THE LAY OF SAINT LINGO. 181 



down by mere word of mouth. It gives the idea of having 

 been composed by the gradual accretion round a very slender 

 thread of original story of successive episodes, manufactured 

 by the semi-Hindu Pardhans for recitation before the almost 

 entirely Hindu chiefs of the Gonds. Yet even as such it 

 possesses some interest, as exhibiting, in a somewhat dramatic 

 form, the recent Hinduization of many of the Gond tribes ; 

 and I have, accordingly, endeavoured to throw it into a shape 

 that will not greatly fatigue my readers. I have excised from 

 it most of the Hindii mythology with which it was overlaid, 

 and which was often anything but orthodox ; and I have 

 thought it best to omit nearly the whole of the latter part, 

 which consists of tiresome details of marriage and other cere- 

 monial, which do not even possess the value of being an 

 accurate account of the practice of the present day. 



Thus the present version is greatly reduced in bulk, and is 

 rather a paraphrase than a translation, though in many parts 

 it will be found to adhere almost literally to the original, 

 and little will be detected which has not some foundation 

 therein. I should, perhaps, apologise for the adoption of 

 the Hiawathian metre and style, and in a few cases even 

 of the words of the American poet, in a piece which may 

 appear almost like a burlesque of his Eed Indian legend. It 

 is probable that the originals of the two legends may not have 

 differed greatly in character : and the close and curious paral- 

 lelism between them could only be brought out by the 

 adoption of the method introduced by the author of Hiawatha, 

 and now familiar to the public. But the " noble savage " of 

 North America is a very different character from the poor 

 squalid Gdnd of Central India ; and not even the genius of a 

 Longfellow or a Fenimore Cooper could throw a halo of senti- 

 ment over the latter and his surroundings. I have therefore 



