THE SAL FORESTS. 379 



one or two particular beds of his garden, because they had 

 previously been neglected in favour of the others, and yielded 

 no income towards his general funds. 



Before leaving the subject of these waste lands, I should 

 refer to the only attempt ever made to form a settlement 

 in them under European supervision, and which ended in 

 lamentable failure. Some thirty years ago four German 

 missionaries attempted to form a colony among the abori- 

 ginal tribes, on the Moravian system, in one of these upland 

 valleys. They selected a spot just under the Amarkantals 

 plateau, near a small village called Karinjed,, in the middle 

 of a fine plain of rich soil, a few miles south of the Narbada. 

 The place had an elevation of about 2,700 feet, and was well 

 situated in every respect but one. In a country abounding 

 with shade and water they pitched on a bare mound without 

 an evergreen tree, and more than two miles distant from the 

 nearest running water. They went out in the hot weather, 

 and failed to prepare sufficient shelter before the arrival of 

 the rainy season. Thus they remained exposed to constant 

 damp and cold winds, and dependent for their water on a 

 small stagnant pool polluted by the drainage of decaying 

 vegetation. The result was the death from cholera, or some 

 other malignant bowel-complaint, of three out of the four, 

 and the retreat of the only survivor. However worthy of 

 praise, such an enterprise cannot be looked on as a fair 

 experiment. But it cast a gloom over the prospect of further 

 attempts of the same sort, and has never again been re- 

 peated. The example of the missions to the Kols of Bengal 

 and the Karens of Burma, where the combination of profit- 

 able industrial enterprise with theological teaching has been 

 found to be singularly effective in the propagation of the 

 Gospel among aboriginal races, may point to the desirability 



