254 THE HrGHLAK"DS OF CENTRAL IXDIA. 



must know where to find beasts. The little block of 

 hills we were going to visit is quite shut in from all 

 the ordinary lines of travelling in these parts. There 

 is no road into it by which carts can be taken ; cattle 

 are never sent to graze there by the neighbouring 

 villagers ; and thus no one ever goes into it, except- 

 ing a single family of Bheels, who are the hereditary 

 Turvees* of an ancient village, said to have existed in 

 the palmy days of Mahomedan rule in one of its valleys, 

 and now represented by half-a-dozen Mhowa trees, the 

 fruit of which these Bheels still go annually to gather. 

 Two of the family happened to be among our scouts, 

 and knew every inch of the country. The one who 

 brought us the news rejoiced in the name of Jhingra or 

 "The Shrimp;" and really, by some fortuitous acci- 

 dent, his long attenuated arms and legs, and curiously 

 shrivelled features, with a few long feeler-like bristles in 

 the place of a beard, gave him a very strong resemblance 

 to that innocent crustacean. The name of the other, 

 who had been left perched in a tree to watch the beeves, 

 cannot be handed down to fame, having been lost in 

 the secondary appellation of "The Skunk." I must say 

 the olfactory powers of the bison lost greatly in my 

 estimation when I found that they had remained quietly 

 grazing for half a day within a mile or so of this most 

 odorous of Turvees ! The Shrimp was very anxious 

 that we should proceed there and then to attack the 

 bison, urging: how uncomfortable the Skunk would be 

 if left clinging to the upper branches of a tree all 

 night, and patting his shrivelled stomach to show how 



* Tlie Turvee is the chief of a Bheel clan or settlement; and all 

 heads of Bheel villages in this part of the country are so called by 

 courtesy. 



