Page:Wanderings of a Pilgrim Vol 2.djvu/570

 *blished. The consequences were speedily visible. In 1816 the Goomsoor people rose in arms to demand an ejected Rajah; and though a force of 3000 men in the country repressed these outbreaks, yet they could not be prevented from aiding a similar insurrection in Cuttack immediately afterwards, nor was peace entirely restored for three long years, and then only after some conciliatory abolitions of the obnoxious institutions.

"In the present case the rebellion (in Goomsoor) is based on our interference with their Meriah sacrifices, in observance of which rite they store, fatten, butcher, and dissect some hundreds of children annually, distributing the fragments, as a propitiatory offer to the local Ceres, over the surface of their fields, and the old cry for their indulgent Rajahs is again raised. The Khonds—the precise tribe who gave us so much trouble in 1816—are again the chief insurgents, though common cause is eagerly made by all their neighbours. Their method of fighting is to lurk in their tangled thickets and shoot their arrows from the ambuscade. Recently, too, they exchanged a herd of bullocks which they captured, for some firearms, and they are said now to possess some 700 or 800 matchlocks. This, of course, does not make them less noxious, but their offensive warfare forms but a small part of the dangers of the campaign. The tracts about which they roam are, beyond all comparison, the most pestilential in India. The air of Shikarpoor is bracing and salubrious compared with the atmosphere of these territories. The malaria of their jungles is almost certain death, and a bivouac in the bush will cause far more havoc in an invading force than a battery of cannon. In addition to this, beasts of prey swarm in every cave and forest, numerous and ravenous enough to give a clean account of all stragglers. The ordinary briefness of an Indian campaign is here so far circumscribed, that there are very few weeks in the year when an inroad would even be attempted, and at this moment not 200 men of the regiment employed there are fit for duty.

"The Khonds are in nowise disaffected to us, nationally. On the contrary, when Sir G. Barlow surrendered their country again to Berao, against our compact and their entreaties, he was forced in decency to offer a home in Cuttack to those who chose still to live under English rule, and the struggle between the latter wish and the reluctance to quit their birthplaces produced some very tragical scenes. Towards the west, too, the Bheels are enrolled in local corps in the Company's service, and conduct themselves with very great credit. The only rebellion is that of a hardy, barbarous, and inaccessible race, against masters whose supremacy they gladly own, but whose civilization they are averse to borrowing."