd-
nadi river, and then along it and its tributary, the Arpd, to
the little civil station of Bildspur, where we arrived on the
28th of April, and began to make arrangements for an ex-
pedition to the elephant haunts in the great sal forest to the
north of that station. This country had never been explored
by Europeans, excepting one small party of sportsmen who, a
good many years before, had traversed a part of it and shot
an elephant. It was reported to be scarcely inhabited except
by a few utterly savage Bhumias ; and it was certain that no
supplies of any sort would be procurable. Our first business
was, therefore, to hire a large herd of Bunjard bullocks, with
their drivers, and load them up with grain ; and such was
then the land-locked condition of this fertile country that we
purchased as much wheat, gram, and rice as we required at
the rate of about 100 lbs. for a shilling ! Five years later the
price of all agricultural produce had so greatly risen, owing
to large tracts of land to the westward having been turned to
the cultivation of cotton, and improvements in the communi-
cations, that from 1 6 to 25 lbs. for a shilling had become the
usual rate in the same district.

On the 3rd of May we rode out to Eatanpur, the ancient

412 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTEAL INDIA.

capital of a Rajput dynasty which ruled over the greater part
of this eastern country from the earliest times till the invasion
of the Marathas in the eighteenth century. This ancient
place is an example of the decay which has overtaken many
of the old Hindu cities since the extinction of the native
dynasties, and the decay of orthodox Hindu religious senti-
ment. Standing on a little central hill, on whose summit the
white painted dome of a temple forms a landmark to the sur-
rounding country, the eye looks over great vistas of enormous
banyan and mango groves, embosomed in which sleep the
waters of a hundred and fifty tanks, and shrouded in whose
recesses, with here and there a ribbed spire visible above, lie
the crumbling ruins of a vast number of temples, palaces, and
forts. A day's ramble scarcely discovers a tithe of the archaeo-
logical treasures which here await the inspection of the
curious. Much of the city has already fallen to pieces.
Great untenanted masonry buildings attest the former wealth
and state of its inhabitants, while mean little mud shanties
and thatched hovels clustering against their walls witness to
the poverty of the diminished number of its modern residents.
As the temples of the old faith have suffered decay, so, too,
has the religion itself; and orthodox Hinduism has over all
this country been extensively displaced by a deism, planted
less than fifty years ago among the Chamdx inhabitants of
Chattis'garh by a prophet of their own race. It is, like the
Buddhism of old, an uprising of the down-trodden low castes
against the tyranny of Br&hmanism, its leading principles
being abjuration of priestdom and caste, and substitution for
the Bralim&nistic pantheon of the worship of one God, whom
they call Sal Nam, or the " True One." It is one of the
most singular social and religious revolutions in Hindu history,
and is but an example of similar movements which are stir-

AN EXPLOEATION IN THE FAR EAST. 413

ring the old fabric of Hinduism to its very foundations.
Whether or not these movements towards a purer faith will,
like their great predecessor, degenerate after a time into
another and lower form of idolatry than that from which they
have emerged, remains to be seen.

Lying in a low hollow between surrounding eminences,
the foul water-tanks, fetid with the slime of centuries, breed
among the people of Katanpur every sort of loathsome disease ;
and everywhere the hideous leper, and sufferer from elephan-
tiasis, are seen stalking gloomily about in the shadows of
these decaying groves. I was myself destined to share in the
pestilence that is rapidly depopulating the place. Coming in
heated from our ride, and the tents not having arrived, I was
foolish enough to throw myself down on a string bedstead I
found under a tree and go to sleep, and in the evening found
myself overtaken by a sensation which I did not recognise.
It was fever, but not that of the malaria I had become
accustomed to. Next morning I marched, though very ill,
ten miles to the next halting-place ; and the day after, being
much worse, was carried on six miles further. After tossing
about all night I suddenly felt relieved from the burning
fever, and became aware of a fine crop of small-pox pustules
on my feet. This promised to be the end of my explorations ;
but, as I had been duly vaccinated, I hoped the attack might
be a light one, and determined not to return to the station
while a hope remained of accomplishing my desire to see the
elephant-country. It was very hot where we now were ; but
about seven miles further on rose a high conical hill, crowned
by an old fortress, called Laafagarh, which seemed to possess
an elevation of at least 3,000 feet ; and as, on inquiring about
it, I found there was shade and water on the top, 1 determined
to get myself carried up there to a cooler temperature, and

414 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTRAL INDIA.

fight through it with the help of the worthy though not very
skilful native apothecary attached to our camp, while B. went
off to do as much of the exploration as possible in the mean-
time. Next morning I was carried up to a small village half
way up the hill, and which the aneroid showed to be about
2,450 feet above the sea. Here I was met by the th&kur of
Laafd,, the landowner of a considerable hilly tract round about
Laafagarh, who, with the utmost civility, led the way to a
commodious hut he had prepared for my accommodation, of
leafy boughs from the forest, under the shade of a large ban-
yan tree, while my tent was being made comfortable in the
old fort on the top of the hill. A gang of wild Bhumids from
the thdkur s hill villages had been collected to carry up my
things ; and throughout the day I was " interviewed" by little
knots of them, who would steal to the door of the hut, squat
down on their hams, with their axes hitched over their arms,
and their funny little leaf pipes stuck behind their ears, and
remain perfectly contented as long as we let them, drinking
in the strange appearance and surroundings of the sahibs.
"Without his formidable battle-axe (tongid,) and his leaf pipe
(chongee) you will rarely see the Bhumid of these eastern
regions. The pipe is twisted in a few seconds out of the leaf
of the palas tree, a peculiar twist making the bowl and its
narrow neck in the most perfect manner. It looks simple, but
I never could acquire the knack of it, and my pipes always
came to pieces before they were well lit. The BhumnCs smoke
them once or twice, and then make another. They spoke
capital Hindi, and were not at all shy in conversation, though
wilder in appearance even than those of their race who live in
the Mandld, district. Here the tribe is known only by the
name of Bhumia, the term Byga, which is their commoner

* Butea frondosa, after which the whole district of Bilaspur is named.

AN EXPLOEATION IN THE FAE EAST. 415

tribal name in MandM, being restricted to their priests and
medicine-men in these more eastern regions. It was queer to
see what trifles sufficed to bring a grin of .delight on their
black and unhandsome but good-humoured countenances.
Their broadest grins were elicited by my three lemon-and-
white spaniels, when they sat up in line to beg "Wah
Kookur ! Koo-oo-Koo-ra* ! " exclaimed among them, testifying
their delight ; and when the visitors who had been initiated
to this awful mystery were excluded ' from the hut to let me
have a sleep, I saw them, through the leafy wall, form a depu-
tation from the whole population of the place, to solicit my
dog-boy to give one more exhibition, by the aid of a bone, of
the wonderful performing "kookurs." For days afterwards
fresh parties of these simple savages used to come up to my
tent on the hill, and sit down over against me in the hope of
seeing the wonderful spectacle, the news of which was carried,
I believe, to the uttermost ends of this wilderness. When our
elephants arrived from below with my tent and things (there
was a pathway as far as the village), all the Bhumids saluted
them by placing a hand on their broad footprints and then
touching their foreheads. The wild elephants were truly, as
they said, the raj&s and demons of their country at that time,
wandering whither they listed, and devastating their fields of
hill rice at will. So, as usual with the offensive powers of
nature among these tribes, they were ranked and propitiated
as an expression of the Deity. The next morning I was
carried up to the top of the hill, where my tent had been
pitched under a shady tree by the banks of a small tank,
which in olden days had been excavated for a supply of water
to the fort. The way up was a steep zigzag of 730 feet. Near
the top a clear scarp of light grey rock rises out of the sloping
forest-covered hill-side, sweeping right round the hill, an in-

416 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTRAL INDIA.

accessible barrier excepting at the point we ascended, where a
pathway has been formed by excavation, and piling up huge
blocks of rocks. . The entrance itself lay through a massive
double gateway of great blocks, laid without mortar ; and a low
wall, of similar cyclopean structure, had surmounted the top of
the precipice. Much of this had now fallen into ruins, which
could be seen lying in great heaps in the jungle below ; but in
some places, particularly at the bastions, it was still almost
complete. The top was a tolerably level plateau, broken by a
few knolls, and was at that time covered by long yellow grass,
and dotted with trees. Among the latter I found some speci-
mens of the ebony tree,* which had evidently been cultivated,
their plum-like luscious fruit being much larger and more
fleshy than the wild species, and with very small stones. The
only building on the top is a small temple dedicated to the
consort of Siva\ The extreme elevation of the hill, on a rising
ground above my tent, was shown by the aneroid barometer
to be 3,410 feet, which is almost identical with that of the
source of the Narbada* at Amarkantak.

I stayed up here till the 1 5th of May, rapidly recovering
from my attack, for which I took no medicine but siedlitz
powders, to the discomfiture of the " doctor/' who wanted to
drench me with cathartics, diaphoretics, and goodness knows
what else, out of his tin boxful of very miscellaneous dis-
pensary kit. The only physic I ever took from our worthy
medico was what he called a " carminative," valuable in fits of
ague brandy and soda, to wit. But he had a great effect,
with his purges, and emetics, and seven-leagued medical talk,
on the native following. The thakiir was exceedingly kind,
visiting me constantly, and sitting for hours talking about
the affairs of his jungly domain. He was a fine, tall, middle-

* Diospyros melanoxyh'n .

AN EXPLORATION IN THE FAR EAST. 417

aged man, claiming to be a pure Rajput, and a descendant of
the ancient dynasty of Eatanpiir, whose stronghold for many
years was the fort of Laafagarh. He brought me numerous
delicacies produced by his wilds, among which two were
particularly acceptable, namely, a fine pure arrowroot (Tikur),
made from the roots of the wild Curcuma Angustifolia, and
a beautiful small grain called Siker, which is nothing but the
produce of old plants of the grain called Kutki (panicum),
generally cultivated by those hill tribes in their dhya* clear-
ings. After a clearing has been abandoned, the plants of
Kutki rapidly degenerate, and in their third and fourth year
the grain has become this Siker. It is much smaller than
the fully cultivated grain, but also much sweeter, and with a
nutty flavour about it, which is particularly delicious. Very
little of it is gathered, the labour being great for a small
result; but it is so much appreciated as to be generally kept
for the Purshdd, or sacrificial food of the gods. It made the
best porridge I ever tasted. The TMkiir had been a mighty
hunter in the days of his youth, and was full of yarns of
his sport. I remember few of them, and was too listless at
that time to note them down. He showed me a scar received
from a man-eating tiger, which he and another had done
to death with their bows and arrows. He told me much
about the wild elephants, which wandered all over his own
and the neighbouring chieftaincies, their head-quarters being
in M&tin and Uprord, about twenty-five miles to the north.
He only knew of one of these animals having ever been killed
by a native. He was a very old male, with a broken tusk,
and was shot in the trunk with a "bisa>," or poisoned arrow,
from a tree by the Bhumia, whose rice-field he was devas-
tating below. He wandered long in the neighbouring jungle,
growing thin and weak, and at last sank down helpless in a

418 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTKAL INDIA.

water-pool, where he had gone to bathe his miserable body.
Then a neighbouring Thakiir came and fired all day into him
from his match-lock, two bushels of bullets being taken from
his carcass after he expired.

He had another story, of a " loathly worm " that haunts the
forests of the Uprora" country slimy and horrid like a great
caterpillar, a cubit and a half in thickness, and dull grey in
colour, with a scarlet head, to look upon which was death.
Many had seen it, but none had lived to tell the tale. On
pressing him as to the source of the accurate portrait of the
monster he had drawn for me, since all who had seen it had
died, he was at no loss for a reply. The Th&kur of Uproni
was travelling, with an attendant behind him, when at the
crossing of a stream the latter called out, " What is that great
slimy caterpillar-like monster with a scarlet head, etc. ? " on
which his master warned him not to look at it, and did not
do so himself. He was too late, however, for the servant was
dead in a few moments.

Evening after evening I sat on the highest point of the hill
listening to the incessant music of the " myriad crickets " that
seemed to permeate every nook and cranny of the hill and its
covering of trees, and gazing over the vast forest prospect
spread below. To the south the open plain of Chattis'garh
from which we had come, to the north the great green wilder-
ness of the elephant country, dotted here and there with
isolated hills. A long valley led up into this region from the
foot of Laafdgarh, in which a few specks of village clearings
could be seen. Everywhere else was utter waste. Far to
the west a pink promontory glowed hazily in the setting sun.
That was Amarkantak, the source of the Narbadd, to which I
took the reader at the opening of this chapter.

Many wild animals had their haunts in the wooded sloping

AN EXPLOEATION IN THE FAE EAST. 419

skirts of the hill. The harsh grating roar of the panther was
heard nearly every night ; Sambar deer were sometimes seen
picking their way up the hill from the plains in the early
morning ; and once I saw a black bear hurrying up the rocks
to his cavern long after the sun had risen. Gangs of Hanu-
man monkeys stalked about the ruined ramparts and the preci-
pice they crowned. On the top were many hares, peafowl,
and painted partridges ; and my dogs had endless chases after
the yellow wild cat,* and the tree cat,f which were both more
numerous on this hill than anywhere else I have seen them.
Once when strolling round the camp in the dusk, looking for
a shot at the green pigeons which every night came to feed
on the wild fruits, I saw a pair of gleaming eyes looking down
on me from the dark shadow of an overhanging banyan tree ;
and a charge of No. 4 brought down among the dogs a fine
red lynx4 which they soon despatched in his wounded con-
dition. It takes hard fighting for the best of dogs to kill an
unwound ed lynx, as my pack knew to their cost.

I pined sadly over my imprisonment on the top of this hill.
The climate was milder by many degrees than it had been
below, with no hot wind even at this height of the summer
season ; and was in particular delightfully cool at night. But
there were only a few weeks remaining of the dry season ; and
we had to march nearly two hundred miles after leaving the
elephant country to get into Jubbulpur ; so as soon as I could
move at all I descended the hill, and marched on an elephant
for M&tin. At a place called Sirki, fifteen miles from Laafd,,
a tiger had just been killed with a poisoned arrow. His
companion was reported to be still in the jungle, and I foolishly
went out to hunt him in the heat of the day, ending in my

* F. chous. f Paradoxus musanga.

| F. Caracal.

e b 2

420 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTEAL INDIA.

being brought fainting back to camp. When I reached Mdtin,
I was again very ill. It was far hotter than in Laanigarh,
lying as it does in a low valley surrounded by hills. B. did
not rejoin me for the next eight days, and I had a very dreary
time of it indeed. There was abundance of game about, and
several cow elephants drank daily at a pool not a mile from
camp. Shooting females, or anything but old males, had been
prohibited by the Government, as there was an intention of
establishing a hhedda here to capture them alive. But there
was an old "rogue " about, who had killed several persons not
long before, and I sent some Bhumi&s out to search for him.
The second night after my arrival I was sleeping outside for
coolness, when I was rudely awakened, and sat up to listen to
the crashing and trumpeting of a herd of elephants on the
slope of the hill above the village. All night long, till within
a few hours of daybreak, they kept on breaking the bamboos
and crying shrilly at intervals. Our tame elephants were
very uneasy the whole time ; and I took the precaution of
securing them by additional ropes, and stationing people with
spears beside them to suppress any attempt at an emetite. In
the evening I went out to the place, and found the hill-side
completely levelled, bamboos torn down, crushed between
their teeth, and many of their young shoots eaten away, and
many trees of the Boswellia and other scantily rooted species
overthrown and stripped of the tender bark of their top
branches. The limit of their powers in overthrowing trees
appeared, however, to be confined to those of not more than
about eight inches in diameter,, and my experience with trained
tame elephants leads to a similar conclusion. Even these are
not torn up by the roots, but merely borne down by the appli-
cation of their full weight, by means of the forehead and one
foot, or, as the natives here assured me, of the stern. The tales

AN EXPLOEATION IN THE FAK EAST. 421

of some African travellers of elephants employing large trees
as projectiles (one declares he saw two trees of eighteen inches
diameter torn up and hurled ten or twelve yards) must be
utter myths. A broad track through the jungle, like a high
road, led off in the direction taken by the herd ; and, where
they had crossed the dry sandy bed of the Mdtin river, their
tracks of every size, ranging from that of the tusker of a foot
and a half diameter to the youngster's the size of a teacup,
showed that the herd must have numbered some fifty or sixty
individuals. I was of course quite unable to follow them in
my present condition.

In the afternoon, when I was asleep, some of the Bhumids
came in with news of the solitary tusker being within half a
mile of the camp. Ill as I was I could not stand this, so
getting on my pony, in sleeping drawers and slippers just as I
was, I went out at least to see him. He was standing in the
sandy bed of the Mdtin river, where he had dug out a great
hole down to the moisture below the surface, and plastered
himself all over with the wet sand to keep off the flies. He
was a very large tusker, resembling the Nepal breed in shape.
The only striking difference I noticed between him and
domesticated elephants was the much greater fleshiness of his
neck and fore-quarters, a circumstance also to be remarked in
the wild buffalo bull, as compared with the tame species. He
stood leaning on his tusks against the bank, gently swaying
his tail about, and seemingly half asleep. There was no way
of getting nearer him than about a hundred and fifty yards
much too far to shoot at an elephant ; and I sat long watch-
ing him in the hope that he would move, but he didn't. Then
I went and found the road he had taken down the steep bank
of the river, and posted myself behind it, sending a Bhumid,
round a long way to give him his wind. It was interesting

422 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTEAL INDIA.

to see the elephant when he caught the first whiff of the
savage. He still stood leaning on his tusks, but his tail
ceased to sway, and the point of his trunk was curled round
below his ear in the direction of the scent, while his ears stood
cocked to catch the faintest sound. Long he stood thus, per-
fectly motionless. The Bhumia" soon got more directly to
windward, though still unseen by the elephant, and got up a
tree. Those wild creatures had a wholesome dread of this
jungle deity of theirs it seemed. Then the elephant gently
walked out of his hole, and never a look did he take towards
the foe ; slowly and heavily making for another pass up the
bank a couple of hundred yards from where I was. I stole
along through the grass as near this point as I could without
coming into his view, and again sat down by an elephant path
up which I hoped he would come. And I was not mistaken,
for after a breathless pause of a minute or so, his great solemn
forehead and gleaming tusks . appeared, waving to and fro
as he moved, and within eighty or ninety paces of my post.
I felt sure of him with my big rifle if he came along the path,
and determined not to fire till he was quite close. About
forty yards only now intervened between us, and I was lifting
the rifle to my eye, when a short cough behind caused me to
look round, and there, oh horror ! was a tall figure, clad in a
yellow coat and bright red turban, standing on an ant-hill
and striving to get up a tree ! Instantly I turned again to the
elephant ; but all I saw was his vast round stern in full retreat
through the trees. It was a little provoking, and I did not
bless very much the owner of that yellow garment as I sped
along frantically after the vanishing tusker. I remember no
more than this, till I found myself being supported on my
pony back to camp. They said I had fallen senseless in the
grass after running about a hundred yards. The culprit was

AN EXPLOKATION IN THE FAE EAST. 423

a relative of the TMkur of Mitin, who had stolen out after
me, and, coming up unperceived in the grass, had lain still
enough till the formidable aspect of the man-killer had over-
come his opium-shaken nerves. He looked so utterly wretched
and ashamed of himself that I could not tell him all that I
thought of him. There was also rather a panic abroad just at
the time, as not long before a young son of the Thalmr of
Uprora" had been taken out after some elephants which had
come down near the plains, by some sportsmen from BiMspur ;
and a large tusker charging down on them, after having been
followed and shot at for half a day, was trampled up before
he could get clear. It was a terrible disappointment, and
neither B. nor I ever had another chance at an elephant which
we might shoot. I made a number of little excursions from
Mdtin to the principal elephant haunts of the neighbourhood.
All about there were great quantities of game of other sorts,
spotted deer along the N&lds, and red deer in nearly every
glade of the sal forest. Bears were numerous, and I saw a
few prowling about in the early morning, but, being unable to
work on foot, never got a shot. I picked up four or five deer,
of sorts, shooting from the elephant ; and, having to follow up
the tracks of several which were wounded, had an opportunity
of admiring the wonderful tracking powers of these wild
Bhumi&s. An ordinary track that I could barely see, they
ran breast high, and scarcely looking at the ground, and it
was not till all sign disappeared to other eyes that real interest
in the work began to be displayed. No natives of these
highlands can compare with a Bulimia" in real knowledge of
woodcraft. A short distance north-east of M^tin is a small
hill called Malindeh. Many bones of elephants lay strewn
about below the steep precipice at one end of this hill ; and
it seemed that, the year before we were there, a singular acci-

424 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTEAL INDIA.

dent had led to the destruction on this spot of almost the
whole of a small herd. The Thakur and villagers were going
up the narrow path, by which alone it is accessible, to pay
their annual devotions to the god of the hill. The procession
was accompanied by the noise of drums and much shouting
in honour of the deity; and they were wholly unaware that
they were driving before them a herd of five elephants which
had been ahead of them on the path. Arrived at the summit,
and the noise still pursuiug them, the elephants became panic-
stricken, and four of them tried to descend on the opposite
side. Here a slope of loose shingle led down from the top,
ending in a sheer cliff. Once embarked on this there was no
retreat for their ponderous weight, and the poor brutes were
hurried over the perpendicular fall. The fifth the big tusker
whom I had so recently encountered it was said charged
back through the procession, scattering them like chaff, and
made his escape down the path.

On the 26th, B. rejoined me, having covered a great extent
of country by dint of hard marching, and explored the eastern
portion of the sal forest and elephant country which belongs
to the Th&kur of Uprora. He had seen little game, and had
never stayed to shoot. From Malm we proceeded again
together, due north, to examine the country between this and
Amarkantak ; and till the end of the month we travelled on
through an unbroken forest of the sal tree. This wild is very
scantily peopled by a few utterly primitive Bhumi^s, a sight
of whom could only be secured by sending on an embassy of
some of their own tribesmen whom we took with us from
Malm. On one occasion I had wandered off the elephant
track, that served for a road in these parts, into the thick sal
forest, without a guide, trusting to regain it after a short
detour. But the country is here so level, and the prospect so

AN EXPLORATION IN THE FAR EAST. 425

circumscribed by the never-ending array of great grey stems
of the sal, that I soon found I had entirely lost my way, while
the mid-day sun, hanging like a globe of glowing silver right
overhead, threw only vertical shadows, which afforded no
guide to the points of the compass. I was riding on an
elephant, and we wandered on for some hours through glade
after glade and clump after clump of the sal trees, each exactly
like the one before it, till at last we emerged into a little open
space, where a few tall naked stems of sal trees killed by ring-
ing stood up from among a thick copse of bushes sprung from
the roots of the cleared forest. In the middle was a small
Bhumia hamlet of a few huts of bamboo basket-work, sur-
rounded by a fence of the same material. We marched up
to the little wicket-gate of this enclosure, and the barking of
a dog brought out the two or three inhabitants. To stare
wildly like startled deer at the amazing sight of an elephant
ridden by a white man, fly over the fence with a shriek, and
plunge into the thick copse-wood of the little clearing, was
the work of a moment. But I could not do without a guide
to regain the road, and pushed in the elephant after them. It
was just for all the world like beating hog-deer out of thick
bush-cover, the naked black savages lying close in the thickets
till the elephant put her foot almost on the top of them, when
they bolted out and ran crouching across to another patch. I
thought we would never catch one, until the man behind me
slipped down the elephant's tail and ran round, intercepting
a lad in the act of leaving the last of the underwood for the
open forest. When laid hold of he struggled a little, but soon
resigned himself, trembling in every limb, to his fate. It was
many minutes before we could get him to speak at all, a blank
shake of the head meeting every question before he could
have heard it. At last, after much reassuring and comforting,

426 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTEAL INDIA.

with presents of tobacco and the almighty rupee, and the
withdrawal of the elephant to a distance, he found a tongue,
and that in good broad Hindu, but only to declare that he
knew nothing of the road ; and, indeed, as we were making
for nothing more definite than a water-hole in the forest re-
joicing in the name of Boogloogee, I dare say the poor youth
spoke the truth. We insisted on his trying, however, and at
last he started, taking the way back to the huts, and peering
about among the bushes as if he had lost something. Pre-
sently he put his hand to his mouth and gave a succession of
piercing yells, the last of which was answered from the copse-
wood, and in a while a very old wrinkled little man crept
out, holding his hands across his shrivelled stomach to depre-
cate the wrath of the riders on the elephantine gods of the
forest. More tobacco and another, bright rupee, and the sight
of the youth safe and sound after his awful adventure, brought
a grin over the highly Simian countenance of this ancient ;
and the pair of them, first diving into a hut for their pipes
and axes, stalked away before us through the trees. Soon
they got quite chatty, gabbling and grinning to themselves
about the elephant and its riders, on whom, however, they
kept a sharp look-out over their shoulders. Once or twice I
made the elephant take short runs close up behind them to
try their nerves ; and the alacrity with which they skipped
behind the nearest trees, and chuckled and grinned from their
secure positions, was worth seeing. They took us straight
across country to Boogloogee without a mistake ; and when
we got there, and set them down among their tribesmen to
fill themselves with venison, and wheat-flour from our store,
they were perfectly happy.

The Bhumias of these parts are much wilder than those of
the Mandte district, cultivating not at all, and subsisting solely

AN EXPLORATION IN THE FAR EAST. 427

by their bows and arrows, and the roots and fruits of the
jungle, and collecting the dammer resin of the sal tree to
barter for the few necessaries of life not produced by their
wilds with the traders who reside at the head-quarters of their
Thdkurs. They have scarcely an idea of the use of coined
money, the rare rupees that reach them being pierced and
worn as ornaments by the women. They are said to have,
besides their little hamlets in the forest, a retreat in some still
more secluded wild, known only to the family it belongs to,
in which all their worldly substance beyond a few days' sup-
ply is kept, and to which they are ready to fly at a moment's
notice. The sal forest has thus here escaped much of the
devastation it has suffered where the tribe is more numerous,
and where they cut it down for dhya' cultivation. Many of
the trees are annually ringed for the extraction of dammer ;
but the forest is too extensive to be much injured by the
operations of this handful of savages ; and as it is the oldest
trees that are selected, which, if not cut down, soon become
useless L from heart-shake and dry-rot (a peculiarity of the
sal), probably little harm is done by them in so remote
and inaccessible a region. The general elevation of the
country we traversed is about 1700 feet above the sea. It
is very level, and with a light porous soil formed by the de-
tritus of the primitive rocks, which here mostly lie near the
surface. The water-courses are broad, shallow, and sandy,
showing that large floods do not occur. Thus in the summer
there is little or no water on the surface, but a little below it
the soil is everywhere full of moisture ; and the brilliant
greenery of the sal forest thus plentifully supplied with sap,
melting in the distant vistas with startling rapidity into won-
derful blues, is unspeakably delicious at that torrid season of
the year. Wild animals are very scarce, owing to the absence

428 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTEAL INDIA.

of water, though in the rainy season elephants, buffaloes, bison,
and innumerable red deer are reported to frequent the forest.
In this march the dainty footmarks of a few four-horned ante-
lopes at the water-holes, the voice of the cuckoo in the early
morning, and rare glimpses of some hornbill or woodpecker
glancing among the foliage of the sal, was allthe sign we saw
of the presence of animal life.

It is very difficult to ascertain distances in these extensive
level forests, where there are no eminences from which the
country can be examined ; and we had some tremendous
marches in consequence of relying on statements of distance
made in " coss " by the Bhumi^s. Considering that their coss
is derived from so indefinite a basis as the distance at which
a yell from a hill-top can be heard, it is little surprising if the
coss itself should be uncertain. This is their table of long
measure :

2 yells - 1 daab (or " bittock "),

2 "bittocks"=l coss,
12 coss = 1 day's march. ;

which seems to be about thirty miles.

In the jungles of Kenda and Pendrd, which form the most
easterly section of this forest, and lie right under the range of
the Mykal hills, great numbers of wild buffaloes were reported
to us ; but we had not time at this season to stop to look
after them. Doubtless it is chiefly to these regions that they
retire from the Man did uplands when the latter are invaded
by the grazing of domestic cattle.

So far as we could learn, an area of about 1200 square
miles was occupied by herds of wild elephants, whose numbers
we estimated, from all accounts, to range from two hundred
to three hundred. They undoubtedly did very serious
damage to the crops in the neighbourhood ; and for many

AN EXPLOEATION IN THE EAK EAST. 429

years the annual tribute of the Thakurs whose possessions
they disturbed had been remitted on this account. The people
were totally unable to defend themselves from such powerful
foes, and most of the villages I met with on the borders of
the jungle are furnished with platforms in high trees, to which
the people were accustomed to retreat on the occurrence of
an invasion. Shooting at wild elephants only increases the
damage they occasion, by breaking up the herds and spread-
ing their ravages over a larger area ; and, besides, to shoot an
elephant is like hanging a man, the worst use that can be
made of him. After a good deal of reporting and corre-
spondence, the Government of India was induced to send down
one of its regularly organised elephant-catching establishments
to these wilds, which attacked the herds during the years
1865 to 1867. The system pursued in this country was
somewhat peculiar, and has been thus described by an eye-
witness.*

" Several modes of capture were tried here, but the most
successful was a simple stockade erected hurriedly in one
of the runs near the spot where the elephants were tracked.
To make this process successful, a very large establishment is
required, for all necessary arrangements to be of any use
must be made at once. A rough ring-fence of bamboos is
thrown round a large area, traversing in circumference some
two or three miles, within which the elephants have lots of
moving room. This enclosure must contain water and fodder,
or the elephants are certain to break through. At every few
paces there are two coolies who relieve one another, and by
striking the fence with a stick, keep up a continual clatter.
Then at every hundred yards or so, there is a matchlock-man

* Eeport on the Settlement of the Bilaspur district of the Central Provinces,
by J. W. Chisholm, Esq.

480 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTRAL INDIA.

supplied with blank ammunition. Near this fence the jungle
is cleared, so that at any point the elephants make for, they
are at once visible, and when they are seen approaching,
a rush of men occurs to the threatened locality with an
immense shouting and firing of matchlocks. This has the
effect of driving the herd back, and as it is at night that
these efforts are chiefly necessary, they entail much watchful-
ness and labour. In fact, at night the whole circle is, as
it were, a blaze, for each party has lighted a grand pile of
wood. These fires surround the elephants in a ring of light,
which they believe themselves powerless to break through,
especially as they are assailed with all the din of battle if
they approach too near, so that it is a sheer case of despera-
tion or gross carelessness, or a weak establishment, if they
succeed in getting out. From a neighbouring camp the scene
is exciting enough, for the hill-side resounds with shouting,
and the discharge of blank ammunition seems incessant,
partly from necessity, and partly from the inherent affection
an Asiatic has for noise. All this time the stockade is pro-
gressing, made of immense piles of wood, capable of standing
any charge, and enclosing a few hundred square yards of
ground. The elephant runs are clearly marked-out tracks, to
which they usually keep. The stockade is on one of them
with an open gate at one extremity, from which an immense
arm of piled logs stretches on either side, so that the rush
may be, once the arms are entered, into the single opening
that has been left. The first day after the stockade is finished
the driving commences. If fortune smiles, once the herd is
started by shouting and firing in their rear, they make a rush
for the stockade run and are enclosed without further trouble ;
if not, they require to be driven several times a service
often of difficulty and danger. When enclosed, the decoy

AN EXPLOEATION IN THE FAR EAST. 431

elephants with trained men are employed for noosing and
tying them."

Doubts have been expressed whether these elephants are
really indigenous to this part of India, or are the descendants
of some tame elephants which broke away from a train
belonging to one of the K&j^s of Ndgpiir, when passing
through the country about a century ago. Lieutenant John-
stone, who superintended the Khedda" operations here, says
that the Central Indian elephant more nearly resembles the
species of Ceylon and the Eastern Archipelago (Elephas
Sumatranus) than the species of the Indian Peninsula (E.
Indicus), particularly in having an extra pair of small ribs
peculiar to the former, and in having fewer tusked males
than is usual with the Indian elephant.* But it would seem
that the osteology of the elephants of Asia (if there really
be more than one species) has not yet been properly deter-
mined ; and there are other arguments which lead to the
belief that these elephants are really indigenous. It is fully
ascertained that wild elephants at one time extended much
further to- the west in these central regions than they
now do ; and the nomenclature of localities in the inter-
mediate districts, in which the Hindu name for the elephant
still forms a common element, supports the belief that they
were gradually driven east by the advance of civilisation.
Again, these herds are not isolated, but are only the most
westerly extension of a vast elephant region in the hills of
Sirgujd, Chota* Ndgpiir, and Cuttdck. Lastly, it is wholly
impossible, considering the rate of birth and growth of the
animal, that a few individuals could have so increased by
mere breeding in so short a period. Possibly the intro-
duction of one or two Cingalese elephants from captivity

* Vide Proceedings of the Bengal Asiatic Society for May, 1868.

432 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTKAL INDIA.

may have led to some variation in an otherwise indigenous
race. During the operations of the Khedda^ 117 of the
elephants were actually caught, of which thirty-five sub-
sequently died from exposure and disease in so remote
a tract, where proper facilities for keeping newly caught
elephants were wanting. The total expenditure amounted
to 8000, and the value of those which survived was
9650, leaving the State by so much a gainer in mere
money by the undertaking, besides removing so serious an
obstacle to the progress of tillage and the realisation of the
public revenue. About fifty more elephants were supposed
to be left in this part of the country, besides a good many
w T hich probably retreated further east. These it would not
pay to pursue further, so they were left alone. But they
were thoroughly cowed into harmlessness, and it may not
be a matter for regret that a breeding stock of this most
useful of wild animals has been left in a tract which for
many years can scarcely be useful for any other purpose.

An enormous area of the tract we travelled over, in the
neighbourhood of the Hd,sdii river and its tributaries, was
found to be full of coal measures, which have since been
professionally examined, and reported to furnish mineral of
a highly valuable character. But the extreme remoteness
of these regions from any of the great centres of commerce
or transport must certainly put out of the question any
immediate utilisation either of the coal or the rich store of
timber which are now ascertained to exist. The same reason
renders all idea of colonising these wilds, except by the slow
process of extending population, a matter which it would not
be useful to discuss. Far superior lands in every respect,
whether of natural quality or situation, exist in great areas in
the Mandla highlands, which must come to be taken up

AN EXPLOEATION IN THE FAR EAST. 433

before a plough can furrow the remote regions to the east of
Amarkantak.

On the 1st of June we climbed the steep ascent leading up
to Amarkantak from the east, and rested there for two days.
I was still very ill and weak, and obliged to travel on an
elephant ; and though it was very tempting to linger on this
elevated region, where, at this season of excessive heat below,
the temperature in a small tent all day was delightful, while
at night it was cold enough to enjoy a couple of blankets,
the season was getting very late, and banks of clouds collect-
ing on the horizon threatened heavy rain, which might block
the way to Jubbulpur. So we determined to march straight
to that station by the direct road to the north of the Nar-
bada\ That frightful march still lives in my dreams. For
the first ten days we kept to the elevated country south
of the river, which we then crossed. The country to the
north is an utterly bare sheet of black .basalt, without a field
or a tree, or, I believe, hardly a blade of grass. Sharp
glancing flakes of white quartz alone relieved the inky black
of the horrible rocks. The sun was at its very hottest, and
heavy thundrous clouds now gathered round the sky, oppress-
ing the air with a sultry stillness far worse than the fiercest
hot blast of the earlier summer. Day after day we toiled
along in the fierce heat, pitching in a burning plain, without
a particle of shade ; and I really thought that before we
reached Jubbulpur on the 16th of July, I should have had to
sit down decently and give up the ghost. I had marched
close on a thousand miles in changes of camp alone since
I left the station in the preceding January. How much
more should be added for our explorations it would not be
easy to say.

The monsoon burst a day or two after ; and in the comfort

434 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTRAL INDIA.

of the beautiful little station, and its pleasant society, I soon
, got over my troubles. I was very much broken in health,
however, by constant exposure to the malaria of the jungles,
at all seasons of the year. I had never lost the remains
of the fever I had contracted the previous year ; and, I may
add, never did so till I had a trip to England in 1867.
I was therefore induced to leave the forest department
shortly afterwards, and go into a less physically laborious
line of civil work ; but only to return again in less than
a year to relieve for a time my friend Major Pearson, who
had also got completely knocked up by exposure. The
necessity for such exposure, consequent on having to explore
in a short time the large areas of forest comprised in the
province, is now over ; and work in that department is not
necessarily more unhealthy than any other ; while my readers
will be able to judge of the opportunities it affords for the
excitement of adventure and sport.

I have no intention of attempting a treatise on Indian
forestry, for which, indeed, there are as yet few available
materials ; but a few remarks on the present aspect of the
question may not be out of place before concluding my work.

The Government of India has within the last ten years
been fully awakened to the necessity of watching over the
important part of their trust which resides in the forest re-
gions. Even now it is doubtful whether the clearances already
effected have not seriously deteriorated the rainfall of the
country, as they certainly have much impaired the supply of
useful timber ; and the example of many countries, ancient
and modern,* is a warning against rash interference with the
life-giving forests of hilly regions where rivers are born, such

* A pamphlet, admirable for learning and research, on this subject, by Dr.
Dalzeil, Conservator of Forests in Bombay, exhausts the subject.

AN EXPLOEATION IN THE FAR EAST. 435

as that I have attempted to describe. I have pointed oiit
in another place a few mistakes which I think we have made
in our administration of these central forests ; but I think
that, considering how little knowledge of the matter we had
to commence with, the results already attained are really
wonderful. The scientific forester must now take the place of
the explorer; and the Government have taken the proper
course in seeing that all newly-appointed forest officers shall
in future go through a course of instruction in the advanced
schools of forestry in Germany and France. The only danger
now remaining is lest a too purely professional view of forest
questions be allowed to exclude considerations bearing power-
fully on the general economy of the masses of the people, and
particularly of the hill tribes : and perhaps lest cut-and-dried
theories, based on the example of moist temperate regions, be
applied without sufficient caution to the very different con-
ditions of tropical forests. For example, one of the prac-
tices of Continental forestry, the working of forests in blocks
by rotation, though probably quite inapplicable to a hot
country, where stripping the soil of all the trees at once
converts it into an arid desert, is still aimed at in our
Indian forests, and is the cause of much, and I believe
wasteful, expenditure of money. Many important matters
can even now be dealt with only in a tentative manner ;
and the wisdom of the administrator must always be joined
to the technical skill of the forester to secure the best results.
One word more. Outcry has not been wanting on the part
of some shallow writers, who deem themselves the represen-
tatives of the vast silent opinion of the Indian peoples,
against the apparent absence of immediate result, in the
shape of great supplies of timber and a full exchequer, from
the exertions and outlay of these few years in the forests. It

F F 2

436 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTEAL INDIA.

is forgotten that the reproduction of an exhausted timber forest
is the work, not of a few years, or even of a generation of
men, but of a generation of trees that is, a period ranging
from fifty to a hundred years. And it is the supreme ad-
vantage of the forests of a country remaining, as here, in
the hands of its Government, that it alone is, or should be,
superior to the desire of immediate personal gain, which has
generally led to the improvident conversion into money of the
standing forests of private owners. England alone of coun-
tries where the forests had passed into private hands escaped
such a catastrophe as the near extinction of her forests, by
means of her system of entail, which unites several genera-
tions in a joint guardianship of landed properties. It may
be added that in the Central Provinces the forests have even
now more than returned in revenue the outlay upon them,
while their prospective value to future generations, both as a
source of supply for the country's wants, and in mere money,
is wholly beyond estimation.

My narrative is now done, having carried the reader over
every portion of these Central Highlands, and even taken a
step with him below their eastern termination. In the course
of our rambles he has made the acquaintance of every wild
animal he is likely to meet with in the forests ; and it only
remains for me to offer a few hints to the traveller or sports-
man who may contemplate an excursion in these regions.
Few men would probably come to India merely to shoot over
this central wilderness. But as a field for general travel,
and even as a sporting ground, India is rapidly coming into
favour among the wandering section of Englishmen. I need
not dilate on the general interest of the country. It may be
hoped that most Englishmen will benefit as much from a tour
through this greatest of our dependencies, as India herself will

AN EXPLOEATION IN THE FAK EAST. 437

assuredly benefit from having the bull's-eye of outside observa-
tion turned on to her obscurity. I will here speak only of the
glorious field that the country offers to the sportsman incom-
parably the finest in the whole world. Africa may be thought
to be better, but it is not so if India be looked at as a whole.
Perhaps more animals in number or in size may be slaughtered
in Central Africa ; but that does not surely imply superior
sport In reading accounts of African shooting, I have often
wondered how men could continue to wade through the
sickening details of daily massacre of half-tame animals offer-
ing themselves to the rifle on its vast open plains. In India
fewer animals will perhaps be Ragged ; all will have to be
worked for, and some perhaps fought for. The sport will be
far superior ; and the sportsman will return from India with a
collection of trophies which Africa cannot match. Africa and
India both have their elephants. We cannot offer a hippopo-
tamus ; but we have a rhinoceros superior in a sporting point
of view to his African relative. We have a wild buffalo as
savage and with far superior horns to the Cape species ; and
we have four other species of wild bovines besides, to which
there is nothing comparable in Africa. In felines, besides a
lion, a panther, and a hunting-leopard, almost identical with
those of Africa, we have the tiger, and one, if not two, other
species of leopard. Our black antelope is unsurpassed by any
of the many antelopes of Africa ; and besides him we have
fourteen species of antelopes and wild goats and sheep in our
hills and plains, affording the finest stalking in the world, to
compare with the other antelopes of Africa. Africa has no
deer properly speaking at all, except the Barbary stag, which
is out of the regular beat of sportsmen. India, on the other
hand, has nine species of antlered deer. We have three bears ;
Africa has none at all. There is no country in the world that

438 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTRAL INDIA.

can show such a list of large game as we can in India. And
for minor sport, what can compare with our endless array of
pheasants, partridges, and wildfowl \

All this, too, is now so easy of access. Twenty-one days by
overland passage lands the traveller in Bombay, where he may
step ashore, with nothing more than a carpet-bag if he pleases,
and at once fit himself out for a year's tour through the
country. If he joins a regular camp in the " plains," he will
find the most perfect system of open air life that has any-
where been devised. Though an Indian camp may not, as,
according to Mark Twain, did that of the Yankee pilgrims in
Palestine, contain " a thousand boot-jacks," he will find pretty
nearly everything that civilized man can want, ready to move
about with him at the rate of from twelve to twenty miles a day.
By the help of railways, he may see almost the whole country
south of the Himalayas, and shoot specimens of all its game,
during the pleasant cold months from October to March ; and
by the time that April ushers in the hot blasts of summer, he
may find himself, if he pleases, stalking the ibex among the
snows of Kashmir.

For mere sport England need not be left earlier than
December ; but should the traveller, as is probable, have other
objects in view, he should take an extra month or two to see
the lions of the civilized parts at their best, which he may
combine with some small game shooting and pig sticking if
he likes, in November and December. Should these central
regions be selected by the sportsman, the shooting camp should
be organized, if possible, beforehand, at some station on the
Great Indian Peninsular Kailway, the exact spot depending
much on whether the sportsman has any friends on the spot
who would assist him. The help of the local civil authorities
is of course of the greatest value ; and I may say that it is

AN EXPLORATION IN THE FAR EAST.

439

Horns of Bull Buffalo. (Scale, one tenth. )

440 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTEAL INDIA.

always freely rendered to gentlemen projecting a tour through
their charges. Some previous acquaintance with the language,
and the general requirements of such a trip on the part of at
least one of the party, is almost essential to ensure success.
In the absence of inducements to take another line of country,
I would recommend the traveller to leave the railway at the
large city of Burhanpur, in the district of Nimar, and com-
mence his hunting in the country round the head- waters of the
Mona" tributary of the Tdpti river. Bison, sambar, and bears
are as numerous and easy to get at there as in any part of the
country I know. Painted partridges, jungle fowl, and other
small game, would also diversify the sport, and supply the
pot. Thence he should cross over to the Betiil district, north
of the Tdpti, where tigers are plentiful, and devote the month
of March to their pursuit. Spotted deer, antelope, nilgai,
and other game, are also abundant in this tract, and the end
of March might see the sportsman stalking the bison on the
Puchmurree hills. If he means to devote the hot weather
also to these regions, the district of MandM and the sources of
the Narbada* should be selected, where plenty of tigers will be
found, and the sdmbar, red deer, and wild buffalo, will add to
the variety of the sport.

The cost of such an expedition need not be very great.
Most of the outfit required would be re-sold at the conclusion
at no very great loss. One hill tent, ten feet square, and a
small " pal," would be sufficient for two sportsmen ; and
would cost at the Jubbulpiir School of Industry (whence they
should be ordered beforehand and sent to the railway station)
about SOl. A strong rough pony is the best animal to ride,
unless hunting on horseback is contemplated, when a good
Arab should be bought in the Bombay stables. The former
are not always to be picked up on the spot, but can generally

AN EXPLOEATION IN THE FAR EAST. 441

be bought in Bombay at a cost of about 20/. A good Arab,
fit to hunt under eleven stone, will cost 80/. or 100/. Ar-
rangements should be made to get the loan of or purchase a
staunch shooting-elephant and howdah ; for, though much
good sport can be got without one, a far heavier bag will be
realized with the help of an elephant. They are difficult to
obtain, however, at any time ; and a really good one will not
be bought for less than 200 /. to 300/. Decent shikdris can
generally be obtained on the spot, though they will not of
course come up to men who have been brought up by the
sportsman himself to the work, The current expenses, after
the outfit has been bought, will come to about 30/. per men-
sem for each sportsman. Of course a man accustomed to
rough it could get on, and obtain the best of sport at a much
less expense than this, which is laid down for a party wishing
to enjoy all the comforts of the Indian style of travelling in
camp. Such an adventurous sportsman need only get for
himself a small pal tent and a few necessary implements of
travel, and hire a camel to carry them, buy a rough pony for
5/. or 10/., hire a couple of servants, and plunge with his rifle
into the wilderness. If capable of speaking the Hindi lan-
guage, and conciliatory towards the wild men, he would soon
have about him a knot of real jungle hunters who would take
him up to every sort of game ; while his monthly expenses
would not exceed 10/. or 15/. Saddlery, hunting implements
of all sorts (excepting boar spears which are made better in
India), ammunition, and clothes, should be brought from
England.

In the matter of guns and rifles, improvements are still so
rapidly progressing that the dicta of one year are very likely to
be upset before the next. Since I published the last edition of
my little work on sporting rifles in 1867, a perfect revolution

442 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTEAL INDIA.

has taken place in their construction, by the universal intro-
duction of breech-loading, and application of what has come
to be called the " Express " system. Eegarding breech-load-
ino- it is sufficient to say that by the universal consent of
sportsmen the use of the muzzle-loader is now confined to
exceedingly remote countries where the cartridge cases cannot
be carried. No part of India answers to this description, and
a muzzle-loader is now rarely seen there. The Express system
consists in the use of a short conical bullet, hollowed at the
point like a shell, but without any bursting charge, and pro-
pelled by a very great charge of powder in proportion to its
weight. The first result of this is that the bullet, striking
with extreme velocity, has its hollow point opened out by the
shock iuto the shape of a mushroom, or even, when the hollow
is very deep and the speed great, broken altogether into frag-
ments, which take different courses through the animal and
inflict a terrific wound. This complete breaking up of the
bullet has as yet been effected only with very small gauges,
not larger than the half inch (*500) diameter ; but projectiles
of even this size have been found to be amply sufficient to kill
effectually all animals of the deer class, and hardly any other
description of rifle is now used for that purpose.

Their only serious disadvantage is the smallness of the hole
they make on entering, while they rarely pass through an
animal of any considerable size, rendering the work of track-
ing, should the animal leave the spot, a matter of some diffi-
culty. I have found that generally a deer struck by the
Express bullet, even in the lungs, will rjm from fifty to a hun-
dred yards before falling. It is then generally stone dead,
having bled internally. But very often there will not be the
slightest mark of blood on the track. The very first two shots
I ever fired with an Express were remarkable illustrations

AN EXPLORATION IN THE FAR EAST. 443

of this. The first was at a lovely spotted buck, who suddenly
stood before me like an apparition, drinking at the margin of
the mirror-like lake of Lachora, as I rounded the point of one
of its bays on my way back, tired and muddy, from an even-
ing's snipe shooting. It was over two hundred yards across
the arm of the lake from where I was. I had taken out a
single Express by Henry, to raise the flocks of wild fowl
that sat in safety in the centre of the lake, and this my gun-
boy now thrust unloaded into my hand. The buck had
turned, and was picking his way leisurely up the bank, before
I had the cartridge in ; and his graceful form and long taper-
ing antlers stood out clear against the sky line as I fired point
blank at his shoulder. With a startled toss of the head, and
a desperate bound over the top of the bank, he was off into
the thick cover that here surrounds the lake. We tracked his
footprints in the gravelly soil for near a hundred yards, when,
light failing us altogether, we had to give it up. Next morn-
ing I returned, and a solitary crow cawing on a branch pointed
out the buck lying dead and stiff within a few paces of where
we had left the trail. The next chance I had with this rifle
was equally unexpected. Walking along near midday in the
Pun&sa" forest, by a little travelled pathway, the ridge of a
great black back appeared through the trees, slowly passing
behind a little eminence. It was a splendid stag sain bar,
who had, very unusually, ventured down to that silent valley
in the midday heat to drink at a little stream. He seemed to
be dazed by the sunlight as he came out on the pathway, and
failed to notice a cortege of three or four horses with their
riders, an elephant, and ten or a dozen men on foot. I fired
at about a hundred and seventy yards, and heard the little
bullet strike against his brawny shoulder. But he galloped
away up a little glade, leaving no blood ; and I felt inclined

444 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTEAL INDIA.

to throw down the little rifle in disgust. Less than a hun-
dred yards from the pathway, however, the great stag lay
perfectly dead, shot through the middle of the shoulder. I
afterwards acquired complete confidence in this weapon, and
killed a far larger percentage of the animals I fired at than I
had ever accomplished with any other. On one occasion I
shot three out of a herd of five Chikara" antelopes running
across me, the nearest being over a hundred yards. This little
creature offers an extremely small mark to fire at, and these
were fairly struck in the shoulder. I could not have done
such work as this with any other rifle of my acquaintance.

These small bores, however, have not been found so effective
for destroying the larger animals, such as tigers, buffaloes, bison,
etc., the small fragments into which the bullets are broken up
not possessing sufficient penetrative power to reach the vitals.
It is a great object, too, with these large and dangerous animals
to break the large bones, so as to cripple them at once and
prevent accidents ; and this the small Express, with its very
hollow bullet, is quite unable to effect. The bone-breaking
and penetrative power of these bullets can, however, be much
increased by diminishing, or altogether omitting, the hollow
in the point. A good many elephants have been killed dead,
by the head shot, with the smaller gauge, using solid hardened
projectiles ; and the larger rifle, with a short hollow, has been
effectively used against tigers and bears. Much of the shock
to the system caused by the spreading of the hollow bullet is
of course lost if a solid ball be employed.

The next advantage of the Express system, where it is
suitable as regards killing power, is the very flat trajectory at
sporting ranges obtained by the use of a light ball and heavy
charge of powder. Two sizes of the small Express are now
made, the smaller, *450 of an inch, having a charge of nearly

AN EXPLORATION IN THE FAR EAST. 445

four drachms, and the larger, *500, shooting five drachms of
powder. The first gives a perfectly point-blank range of a
hundred and sixty yards, with an extreme effective range of
two hundred and fifty ; the latter a point-blank of rather more
than two hundred, and an extreme of four hundred. They both
shoot with extreme accuracy at these ranges. The smaller
weighs seven and a half pounds, and the larger eight and a
quarter as a minimum ; though the addition of half a pound to
the weight of each gives more steadiness and regular shooting.

The very great improvement thus effected in the shooting
of any one who uses an Express rifle, goes a long way towards
compensating for any loss of smashing power in comparison
with the old wide-bored rifles. I unhesitatingly therefore
recommend the adoption of the '450 or *500 Express for all
ordinary purposes. If its greater weight be not objected to,
the larger is certainly preferable in every other respect ; but
very good work can be done with the smaller bore, and the
saving of weight is a great advantage for work in the hills.

For dangerous game such as tigers there is nothing better
yet available for sportsmen than the large rifle firing the
spherical ball, or the explosive shell of my invention, which I
have described in my former work. This should be at least
twelve gauge, and eleven pounds in weight. The application
of breech-loading to these rifles renders it possible also to use
a spherical or short conical ball with the same rifle, either of
which gives flatter trajectory than the shell, and which are
preferred to it by some sportsmen. If the shooting is to be
from an elephant I think the spherical twelve bore is amply
sufficient. This ball, or the short conical hardened with one
twelfth part of mercury or tin, with four and a half or fivo,
drachms of powder, will also form an excellent charge for
buffalo or bison shooting.

446 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTEAL INDIA.

I have lately been experimenting, in order to obtain a
projectile of considerable weight, which should have a corre-
sponding effect on these large animals to that of the small
Express on deer, etc. So far as target experiments go,
I think this has been well effected by employing a twelve
or sixteen gauge short conical, built up in segments, which
may be of any number desired (by preference four), and held
together by a jacket of lead, either cast or "s wedged" on.
The object is to get the ball to split up like an Express,
with the comparatively smaller charge of powder which the
limit of weight in the rifle will allow us to employ in such a
gauge. The " segment " bullet, as it may be called, effects
this perfectly, while the shock required to do it is still so
great as to ensure full penetration nearly to the vitals before
the breaking up commences. I incline to think that this
projectile will be found more destructive than the explosive
shell of similar gauge. The latter requires to have a large
chamber to break it up into fragments, which diminishes the
weight of its material, and also causes the pieces to be of
uncertain, and often very small, dimensions. The explosion
of the shell checks its progress a good deal, while with the
segment bullet there is no such action, and the breaking
up of it in the animal is effected by the resistance it meets
and overcomes, in process of which it of course effects a large
amount of damage. A sixteen gauge, with a bullet of this
kind one and a half diameter in length, carries four drachms
of powder pleasantly enough at nine and a half pounds'
weight ; and a twelve gauge takes Hve drachms at eleven
pounds' weight, and six drachms (the utmost that the longest
cases will hold) at twelve pounds'. Half a pound more might
be required in* the weight of each by those who object to
a moderate amount of recoil. I believe that these rifles will

AN EXPLOEATION IN THE FAR EAST. 447

be found to be the most effective for large game of any yet
introduced. I write without having put them to the test
of actual trial on our Indian quadrupeds ; but since I got
the gunmakers to make them, several sets have been sent out
to different parts of the world, and we shall shortly learn the
result. In any case, the same rifle might be used with a
short, solid conical, or a hollow Express, or even a spherical
bullet. Were I myself going back to my old hunting grounds
to-morrow, I would take with me two rifles, namely, a *500
Express, with mould made to allow of a hollow of any
length being made by a movable "plunger," and also fitted
with a solid mould ; and a twelve gauge with segmental, and
also solid, bullet, weighing about twelve pounds, and taking
six drachms of powder as the charge. For hill work only
I would take the '500 Express, and a No. 16 weighing
lOlbs., to take a " segment " ball and five drachms.

As regards choice of a maker, so many now turn out
admirable weapons on the old large-bore plan for spherical
ball or shell, that it would be invidious to make any very
close selection. Doubtless there are many others equally
capable, but I know, from actual experience, that Messrs.
W. W. Greener of Birmingham, Keilly of London, and Henry
of Edinburgh, are to be depended on for such weapons. My
only successful experience with the Express system has
been with Mr. Henry of Edinburgh. These rifles are not
easy to make ; and those of many makers I have tried have
proved either not to be really on that system at all shooting
a heavier bullet with less powder, or else have shot in a
very inferior manner. Almost any proper gunmaker should
be able to make a " segment " ball ; Messrs. Greener and
Henry have made them for me.
All rifles should, by preference, be double-barrelled. To

448 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTKAL INDIA.

use a single rifle is to sacrifice many chances, while it pos-
sesses no advantage whatever over a well-made double. A
good price will, however, have to be paid for a really true-
shooting double rifle ; and when this is a matter of the first
consideration, a breech-loading single Express rifle will be
found to give a wonderful command of shots. There is, in
my opinion, no system of breech-loading for single rifles at
all comparable with that of Mr. Henry of Edinburgh. It is
probable that considerations foreign to the mere merits of the
actions will induce our Government to adopt the Martini in
preference to the Henry breech for the new military arm ;
but sportsmen will probably always continue to prefer that
of Mr. Henry, which is much more simple and enduring,
more certain of ignition, and possesses the incalculable ad-
vantages of allowing the barrel to be inspected and cleaned
from the breech end, and of possessing a half and full
cocking action, exactly like that of ordinary guns. The
Martini has no such action ; and consequently the rifle must
be carried either unloaded altogether or on full cock. This
would never do for emergencies ; and in the opinion of all
practical men forms a fatal objection to both the Martini and
the new Westley-Kichards actions. There is no plan of
breech-loading superior for double rifles to the "double
grip " action commonly adopted by gun-makers. Some
patented actions are probably equal in strength and dura-
bility to the double grip, when really well made ; but
they usually require more careful workmanship, while the
monopoly of the patentee is apt to lead to the reverse ; so
that on the whole my experience is that the sportsman had
better avoid them for his rifles. None of the " snap " actions
have sufficient power for a heavy rifle, I believe, though I
certainly prefer them for shot guns. The best for the latter

AN EXPLOEATION IN THE FAK EAST. 449

purpose is, in my opinion, that of Messrs. Powell and Son of
Birmingham, and next to it is the Spring double grip of
Messrs. Keilly and Co., both of whom I may say may be
relied on to build a gun excellent in all other respects.

The rifles should be fitted in small, handy, solid leather
cases, unincumbered by much apparatus, or by space for
cartridges. The latter should be soldered up in tin cases, to
hold two hundred and fifty each, and should be carried un-
loaded until about to take the field.

I have added in Appendices some information which may
be useful to travellers in the region I have thus attempted to
describe.

G O

APPENDICES.

Appendix A. Note on the Diseases of Elephants, and the Treatment of the
Animal in Captivity B. Eules for the Sale and Lease of Waste Lands in
the Central Provinces C. Useful Trees of the Forests of Central India
D. Vocabulary of Local Terms E. Hints on the Preservation of Natural
History Specimens.

A. SELECTION AND TREATMENT OF ELEPHANTS.

There are few subjects on which so little is generally known as that of the
diseases and unsoundnesses, and the general management, of tame elephants.
Although there are many elephants under the charge of officers of different
public departments in India, as well as a good number which belong to private
persons, it always seems to be assumed that to attain to any acquaintance with
the nature of the animal and its veterinary treatment is a hopeless task. The
consequence is that their mahouts, or native keepers, than whom a more ignorant
and careless class does not exist, are commonly allowed to do with them what
they choose, very often to their serious detriment, and sometimes complete
disablement. They profess to possess many secret specifics, most of which are
useless, and only intended to extract money from their masters on the pretence
of purchasing drugs : and many of them founded on the grossest superstition.
For instance, it is common among them to give the elephant a piece of a
tiger's liver to make him courageous ! and, in order to make him see well
at night, to thrust down his throat the great yellow eyes of the brown horned
owl torn fresh from the living bird ! <

Having had much to do with elephants, both in my private possession and in
the forest establishment, I am induced to put on record what I know of their
management, not with the idea of furnishing a complete guide to their treat-
ment, but in the hope that it may go some way towards obviating some of the
mismanagement they are now so generally subjected to, and also be of assist-
ance to persons engaged in purchasing elephants. In a rough country like the
forest tracts of Central India, elephants, when properly looked after, are the
most useful of animals, whether for riding purposes or for carrying baggage
and other heavy works. When neglected, however, they are subject to.
numerous small ailments, which have led some persons to reject them for
such services.

452 APPENDIX.

On looking over an elephant, the most inexperienced eye would at once
detect the presence of the disease called by natives Zerlad. There are two
varieties of it, called Asl and Sukhd. The former is a dropsical affection, in
which the neck, chest, and stomach fill up to an enormous size. It occurs
most frequently in newly caught animals, and is probably attributable to a
sudden change of food. I once had an elephant attacked with it immediately
after changing from wheat to rice, on entering a district where the former
was not procurable. Generally an elephant that has been two or three years
in captivity is considered pretty safe from it. Sukhd Zerbdd is usually de-
veloped out of the other, but sometimes comes on at once. It is a sort of
general atrophy, or falling away ; and is characterised by a shrivelled, cracky
skin, much emaciation, and weakness. It is apt to become complicated with
troublesome sores in various parts of the body. In purchasing an elephant it
is not likely that the actual presence of Zerbad would be overlooked; but
without care it is easy to buy an animal so recently caught as to be still likely
to develope it. Such an animal should be got for much less money than one
longer domesticated. The state of training the animal has reached will
generally indicate the period of his capture. If thoroughly obedient to its
driver, lying down patiently to let you examine its feet, &c, it will probably
have been sufficiently long in hand to be pretty safe.

This brings me to unsound feet the most common failing in an elephant.
It is of two kinds, called by natives Kandi and Sajhan. The former is a sort of
canker, that begins on the sole and gradually eats deep into the structure of
the foot, until at length it breaks out above the toe nails. In its earlier stages
it is easily concealed by plugging the holes ; and many of the elephants
brought to the great fairs, like that of Sonpiir, are in fact affected with Kandi,
though to outward appearance perfectly sound. It can generally be discovered
by making the elephant lie down, and administering a series of smart raps with
a stick all over the soles of the feet, when, if Kandi be present, the animal will
be sure to show it by shrinking.

Sajhan is what would be called " cracked heels " in a horse. Its deep cracks,
discharging matter, situated about the junction of the horny sole with the skin,
can hardly be passed over in a bad case, though a slight one may escape obser-
vation. It is a serious unsoundness, being generally constitutional, and often
rendering useless during every rainy season elephants that are subject to it.

The eyes of the elephant are extremely delicate, and appear to possess in an
unusual degree a sympathetic connection with the digestive organs. Nearly
every indisposition of the animal is accompanied by a clouding or suffusion of
the eyes. Few elephants that have been long caught, especially if in the
hands of natives, have perfect eyes. Heating food, or undue exposure to bright
sun is often followed by the appearance of a film over one or both eyes, which,
if not attended to, and its cause remains in operation, increases till the cornea
becomes quite opaque, and the animal loses its sight. The leaves of the
peepul fig-tree, which form excellent fodder in the cold season, are almost sure
to produce this affection if given for any considerable time in the hot season.
I would not reject an elephant, otherwise suitable, merely because it had a

APPENDIX. 453

slight film over the eye ; for it is easily removed when attended to in time.
But its presence would of course lessen the value the animal would otherwise
bear.

Another very tender point in the elephant is the back. A highly-arched
back is very liable to get galled ; and such sores, when fairly established, are
exceedingly obstinate. Such a back will almost always show traces of old sores
about the ridge, and frequently they are only healed over on the surface,
leaving deep sinuses below ready to break out on the slightest pressure. Such
a back should be avoided, and a flat back, showing as nearly as possible a
straight line from the withers to the croup, should be selected. Besides its
immunity from galling, such a back always carries a load, or the howdah, well
and steadily.

The above are almost all the external points to which the attention of the
purchaser requires to be directed. Old strains will sometimes affect the paces,
but this can be seen at once. I have alluded, in the text, to the points of build
and carriage that should be looked to in choosing an elephant. There is no
critical test of the animal's age. The ears are always a good deal split and
frayed at the edges in an old animal ; but so they sometimes are also in young
ones. The general appearance will, however, indicate the age sufficiently well
for practical purposes. The full size and development is attained at from thirty-
five to forty years, and from that age till about sixty, the elephant is in the prime
of life. It is desirable to buy an elephant of full age if required for shooting,
young animals being nearly always timid and unenduring. A very old, or
"aged" elephant will be easily recognized by the loose, wrinkly state of tho
skin, deep hollows above the eyes, and very deeply-cracked ears. I do not
think that the number of concentric rings in the ivory of the tusk is a reliable
criterion, though the natives talk a good deal about it.

At the great Sonpiir fair, mentioned in the text, which is the principal
market for elephants, the animals offered for sale are usually the property
either of landowners from the districts of Bengal, or of Mahomedan dealers
who move about between the places where they are captured and the chief
markets and native courts. The former are much the safest to purchase,
having generally been purchased young by the landowner, and brought up
among his own people at his farm, with plentiful food and good treatment. It
is quite a part of their business this buying of youngsters, which they prefer
for their own riding, keeping them till of full size, and selling them at a
good round profit. The dealer's strings, on the other hand, are too often made
up of the halt and the blind. There is no end to their tricks. A dangerous
man-killer is reduced to temporary harmlessness by a daily pill of opium and
hemp. Kandi sores are plugged, and Sajhan cracks " paid " with tow. Sore
backs are surface-healed ; and the animals are so bedizened with paint, and so
fattened up with artificial feeding, that it is hard to tell what any one of them
would look like if " stripped to the bones." Then the space is so confined, and
the crowd so great, that very little " trotting out " is possible; so that alto-
gether buying elephants at such fairs is anything but plain sailing.

The usual food of elephants in Upper and Central India consists of cakes of

454 APPENDIX.

wheaten flour, baked without leaven, to a weight of about 21bs. each, and
given with a slight spreading of clarified butter. In the South and East, where
wheat is scarce, plain uncooked rice is given instead. The daily ration of a
full-sized animal of, say 8| feet high, is 24lbs. of flour, or 321bs. of rice. When
one of these sorts of food is substituted for the other, it should be done
gradually ; and when rice is first given a part of it should be boiled for some
weeks. The above rations are for an animal in hard work. In the Government
Commissariat Department, where great numbers of elephants are kept almost
in idleness for a great part of the year, lower rations are given. But the
treatment of these elephants is by no means a model for imitation. In a state
of nature the animal takes an immense deal of exercise. Here they get no
work to speak of between the close of one marching season (March) and the
beginning of the next (November). They pass quite out of condition during
this time ; and many are lost from complaints generated by these sudden alter-
nations of work and idleness. In the text I have urged the employment of
these elephants during this season in the organized destruction of wild beasts.
Of course the amount of the ration will vary somewhat with the size of the
animal, and elephants, like horses, have their idiosyncrasies in the matter of
feeding. A sharp look-out requires to be kept over the mahouts at feeding-
time, otherwise great part of the allowance will probably go to Moula Bux,
wife, small family, and the several fathers, brothers, and cousins, who usually
aim at getting "half a seer of flour" apiece out of their great milch cow
master's elephant. About half a pound of clarified butter, and the same
amount of salt should be allowed daily with the food ; and spice-balls should be
administered about once a week. Besides these rations an elephant devours an
enormous amount of fodder. The principal substances given him are the
branches of various trees of the fig tribe, banyan, peepul, and goolar. The
leaves of the peepul are eaten, but should be avoided in the hot season for
reasons before mentioned. Of the others the inner bark of the larger branches,
and the whole substance of smaller twigs alone are eaten. It is astonishing
to observe the adroitness with which the elephant peels off the delicate inner
bark in long strips, and rejects all the rest. This fastidiousness necessitates an
immense supply of branches every day ; and the elephant always goes out with
his keeper to bring in as much as he can carry at a time. The bamboo is also
eaten, but will not be accepted very long at a time. Other trees are also eaten
in the jungle, but as they are seldom accessible to tame elephants, they need not
be referred to. A long species of grass (Typha elephantina), which grows in
many tanks and rivers during the rainy season, forms excellent fodder for
elephants, who are very fond of it ; and when they have been much pulled
down by a season's hard work, they should, if possible, be sent to pick up
again where this fodder is plentiful. In the absence of the above descriptions
of fodder, the stalks of millet, called "Kurbee," or even dry grass, maybe
given, but it will not satisfy them long without a mixture of green food.
Sugar-cane is a great treat, and in moderate quantities is very good for them,
particularly if in poor condition.

Elephants should be picketed on dry ground, standing in damp being a

APPENDIX. 4bb

great cause of diseased feet. They do not. require any protection from the
weather but the shade of a tree, and a Jhool or Numda (cloth of string or felt)
thrown over them in cold nights. They should be bathed as often as possible
in tanks and rivers ; and a small quantity of clarified butter should afterwards
be rubbed over their foreheads, ears, chests, and such parts as are liable to
crack, or suffer from the rubbing of the accoutrements or from the sun. They
should be allowed to drink as much water as they like. They are often very
nice about it, and reject it when muddy or stagnant. The pad should be of
full size and well stuffed with grass. The felt cloth that goes under the pad
(Gadela) should always be in proper repair, or a sore back is the certain con-
sequence. Both these articles require to be renewed about once a year, if a
whole season's work has been done. The smaller felted cloth on which the
driver sits should be made large enough to project a little in front of the
elephant's forehead, and protect him from a vertical sun. It is not the nature
of the animal to remain out in the open in the heat of the day ; and I am sure
that he suffers from it if made to do so unprotected. If not allowed a tree to
stand under in the heat of the day, an elephant always heaps all the leafy
branches he can get on his head and back.

After much marching on stony ground, the feet are apt to get tender from
undue wearing away of the horny soles. This is to be remedied by the process
called " Chobing," which consists in the application to the feet of a boiling hot
mixture of a good many ingredients, generally resembling coal tar. Its prin-
cipal component is the gum resin of the Sal tree ; but every mahout professes
to have a mixture of his own, which he keeps a profound secret, and which it
is as well to let him use, so long as the desired result ensues, and it does not
cost more than about five shillings. There is no doubt that the process is
beneficial, the most foot-sore elephant getting round under it in about a week.
It requires to be done about twice a year, if the animal is regularly worked on
hard ground.

In dropsical ZerMd the food must be reduced to a minimum, about 4 lbs. of
wheat or 61bs. of rice; and if the latter be the diet it should be given boiled.
No green fodder should be allowed, only dry grass or " Kurbee." A purgative
should also be given ; and the following recipe, which I got from a very
experienced elephant doctor, is as good as any :

Croton seed 1 ounce,

Calomel 14 drachms,

Aloes 6 drachms,

made into a ball with rice flour and "goor" (crude sugar). Most elephants
take physic without any trouble. In a bad case the swellings will have to be
tapped. Many mahouts know how to perform this operation. The skin should
be pierced about the middle of the abdomen where the greatest quantity of
liquid is usually collected, and a fleam of 1 J inch blade will be required. Tho
fluid which comes out is said to be infectious to other elephants if they are
allowed to stand near it. The root of the Mudar plant (Calotropis gigantea), is
often given by the mahouts in this disease in doses of one drachm twice a day,

456 APPENDIX.

apparently with good effect. This is also their great remedy in the more
advanced stage of the disease called Sukha Zerbdd. It should be accompanied,
however, by abundance of food, including green fodder and sugar-cane, plenty
of bathing, and regular exercise.

For Kandi in the foot, the horny sole must be pared down till the sinuses can
be got at, and well washed out with warm water. The holes should then be
filled with an ingredient, composed of

Tar 1 part.

Leaves of the Nim tree (Melia Azidirachta) . . . . 1 part.
Gum of the Salei tree (Boswellia thurifera) . . .2 parts.

A piece of stout leather should then be fastened over the open parts with small
tacks driven into the adjoining horny sole, or tied on if there is no place for the
tacks.

Sajhan, or cracked heels, cannot be remedied unless the feet are kept dry.
This alone will suffice to cure moderate cases. The following lotion was recom-
mended me by the experienced friend above alluded to ; but I never had
occasion to use it myself. Take \ lb. of dry tobacco and boil it down in a quart
of water till it becomes a pint. Then mix with it 21bs. of quicklime, with 4
ounces of bluestone, and apply at intervals to the cracks.

For dimness in the cornea of the eye caused by heating food, change the diet,
particularly avoiding peepul leaves. Give the elephant grass if in season. In
the earlier stage of the disease this treatment, and bathing the eye with a weak
solution of nitrate of silver (5 grains to the ounce of water), will usually effect
a cure. If a film has been formed it may generally be removed by blowing a
pinch of very finely powdered glass into the eye once or twice a day.

Sore backs are the most troublesome of all elephant affections to cure effec-
tually. They must not on any account be allowed to heal up superficially ; and
should sinuses or a sac have formed, they must be cut open and kept open until
they heal up from the bottom. A downward orifice should, if possible, be
secured to permit the escape of the matter. Cutting open a sore back is gener-
ally a terrible business, as the elephant, not realizing the utility of the opera-
tion, fights against it with all his might. He must be well secured and held
down, and a sharp razor is the best weapon to use. The wounds should then
be thoroughly washed out with a solution of alum ; and then filled with a stuff-
ing composed of two parts of Nim leaves and one part common salt well
pounded together. If they should slough or throw up proud flesh, they must be
touched with bluestone at intervals. This cleaning and dressing will have to be
repeated at least twice a day ; and the practitioner will have his hands full while
it lasts in keeping the lazy elephant attendants up to their work. They will
always, if allowed, let a sore back heal up superficially only to break out again
on the first pressure. They rather like their elephant to have a sore back, as it
saves them the trouble of loading it and going out to cut fodder. I have known
them cause a sore back on purpose by inserting a stone below the pad ; and I
knew one case in which an elephant was destroyed by these ruffians, by the con-
tinued application of quicklime to a sore near the spine.

APPENDIX. 457

Elephants are very liable to intestinal worms. They generally cure them-
selves, when they get very troublesome, by swallowing from ten to twenty
pounds of earth. They always select a red-coloured earth for the purpose. In
about twelve hours after, purging commences and all the worms come away.
When this occurs the hard food should be stopped for a week, fodder only
being given ; and a ball of spices should be given every day. Some elephants
will not eat earth when they require it ; and they are considered a very bad lot
in consequence. I do not know how to treat them for worms. Should an
elephant get wounded by a tiger, or otherwise, the places should be well cleaned
and kept moistened with cold water. If they get foul apply Holloway's oint-
ment. The mahouts have a cruel practice in such cases of heating balls of
elephants dung in the fire and splitting them open, applying them hot and hot
to the wounds. I believe it to be as useless as it is barbarous. Fomentations
and rest are required in the rare event of a strain.

The above are the commonest cases that will call for treatment by the
elephant owner. They seldom prove fatal (excepting Zerbdd), but are very
troublesome when not properly attended to. Besides these elephants are subject
to several obscure internal diseases, which fortunately are of very rare occur-
rence, but when they do occur usually prove fatal from the difficulty of dia-
gnosing or treating them. Among them are fever and inflammation of the
internal organs. Bleeding can, I believe, be effected from some small arteries
behind the ears ; but I have never seen it done. It would probably offer the
only chance of a cure in such cases.

Occasional injuries and complaints will give an opportunity for the display of
ingenuity in the application of remedies. One of the most singular operations
of dentistry I ever heard of was the removal of a large excrescence on the back
tooth of an elephant, which had grown into the poor brute's cheek, and almost
prevented his feeding. One of the best mahouts I ever knew volunteered to
remove it. He got a good thick log of wood, and made a hole through it large
enough for his arm to pass. Outside he covered it all over with nails, leaving
about a quarter of an inch of each sticking out of the wood. The elephant was
made to lie down and fastened with hobbles, while the log thus prepared was
placed in his mouth like a bit, and bound with ropes across his neck. Twenty
or thirty persons now sat upon his head and trunk (if these be kept down an
elephant cannot rise from his side), and the operator. introduced his arm through
the hole and began to saw off the protuberance. He took several hours to effect
it, the elephant after awhile lying perfectly still, with the expression of a
martyr in his upturned eye. The piece sawn off was as large as one's fist ; and
the animal got perfectly well very soon afterwards.

B. RULES FOR THE SALE AND LEASE OF WASTE LANDS IN THE
CENTRAL PROVINCES.*

I. The maximum limits of the quantity of laud which will be sold in one lot
in the several districts are as follows : In the districts of Raipur, Belaspur,
Sambalpur, Mandla, Upper Godavari, Hoshungabad (5,000) five thousand acres.
In other districts (3,000) three thousand acres.

II. The upset price of the lands to be sold will, ordinarily, be as follows :
In the Eaipur, Belaspur, and Mandla districts eight annas (one shilling) per
acre. In the Sambalpur and Upper Godavari districts, one rupee (two shillings)
per acre. In other districts, two rupees and eight annas (five shillings) per
acre.

III. On payment of one-tenth of the purchase-money, and of the expenses of
survey, demarcation, advertisement, and sale, the purchaser will receive a deed,
signed by the Deputy Commissioner, conveying to him the lot in full hereditary
and transferable proprietary right, free from all demand on account of Land
Revenue for ever, but subject, nevertheless, to all general taxes and local rates
imposed by Law or by the Local Government. There is no prohibition against
the same person applying for two or more lots of land, provided that each appli-
cation contains no more than the maximum of acres prescribed for the District
or locality on which the said lots are situate. Every lot must be compact, and
shall not include more than one tract of land in a ring-fence. Reserves of
grazing land and forests ; of land for the growth of firewood near towns and
stations ; of building sites, parks, recreation-grounds ; of tracts possessing
mineral wealth, stone quarries, and the like ; and of land required for other
special purposes, are not to be sold under these rules without the express
sanction of the Chief Commissioner.

IV. It being found that many natives, who would not purchase under the
above rules, would yet be desirous of taking leases of small quantities of waste,
it was decided to offer further facilities for this object, tending to the reclaiming
of the waste bit by bit, and thus to the gradual increase of the land revenue.
Accordingly rules have been promulgated for the grant of waste lands on
clearance leases, on the following terms :

(1) The leaseholder shall be allowed a rent-free tenure of three years from
the date of the grant coming into operation.

(2) The minimum area to be granted shall be 100 acres.

(3) On expiry of the terms of rent-free tenure, the grantee shall pay two
annas (3d.) per acre per annum on the whole grant for the next seven years,
and a rent of four annas (6d.) per acre during the next ten years.

* These rules have been extracted from the Provincial Administration Reports.

APPENDIX. 459

(4) From the beginning of the twenty-first year the grant shall be liable to
assessment, at the same rate and on the same terms as the surrounding lands.

(5) The lessee shall engage, as a condition of his lease, to break up six per
cent, of the area of his grant every three years, until the cultivated portion
reached thirty per cent, on the whole area of the grant ; and when the lessee
shall have brought forty per cent, of the area of his grant under cultivation, he
shall become proprietor thereof.

(6) In any case where a clearance grant faces, or is bounded by, a road, river,
or canal, the face of the grant opposite such river, road, or canal shall not be
more than one-half the length of the grant perpendicular to such road, river, or
canal.

Most of the accessible culturable waste lands have been surveyed and divided
into blocks, of which descriptive registers may be seen at the head-quarters of
Districts. The valuable wastes of the Mandla District, however, which are most
attractive to Europeans, are still unsurveyed.

460

APPENDIX.

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APPENDIX.

D. VOCABULARY OF A FEW USEFUL TEEMS IN THE LOCAL HINDI,
GOND, AND KORKOO LANGUAGES.

ENGLIS]

a. HINDI.

GOND.

KORKOO.

Antelope .

. . Hirn . . .

Hirn (h) .

Kutsar

,, four-!

Lorned Chonsingha

Bun-Bher (h)

Bherki

Axe, commo

a . . Kulhari . . .

Maro . . .

Akae

battle

. (Bygas) Tonngya.
. . Bans .

Pharchia

<, UULtlv

Bamboo .

Bans (h) . .

Mad

Bear

. Eeech . . .

Yedjal

Bana

Bison

. . Bun-Boda .

Bun-Bhainsa (h).

Hela (h)

Blood .

. Looh . . .

Nattur

Puchna

Buffalo (wild
Camp

) . Arna-Bhainsa
, . Dehra . . .

Bungla (ii) . .

Purno

Deer, barkin

2f . Kakur .

Bherki

tog
,, red

Till pr-Sa mn t

Bher-Samur (h) .

. Bara Nerwaree or

Sal-Samur
r . . Samur . . .

Gowna . . .
Mauk .

,, samba]

Stag, Kakur; Hind,

Samri

,, spottec

1 . Cheetul ; Buck,

Jank

Kurs . . .

Darkar

Dog. .

. . Kutta . . .

Nae

Seeta

Elephant

. Hathi .

Yani . . .

Hathi (h)

Eever

. . Bokhar or Tup .

Yerki .

Rua

Eire .

. Angar . . .

Kis ...

Sengal

Eood

. . Khana

Nena .

Jojam

Eorest .

. Jungal . . .

Kaira . . .

Tharee (h)

Eowl

. . Moorghee .

Pitte .

Seem

Eox .

. Lorn . . .

Khekree . . .

Kakree

Gazelle

Ohikara

Hirni (h)

Agwa (h) . .

Guide .

. Agwa . . .

Agwa (h)

Gum

. . Gond .

Dhok .

Deek

Gunpowder

Barood . . .

Burko . . .

Daroo

Hare

Kargosh

Malol .

Koarli

Hill .

, Dongur . . .
. . Singh .

Mata . . .

Bulla

Horn

Kor .

Singh (H)

Hyena .

. Turrus . . .

Renhra . . .

Dhopre

Jackal

. . Geedur

Kolial

Kolea

Jungle fowl

. Bun-Moorgh . .

Bun-Moorgh (h) .

Komba

Leather .

. . Chumra

Chumra (h) .

Kutrae

Leopard

. Borbacha . .

Gordag . . .

Sonora

,, hun
Man

:ing . Cheeta .

Ohiira

. Admi . . .

Maursal . . .

Koro

APPENDIX.

469

ENGLISH.

HINDI.

GOND.

KORKOO.

Milk . . .

Doodh .

Pal .

Deedum

Monkey (Hunoo-

inan) . . .

Iiungoor . . .

Lungoor (h) . .

Sara

Morning

Bunsare

Sukre .

Pathar

Nilgai . . .

Rojh (male) . .

Gorayen (female)

Goorya . . .

Rooi

Panther

Tendwa and Adh-
naira . . .

Burkal

Kairea

Partridge, painted

Kala Teetur

Kukkura . .

Chitree

Peafowl . . .

M6r . . .

Mai .

Mara

Pigeon, wild

Kabutur

Parewal . . .

Kubdoor (h)

Plains, the

Khulotee . .

Maidan (h) .

Sehwan

Plateau

Mai .

Dadur . . .

Tor

Porcupine

Seyal . . .

Hoigu

Jekra

Quail .

Batair

Batte . . .

Ore

Rain

Bursaat . . .

Pirr .

Salla

Ravine .

Khudda

Kori . . .

Lor

River

, .

Nuddee (small,

Nala) . . .

Dhoda . .

Gada

Road .

Rasta .

Sarri . . .

Kora

Rock

Dhata . . .

Tongung

Gota

Rope

Rursee

Dor (H) .

Dora (h)

Sal tree .

Sal and Renga

Surye .

Surye

Sand

Balu . . .

Waroo . . .

Beetil

Snake

Surp .

Turas . ' .

Beeng

Spurfowl

Chota Bun-moorgh

Bunteetur (h)

Toteang

Stone

Puthur . . .

Puthur (h) . .

Gota

Teak tree

Sagon .

Sag . . .

Seepna

Tiger

Bagh and Nahr .

Poolie . . .

Koola

Torch .

Massal . . .

Doote .

Marsal (h)

Track

Pug and Punja .

Koj(H) . . .

Mang (h)

Tree .

Per.

Mara .

Seeng

Valley, or

low

ground .

Neechwas .

Daab . . .

Borro

Village .

Bustee . . .

Naru .

Gaon (h)

Wild boar

Dookur

Puddee . . .

Bun-Sookree

dog

Son-Kutta . .

Nerka

Bun-Seeta

Wolf

Bherya

Landgal . . .

Lendya (h)

Wound

Ghao . . .

Chot (h) .

Gaae (h)

Numerals.

One .

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Nino

Ten

Do . .

Tin .

Char . . .

Panch

Cheh . . .

Sdt .

Ath ' .

Nau

Dus ...

Oondi . . .

Rand

Moond . . .

Nalu .

Saighan . . .

Sarung

Yedung . . .

Yermud

Nau (h) . . .

Daha (h)

Meea

Barya

Apya

Opoonya

Moonya

Toorae

Aie

Elar

Araie

Goolya

470 APPENDIX.

E. -DIRECTIONS AS TO THE PRESERVATION OF THE SKINS AND OTHER

TROPHIES OF ANIMALS ON THE FIELD.

Contributed by Edwin Ward, F.Z.S.

General. It must always be borne in mind that the value of any object
secured and preserved depends on the completeness with which all its natural
features are saved, as well as the condition in which they are kept. This is
true in degree for whatever purpose the object is designed ; but it is an absolute
essential in regard to specimens for the illustration of natural history.

Large Game. Those met with in the Central India district will most
generally be : the Felidce, most important of which is the Tiger ; many smaller
Carnivora; of horned beasts, the gigantic Gour Bos Sylhetanus commonly
called the Indian Bison ; Buffalo, Sambar, Cheetal, and other deer. There is
also the elephant, largest of all, and other pachyderms.

When the great game is secured, first turn the animal on its back, and
stretching apart the fore and hind legs, proceed to remove the skin. In all
cases where the skin is wanted entire, this is best done by making incision from
one corner of the mouth through the medial line of belly to the extremity of
tail. Next make lateral incisions in order to strip the limbs ; for the fore legs,
from the edge of central incision through the armpit along the inner side of the
limb, the line of incision inclining slightly to the outer portion, in order that
the seam may be less perceptible when the perfect specimen is mounted. A
like process through the groin is necessary for the hind legs. The incisions
thus made leave the skin in form of tongue pieces over the breast. First apply
the knife to these points and detach the skin round to the spine. In doing this
it is necessary to clear the limbs, and great care must be taken to leave intact
the natural features of the foot. The last metacarpal and metatarsal bones
must be left in the skin, whether in the case of Felidce or Cervidce. Now turn
over the carcase and draw back the whole skin over the head, exercising parti-
cular care in separating the ears and the eyes from the skull. Similar care
must be taken as to the lips. For if the rim of the eyelids be severed by the
scalpel the injury spreads in a remarkable manner, often so badly as to render
the damage seriously conspicuous. As to the ears, they should be separated
from the skull close to the bone, or the lower structure will present too large
an aperture. The lips must be cut off close to the gums. Having thus taken
off the skin, it must be cleaned of all superfluous fat and flesh. The cartilage of
the ear must be turned through. The lip must be treated thus : pass the knife
between the mucous lining and the outer skin all round the mouth so as to
admit of the preservative penetrating this thick portion of the specimen com-
pletely. The eyelids and feet must each be treated in a similar manner for the

APPENDIX. 471

same reason. Now peg the skin out with the fur downwards for drying, and
anoint it thoroughly with arsenical soap if preferred ; but at the same time use
freely a sufficient quantity of powdered alum, especially on the lips, eyelids,
ears, feet and all other fleshy parts. In regard to the employment of arsenical
soap as a preservative against insect ravages, it is not in my opinion always
completely efficacious. I therefore recommend that spirits of turpentine should
at the same time be freely poured over both sides of the skin. When the skin
is sufficiently dried it can be folded and packed.

Although the process just described is a very good one, I should myself adopt
the following, which would be much more simple, and is thoroughly successful.
The skin having been removed from the carcase and cleaned, instead of being
pegged out for drying, should be thickly covered over the flesh side with pow-
dered alum, then folded in convenient form, and thus immersed in a barrel of
brine, what we technically call " liquor ; " add parts of alum and common salt
in the proportion of six pounds of alum and two pounds of salt to a gallon. A
number of skins may be placed in the same barrel, which is thus ready either for
storing or transit. They are quite exempt from the ravages of insects ; native
dressing with lime and other deleterious material is avoided. They will keep
safely for a long period, and the process is at once inexpensive and a saving of
time. In the case of horned beasts where the head only is frequently preserved,
I have no hesitation in recommending this system as the best. Of course in
such case the skull and horns are cleaned and packed separately. In cutting
off bison and stags' heads be sure to leave a long neck ; they are too frequently
cut close to the jaws, and this considerably mars the effect when mounted.

It is important for the proper preservation of the skulls of Felidce that they
should be protected from injury to or loss of the teeth. This is best done as
follows. When the skull has been boiled and cleaned it should be tied up in a
calico bag and placed in a separate compartment of the packing case designed
for it. Stuffing should moreover be put into each compartment to prevent the
skull from injury from being shaken.

Small Mammalia, etc. In $he case of the small mammals the skull and
bones of the legs are to be left in the skins. The animal being placed on its
back, incision is made from the sternum (breast bone) to root of the tail. The
skin is then separated from the carcase as far as can be conveniently reached,
and the limbs are severed from the body at the shoulder and thigh. Each limb
can then be drawn out as a glove might be turned inside out but the bone
must not be separated at its junction with the toe, or the skin of the foot or leg
in any way injured. The muscles can then be removed from the bone, and
this can best be done by cutting the tendons near the toes, and carefully draw-
ing the whole mass away at one operation. It must come in one piece, not
piecemeal. The bone will now be clean. Clean the skin of the limb, and at
the same time the remainder of the skin of all superfluous flesh and fatty
matter. Dress the inside all over with arsenical soap, and apply freely pow-
dered alum all over it, but particularly to the fleshy parts, as the eyes, nose,
lips, feet, etc. Then replace the bones in the limbs, having previously, if
possible, bound them with tow or similar material, so as to replace the muscle

472 APPENDIX.

that has been removed. A portion of stuffing should be placed in the skin of
the head and trunk, and the whole can be suspended to dry.

Birds. First of all plug up with cotton wool the throat, nostrils, and all
shot holes. Place the specimen on its back, the head towards you. Break the
wing bones {humeri) near the body. Next separate the breast feathers care-
fully, and make an incision along the medial line from chest to vent ; having
done which turn back the skin and raise the specimen to a perpendicular posi-
tion, resting it on the vent. Now skin round the chest, cut through the neck,
windpipe and gullet, detach the wings from the body, and remove the skin all
down the back to the thighs. Push the thigh through at the same time, care-
fully drawing off the skin, and having cut the tendons near the tarsus remove
the muscle of the thigh in one piece, leaving the bone clean. This bone must
be cut near the femur joint, leaving the head of the bone, which is useless, with
the flesh attached to the thigh and body. Having treated both legs thus, skin
round root of tail ; but in cutting the vertebrae take care to leave the small bone
which supports the tail. The next operation is to turn back the skin of the
head with care so that the eyes and ears may not be injured. Cut away the
back part of the skull with neck, tongue and palate. Eemove the brain and
eyes, skin the wings and trim the tail, and the whole skin is in condition to be
cleaned and prepared. Having taken away all fat and superfluous flesh, dress
it with arsenical soap, bind tow in place of the muscles on the bones, and return
them to their places. It is not desirable to use powdered alum to bird skins, as it
tends to make them brittle. The specimen should be filled out to natural size,
and a band of paper placed round it in order to keep the wings and other parts
in proper position till dry. During the whole operation wood dust or other
dry powder should be freely employed to absorb blood and grease, so that the
plumage may be kept clean.

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CHAPMAN & HALL, 193, PICCADILLY. 27

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CHAPMAN <fc HALL, 193, PICCADILLY. 29

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CHAPMAN & BALL, 193, PICCADILLY. 31

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THE

FOETNIGHTLY EEVIEW

Edited by JOHN MOKLEY.

fllHE object of The Fortnightly Eeview is to become an organ

I for the unbiassed expression of many and various minds on topics of general
interest in Politics, Literature, Philosophy, Science, and Art. Each contribution
will have the gravity of an avowed responsibility. Each contributor, in giving his
name, not only gives an earnest of his sincerity, but is allowed the privilege of
perfect freedom of opinion, unbiassed by the opinions of the Editor or of fellow-
contributors.

The Fortnightly Review is published on the 1st of every month (the issue
on the 15th being suspended), price Two Shillings, and a Volume is completed every
Six Months.

The following are among the Contributors :

J. S. Mill.
Professor Huxley.
Professor Tyndall.
Dr. von Sybel.
Professor Cairnes.
Emile de Laveleye.
George Henry Lewes.
Frederic Harrison.
Walter Bagehot.

Professor Beesly.
A. C. Swinburne.
Dante Gabriel Rossetti.
Herman Merivale.
Edward A. Freeman.
William Morris.
F. W. Farrar.
Professor Henry Morley.
J. Hutchison Stirling.

W. T. Thornton. .
Professor Bain.
Professor Fawcett.
Hon. R. Lytton.
Anthony Trollope.
Joseph Mazzini.
The Editor.

&c.

Contents for November.
SECOND EDITION.

Contains :
JOHN STUART MILL ON BERKELEY'S LIFE AND WRITINGS.
PROFESSOR HUXLEY ON ADMINISTRATIVE NIHILISM.

HENRY FAWCETT, M.P., ON THE PRESENT POSITION OF THE GOVERNMENT.
WALTER H. PATER ON THE POETRY OF MICHAEL ANGELO.
JULES ANDRIEU ON THE PARIS COMMUNE : A CHAPTER TOWARDS ITS THEORY

AND HISTORY.
ANTHONY TROLLOPE'S THE EUSTACE DIAMONDS.

Contents for December.

SPECIALISED ADMINISTRATION. By Herbert Spencer.

CHURCH AND STATE IN ITALY. By J. W. Probyn.

THE EUSTACE DIAMONDS. Chapters XXI. to XXIV. By Anthony Trollope.

PHYSICS AND POLITICS. IV. NATION-MAKING. By Walter Bagehot.

THE NEW ATTACK ON TOLERATION. By Helen Taylor.

LYRICAL FABLES (Conclusion). By the Hon. Robert Lytton.

THE IRISH UNIVERSITY QUESTION. By H. Dix Hutton.

Contents for January.

THE POSITION AND PRACTICE OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS. By Lotto Houghton.

THE CLOUD CONFINES. By Dante Gabriel Rossetti.

HOME RULE. By W. O'Connor Morris.

CHAUMETTE. By A. Regnard.

PHYSICS AND POLITICS. V. THE AGE OF DISCUSSION. By Walter Bagehot.

NEW THEORIES IN POLITICAL ECONOMY. By Professor Cairnes.

ST. BERNARD OF CLAIRVAUX, By J. C. M orison.

THE EUSTACE DIAMONDS. Chapters XXV. to XXVIII. By Anthony Trollope.

FORSTER'S LIFE OF DICKENS.

CHAPMAN & HALL, 193, PICCADILLY.

BRADBURY, EVANS, AND CO.,

PRINTERS, WHITEFrtlARS.

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