384 THE HIGHLANDS OF CEXTIiAL INDIA. 



It is probable that the Lower Narbadd valley was equally 

 uuliealtliy at one time, yet it is now as healthy as any 

 part of the country. Several stations in these provinces 

 have been set clown in the middle of jungles with as 

 evil a reputation as this, and along with the clearance 

 of the jungle the fever was found to disappear. The 

 Wynaiid, Assam, and Cachar are also standing instances 

 of the successful occupation of malarious countries by 

 the help of European enterprise. The malaria excepted, 

 the climate is highly favourable to colonisation, consider- 

 inoj the situation of the tract. No reerion out of the 

 great mountain ranges could probably be pointed to as 

 possessing such advantages of coolness and freshness as 

 are here conferred by the elevated situation, abundance 

 of moisture, and its attendant evergreen verdure. 



As for the obstacles supposed to be presented by the 

 rank vegetation and noxious animals, they are chiefly 

 imaginar}'. Immense plains lie ready for the plough, if 

 merely the coarse natural grasses were cleared away, 

 there being no brushwood or heavy timber to speak of. 

 The luxuriance of these grasses is only evidence of the 

 fatness of the land that lies below ; and a torch ap)plied 

 in the month of May will, over large tracts, remove all 

 obstacle to the immediate application of the plough. 

 The wild animals, here as elsewhere, would retire before 

 the axe and plough of the settler. Such as are noxious 

 to human life are not really more so here than in many 

 other much more open parts of the country. In the 

 districts of Don! and Betiil there is certainly a larger 

 number of tigers in the same area than in Mandld, and 

 there they have not been found to constitute any 

 serious obstacle to the steady advancement of popula- 

 tion and tillarre. 



o 



I am not one of those who believe that Europeans 



