38G THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTRAL INDIA. 



Wynaild, such articles of European demand as coflfee, 

 tea, etc., have attracted European enterprise, and wliere 

 simihir wages have been held out, an abundant supply 

 of labour has been furnished by these fountains of 

 population. What appears to be necessary, then, to 

 effect the rapid reclamation of these wilds, is the intro- 

 duction of some special industry which will attract the 

 European energy and capital which alone can ever effect 

 the movement of Indian labour in large bodies from one 

 part of the country to another. That there are such 

 industries capable of introduction there cannot be a 

 doubt. 



At present cattle-breeding would seem to be the 

 most promising opening, both because it wants the 

 few^est hands, and because the absence of roads is of 

 less consequence in such a business. 



Before leaving the subject of these waste lands, I 

 should refer to the only attempt ever made to form 

 a settlement in them under European supervision, and 

 which ended in lamentable failure. Some thirty years 

 ago four German missionaries attempted to form a 

 colony among the aboriginal tribes, on the Moravian 

 system, in one of these upland valleys. They selected a 

 spot just under the Amarkantals plateau, near a small 

 village called Karinjea, in the middle of a fine plain 

 of rich soil, a few miles south of the Narbada. The 

 place had an elevation of about 2,700 feet, and was 

 well situated in every respect but one. In a country 

 abounding with shade and water, they pitched on a bare 

 mound without an evergreen tree, and more than two 

 miles distant from the nearest running water. They 

 went out in the hot weather, and failed to prepare 

 sufficient shelter before the arrival of tlie rainy season. 

 Thus they remained exposed to constant damp and cold 



