340 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTRAL INDIA 



grins were elicited by my three lemon-and-wliite spaniels, 

 when they sat up in line to beg — " Wah Kookur ! Koo-oo- 

 Koo-ra 1 " exclaimed among them, testifying their dehght; 

 and when the visitors who had been initiated to this awful 

 mystery were excluded from the hut to let me have a sleep, 

 I saw them, through the leafy wall, form a deputation 

 from the whole population of the place, to solicit my dog- 

 boy to give one more exhibition, by the aid of a bone, of 

 the wonderful performing " kookurs." For days after- 

 wards fresh parties of these simple savages used to come 

 up to my tent on the hiU, and sit down over against me in 

 the hope of seeing the wonderful spectacle, the news of 

 which was carried, I believe, to the uttermost ends of this 

 wilderness. When our elephants arrived from below with 

 my tent and things (there was a pathway as far as the 

 village), all the Bhumias saluted them by placing a hand 

 on their broad footprints and then touching their fore- 

 heads. The wild elephants were truly, as they said, the 

 rajas and demons of their country at that time, wandering 

 whither they listed, and devastating their fields of hill-rice 

 at will. So, as usual with the ofiensive powers of natuie 

 among these tribes, they were ranked and propitiated as 

 an expression of the Deity. The next morning I was 

 carried up to the top of the hill, where my tent had been 

 pitched under a shady tree by the banks of a small tank, 

 which in olden days had been excavated for a supply of 

 water to the fort. The way up was a steep zigzag of 730 

 feet. Near the top a clear scarp of light gray rock rises 

 out of the sloping forest-covered hill-side, sweeping right 

 round the hiU, an inaccessible barrier excepting at the 

 point we ascended, where a pathway has been formed by 

 excavation and piling up huge blocks of rocks. The 

 entrance itself lay through a massive double gateway of 

 great blocks, laid without mortar ; and a low wall, of siroilar 

 cyclopean structure, had surmounted the top of the preci- 

 pice. Much of this had now fallen into ruins, which could 

 be seen lying in great heaps in the jungle below; but in 

 some places, particularly at the bastions, it was still almost 

 complete. The top was a tolerably level plateau, broken 

 by a few knolls, and was at that time covered by long 



