INTEODUCTOBY. 9 



The superior qualities of the Aryan 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 G<5nd king- 

 doms, 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 tradi- 

 tion. Most of the chiefs possess the tall well-proportioned 

 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 

 affect 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 domains of 

 colonies of the industrious agricultural races who had already 

 reclaimed the soil of Northern and Western India. But no 

 very extensive arrival of these races would seem to have 

 occurred previous to the establishment, early in the 17th 

 century, of a strong Mahomedan government, under the 

 great Akber, in the surrounding countries. The impetus 

 given to the development and civilisation of the dark 

 regions of India by the wise rule of that greatest of eastern 

 administrators can never be over-rated. Before the absorption 

 into his empire of the minor Hindu* and Mahomedan states, 

 their history is one of a continuous lawlessness and strife : 



