1865.] Notes of a tour in the Tributary Mehals. 5 
The appearance of the Bonai Kolitas reminded me very much of the 
Assam Kolitas, and I may mention that Ram Chunder, the seventh 
Avatar, is the favourite object of worship with both. 
Of the mineral and other resources of Bonai, I have not much to 
say. Iron is produced, but the hills are for the most part quite unex- 
plored, and their riches, if they possess any, unknown. The popula- 
tion, with so much room for expansion, does not increase. There are 
83 deserted village sites, and what are now small hamlets appear to 
have been at one time large villages. The cause is not apparent, as 
the people of the more civilized class are well to do and content, and 
rent is very low, and as in all the Tributary Mehals, fixed. It is 
Rs. 2-8 for a hull of 17 khundees. Nevertheless the chief tells me 
he is obliged to grant all manner of extraneous indulgences to his 
ryots to induce them to remain. 
Wild beasts are very numerous, and in their ravages lies one great 
difficulty that villages bordering on or in the jungles have to contend 
against—the ryots complain not of loss of life but of the destruction of 
crops. They say they have to raise grain for the beasts of the forest 
as well as for their own families. On this account very little cotton 
is cultivated, though the soil is well adapted for it. 
The store of Sal timber in Bonai is immense, but the isolated and 
almost inaccessible position of the forests will prevent their being 
utilized for years to come, except for the resin, to obtain which, so 
many noble trees are girdled and killed. Together with the Sal, are 
found vast quantities of the Asan tree on which the tusser silk-worm 
feeds, and a considerable quantity of the wild tusser is exported from 
Bonai, but it is not much cultivated as the mass of the population 
look upon it as an impure or unorthodox occupation, and none but 
people of the lowest castes, the Domes, Ghassees, Pahans and Gonds 
practice it. (The Gonds are out of their element in Bonai and are 
thus classed.) 
We meet with no Rajpoot or Khettree family except that of the 
chief. Nothing can be more absurd than the tradition handed down 
to account for this possession of power by one Khettree family over 
an alien population. The Nagbungsi family of Chota-Nagpore admit 
that they are sprung froma child found by and brought up in a 
“ Moondah’’* family, and that this child was made chief of the whole 
* Kole, 
