INTRODUCTORY. 17 



3,000 square miles of forest country, and inhabited by 

 between 30,000 and 40,000 aborigines, in which one 

 officer held charge for eleven years without once having 

 put foot within this enormous territory. All accounts 

 of such tracts were filtered through Hindu or Maho- 

 medan subordinates, whose horror of a jungle, and its 

 unknown terrors of bad air and water, wild beasts, and 

 general discomfort, is such, as to ensure their paintino- 

 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 important 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 

 prophetically 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 Richard) Temple, of the Bengal Civil 

 Service. 



Then were seen strange sights in that unknown 

 land ; when distant valleys and mountain gorges, that 

 had heard no other sound than the woodman's axe, 

 echoed to the horse-hoofs of the tireless Chief, and his 

 small knot of often weary followers ; when the solitary 



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