THE ABOEIGINAL TEIBES. 165 



improved machinery for the disposal of such cases, we should 

 accordingly require some system of compulsory registration 

 of agreements between such parties, without which no claim 

 should be enforced. In fine, our system is too sharp and 

 swift for these people. The dwellers in the plains may be 

 left to adjust themselves to its requirements : they are clever 

 enough to protect themselves. But it is death to the honest, 

 timid, and unsettled aboriginal. 



But to return to my doings at Puchmurree, after this long 

 digression. Towards the end of February numbers of Hindu 

 pilgrims from the plains to the great shrine of Siva in the 

 Mahadeo hills began to pass my camp. They usually encamp 

 at the foot of the hill below the shrine ; and, besides the road 

 over the plateau, come by a way which leads through the 

 Denwa valley below the Puchmurree scarp. Several other 

 roads lead in from the south, all of which are rugged and 

 difficult, and are traversed in fear and trembling by the 

 pilgrims. About this time I crossed over from Puchmurree 

 to visit the opposite plateau of Motur, which was also at 

 that time under examination as a possible site for a sani- 

 tarium in these provinces. The Denwa valley lay between, 

 necessitating a descent and ascent of about 2500 feet each 

 way. On my return from Motur on the 26th of February I 

 found the little plain in the Denwa valley below the shrine, 

 through which my road lay, swarming with the pilgrims, some 

 forty thousand of whom had collected in this lonely valley in 

 a few days, and were now crowding up into the ravine where 

 the cave is situated a ravine through which a week or two 

 before I had tracked a herd of bison ! 



Most of these annual gatherings of pilgrims are, to the ma- 

 jority of the Hindus who attend them, very much what race- 

 meetings and cattle-shows are to the more practical English- 



