Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 50.djvu/47

Rh by means of which we can properly study the features of the individual whom we have photographed, and learn something of the facial angle and similar characters. It will be noted that this Bhil beauty wears as many as half a dozen heavy metal bracelets upon either wrist, and the collection of trinkets that hang over her ears is extremely curious. Her rather light attire permits us to form some opinion as to the physique of this woman, and it is not difficult to see that in such particulars she is remarkably well proportioned. She is evidently broad and deep-chested; has finely developed limbs, and a well-balanced head, upon rather square shoulders. The form of her face is nearly circular, with large mouth and nose, and the eyes are set far apart. Her complexion is dark, and she is somewhat small in stature. Bhils have the reputation of being very active and capable of enduring much fatigue with impunity. Twenty years ago, or less perhaps, this tribe occupied a British political agency—the Bhil agency, in central Asia—which covered an area of some eighty-one hundred and sixty square miles, and had a population of nearly a quarter of a million of people. This agency was established in 1825, at which time a Bhil corps was organized "with a view to utilizing the warlike instincts of the Bhil tribes. This brave body of men have done good service, and gradually put down the predatory habits of their countrymen. The Bhil tribes chiefly inhabit the rocky ranges of the Vindhya and Sátpurá Mountains, and the banks of the Narbadá and the Tapti. In common with other hill tribes, the Bhils are supposed to have been aborigines of India, and to have been driven to their present fastnesses at the time of the Hindu invasion."

I understand that numerous efforts have been made to break up their plundering ways by the home Government, and that the official reports stated in 1869-'70 that "the Bhils of Mánpur are becoming reconciled to the life of cultivators, though not yet