Page:History of India Vol 1.djvu/60



HEN the early Hindus wrested the fertile tracts on the banks of the Indus and its tributaries from the primitive races of the Panjab, the aborigines did not give up their birthright without a struggle. Retreating before the more civilized organization and valour of the Hindus in the open field, they still lurked in fastnesses and forests near every Aryan settlement and village, harassed their conquerors in their communications, waylaid and robbed them at every opportunity, stole their cattle, and often attacked them in considerable force.

Unfortunately for themselves, however, they had no poet to hand down their story to later ages, and our only account of this long war of centuries is from the conquering Hindus. The conquest by the Aryans meant a widening of the area of civilization; waste and jungle lands were reclaimed and dotted with villages and towns, and the barbarians either submitted to the conquerors or retreated to those hills and mountains where their descendants still live. History repeats itself, and the banks of the Indus were cleared of these non-Aryan Rh