INTRODUCTORY. 11 



this remote region. The chiefs became courtiers, ac- 

 cepted with pride imperial favours and titles, and, in 

 some cases, were even converted to the fashionable faith 

 of Islam. 



A vast development of the resources of these central 

 regions followed the coming of Akber. A great high- 

 way between Upper India and the Deccan was estab- 

 lished through a gap in the Satpiira mountains. A 

 vast city arose in the Tapti valley, which became the 

 seat of government of the southern province of the 

 empire. Armies marching to and fro, and the retinues 

 of a great court, brought with them a demand, before 

 unheard of, for the necessaries and the luxuries of life. 

 The open country, under the rule of Akber, was rapidly 

 reclaimed by Hindu immigrants, arriving simultaneously 

 from the north and from the west. Nor were they long 

 in extending into the fat lands of the great valleys in 

 the territories of the Gond princes. The reclamation of 

 the heavy lands of the Narbada valley, and the country 

 now known as the Berars, had probably been entirely 

 beyond the resources of the aboriginal races. The im- 

 migrants brought with them the necessary energy and 

 the necessary resources ; and from this time a process 

 commenced which resulted in the wholesale deprivation 

 of the indig;enous races of their birthright in the richest 

 portions of their country, and the establishment therein 

 of the arts of aoriculture and commerce. 



The Gonds retired to the higher plateaux and slopes 

 of the central hills, where their hunting instincts, and 

 rude system of raising the coarse grains on which they 

 subsist, could still find scope ; the more extensive 

 plateaux were also soon invaded by the aggressive race, 

 and their level black soils covered with crops of wheat 



