,102 HI| .HBSpi^NDS OF CENTRAL INDIA. 



remotest tracts of these liills with loads of salt, and taking 

 back forest produce in return. 



In the meantime I got up the remainder of my camp, 

 pitched the large tent, and erected a hut of wattle and daub 

 as a storehouse for the grain and tools, and made myself com- 

 fortable. At the same time I arranged for a few artificers, 

 carpenters, and masons, being sent up from the plains ; but 

 it was long before any of them could be induced to venture 

 into the dreaded region. Though the geological surveyor of 

 the Narbada valley had given no hope of limestone being 

 found in these hills, I discovered an excellent supply of it in 

 one of the deep glens a little below the scarp of the plateau. 

 After searching long and wearily for it in vain, and receiving 

 on all hands assurances that such a thing had never been 

 heard of, I was directed to the place by a Korku whom I 

 incidentally .saw in the unwonted occupation of chewing paun 9 

 in the composition of which lime has a place. I found a 

 huge block of pure white crystalline limestone jammed in the 

 bottom of this ravine ; and it is curious to conjecture by what 

 fortunate geological process this immense boulder of an article 

 without which building would be impossible at Puchmurree, 

 could have been brought and so conveniently deposited at an 

 elevation of at least 2000 feet above the nearest formation of 

 the kind. Though I believe I have at one time or other been 

 in almost every other ravine in these hills, I never found 

 another piece of limestone but one a smaller boulder of the 

 same sort, similarly situated, but at a rather lower elevation. 



The young Thdkur came back in a day or two, with about 



at some favourite grazing spot during the expeditions, where all return to 

 pass the rainy season and recruit their cattle. Though eminent in the art and 

 practice of highway robbery, the Ban j aids are scrupulously faithful in the execu- 

 tion of trusts, and are constantly employed in the interchange of commodities 

 between the open country and the forest tracts. 



