18 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTRAL INDIA 



where any title whicli could be converted into a right of 

 property was established, the freehold, bearing liability 

 to the fixed Government rent-charge, was bestowed on 

 the claimants; while all land to which no such private 

 title could be estabUshed was declared to be the unham- 

 pered property of the State. Most of the hill-chiefs were 

 admitted to the full ownership of the whole of their 

 enormous wastes, though certain restrictions as to the 

 destruction of the forests have here (as in all civiHsed 

 countries) been imposed on these proprietors. 



Few parts of India present so great a range of interest- 

 ing natural objects for investigation as this. Situated 

 in the very centre of the peninsula, the ethnical, zoological, 

 botanical, and even geological features of north and south, 

 and of east and west, here meet and contrast themselves. 

 As has been noticed above, two distinct streams of the so- 

 called Indian Aryans, approaching from Northern and 

 Western India, here meet and intermingle, differing con- 

 siderably 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 tp the central hills ; and there we find them in 

 several tribes, which yield to the investigator points of 

 connection with several branches of the human race. 



The total population of the tracts I have included in 

 this sketch is about four and one-third millions, of whom 

 about three and one-third millions are Aryans, and one 

 million only belong to aboriginal races. The great majority 

 of these 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 language 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 the tribe known in the Bengal 

 hill-tracts as Kols, a race closely allied to the Santals and 



^ 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. 



