THE MAHADEO HILLS. 101 



trammelled barbarism ; their rich liaivest 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 Thakiir 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 distinguished in position or 

 worldly wealth from the common Korkiis about. He 

 promised to use his influence to get them to come and 

 work for me, and went off on a visit to the neighbour- 

 ing 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 shy- 

 ness of the jungle population. 



They were really in great distress owing to the 

 failure of 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 by 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 Korkii 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, how- 

 ever, for his wants. He selects a bill-side where there 



LIBRARY 



