Page:Lord Amherst and the British Advance Eastwards to Burma.djvu/55

 from the abuses which lingered round the palaces of moribund dynasties to the utterly wild regions which recent conquest had opened to the civilizing approach of Englishmen. The savagery of the Mers and the Bhíls was proverbial among their Hindu neighbours. Merwárá, had been subdued in 1821, and so rapid was the effect of the personal influence of our officers, so little impeded was education by caste ideas, that by 1827 it was found possible to put a stop to female infanticide and to the sale of women. When it is remembered that the former practice was well known to prevail amongst the Rájputs of Northern India, and that long after Lord Amherst's day the most zealous humanitarians confessed their inability to check it—and this in communities of the highest caste—the singular success obtained in dealing with these aboriginal tribes will be appreciated. One of the steps which was most effective in reclaiming the Mers was the formation of a battalion of Mer soldiers. Setting a thief to catch a thief is time-honoured philosophy, and some of the best fighting material of the Indian army is supplied by races whom we should otherwise know as inveterate marauders.

The Bhíls of Khándesh were at first regarded as hopelessly intractable, but much the same method was applied to them as to the Mers, and by 1829 their country, under the admirable rule of Outram, was a model of repose. British rule may be said to have discovered these non-Aryan races which, for want of a better name, we call aboriginal.