76 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTRAL INDIA. 



facture of soap, and in adulterating the clarified butter so 

 largely consumed by all natives. A demand for it has lately 

 sprung up in the Bombay market ; and a good deal has been 

 exported since the opening of the railway. The supply must 

 be immense ; and probably this new demand will be the 

 means of greatly increasing the value of the trees. 



I encamped at the end of this march at a place called 

 Mohpani, the scene of the works of the " Nerbudda Coal and 

 Iron Company/' Their labours have however as yet been con- 

 fined to the coal. This useful mineral has been now discovered 

 in numerous parts of the Central Provinces, of a quality con- 

 sidered equal to most Indian coals. When I visited the mines 

 at Mohpani, several trial shafts had been driven for some hun- 

 dreds of feet into the beds, and I believe there is no doubt 

 that an ample supply of coal for the railway could be obtained 

 from here. Other schemes have, however, since presented 

 themselves ; the management of the company's negociations 

 does not appear to have always been conducted with judg- 

 ment ; and it seems now to be doubtful whether their labour 

 and money have been laid out to great advantage. Most of 

 the miners employed at that time were Gonds, whose courage 

 in diving into the bowels of the earth was found to be 

 superior to that of other races. The universal pantheism of 

 the Gond stands him in good stead on such occasions. From 

 his cradle he has looked on every rock, stream, and cavern 

 as tenanted by its peculiar spirit, whom it is only needful 

 to propitiate in a simple fashion to make all safe. So he 

 just touches with vermillion the rock he is about to blow into 

 a thousand fragments with a keg of powder, lays before it 

 a handful of rice and a nutshell full of Mhowa spirit, and lo ! 

 the god of the coal mine is sufficiently satisfied to permit his 

 simple worshipper to hew away as he pleases at his residence. 



