374 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTEAL INDIA. 



they have not been found to constitute any serious obstacle to 

 the steady advancement of population and tillage. 



I have thus remarked at considerable length on the pros- 

 pects, of this tract, because it furnishes an excellent though 

 perhaps extreme example of the difficulties in the way of 

 reclaiming the waste regions of these highlands. Many other 

 tracts besides this are almost similarly circumstanced, though 

 perhaps there are none which can be compared with it in 

 extent and importance, or in the advantages it offers to the 

 settler, and especially to the European settler. I am not one 

 of those who believe that Europeans can ever labour profit- 

 ably with their own hands in the " plains" of India ; and even 

 at this elevation I believe that the power of the sun, although 

 much alleviated by the coolness of the breezes, the low tem- 

 perature of the nights, and the freshness of the vegetation, 

 would still be prohibitive of severe manual labour by natives 

 of a temperate region. But I think that we have here a tract 

 eminently fitted to yield results from the application of Euro- 

 pean energy, intelligence, and capital to the supervision and 

 direction of native labour. 



The great difficulty would be to obtain the labour to super- 

 vise. I doubt if the regular Hindu cultivators of the plains 

 outside could be induced to move into these wilds by any 

 temptation, so long as they can obtain a pittance where they 

 are. The aborigines are too timid and unstable to furnish 

 reliable workmen. I would rather look to the teeming mil- 

 lions of the coast districts to furnish the needful supply of 

 labourers, if these inland wastes are to be reclaimed within any 

 reasonable period of time. It really seems to be matter for 

 astonishment that these littoral races have for many years 

 shown themselves to be ready to cross the seas to the West 

 Indies, the Mauritius, and other distant countries, and have 



