n
the neighbourhood?" It is a fearful country, though the cheapest and
most fertile in India.'

We can easily understand how a man, impressed with the idea that his
blood had all been drawn from him by a sorceress, should become
faint, and remain many days in a languid state; but how the people
around should believe that they saw the blood flowing from both parts
of the cane at the place cut through, it is not so easy to conceive.

I am satisfied that old Jangbar believed the whole story to be true,
and that at the time he thought the juice of the cane red; but the
little pool of blood grew, no doubt, by degrees, as years rolled on
and he related this tale of the fearful powers of the Khilauti
witches.

Notes:

1. _Ante_, Chapter 9.

2. An orderly, or official messenger, who wears a 'chapras', or badge
of office.

3. On the Nerbudda, fifty miles south-east of Jubbulpore.

4. Of the supposed powers and dispositions of witches among the
Romans we have horrible pictures in the 5th Ode of the 6th Book of
Horace, and in the 6th Book of Lucan's _Pharsalia_. [W. H. S.] The
reference to Horace should be to the 5th Epode. The passage in the
_Pharsalia_, Book VI, lines 420-830, describes the proceedings of
Thessalian witches.

5. Such awkward incidents of medical practice are not heard of
nowadays.

6. The population of Jabalpur (including cantonments) has increased
steadily, and in 1911 was 100,651, as compared with 84,556 in 1891,
and 76,023 in 1881.

7. Katak, or Cuttack, a district, with town of same name, in Orissa.

8. In the Bilaspur district of the Central Provinces. The distance in
a direct line between Mandla and Katak is about 400 miles.

9. Shahgarh was formerly a petty native state, with town of same
name. The chief joined the rebels in 1857, with the result that his
dominions were confiscated, and distributed between the districts of
Sagar and Damoh in the Central Provinces, and Jhansi (formerly
Lalitpur) in the United Provinces of Agra and Oudh. The town of
Shahgarh is in the Sagar district.

10. Raipur is the chief town of the district of the same name in the
Central Provinces, which was not finally annexed to the British
dominions until 1854, when the Nagpur State lapsed.

CHAPTER 12

The Silver Tree, or 'Kalpa Briksha'--The Singhara or _Trapa
bispinosa_, and the Guinea-Worm.

Poor old Salamat Ali wept bitterly at the last meeting in my tent,
and his two nice boys, without exact