INTRODUCTOEY 7 



or, more frequently, admit their remote origin to tave 

 sprung from a union between some Rajput adventurer of 

 noble blood and one of the daughters of the aborigines. 

 Few of them are admitted to be pure Rajputs by the blue- 

 blooded chiefs of Rajasthan ; but all have their bards and 

 genealogies. These, like such documents in all countries, 

 often go back to fabulous times, and are overlaid with 

 modern fiction; but the legendary portion of the bardic 

 chronicle can generally be separated with little difl&culty 

 from a solid residue of probable fact. 



The general conclusion to be drawn from the evidence 

 of these writings, supported as they are by tradition and 

 later history, is that during the fourteenth and fifteenth 

 centuries, and it may be even earlier, a great immigra- 

 tion of the Rajpilt clans took place into the country of 

 the aborigines. The Mahomedan invaders of Upper India 

 were then pressing hard on the country between the 

 Granges and the Narbada rivers occupied by the Rajpiits ; 

 and it was doubtless the recoil from them that forced 

 these colonies of Rajpiits southwards into the wilds of 

 Central India. Here it would seem that they generally 

 formed matrimonial alliances with the indigenous tribes. 

 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 Gond kingdoms, 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 tradition. 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 Hindii manners and customs ; and it is 



