THE ABOEIGIXAL TRIBKS. 169 



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 accumulation of the little 

 capital needed to start cultivation on a more regular 

 system is now possible to them all. An immense 

 assistance in this respect has been derived from the 

 great enhancement in the value of all agricultural 

 produce, consequent 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, w^here 

 ever the country is fitted by proper communications 

 to yield an exportable supply. The great undertakings 

 in railways, 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 kit if olio), and the pure 

 gum of the Dhaora (Conocaiyus latifolius). Altogether 

 a new era has dawned for these " children of the forest.'^ 

 The relation between labour and capital, long unfavour- 

 able to the former, has been reversed, and hard rupees 

 are finding their way into the hills of Goudwana, 

 to the material improvement of the circumstances of 



