300 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTEAL INDIA 



winter) it generally descends at night to freezing-point in 

 the open air, rising in a tent no higher than 65 degrees 

 or 70 degrees in the middle of the day. 



The country can scarcely be said to be populated at all, 

 except within a short distance of Mandla itself, where the 

 rich soil has been cultivated by an outlying colony of 

 Hindiis from the Lower Narbada valley. Mandla was at 

 one time the seat of one of the Gond-Eajpiit ruling dynas- 

 ties, and the remains of their forts and other buildings 

 still crown in crumbling decay the top of many a forest- 

 covered mound. 



The Gonds are here a very poor and subdued race, 

 long since weaned from their wild notions of freedom, with 

 its attendant hardships and seclusion; but still unreached 

 by the influence of the general advancement which has in 

 some measure redeemed them in most parts from their 

 state of practical serfdom to the superior races. They 

 usually plough with cattle, instead of depending on the 

 axe, and are nearly all hopelessly in debt to the money- 

 lenders, who speculate in the produce they raise. There 

 is no local market, and the difficulty of exporting grain 

 over the seventy or eighty irdles of atrocious road to the 

 open country is such that the prices obtained for their 

 produce are contemptible. They congregate in filthy 

 little villages, overrun by poultry and pigs, and innocent 

 of aU attempt at conservancy. 



Far superior to them in every respect are the still utterly 

 unreclaimed forest Bygas, another aboriginal race, whose 

 habitat is in the hills of the M;^kat range and its spurs, 

 which intersect these valleys. The same tribe extends 

 over a vast range of forest-covered country to the west 

 of Mandla, where we shall subsequently meet them again 

 tinder the name of Bhumias. A few have somewhat 

 modified their original habits, and live, along with the 

 Gonds, in villages lower down the valleys. These have 

 been shghtly tainted with Hindilism, shave their elfin 

 locks, and call themselves by a name denoting caste. But 

 the real Byga of the hill ranges is still almost in a state 

 of nature. They are very black, with an upright, slim, 

 though exceedingly wiry frame, and showing less of the 



