50 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTRAL INDIA. 



populations of long-reclaimed tracts from much inferior 

 soils ; but still, tilling it in the way which is the most 

 profitable to a scanty population with a poor accumula- 

 tion of wealth and stock. The example of all new 

 countries with much available land, even when, as 

 in America, all the resources of capital and machinery 

 are available, shows that a comparatively rough culture 

 of a large area is more remunerative than the higher 

 tillage of a smaller area ; and this alone is the cause of 

 the rude state of agriculture still observed in this and 

 many other parts of India. At present, plenty for all 

 is the rule, poverty the very rare exception. Well-built 

 houses, well-stocked cattle yards, and a general air of 

 comfort and happiness, cannot fail to arrest the atten- 

 tion in Hindu villages. It is true that the people of 

 the soil, those of the Gonds who have preferred to stay 

 and serve a Hindu master to a retreat to the hills, are 

 poorly clad and housed, living like outcasts beyond the 

 limits of the Hindu quarter ; but they, too, are at least 

 sufficiently fed ; and nothing but their own innate 

 apathy and vice prevents them from receiving a greater 

 share of the surrounding plenty. 



As the influence on the aborigines in the past, and 

 at the present time, of their contact with these invading 

 Hindu races will afterwards form matter of considera- 

 tion, it is important to understand of what material 

 these Hindu races themselves are really composed. 

 They have generally been comprehended in the category 

 of "Aryan," as distinguished from the "Tauranian" 

 peoples who are believed to have preceded the fair- 

 complexioned Aryan invaders from Upper Asia in the 

 occupation of Hindostan, and among whom are included 

 the remnants of wild tribes still found in the hills. 



