THE NARBADA VALLEY 65 



eating animal and bird incessantly endeavours to fill itself 

 witt Mhowa during its flowering season. Sambar, nilgae, 

 and bears appear to lose their natural apprehensions of 

 danger in some degree during the Mhowa season; and 

 the most favourable chances of shooting them are then 

 obtained. The trees have to be watched night and day 

 if the crop is to be saved; and the wilder races, who 

 fear neither wild beast nor evil spirit, are generally 

 engaged to do this for a wage of one-half the produce. 

 The yield of flowers from a single tree is about 130 lbs., 

 worth flve shillings in the market; and the nuts, which 

 form in bimches after the dropping of the flowers, yield 

 a thick oil, much resembling tallow in appearance and 

 properties. It is used for burning, for the manufacture 

 of soap, and in adulterating the clarified butter so largely 

 consumed by all natives. A demand for it has lately 

 sprung up in the Bombay market; and a good deal has 

 been exported since the opening of the railway. The supply 

 must be immense ; and probably this new demand will be 

 the means of greatly increasing the value of the trees. 



I encamped at the end of this march at a place called 

 Mohpani, the scene of the works of the " Nerbudda Coal 

 and Lron Company." Most of the miners employed at 

 that time were Gonds, whose courage in diving into the 

 bowels of the earth was found to be superior to that of 

 other races. The universal pantheism of the Gond stands 

 him in good stead on such occasions. From his cradle 

 he has looked on every rock, stream, and cavern as tenanted 

 by its pecuhar spirit, whom it is only needful to propitiate 

 in a simple fashion to make all safe. So he just touches 

 with vermilion the rock he is about to blow into a thousand 

 fragments with a keg of powder, lays before it a handful 

 of rice and a nutshell full of Mhowa spirit, and lo ! the 

 god of the coal-mine is sufficiently satisfied to permit 

 his simple worshipper to hew away as he pleases at his 

 residence. If utility is, as some have thought, a good 

 quality in religions, surely we have it in perfection in a 

 pliable belief like this. 



Near Mohpani is one of the best snipe jheels in the 

 province. I went out to it in the afternoon with one 



