The insalubrity of the climate has repeatedly been referred to, as one of the chief difficulties in carrying out any designs with respect to the hill population. And never, any where, was the obstacle of climate found more formidable than on the present occasion. In the most favourable month of the year, under every precaution, the proportion of persons attacked by fever, of a large and mixed camp, after a residence of but twenty days in the Hills, was about ninety per cent. The party having been immediately withdrawn, few died; but nearly all who suffered, including Captain Macpherson himself, were invalids for months; and the dread with which the people of the low country of every class, regarded the region of the Ghats became extreme.

But, though the period of sojourn above the Ghats was thus untowardly shortened, it was improved to good purpose. A vast deal of new and valuable information was obtained, respecting the country and its inhabitants. The agent's success in this respect greatly redounded to his credit, and amply justified the decision of Government in selecting him for the arduous and delicate task. For arduous and delicate it was in every point of view. At the very outset, was the agent confronted by the most formidable difficulties. Without something like a confidential intercourse with the natives, it is clear that there could not be that free and unrestrained expression of sentiment, on both sides, which was essential to the main object of the mission. But how, in the face of opposing difficulties, was such intercourse to be established? Let us hear Captain Macpherson on the subject:

"The impressions which existed amongst the Khond population respecting the Government which were derived from our operations in this quarter in 1836 and 1837, were deeply marked by fear and mistrust. And notwithstanding the use of every art calculated to dissipate apprehension and to give assurance that my intentions were purely friendly, all the villages were deserted before me. I therefore halted in the first valley within the hills, until I felt quite satisfied that different ideas were both established there, and had in some degree preceded me. The nearest hamlets soon gained confidence. Then a section of a tribe ventured to come out from the forest, not rushing into my camp in wild and fantastic procession, armed and dancing, with shouts and stunning music, as is the fashion of these Khonds, but approaching without arms, in extreme fear and requiring much encouragement to come to my tents, while spies from all the tribe around anxiously expected the result of the experiment. The alarm of the first comers having been dispelled, other parties by degrees, but very cautiously imitated their example; and I then moved on. Another considerable pause at the next stage brought all the tribes within a circuit of many miles to my tents, and thence forwards, roads were laboriously cut for my passage through the forest-and I had to choose between those offered to me by the rival tribes, who daily crowded my camp: under these

circumstances I felt some degree of confidence that I should not materially misapprehend the obscure and difficult phenomena which I wished to observe, and that I could generally communicate the impressions which I desired."

In these and similar ways, by an admirable combination of prudence, conciliation, and firmness, were fear, mistrust, and jealousy supplanted by the opposite feelings of dawning hope and kindly confidence. The change which ensued was like that which follows the melting away of the icy accumulations of a long and severe winter. It had about it all the freshening glow and budding promise of a genial spring. It looked hopefully to a summer of glorious blossoms and an autumn of mellow fruit.

To the leading points of the copious information now received, we may now briefly allude. And first of all we may begin with the glance that is afforded us of the general features of the country :

"The chain of Ghats in this quarter is formed of a central ridge which runs nearly from North to South, and is spread into a broken table land of varying breadth, having a mean elevation of about 2,000 feet. This irregular plateau is supported to the Eastward by inferior ranges of hills which run parallel to it, and which are connected with it by buttresses. The vallies are deep, narrow, and complicated upon the great scale, confused upon the small; the drainage cutting its way through vast masses of detritus which encumber them: granitic gneiss, which is occasionally capped by laterite, is the only rock. In some tracts it decomposes in boulders, which present a manageable surface to the pioneer; in others its structure is uniformly massive. A rich and various forest, broken by occasional patches of bambu jungle, covers the whole surface, and extends, according to my information, supported by that obtained by Captain Hill, without a single break, through a space of two degrees to the Westward. In this forest are found all the valuable timber trees of the country, and these have been floated down from Souradah to the mouth of the Russagaila river at Ganjam, at very low rates. The dammer tree abounds in these tracts. It has been ascertained, (by the reference of specimens to Calcutta,) that it is not the saul. The vegetable products of economical value of this part of the Hill country, whether cultivated or wild, are indentical with those of Goomsur."

The traffic carried on between the hill people now visited, and those of the lowland districts, in spite of the fearfully rugged mountain pathways, was found to be vastly greater than had been previously supposed. From the hills there were annually sent down to the low country about ten thousand bullock loads of turmeric alone, and about four thousand bullock loads of other articles, such as tamarind, mustard, arrowroot, sweet oil, ginger, cotton, wax, honey, red and yellow dye; red pepper, plaintains, sweet potatoes, vetch, &c. The articles

Of

of trade taken to the Khond country, were salt, salt-fish, iron, cattle, brass vessels and ornaments, tobacco, woollen cloth, coarse red cotton cloth, coarse white cloth, with flowered edges, coarse white cotton cloth, cheap chintzes, silk, beads, &c. the eight routes by which this extensive traffic was conducted, in the country between the Goomsur Maliahs on the north, and those of Chinna Kimedy on the south, the agent was enabled to ascertain that, which, though far from promising, was decidedly the best, with a view to future improvement and enlarged commercial and military objects.

He found the population to consist chiefly of Khonds, both Benniah and Maliah;* also of Hindus, including the petty chiefs of districts subordinate to zemindaries, with their connections and followers, the few resident hill merchants, and the paiks; † and of certain classes, who are neither Khonds

For the distinction between these, see No. IX.

page 27.

+ In his unpublished Report Captain Macpherson supplies the following farther particulars :

"The only two district chiefs are the military or "Tat" Rajah, ef Cattinga in Bodoghoro, and Guddapore in Chinna Kimedy. The former is an old man who has some reputation for shrewdness, and for influence with the Khonds. The latter is a boy of fourteen, whom I observed, with a view to his being turned to account as an instrument in future measures towards the Khonds; but he appeared of little promise, growing up in seclusion and in ignorance; the Brahman teachers who have been procured for him having all died in the pestilential climate of Guddapore. I made his people promise to find another instructor for him. His affairs are managed by his mother, a grasping old dealer in turmeric.

These Tat Rajahs respectively acknowledge the superiority of Bodoghoro and of Chinna Kimedy by the payment of nominal tribute, and by other forms; they enjoy small tracts of corn land which were originally ceded to them by the Khonds for their support, and they levy certain imposts upon the hill trade. The tribe attached to them, besides, make them annual offerings of good will which are collectively of value. They possess considerable influence, but no manner of authority over the Khonds; the first condition of that influence is their sanction and countenance of every Khond usage whatever It would immediately cease were they to presume to oppose or to condemn any point of their religion or of the manners of the ancient masters of the soil. They accordingly remain perfectly neuter betwixt the sacrificing and the non-sacrificing tribes. Far from affecting disapproval of the worship of the latter, the Guddapore Rajah for example, sends his paiks in a body, at the request of the presiding patriarchs, to fire salutes in honor of the great rite upon every occasion of its performance.

The Hill Paiks are the descendants of Hindus who are anciently placed in the Khond country to maintain the influence of the Rajah, and to keep the frontier. They have nearly all mixed their blood with that of the Khonds, and have in a considerable degree acquired their manners, habits and feelings. They are distributed over the country in small stockades or "Ghorriah," or in frontier posts called "Gumah." They have adopted to a great extent the Khond superstition, but without forgetting the names of their Hindu Gods, or all the ideas connected with them. They receive no pay, but subsist on small tracts of land given to them by the Khonds. They take a leading part in the riot and festivity which accompany the ceremony of human sacrifice, but take no share of the flesh.

These two petty chiefs, and all the other Hill Rajahs of Orissa, worship, almost exclusively, under names and forms endlessly varied, the goddess Durga. It is acknowledged, that they nearly all offered human victims at her shrines, one, or at the farthest two, generations ago; and it is difficult to determine when those

nor Hindus, of whom the most important is the Dombango or Panwas, who are the chief instruments in kidnapping victims for sacrifice.*

The relations between the Khonds and the zemindaries in which they were said to be respectively "included," he found

sanguinary rites were discontinued in each case, or if they have yet finally ceased. The Brahmans of the low country assert strongly, that no such practice is now thought of the Boad Rajah admitted to me, that his father, and the immediate predecessors of all the neighbouring Zemindaries upon the Mahanudi had practised it. It was constantly performed by the father of the late Rajah of Goomsur at the shrine of Bagh Devi, at Koladah, and according to some servants of the family at one time by the latter himself. There were strong grounds for suspicion that the Moherry family offered a victim in 1836, in the Hill temple near Berhampore, where the rite was anciently observed by it to a great extent. Human sacrifices are still performed, according to universal belief, in Bustar, and in Jeypore, and in the adjoining Zemindaries to the West and the South to the Godavery, and they are certainly performed by the Brinjaries who trade between the Nagpore and Chotisghur countries and the coast. The few Purohits whom I have had opportunities of questioning closely, and who I had reason to believe spoke truth, after dilating upon the great temptation to celebrate the rite, have ended by admitting in some way its practice still, and generally in the form of a question as by asking "while the gateways of the temples are drenched with the gore of sheep and oxen, and the feast of Durga, who can tell whether some drops of more precious blood, to bring success to the designs of the great, may not be spilt within."

In No. IX. p. 47, will be found a full description of this peculiar class. The following additional statements from Captain Macpherson's report of April 1842, will tend still farther to illustrate their character and office:

"I have addressed the most careful enquiry to the subject of the provision of human victims for the Khond worship by the Dombango or Panwas, by their violent abduction, their theft, and their purchase in the low country and by the sale of their own offspring, with a view to ascertain the modes of perpetrating these acts and their exact character.

The Panwas, who are permanently resident upon the hills, associated with sacrificing tribes, participate fully in the religious ideas and feelings of the Khonds, and share their belief in the absolute necessity of the great rite. Pecuniary gain, and the desire to obtain the favor of the Khonds by whom they are protected, are amongst their chief immediate motives in procuring victims, as they are generally the only motives which they assign to strangers; but at the same time, I believe, that they are strongly influenced by the conviction, that, in making provision for the observance of the chief ordinance of their Gods, they perform an act of the highest religious merit.

Khonds, as well as Panwas, when in want, sell children as victims, very many Khonds did so after the disturbances in Goomsur, and the act is, I believe (the Panwas being inhabitants of the hills) as nearly indentical in both races as any act springing from mixed motives can be in people the features of whose moral character are so strikingly discriminated.

So admirable and so important an act is the performance of a sacrifice held to be in some districts, that a Panwa, who is a rich landholder in the Khond tract of Cottuma in Kimedy, has lately raised himself quite to the level of Khond society by offering a human victim at his own expense, at a feast to which all the Khonds and Panwas of the district were invited.

The strength and the diversity of feeling which exists on this subject even betwixt members of the same family is shewn by the following statement accidentally made to me, by an eye-witness-A Panwa, of a sacrificing district, happened to go a few months ago with some Khonds, to Cattingia in Bodoghoro, where the rite is abhorred. A relative whom he met there said to him-" So you have been making traffic of the blood of your offspring!" and spat in his face. The Khonds, said my informant, immediately pressed round, and most anxiously offered him every sort of consolation, saying "that buffaloe of a man is ignorant that by the devotion of the life of your child to the gods all mankind have benefitted, but those gods themselves will wipe that spittle from your face."

It is certain, not only that other Panwas, besides those who are permanently associated and identified with sacrificing Khond tribes, provide victims, but that these are most generally procured in the first instance, by Panwas of the low country of mixed religion. Hence the question of the degree in which religious feeling enters into the motives of these procurers, a question which is obviously of high importance in the application to them of penal laws, can be determined only by special inquiry in each case."

to be precisely the same as those already described as subsisting in Boad and Goomsur. The Benniah Khonds inhabiting, as in the north, the lower ranges of the Ghats and the adjacent tracts, were distinguished solely by their partial adoption of the Hindu ideas, manners, and customs-the most advanced amongst them pressing against the impassable pales of Hindu civil and religious life." The process of conversion was going on visibly. Sections of tribes which are now Benniah were purely Maliah in their habits fifty years ago. And in the outer

ranges of the hills, one member of a family was seen carefully affecting Hindu manners, while the rest adhered religiously to their primitive customs. To the Khond superstition which they retain in full they add much reverence for Kali or Durga. They have also adopted "the Hindu dress and mode of building, and speak the Uriya language. They abstain religiously from the cultivation of turmeric, the staple product of Maliah industry, and the most valuable crop of their soil." They have exchanged "the Khond for the Hindu plough." They use "milk and ghee which are abhorred by the Maliah Khonds; and they forego as barbarous the practice of dancing in which the latter delight." Such are the Benniah Khonds, "the result of the slow and difficult process of assimulation betwixt the primitive and civilized people." While the primitive race was found thus aspiring to approach and blend with the more civilized people, it was curious and interesting to note a union which had taken place, through plain motives at a single point, betwixt their superstitions. The Hindus, when they assumed the Khond soil in this quarter, adopted the chief Khond Deity, or rather duad of deities, as their GramDevata, or Tutelary God, under the name of Khondini; and Brahmans have ever since officiated with Khond priests at his shrine. His worship, like that of every other deity in this

See No. IX. page 26-28. As the subject is of practical importance, we may quote from the above mentioned Report:

"The relation of the Khond tribes to the zemindaries in which they are respectively included, was originally founded here, as, I believe, in all similar cases elsewhere; upon a single common want, and was accompanied by forms which marked the relative power and civilization of the parties. Mutual aid against aggression, was its first condition: whilst the Khonds, besides, generally assisted the Rajahs in their offensive wars. The Hindu chiefs were reminded of the origin of their authority by formal acts of investiture which were performed at their accession by the patriarch of the most important tribes, while the heads of the primitive race received from them, in return, not as vassals, but as inferiors in rank, and in civilization, the recognition of their ancient dignities, and such honorary appellation as they were pleased to bestow.

The Khonds made, also, certain offerings of produce which did not import any thing resembling feudal dependance; and the other chief public acts by which they manifested their attachment seem to have been, that of assembling at the Dusserah festival to eat the buffaloes offered in sacrifice at the Hindu capitals, and that of giving their aid to drag the cars at the feast of Jugernath, and, generally speaking, the relationship subsists between the same parties at the present day.'