THE SAL FORESTS. 371 



primitive rocks deep below the flow of volcanic material that 

 has overlaid them. 



What, then, it may be asked, has so long excluded this 

 favoured region from colonisation ? The reply is simple, if 

 the old conception of India, as being a country thickly popu- 

 lated by industrious races in fabled ages of the past, be 

 exchanged for the truer one that in great part it is a young 

 country, only now beginning .to be occupied by the slow 

 expansion from the north of that Aryan element which alone 

 has anywhere opened out the dark regions of the earth. The 

 wave of population which, within these last three centuries, 

 has driven the wild elephant from the Lower Narbada* valley, 

 and planted a white expanse of wheat where grew the virgin 

 forest, has not yet reached this more secluded tract. There 

 are unusual obstacles to its doing so ; but these would not 

 long stand in the way, were the population outside to attain 

 the density and straitness of means sufficient to induce so 

 domestic and unad venturous a race as the Hindus to throw off 

 another swarm, as they did when they overleaped the Vindhya 

 range in their first great emigration from the Gangetic valley. 

 Their natural unprogressiveness is not now tempered, as of 

 yore, by the spur of foreign invasion or domestic oppression ; 

 and as yet they but thinly occupy the fertile regions of the 

 lower valley, scratching its rich soils for a poor return of five 

 or six fold, and with abundance of nearly as good waste land 

 still to break up not far from their doors. It is natural, no 

 doubt, for the superficial observer to exclaim against the 

 unimproved condition of these vast uplands, and to feel 

 astonished when he sees the most tempting offers fall fruit- 

 less on the ears of the neighbouring people. The explanation 

 is simply as I have said. The pressure of population outside 

 is not sufficient to induce them to attempt to meet the diffi- 



