30 THE HIGHLANDS OF CBNTEAL INDIA 



allowable or even proper for the civil oflScer, who has 

 the dignity of his office to maintain, while traversing 

 slowly a populous and well-supplied district of the plains. 

 But the hardship of such an infliction on scattered tribes 

 of poor and resourceless aborigines is sometimes forcibly 

 brought home to the invaders, by finding the country, 

 as they advance, utterly deserted in their track. When 

 I come to describe the extreme poverty in resource of 

 these outlying tracts, this circumstance will perhaps be 

 more easy to realise. 



In my shooting excursions I had always marched with 

 only a single small tent, about eight feet square, of the sort 

 called a Pdl, which is composed of two or three thicknesses 

 of common double-thread country cloth, sewn together, 

 and thrown over a ridge-pole on two uprights, all of the 

 hollow (female) bamboo, which combines strength with 

 lightness in the highest possible degree. It has no doors 

 nor windows, but one of the gable ends (so to speak) is 

 slit up the middle and fitted with stout laces in case of 

 storms. In ordinary weather this end is kept open to 

 the breeze except at night, and such a tent really afiords 

 ample protection and accommodation to the traveller who 

 has no heavy indoor business to do, unless perhaps in 

 the extreme hot weather when no trees are available to 

 pitch it under. It affords room enough for a fight folding 

 bedstead of bamboo, a cane stool, a small folding table, 

 a brass basin and stand, and your portmanteau and guns, 

 which is all the furnishing that the mere sportsman or 

 explorer should require. All this, with a good supply of 

 such eatables and drinkables as are not to be had in the 

 wilderness, will go on a good camel; and such had been 

 the extent of my personal requirements during many a 

 rough expedition and hunting trip before the present 

 march. On this occasion I added another tent twelve 

 feet square, for the servants and a few newly-entertained 

 native foresters who were to assist in my explorations; 

 and we were also furnished with a somewhat larger double- 

 roofed tent by the Government, which was to be pitched 

 on the hill as a depot while the contemplated masonry 

 lodge was being erected. To carry these additional 



