174 GANJAM. 



Tobacco grows round every village in 

 these hills, and the Khonds smoke it 

 from their earliest childhood, and stick 

 their pipes and half-smoked cheroots 

 in their matted hair, having no other 

 pocket available. The Sourah, however, 

 as far as I observed, prefers to use his 

 tobacco in the form of snuff. Every man 

 of them carries somewhere about him a 

 tiny snuff-box, shaped like a humming- 

 top, and made from the rind of the 

 wood-apple ; it contains pale, high-dried 

 snuff, made from the baked stalk of the 

 leaf, and is very strong. There can be 

 little doubt that the free use of tobacco 

 in the feverish valleys of the Khond 

 plateau is a preservative from fever and 

 ague. 



The weapons of these tribes are the 



