for it has no mines of the precious metals, and the precious metals can flow in only in exchange for the produce of the land, and the industry of the valley that flows out.  If the Government wishes to draw a net surplus revenue from the valley or from the districts that border upon it, that is, a revenue beyond its expenditure in support of the local public establishments, it must either draw it in produce, or for what can be got for that produce in distant markets.[5] Hitherto little beyond the rude produce of the soil has been able to find its way into distant markets from the valley of the Nerbudda; yet this valley abounds in iron mines,[6] and its soil, where unexhausted by cropping, is of the richest quality.[7] It is not then too much to hope that in time the iron of the mines will be worked with machinery for manufactures; and that multitudes, aided by this machinery, and subsisted on the rude agricultural produce, which now flows out, will invest the value of their labour in manufactured commodities adapted to the demand of foreign markets and better able from their superior value, compared with their bulk, to pay the cost of transport by land.  Then, and not till then, can we expect to see these territories pay a considerable net surplus revenue to Government, and abound in a middle class of merchants, manufacturers, and agricultural capitalists.[8]

At Sanoda there is a very beautiful little fortress or castle now unoccupied, though still entire.  It was built by an officer of the Raja Chhatar Sal of Bundelkhand, about one hundred and twenty years ago.[9] He had a grant, on the tenure of military service, of twelve villages situated round this place; and a man who could build such a castle to defend the surrounding country from the inroads of freebooters, and to secure himself and his troops from any sudden impulse of the people’s resentment, was as likely to acquire an increase of territorial possession in these parts as he would have been in Europe during the Middle Ages.  The son of this chief, by name Rai Singh, was, soon after the castle had been completed, killed in an attack upon a town near Chitrakot;[10] and having, in the estimation of the people, become a god, he had a temple and a tomb raised to him close to our encampment.  I asked the people how he had become a god; and was told that some one who had been long suffering from a quartan ague went to the tomb one night, and promised Rai Singh, whose ashes lay under it, that if he could contrive to cure his ague for him, he would, during the rest of his life, make offerings to his shrine.  After that he had never another attack, and was very punctual in his offerings.  Others followed his example, and with like success, till Rai Singh was recognized among them universally as a god, and a temple raised to his name.  This is the way that gods were made all over the world at one time, and are still made all over India.  Happy had it been for mankind if those only who were supposed to do good had been deified.[11]