84 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTRAL INDIA 



of the latter, thousands have been levelled by the axe of 

 the Gond and Korku. In fact I can say, from an ex- 

 perience reaching over every teak tract in these hills, 

 that, excepting a few preserved by private proprietors, no 

 teak forest ever escaped this treatment, imless so situated 

 in ravines or on precipitous hill-sides as to make it 

 unprofitable to make dhya clearings on its site. 



The system of cultivation thus adopted by the wild 

 tribes, which seems to be a natural consequence of their 

 want of agricultural stock, necessitates a more or less 

 nomadic habit of life. The larger villages, where the 

 chief of a sept, and the Hindii traders who effect their 

 small exchanges, reside, is usually the only stable settle- 

 ment in a whole tract; the rest of the people spreading 

 themselves about in small hamlets of five or six families, 

 at such intervals as will give each a sufiicient range of 

 jungle for several years of dhya cutting. Their huts are 

 of the most temporary character, and made from materials 

 found on the spot — a few upright posts, interlaced with 

 split bamboos, plastered with mud, and thatched with the 

 broad leaves of the teak, and an upper layer of grass. It 

 costs them but the work of a day or two to shift such a 

 settlement as this in accordance with the changes of their 

 dhya sites. 



The system of cultivation, if it can be so termed, I have 

 thus described is of course of the most precarious character. 

 The holding off of raui for a few weeks after the seed is 

 sown, or when the ear is forming,, will ruin the whole, and 

 then the owner may be compelled to subsist entirely on 

 what always largely supplements his diet — ^the wild fruits 

 and products of the forest. Nature has been very bounti- 

 ful in these forests in her supply of food for their wild 

 human denizens. Many species of tree and bush ripen a 

 wholesome and palatable fruit in their season; and the 

 earth supplements the supply by many nourishing roots. 

 The Mhowa flower before referred to (p. 64), the plum of 

 the ebony tree {Dios'pyros melanoxylon), and the fruit of 

 the wild mango, are the staples in these hills. The berries 

 of the Chironji {Buchanania latifolia), and the Ber {Zizy- 

 fhus ju'juba), the seeds of the Sal (^horea rohusta), the 



