THE TEAK REGION". 230 



nothing but a compensation for the blackmail levied by 

 their turbulent ancestors from the adjoining plains. A 

 few unconverted Bheels still remain in this country, 

 who are chiefly the hereditary village watchmen of the 

 Hindii villages bordering on the hills. They are 

 usually a good deal Hinduised in manners, but retain 

 much of the keen natural qualities that render the 

 wilder members of the race such excellent hunters. 

 Bheels of the wildest character are also found in the 

 mountain region west of Asirgarh, depending for sub- 

 sistence much on their bows and arrows, and still ready 

 for any undertaking of lawlessness and peril. It is 

 scarcely, however, within the province of this work 

 to devote space to this tribe, which is but scantily repre- 

 sented in the highland region of which it treats. 



The road to Gharri lay up a fine, level, though 

 narrow, valley in the Hatti hills, containing the sites of 

 several old villages marked by ancient trees and Malio- 

 medan tombs. As we overlooked, from the height of 

 Gharri, its lono-, level reach, and the narrow gorore 

 formed by a transverse chain of little hills at its mouth, 

 with the level, black-soil plain of the Tapti valley stretch- 

 ing away into the distant haze beyond, the thought sug- 

 gested itself at the same time to both of us, how 

 remarkably suited the spot was for an irrigation 

 reservoir. Without — the land thirsting for water, being 

 underlaid by a sandy subsoil so deep that no well can 

 tap the stratum of moisture below it, and crowded with 

 a dense population who pay for their dry and unfertile 

 acres the rent that in many places is given for irrigated 

 sugar-cane land. Within — a natural reservoir, fed by 

 the drainage of forty square miles, and only wanting an 

 embankment of a few hundred yards to hold back 



