Several times they saw bears, which abounded among the ghauts, and once beheld two tigers crossing a nullah. They had, however, other matters to think of, and neither the flesh nor the skins of the bears would have been of any use to them. The work was severe, and they were glad when at last they reached the level country. In some of the upper valleys, opening on to this, they had seen small villages. Near one of these they had slept, and as in the morning they saw that the inhabitants were Hindoos, they fearlessly went out and talked with them, in order to gain some information as to the position of the forts, and to learn whether any bodies of Tippoo's troops were likely to be met with. They found the people altogether ignorant on these matters. They were simple peasants. Their whole thoughts were given to tilling their land, and bringing in sufficient to live upon, and to satisfy the demands of the tax gatherers when they visited them. They had little communication with other villages, and knew nothing of what was passing outside their own. They evinced no curiosity whatever concerning their visitors, who bought from them some cakes of ground ragee, which formed the chief article of their food. The country through which they passed, on emerging from the hills, was largely covered with bush and jungle, and was very thinly populated. It was an almost unbroken flat, save that here and there isolated masses of rock rose above it. These were extremely steep and inaccessible, and on their summits were the hill forts that formed so prominent a feature in the warfare of both Mysore and the Nizam's dominions to the north. These forts were, for the most part, considered absolutely impregnable, but the last war with the British had proved that they were not so, as several of the strongest had been captured, with comparatively slight loss. Whenever they passed within a few miles of one of these hill fortresses, Dick looked at it with anxious eyes; for there, for aught he knew, his father might be languishing. After two days' walking across the plain, they felt that there was no longer any necessity for concealment, except that it would be as well to avoid an encounter with any troops. Although, therefore, they avoided the principal roads, they kept along beaten paths, and did not hesitate to enter villages to buy food. They no longer saw caste marks on the foreheads of the inhabitants. The Hindoos had been compelled by force to abandon their religion, all who refused to do so being put to death at once. Dick and Surajah found that their dialect differed much more from that of the country below the ghauts than they had expected and, although they had no difficulty in conversing with the peasants, they found that their idea that they would be able to pass as natives of one of these villages was an altogether erroneous one.