22 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTRAL INDIA. 



noticed above, two distinct streams of the so-called Indian 

 Aryans, approaching from Northern and Western India, here 

 meet and intermingle, differing considerably in appearance, in 

 character, and in speech. Where the land has been suitable 

 for their agricultural processes, the original dwellers of the 

 land have been driven out to the central hills ; and there 

 we find them in several tribes, which yield to the investi- 

 gator points of connection with several branches of the human 

 race. 



The total population of the tracts I have included in this 

 sketch is about 4^ millions, of whom about 3^ millions are 

 Aryans, and one million only belong to aboriginal races. 

 The great majority of these (826,484) are the Gonds, who 

 have given their name to the country, and who are distributed 

 in greater or less density over the whole of the hilly portion of 

 the tract. The infallible test of lano-ua^e shows that the 

 Gonds belong to the same family of mankind as the Tamil- 

 speaking Dravidians of Southern India.* In the extreme 

 north-east of the tract, are found about 37,000 of the tribe 

 known in the Bengal hill-tracts as Kols, a race closely allied 

 to the Santals and other tribes of the north-east ; and in the 

 very centre of these highlands, on the high plateaux of Puch- 

 murree and Gavilgarh, surrounded and isolated by the Gonds, 

 are found another race, called Kiirs or Korkiis, numbering 

 about 44,000, whose language and general type are almost 

 identical with these Kols and Santals, though they themselves 

 are utterly unaware of the connection. All these Kolarian 

 tribes differ radically in language from the Dra vidian Gonds ; 

 and some connection has been traced between them and the 



* A supposed connection between the Gonds and the Brahuis, a Mahomedan 

 tribe on the Sindh frontier, based on the correspondence of a few words in their 

 languages, does not appear to bear the test of a closer examination. 



