134 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTRAL INDIA 



to be expected. But the general efiect lias been very marked : 

 the " intractable foresters " have shown a ready acquiescence 

 in arrangements, the object and necessity of which were 

 carefully shown to them ; and year by year the influence of 

 law is more fuUy acknowledged and felt in the forest regions. 

 The habits of the aborigines are now greatly changed 

 for the better. Excessive and constant drunkenness is almost 

 unknown, though drinking to a greater extent than is good 

 for them on occasions has not entirely ceased. The whole 

 of their earnings is not now dissipated in drink; and the 

 accumulation of the little capital needed to start cultivation 

 on a more regular system is now possible to them all. An 

 immense assistance in this respect has been derived from 

 the great enhancement in the value of all agricultural pro- 

 duce, consequent on the opening up of the country and the 

 American War. Large areas in the west of India, which 

 formerly yielded cereals, have been devoted to the pro- 

 duction of cotton, and a great extension of cultivation to 

 supply the consequent scarcity of food-grains has taken place, 

 and is still progressing, wherever the country is fitted by 

 proper communications to yield an exportable supply. The 

 great imdertaMngs in railways, and other public works, 

 which have marked the last decade, have also much increased 

 the demand for labour; and even the natural produce of 

 these central wilds has acquired a commercial value which 

 it never before possessed. Before I left India, the agents of 

 Bombay mercantile houses were probing the recesses of my 

 district (Nimar) in search of various articles of natural pro- 

 duction which had suddenly become valuable for export, 

 such as the oil-yielding seeds of the Mhowa {Bassia latifolia), 

 and the pure gum of the Dhaora {Conocarpus latifolius). 

 Altogether a new era has dawned for these " children of the 

 forest." The relation between labour and capital, long 

 unfavourable to the former, has been reversed, and hard 

 rupees are finding their way into the hiUs of Gondwana, to 

 the material improvement of the circumstances of its denizens, 

 instead of the poisonous liquor which was fast hurrying them 

 to destruction. Their contact with the Hindu races was 

 long to them nothing but a curse ; but there is now a general 

 agreement of opinion that of late they have been fast improv- 



