THE TEAK KEGION. l'23 



crowded in the adjoining open country. Here and 

 there the Korkiis, whose constitutions seem impervious 

 to malaria, have settled down on some neifflibourinor 

 rising ground, and built a neat little village of Swiss- 

 like cottages of bamboo, and have cleared and tilled 

 the opener parts of the valley, raising such crops of 

 wheat on the unexhausted black soil as are the envy 

 of the laborious tiller of the hard-used lands in the 

 outer valley. But it is a terrible and unequal struggle 

 between the aborigine, even so far reclaimed as these 

 Korkiis are, and the jungle with its immense and 

 unremitting strength of vegetation, and tribes of 

 noxious w^ild beasts. Every now and again the heart 

 of the Korkii fails him, and he abandons the contest, 

 flitting off to some hill-side where he may more easily 

 contend with axe and fire against the less exuberant 

 vegetation of the thin mountain soils. On the whole, 

 however, the habits of the Korkiis of the Tapti valley 

 are a o-reat advance on those of the tribes inhabiting 

 the Mahadeo hills further east. Their cultivation is 

 performed with the bullock plough instead of the axe, 

 and is of a much more permanent character. Their 

 villages and houses are much more substantial, and are 

 seldom changed ; and habits of providence and steady 

 industry have been developed among them which are 

 unknown to either Gond or Korkii of other parts. 

 Much of this may, no doubt, be due to their fortunate 

 occupation of a country where cultivation by annual 

 cutting down the forest is scarcely possible, owing to 

 the scantiness of timber and of soil on the slopes of 

 the hills, while the neighbourhood of so large a city 

 as Burhanpiir must always have furnished them with a 

 regular and remunerative market for their produce. 



