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ROUGH DIAMONDS
We were a group of seven travellers, setting out from Dahod on our way to Malwa. Our journey lay through lonely tracts of hills and jungles infested with fierce tigers and with tribes that could equal the tigers in ferocity.
The tribals were usually Bhils; those of them who owned little patches of barren land, eked out a bare sustenance from its meagre produce. A few managed to earn their living as hired labourers in the fields. The rest had no other means of livelihood, but hunting or waylaying and plundering the travellers, often doing them to death even for a paltry sum of money, without the slightest scruples..
As we were leaving Dahod, we were warned of this danger by many of our well-wishers. They advised us to take with us some armed guides who could avoid the haunts' of these desperadoes or defend us in case of attack. .
We replied, “We are Sadhus; we may seek no other protection than God's.” And so we set out on this journey, fraught with many dangers, but filled with great natural beauty. .
Tall trees swayed in the breeze on either side of the path. Birds sang 'merrily in their foliage, brooks came babbling down the hillside, the rays of the morning sun filtering through the leaves covered
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