h three small trayfuls at
three places about five cubits apart. If they find no appreciable
quantity of gold they go on for one or two hundred yards and wash
three more trayfuls, and proceed thus until they find a profitable
place where they will halt for two or three days. A spot [637]
in the dry river-bed is usually selected at the outside of a bend,
where the finer sediment is likely to be found; after removing the
stones and pebbles from above, the sand below is washed several times
in circular wooden cradles, shaped like the top of an umbrella, of
diminishing sizes, until all the clay is removed and fine particles of
sand mixed with gold are visible. A large wooden spoon is used to stir
up the sediment, which is washed and rubbed by hand to separate the
gold more completely from the sand, and a blackish residue is left,
containing particles of gold and mercury coloured black with oxide
of iron. Mercury is used to pick up the gold with which it forms
an amalgam. This is evaporated in a clay cupel called a _ghariya_
by which the mercury is got rid of and the gold left behind.

Sudh

_Sudh, [638] Sudha, Sudho, Suda_.--A cultivating caste in the
Uriya country. Since the transfer of Sambalpur to Bengal only a
few Sudhs remain in the Central Provinces. They are divided into
four subcastes--the Bada or high Sudhs, the Dehri or worshippers,
the Kabat-konia or those holding the corners of the gate, and the
Butka. These last are the most primitive and think that Rairakhol is
their first home. They relate that they were born of the Pandava hero
Bhimsen and the female demon Hedembiki, and were originally occupied in
supplying leaves for the funeral ceremonies of the Pandava brothers,
from which business they obtained their name of Butka or 'one who
brings leaves.' They are practically a forest tribe and carry on
shifting cultivation like the Khonds. According to their own story
the ancestors of the Butka Sudhs once ruled In Rairakhol and reclaimed
the land from the forest, that is so far as it has been reclaimed. The
following story connects them with the ruling family of Rairakhol. In
former times there was constant war between Bamra and Rairakhol, and
on one occasion the whole of the Rairakhol royal family was destroyed
with the exception of one boy who was hidden by a Butka Sudh woman. She
placed him in a cradle supported on four uprights, and when the Bamra
Raja's soldiers came to seek for him the Sudhs swore, "If