THE NARBADA VALLEY 63 



country sliows every sign of having been derived from 

 tlie wild race originally. 



My march down the Narbada valley led along the 

 tortuous and rugged cart track, through the deep black 

 loam of the surrounding fields, which, before the con- 

 struction of the railway, was the only means of com- 

 munication through these fertile districts. Broken carts 

 strewed the roadside, and clumps of thorny acacias 

 overgrew the path. These were justly called the " cotton 

 thief " by the people, their branches being laden with 

 bunches of the fibre dear to Manchester, torn by their 

 thorns from the unpressed bales, as they lumbered along 

 on antediluvian buffalo carts towards the distant coast. 



Large gangs of aboriginal Gonds from the nearer hill 

 tracts were labouring on the railway works. The really 

 wild tribes of the interior of the hills were not yet 

 attracted by the labour market in the plains, preferring 

 a dinner of jungle herbs and their squalid freedom to 

 plenty earned by steady toil under the eye of the foreign 

 taskmaster. But the semi-Hindii tribes of the border- 

 land, who are now the most numerous of the race, and 

 whom long contact with the people of the plains has 

 imbued with wants and tendencies strange to their wilder 

 brethren, have reaped a rich harvest from this sudden 

 demand for labour arising at their doors. How far it 

 has been to them an unmixed advantage will be discussed 

 further on. As labourers, their innate distaste to steady 

 toil, born of long years of a semi-nomadic existence, 

 renders them inferior to the regular Maratha navvy of 

 the Deccan, who is also their superior in muscular power, 

 and can double the wages of any Gond at this sort of 

 work. 



On the 25th of January I quitted the main road down 

 the valley, near the little civil station of Narsingpur, and 

 struck off nearly at right angles to the south, marching 

 direct for the hills that bounded the horizon in that 

 direction. About half-way through the march of fifteen 

 miles, the level deep black soil of the valley began to 

 give place to a red gravelly tract of undulating conforma- 

 tion ; and numerous fine Mhowa trees, forming groups that 



