22 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTRAL INDIA. 



of all these matters in every district of the province ; 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 ofGce, 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 ; tlie 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 f)rocess has to be drawn up, to form the sub- 

 stantive law for the disposal of future cases in the civil 

 and revenue courts of the district. The grand result, 

 as afi"ecting 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 un- 

 hampered property of the State. Most of the hill-chiefs 

 were admitted to the full ownership of the whole of 

 their enormous wastes, thouirh certain restrictions as to 

 the destruction of the forests have here (as in all civilised 

 countries) been imposed on these proprietors. 



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 

 noticed above, two distinct streams of the so-called 

 Indian Aryans, approaching from Northern and Western 

 India, here meet and intermingle, difi'ering considerably 

 in appearance, in character, and in speech. Where the 



