THE MiHADEO HILLS 73 



Meanwhile we sat in our tree and smoked, and very cold 

 and disagreeable it was, though, tolerably dry. With the 

 help of the Korkils the little tent was soon pitched, and 

 I transferred myself and dogs to its shelter, while a fire 

 was lit in the hollow of the banyan, and the natives were 

 soon crouching over it as jolly as sand-boys; while my 

 servant plucked and grilled over its embers one of the 

 spur fowl I had shot as a " spatch-cock." About mid- 

 night the rain ceased, and the sky cleared. It was an 

 excessively cold night; and when I got up shivering in 

 the morning I found my men had stayed up the greater 

 part of the night by the fire for the sake of the 

 warmth. 



The morning broke fine and bright, however, and I 

 started off for a ramble over the plateau. In passing 

 through the swamp below the tent, the dogs put up, and 

 I shot several couples of snipe, and among them a fine 

 specimen of the solitary or wood snipe.^ This fine snipe 

 is of rare occurrence in Central India, and in fact I have 

 only met with it on one other occasion, in the Mandla 

 district. I suspect this is the bird that has stood for the 

 woodcock in the stories told of the latter's occurrence in 

 the Central Provinces; for though I have hunted every 

 likely spot in the hills for the latter bird, I never found a 

 single one of them. 



There were two small settlements of Korkiis on the 

 plateau : one at Puchmurree itself, and another about a 

 mile to the north of it. The former was the larger of the 

 two, consisting of about thirty houses, and, besides the 

 Thakur, a few families of traders from the plains lived in 

 it. The functions exercised by these Hindii dealers in 

 the rural economy of the aborigines will form the subject 

 of some remarks further on. 



A brother of the Thakur of Puchmurree accompanied 

 me in my ramble, a fine, athletic, intelligent young fellow 

 of eighteen or twenty, and an ardent sportsman, who 

 was afterwards my guide over the whole of this wonderful 

 mass of mountains. We were out nearly all day, the 

 succession of fine views from the difEerent heights and 

 1 Gallinago nemoricola. 



