its
interests, and that all affairs of importance were transacted is his
name. 'He is', said the old man, 'a very jealous spirit, and will not
admit of any living man being considered for a moment as a proprietor
or joint proprietor of the estate. It has been held by me and my
ancestors immediately under Government for many generations; but the
lease deeds have always been made out in his name, and ours have been
inserted merely as his managers or bailiffs--were this good old rule,
under which we have so long prospered, to be now infringed, we should
all perish under his anger.' Mr. Fraser found, upon inquiring, that
this had really been the case; and, to relieve the old man and his
family from their fears, he had the papers made out afresh, and the
_ghost_ inserted as the proprietor. The modes of flattering and
propitiating these beings, natural and supernatural, who are supposed
to have the power to do mischief, are endless.[4]

While I was in charge of the district of Narsinghpur, in the valley
of the Nerbudda, in 1823, a cultivator of the village of Bedu, about
twelve miles distant from my court, was one day engaged in the
cultivation of his field on the border of the village of Barkhara,
which was supposed to be haunted by the spirit of an old proprietor,
whose temper was so froward and violent that the lands could hardly
be let for anything, for hardly any man would venture to cultivate
them lest he might unintentionally incur his ghostship's displeasure.
The poor cultivator, after begging his pardon in secret, ventured to
drive his plough a few yards beyond the proper line of his boundary,
and thus add half an acre of Barkhara to his own little tenement,
which was situated in Bedu. That very night his only son was bitten
by a snake, and his two bullocks were seized with the murrain. In
terror he went of to the village temple, confessed his sin, and
vowed, not only to restore the half-acre of land to the village of
Barkhara, but to build a very handsome shrine upon the spot as a
perpetual sign of his repentance. The boy and the bullocks all three
recovered, and the shrine was built; and is, I believe, still to be
seen as the boundary mark.

The fact was that the village stood upon an elevated piece of ground
rising out of a moist plain, and a colony of snakes had taken up
their abode in it. The bites of these snakes had on many occasions
proved fatal, and such accidents were all attributed to the anger of
a