BULLET AND SHOT 



very vague ; he is only too happy to obtain all the 

 advances which he may be able to extract, and such 

 ready cash enables him to fuddle himself by pur- 

 chasing and drinking the fermented juice of the 

 toddy-palm, in which his simple soul delights ; and 

 until the money so obtained has been exhausted, 

 not a single day's work will he do. His knowledge 

 of accounts is so limited, that he falls the easiest of 

 prey to the wily rogues who visit the forests with 

 stores of cloth to sell to the simple Kurrabas at ex- 

 orbitant prices, and happy the scoundrel who can 

 get the poor jungle men deeply in his debt. Fortu- 

 nately, however, he is sometimes checked in his 

 extortionate proceedings by his victims who have 

 probably already paid far more than full value for 

 what they have received leaving their humble 

 abodes, and going away to a distant forest, there 

 to make new homes for themselves, and to escape 

 from the extortions of their oppressor. The huts 

 in which the Kurrabas live are of the simplest 

 possible description. A few poles, some bamboos, 

 grass, and mud are all the materials required for 

 their construction ; and as they are very low and 

 small in size, the abandoning of one settlement, 

 or "hady," and the formation of one elsewhere, 

 entail but little labour upon these expert wood- 

 men. 



The State forests of this district consist, generally 

 speaking, of heavy forest ; while the district and 

 village forests, between them and the cultivation, are 

 of lighter growth, becoming sparser and poorer the 

 further they recede from the State forest line. 



416 



