8 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTRAL INDIA 



probable that they, too, are the result of some connection 

 in long past times between immigrant Aryans and the 

 indigenous tribes. 



The Hindil 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 estab- 

 lishment, early in the seventeenth century, of a strong 

 Mahomedan government, under the great Akber, in the 

 surrounding countries. The impetus given to the de- 

 velopment 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 Hindil and Mahomedan states, their 

 history is one of contimious lawlessness and strife; and 

 the further we investigate, the more certainly we perceive 

 that political order, the supremacy of law, sound principles 

 of taxation, a wise land system, and almost every art 

 of civilised government, owe their birth to this enlightened 

 ruler. His treatment of these unsettled wilds and their 

 people was marked with the same political wisdom. 

 While, in the surrounding countries, which had already 

 been in a measure reclaimed by Hindu races, he every- 

 where broke up the feudal system, under which strong 

 government and permanent improvement were impossible, 

 he asked no more from the chiefs of these waste regions 

 than nominal submission to his empire, and the preserva- 

 tion of the peace of the realm. Those on his borders he 

 converted into a frontier police, and the rest he left to 

 administer their country in their own fashion. Acknow- 

 ledgment of his supremacy he insisted on, however, and, 

 in case of refusal, sent his generals and armies, who very 

 soon convinced the barbarous chiefs of their powerlessness 

 in his hands. The influence of his power and splendour 

 rapidly extended itself over even this remote region. The 

 chiefs became courtiers, accepted with pride imperial 

 favours and titles, and, in some cases, were even converted 

 to the fashionable faith of Islam. 



