THE SAL FOEESTS 311 



of some special industry wHch. will attract the European 

 energy and capital which, alone can ever efEect the move- 

 ment of Indian labour in large bodies from one part of 

 the country to another. That there are such industries 

 capable of introduction there cannot be a doubt. 



At present cattle-breeding would seem to be the most 

 promising opening, both because it wants the fewest 

 hands, and because the absence of roads is of less conse- 

 quence in such a business. 



Before leaving the subject of these waste lands, I should 

 refer to the only attempt ever made to form a settle- 

 ment in them under European supervision, and which 

 ended in lamentable failure. Some thirty years ago four 

 German missionaries attempted to form a colony among 

 the aboriginal tribes, on the Moravian system, in one of 

 these upland valleys. They selected a spot just under 

 the Amarkantak plateau, near a small village called 

 Karinjea, in the middle of a fine plain of rich soil, a few 

 miles south of the Narbada. The place had an elevation 

 of about 2700 feet, and was well situated in every respect 

 but one. In a country abounding with shade and water, 

 they pitched on a bare mound without an evergreen 

 tree, and more than two miles distant from the nearest 

 running water. They went out in the hot weather, and 

 failed to prepare sufficient shelter before the arrival of 

 the rainy season. Thus they remained exposed to constant 

 damp and cold winds, and dependent for their water on 

 a small stagnant pool polluted by the drainage of decaying 

 vegetation. The result was death from cholera, or some 

 other mahgnant bowel-complaint, of three out of the 

 four, and the retreat of the only survivor. However 

 worthy of praise, such an enterprise cannot be looked 

 on as a fair experiment. But it cast a gloom over the 

 prospect of further attempts of the same sort, and has 

 never again been repeated. The example of the missions 

 to the Kols of Bengal and the Karens of Burma, where 

 the combination of profitable industrial enterprise with 

 theological teaching has been found to be singularly 

 efEective in the propagation of the Gospel among aboriginal 

 races, may point to the desirabihty of some such system 



