PRIMITIVE TREATMENT OF FORESTS. 67 



languages. ' They are a better-looking people than the 

 slaves, but they are ill-clothed, nasty, and apparently 

 ill-fed. They collect drugs for the trader, to whom they 

 are let ; and receive from him a subsistence, when they 

 can procure for him anything of value. He has the exclu- 

 sive right of purchasing all that they have for sale, and of 

 supplying them with salt and other necessaries. A great 

 part of their food consists of wild yams (dioscoreas), which 

 they dig when they have nothing to give to the trader 

 for rice. They cultivate some small spots after the Cotu- 

 cadu fashion, both on their own account and on that of the 

 neighbouring farmers, who receive the produce, and give 

 the Malasirs hire. The articles cultivated in this manner 

 are ragi (cynosurus corocanus) } avary (dolichos labial)), and 

 tonda (ricinus palma Christi). They are also hired to cut 

 timber and firewood. In this province they pay nothing 

 to Government.' 



Writing of Cherical in Malabar, he tells: 'The hill 

 lands that have been cleared are called Pai-wnba, as in the 

 south ; but there are certain hills that are covered with 

 woods and bushes, and called ponna. The natural produce 

 of these is of no value ; but once in ten years the bushes 

 are cut and burned. The ground is then hoed, and sown 

 with a kind of rice called coiwilla ; along with which are 

 intermixed some tovary (cytisus cajan], and cotton. In 

 fact, this cultivation is the same with the Cotu-cadu of 

 Mysore ; and is said to be that which is chiefly used in 

 the interior parts of Cherical and Cotay-Hutty ; that is to 

 say, in the northern parts of Malayala, where the cultiva- 

 tion of the valleys is much neglected. This kind of land 

 pays four-tenths of the produce as rent (varum) } of which 

 one-half is equal to the negadi, or land tax/ 



Of Cherical he tells that ' all the eastern parts are con- 

 tinuous forest, interspersed occasionally by slips of low, 

 rich rice-lands from 100 to 300 yards broad.' And again : 

 ' after deducting the third part of Cherical, too barren for 

 cultivation, and the small quantity of low rice land, all the 



