120 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTRAL INDIA. 



sitting; and it was no small labour to rouse and get them 

 together. A couple of days' supply of flour was served out 

 to each, as remuneration for their labour in the drive ; and 

 plenty more was promised if they would come and help to 

 build the lodge at Puchmurree. I also gratified the Chiefs by 

 presenting them with sundry canisters of powder and all my 

 spare bullets; and we parted, I believe, mutually pleased with 

 each other, and with promises of plenty more hunting-meets 

 of the same sort. I had had enough of that sort of sport, 

 however; and, excepting once with the TMkur of Almod, 

 never again drove the hills for game. It is poor sport in 

 my opinion, and is seldom very successful even in making 

 a bag. 



Two days after this parties of my aboriginal friends began 

 to drop in at the bungalow work ; and, as a few masons and 

 brickmakers had also arrived from the plains, our prospects 

 looked cheerful. The wild people brought their women and 

 children along with them, and in half a day erected huts of 

 boughs sufficient for their accommodation. They were all 

 told off in parties to cut and bring in Sal poles for rafters, and 

 bamboos and grass for thatching, to break and carry up lime 

 from the ravine, to puddle earth for brick-making, etc. The 

 wood-cutting part of the work they were well accustomed to ; 

 but those to whose lot fell the lime and earth business were 

 much disgusted, and were with difficulty kept to their work. 

 All payments were made in kind, the convoy of Banjara 

 bullocks being now unremittingly employed in carrying grain 

 from the plains. The work rapidly progressed, and was but 

 slightly interrupted by the absconding after a while ol all our 

 masons and brickmakers, who had very unwillingly come up 

 from the plains. Their places were at once taken by the 

 Gonds who had been employed under them, and whom I had 



