128 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTEAL INDIA 



many cases practically even of their personal liberty. Inferior 

 races give way before superior whenever they meet; and 

 whether, as here and in America, the instrument selected 

 be " fire-water," or as in New Zealand, it be our own favourite 

 recipe of powder and lead, the result is the same. 



The case of the Gond has hitherto httle difiered, whether 

 he has preferred to cling to his rugged hills and struggle 

 with nature, or has remained on the edge of civihsation 

 and toiled for the superior races. Everywhere the aboriginal 

 is the pioneer of the more settled races in their advance 

 against the wilderness. His capacity for toil that would 

 break the heart of a Hindii, his enduiance of malaria, and 

 his fearlessness of the jungle, eminently qualify him for 

 this function ; and his thriftlessness and hatred of being long 

 settled in a locahty as certainly ensure the fruits of his labour 

 reverting as a permanency to the settled races of the plains. 

 The process is everywhere much the same. The frontier 

 villages in the possession of Hindu landholders, or of the 

 G6nd Thakiirs, or chiefs, usually comprehend large areas of 

 culturable but uncleared land, and there are always numbers 

 of the aborigines floating about such frontiers, earning a 

 precarious livehhood by wood-cutting and occasional jobs, 

 or working as farm-servants, who can be induced to break 

 it up. They have, of course, no capital, and seldom any 

 seciarity to offer; and the risk of loss must therefore be 

 borne by the landholder. He either lends money himself 

 for the purchase of a plough and pair of bullocks, and the 

 other small farm-stock required to commence with, or 

 becomes security for such a loan borrowed from the bariker 

 who is found in every circle of villages, with money always 

 ready to be lent -on any such speculation. The interest 

 charged on such a money loan is never less than twenty-four 

 per cent, per annum. Seed grain has also to be borrowed ; 

 and this, as well as sufficient food to last the cultivator tiU 

 his crop is ready, is generally borrowed in kind, the arrange- 

 ment being that double the quantity borrowed shall be 

 repaid at harvest time. As grain is cheaper at harvest than 

 at seed time, this does not quite represent a hundred per cent, 

 interest ! Such rates of interest seem high, but the risk of 

 such speculations is very great, the principal being not 



