THE ABORIGINAL TEIBES. 161 



no rent is usually paid for the first three years ; and it is cut 

 and sold by the beginning of November. I know two ' un- 

 encumbered' Korkus who in 1867 cleared thirty acres of 

 light land, and sowed it with tillee. They borrowed 

 80 rupees (8) to buy bullocks and implements, and two 

 manees (1,920 lb.) of jowaree (millet) to eat. The interest 

 on the money-debt was 20 rupees, and, as usual, double the 

 quantity of grain had to be paid back at harvest. They had 

 no other expenses, no rent being charged, and they themselves 

 doing all the labour. The produce was 75 maunds (6,150 lb.) 

 of oil-seed, which sold for 215 rupees (21 10s.), from which 

 they repaid the 80 rupees worth of grain and 100 rupees in 

 cash, leaving them gainers of 35 rupees (3 10s.), after paying 

 off the whole of their debt. Thus they got a stocked farm, 

 free from debt, in a single season, by their own manual 

 labour alone, which would afterwards yield them at least 

 10 apiece per annum, or much more than they could live on 

 in comfort. The money-lender at the same time cleared 40 

 per cent, on his money in eight months." * Such a farm as 

 this may appear rather a miserable little affair to the English 

 reader ; but such are the units of which the vast extent of 

 Indian tillage is made up ; and to obtain possession of such a 

 holding, with its slender stock, is an object of ambition to 

 millions of labourers for a bare subsistence. 



There can be small room for doubt that the permeation of 

 these aboriginal tribes with Hindu ideas, manners, and religion 

 is steadily progressing; and it may be hoped that this influ- 

 ence is now working rather for the better than for the worse. 

 The flighty, debauched, half-tamed G6nd was a being much 

 deteriorated from his original state of rude simplicity ; but the 



* Extract from a Report, by the writer, on the Settlement of the Nimar 

 District. 



M 



