THE TEAK EEGION 181 



performed with, the bullock plough instead of the axe, and 

 is of a much more permanent character. Their villages 

 and houses are much more substantial, and are seldom 

 changed; and habits of providence and steady industry 

 have been developed among them which are unknown to 

 either Gond or Korku of other parts. Much of this may, 

 no doubt, be due to their fortunate occupation of a country 

 where cultivation by annual cutting down the forest is 

 scarcely possible, owing to the scantiness of timber and 

 of soil on the slopes of the hills, while the neighbourhood 

 of so large a city as Burhanpiir must always have furnished 

 them with a regular and remunerative market for their 

 produce. 



The grass-burning, universal in the jungles of these 

 provinces, is undoubtedly beneficial in a great variety of 

 ways. It allows, and assists by the manure of the ashes, 

 a crop of green and tender grass-shoots to appear for the 

 grazing of vast herds of cattle, which form great part of 

 the wealth of the people in the neighbourhood of jungle 

 tracts. It kills multitudes of snakes and noxious insects. 

 It probably prevents much malaria that would arise 

 from the vegetation if gradually allowed to decay. It 

 destroys much of the harbour for wild beasts. And the 

 ashes no doubt form a valuable ingredient in the deposits 

 of soil carried down by the drainage of these hills to lower 

 regions, and in the cultivable crust gradually forming in 

 these uplands themselves. It has been held by some that 

 these fires are very injurious to the growth of saphngs of 

 teak and other valuable trees. But it is an undoubted 

 fact that teak seeds will germinate and produce seedlings 

 where the grass has been fired better than where it has not ; 

 and it is not well established that much permanent injucy 

 is afterwards done to the seedlings. 



The labour of exploring such forests as those I have 

 described during the hot season, when alone they are 

 sufficiently open and free from malaria, is immense — 

 day after day toihng over those interminable basaltic 

 ridges, where many marches have often to be made without 

 meeting an inhabitant, without often a single green tree 

 for shelter, and dependent for water on a few stagnant 



