350 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTEAL INDIA 



tree to barter for the few necessaries of life not produced 

 by their wilds with the traders who reside at the head- 

 quarters of their Thakurs. They have scarcely an idea 

 of the use of coined money, the rare rupees that reach 

 them being pierced and worn as ornaments by the women. 

 They are said to have, besides their httle hamlets in the 

 forest, a retreat in some still more secluded wild, known 

 only to the family it belongs to, in which aU their worldly 

 substance beyond a few days' supply is kept, and to which 

 they are ready to fly at a moment's notice. The sal forest 

 has thus escaped much of the devastation it has suffered 

 where the tribe is more numerous, and where they cut it 

 down for dhya cultivation. Many of the trees are annually 

 ringed for the extraction of dammer ; but the forest is too 

 extensive to be much injured by the operations of this 

 handful of savages; and as it is the oldest trees that are 

 selected, which, if not cut down, soon become useless from 

 heart-shake and dry-rot (a peculiarity of the sal), probably 

 little harm is done by them in so remote and inaccessible 

 a region. The general elevation of the country we traversed 

 is about 1700 feet above the sea. It is very level, and with 

 a light porous soil formed by the detritus of the primitive 

 rocks which here mostly "he near the surface. The water- 

 courses are broad, shallow, and sandy, showing that large 

 floods do not occur. Thus in the summer there is little 

 or no water on the surface, but a httle below it the soU is 

 everywhere full of moisture; and the brilUant greenery 

 of the sal forest thus plentifully supphed with sap, melting 

 in the distant vistas with starthng rapidity into wonderful 

 blues, is unspeakably dehcious at that torrid season of the 

 year. Wild animals are very scarce, owing to the absence 

 of water, though in the rainy season elephants, buffaloes, 

 bison, and innumerable red deer are reported to frequent 

 the forest. In this march the dainty footmarks of a few 

 four-horned antelopes at the water-holes, the voice of the 

 cuckoo in the early morning, and rare ghmpses of some 

 hornbiU or woodpecker glancing among the foliage of the 

 sal, was aU the sign we saw of the presence of animal hfe. 

 It is very difl&cult to ascertain distances in these exten- 

 sive level forests, where there are no eminences from 



