CHAPTER XT. 



Origin of the Bheels : their Character Bear marked down Valley of Nimar 

 Bear bolted and slain Mowa Trees Sindwah Mekranee joins me 

 March to Teekree Hunt in the Boorar River Tigress slain Filtered 

 Water Runaway Elephant March to Khull Meet Hunt Move to 

 Dhurrempooree Panther smoked out and shot March to the Hills 

 Encounter with Bear Bappoo to the Rescue Close shooting Absence 

 of Pain in Fresh Wounds Habits of Bears and Young Move to Mund- 

 laisir Cold-water Dressing Recovery. 



IN the spring of 1857 I entered on the duties of an appoint- 

 ment under the agent to the Viceroy in Central India. This 

 entailed the political supervision of the country bordering on 

 the Nerbudda river, lying between Western Malwa and the 

 district of Khandesh in the Bombay Presidency. My head- 

 quarters were at Maunpore, fourteen miles south of the Mhow 

 cantonment. The northern part of my charge lay in the 

 Vindyah mountains, the southern was covered with heavy 

 jungle, terminating in the Satpoora hills, and between the two 

 ranges, 1600 feet below the crest of the Vindyah, flowed the 

 broad stream of the Nerbudda. 



The greater portion of the district was thinly peopled by 

 Bheels. Of these men, Sir John Malcolm, in his Memoir of 

 Central India, writes, " The Bheels are quite a distinct race 

 from any other Indian tribe, yet few among the latter have 

 higher pretensions to antiquity." According to popular tradi- 

 tion, the god " Mahadeo, when sick and unhappy, was one 

 day reclining in a shady forest, when a beautiful woman ap- 



