. The north-western provinces of India : their history, ethnology, and administration . of hundred feet high, an almost perpendicular wall of rock,from which, as from the battlement of a great fortress, youlook down on sheets of virgin forest, and beyond this on theyellow sands which fringe the river. Hence the old Sanskritpoets gave it the name of Hiranya-vaha, the gold bearer,and the modern Hindu calls it Sona, the golden. Inearlier times considerable quantities of gold seem to havebeen found in Chota Nagpur, and recent discoveries make itpossible that gold mining may be largely revived in t
. The north-western provinces of India : their history, ethnology, and administration . of hundred feet high, an almost perpendicular wall of rock,from which, as from the battlement of a great fortress, youlook down on sheets of virgin forest, and beyond this on theyellow sands which fringe the river. Hence the old Sanskritpoets gave it the name of Hiranya-vaha, the gold bearer,and the modern Hindu calls it Sona, the golden. Inearlier times considerable quantities of gold seem to havebeen found in Chota Nagpur, and recent discoveries make itpossible that gold mining may be largely revived in thispart of the country. As it is at present, the only miningindustry is a little iron manufacture carried on by theAgariyas, a tribe of Dravidian smelters who carry on theiroccupation in a most primitive way. This and a littleagriculture, the collection of silk cocoons, lac, catechu, gumsand other jungle products are the only industries of thedwellers in the forest. In the way of forest scenery it would be hard to find inIndia anything finer than the valley of the Son; but it can i8. AN AGAKIYA METAL WI 1 H HAMM^X AND FOOT-DELLOWS. THE LAND IN ITS PHYSICAL ASPECT be reached only by a long and tedious march from theGangetic Plain, and is as yet quite unknown to the along the Ganges you meet wide stretches of greysand and beyond it a sheet of cultivation, here the jungleextends right down to the rocky bank and clothes the rollinghills to the south, supremely lovely in its vivid greenery atthe close of the rains, and in its tints of crimson or amber atthe approach of early summer. Dominating over the wholelandscape is the sombre, buttress-like peak of Mangesar, themountain godling of the jungle people. Here and there, asat Agon and Bijaygarh, are seen the ruins of the rude strong-holds, built by the early Rajput settlers to overawe theaborigines, now a placid, timid race, in whom it is hard torecognise the successors of the wild, independent savages,who, if
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Keywords: ., bookauthorcrookewi, bookcentury1800, bookdecade1890, bookyear1897
