423 THE HIGHLA:NrDS OF CENTRAL INDIA. 



and medicine-men in these more eastern reofions. It 

 was queer to see what trifles sufficed to bring a grin 

 of delight on their Uack and unhandsome but good- 

 humoured countenances. Their broadest errins were 

 elicited by my three lemon-and-white spaniels, when 

 they sat up in line to beg — " Wah Kookur ! Koo-oo- 

 Koo-ra ! " exclaimed among them, testifying their 

 delight ; and when the visitors who had been initiated 

 to this awful mystery were excluded from the hut to 

 let me have a sleep, I saw them, through the leafy 

 wall, form a deputation from the whole population 

 of the place, to solicit my dog-boy to give one more 

 exhibition, by the aid of a bone, of the wonderful 

 performing " kookurs." For days afterwards fresh 

 parties of these simple savages used to come up to my 

 tent on the hill, and sit down over against me in the 

 hope of seeing the wonderful spectacle, the news of 

 which was carried, I believe, to the uttermost ends 

 of this wilderness. When our elephants arrived from 

 below with my tent and things (there was a pathway 

 as far as the village), all the Bhiimiiis saluted them 

 by placing a hand on their broad foot|)rints and then 

 touching their foreheads. The wild elephants were 

 truly, as they said, the rajas and demons of their 

 country at that time, wandering whither they listed, 

 and devastating their fields of hill rice at will. So, as 

 usual with the offensive powers of nature among these 

 tribes, they were ranked and propitiated as an expression 

 of the Deity. The next morning I was carried up to 

 the top of the hill, where my tent had been pitched 

 under a shady tree by the banks of a small tank, which 

 in olden days had been excavated for a supply of water 

 to the fort. The way up was a steep zigzag of 730 

 feet. Near the top a clear scarp of light gray rock 



