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60 TEE QUESTION OF LABOUR
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a
rule, local labourers will belong to one or other of the following
clans or tribes: Naikers, Burgurs, or Korumbers; the immigrants will be
Canarese, Moplahs, Wuddurs, and Balkaras.
The first—Naikers—are jungle men, who can scarcely be induced to work, and then only very spasmodically.
Burgurs are
local cultivators, who will sometimes come and do a few days' work,
when not engaged at their own villages. They also can scarcely be
depended upon.
The Korumbers make
the best foresters; but like all such roving tribes, they are an
unsatisfactory class to deal with; and will never do manual work, if
they can possibly help it. They are not usually cultivators of the
soil, but are invaluable on account of their thorough knowledge of the
country. Their observation, in truth, is so keen that they can tell the
position of every outcrop of quartz in the place. The Korumbers have
always been gold-miners in a desultory sort of a way; washing in
river-beds, breaking up boulders in their search for the precious
metal, working singly or in small parties, in the method I shall
describe in the next chapter. They are consequently most useful in
prospecting over jungle-covered country.
The principal source of the labour supply is Mysore. From it come large gangs of Canarese coolies, who are hardy and intelligent workmen,
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