U2 TlIK TITGHLANDS OF CENTRAL INDIA. 



descent. The former have been nearly swept away, 

 their only remaining representative being the pensioned 

 Gond Raja of Nagpur; the latter remain in their 

 descendants, and, almost to a man, show the clearest 

 signs of possessing a mixture of the Hindu and 

 aborio^inal blood. The Hindu element in such cases 

 has not been the debased article current amonor the 

 masses of the labouring population, but the purer strain 

 derived from the aristocratic families of Rajputana. It 

 is as it were the Jirst cross in the mixed breed, and thus, 

 as might be expected, shows the characteristics of both 

 sides clearly developed. In other cases, among the 

 lower races of aborigines, crosses also appear to have 

 taken place ; but in such cases it appears to have been 

 the already debased Hindu of the lower orders that has 

 furnished the foreign element, and the result has been a 

 breed which little approaches the high Aryan character, 

 and is, in fact, only a slight advance on the purely 

 aboriginal type. Among the chiefs the cross appears to 

 have taken place with all the different tribes of indigenes. 

 Towards the east the mixed breed call themselves Gond- 

 Rajputs, or shortly Raj-Gonds, and are the direct result 

 of the alliance betw^een the Rajpiit adventurer and the 

 Gond. In the Korkii country the same thing seems to 

 have occurred between the Rajputs and the Korkus. In 

 this case, however, the tribe being an influential one, 

 the descendants are only known as Korkiis. But they 

 differ in many respects from pure Korkus, being tall 

 and fair-complexioned, ultra-Hindu in their observances, 

 and marrying only among their several families, or into 

 purer houses — never among the undiluted aborigines. 

 In the extreme west a distinct race called BhilaLas has 

 originated from the cross between the Rajpiit and the 



