160 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTRAL INDIA. 



and other public works, which have marked the last decade, 

 have also much increased the demand for labour ; and even 

 the natural produce of these central wilds has acquired a 

 commercial value which it never before possessed. Before I 

 left India, the agents of Bombay mercantile houses were 

 probing the recesses of my district (Nimar) in search of 

 various articles of natural production which had suddenly 

 become valuable for export, such as the oil-yielding seeds 

 of the Mhowa (Bassia latifolia), and the pure gum of the 

 DMora (Conocarpus latifolius). Altogether a new era has 

 dawned for these " children of the forest." The relation 

 between labour and capital, long unfavourable to the former, 

 has been reversed, and hard rupees are finding their way into 

 the hills of G6ndwana, to the material improvement of 

 the circumstances of its denizens, instead of the poisonous 

 liquor which was fast hurrying them to destruction. Their 

 contact with the Hindu races was long to them nothing but 

 a curse ; but there is now a general agreement of opinion 

 that of late they have been fast improving, both in well- 

 being and in character. Where they still continue to work 

 as farm-servants they receive better wages, and save some- 

 thing out of them ; and, either from such savings or from 

 their large earnings on the railway works, many have found 

 the means to settle down as small farmers on their own 

 account. Even as borrowers their credit is much improved. 

 A great deal of capital is now seeking the profitable invest- 

 ment offered by agriculture ; and loans are given on easier 

 terms even to these still somewhat unreliable settlers. " The 

 high price obtainable for oil-seeds of late years has perhaps 

 done more towards this than anything else. It takes a mere 

 handful of seed to sow an acre of tillee (sesamum) ; it flou- 

 rishes with the rudest tillage on half-cleared land, for which 



