INTKODUCTORY. U 



centuries, and it may be even earlier, a great immi- 

 gration of the Rajpiit clans took place into the country 

 of the aborigines. The Mahomedan invaders of Upper 

 India were then pressing hard on the country between 

 the Ganges and the Narbada rivers occupied by the 

 Rajputs ; and it was doubtless the recoil from them that 

 forced these colonies of Eajpiits southwards into the 

 wilds of Central India. Here it would seem that they 

 generally formed matrimonial alliances with the in- 

 digenous tribes. The superior qualities of the Ar3^an 

 race would soon assert themselves among such inert 

 races as these aborigines ; and there is little doubt that 

 before the arrival of the Mahomedans, not only the 

 heads of what have been termed the Gond kingdoms, 

 but also many of the subordinate chiefs, were far more 

 Hindu than aboriginal in blood. The unfailing evidence 

 of physical appearance supports these indications of 

 tradition. Most of the chiefs possess the tall, well-pro- 

 portioned figure and light complexion of the Hindu, but 

 allied with more or less of the thickness of lip and animal 

 type of countenance of the pure aborigine. The mass of 

 the tribes, on the other hand, are marked by the black 

 skin, short squat figure, and features of the negretto race 

 of humanity. Between them are found certain sections 

 of the tribes, who would seem to have been also imbued 

 with something of the foreign blood, though in a less 

 degree than the chiefs. Like the latter they afiect much 

 Hindu manners and customs ; and it is probable that 

 they, too, are the result of some connection in long past 

 times between immigrant Aryans and the indigenous 

 tribes. 



The Hindu proclivities of the chiefs appear to have 

 early led them to encourage the settlement in their 



