192 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTRAL INDIA 



hood, with instructions to mark any sambar they may see 

 on the way from their feeding grounds to the midday 

 resting place. When deer are observed one should remain 

 to watch them, while the other hastens with the news to 

 some weU-marked central point, whither the sportsman 

 himself must leisurely proceed, starting half an hour or 

 so before daybreak, accompanied by one or two of the 

 wild men. It is very likely he may fall in with a deer 

 himself by the way, and get a stalk ; but if not some of the 

 scouts are almost certain to bring information in time to 

 get at the deer before they have lain down. This method 

 of scouting also succeeds well with bison in thin jimgles 

 where they are sometimes found ; and I do not know any 

 place where the sport of stalking the bison and sambar 

 in this fashion can be followed with better chance of 

 success than in the jungles on either side of the upper 

 Tapti valley. Indeed, the very best of this sport can be 

 had within an easy morning's ride of the large city of 

 Burhanpiir, in the Nimar district, situated on the TaptI, 

 a few miles below the point where the narrow rugged 

 valley opens out into a wide basin of fertile and highly 

 cultivated black soil. Here the Tapti is joined by the 

 Mona, a beautiful stream which flows clear and sparkhng 

 out of a branch of the Satpiira range called the Hatti 

 hills. It is one of the most singular parts of the great 

 basaltic formation, and forms the extreme westerly 

 termination of the highland region I am describing. 



In the end of February we rode out from Burhanpiir 

 to our camp, which was pitched at the last village in the 

 open plain. Next morning a small tent was sent up to 

 a little fort called Gharri, that crowns the northern face 

 of the Hatti range, and we ourselves took different lines 

 through the hiUs on foot to the same place. The in- 

 habitants of these hills are all Bheels, a good deal spoilt 

 by "civilisation," being mostly lazy and thriftless, and 

 confirmed opium eaters. They are the descendants of 

 ancestors who were nominally converted to Mahomedanism 

 in the days when a strong Moslem power was estabhshed 

 at Burhanpiir, but now retain scarcely anything of their 

 faith besides the name of the Prophet and the practice 



