82 THE HIGHLAI^DS OF CENTRAL IXDIA. 



of Mliowa spirit, and lo ! the god of tlie coal-mine 

 is sufficiently satisfied to permit liis simple worshipper 

 to hew away as he pleases at his residence. 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 Mohpaui is one of the best smidejheds in the 

 province. I went out to it in the afternoon with one 

 of the gentlemen connected with the w^orks, 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 liad got twenty- 

 seven and a half 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 Satpiiras, which here form a blufi" 

 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 principalities 

 of these central regjions. 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-sided 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 



