Page:Wanderings of a Pilgrim Vol 2.djvu/568

 which are made over a bamboo frame; they are formal, and want the graceful and fanciful ease of a turban formed of a strip of muslin hastily thrown around the head.

Some are formed on a light wicker frame; others, made up by regular turban makers in the bazār, are formed on blocks, and the muslin is plaited and put on in a very exact and regular style. Some turbans appear as if formed of coloured rope, so tightly do they twist the muslin into a cord ere it is wound round the head.

No. XXIII.—The Coles, the Bheels, the Gonds, the Khonds, &c.—Vol. i. p. 236.

AN EXTRACT FROM "THE TIMES," NOV. 23, 1847.

"Our readers are aware that the Hindoos are not the aboriginal inhabitants of India. Arriving from the north-west, they first occupied that moiety of the peninsula to the north of the Nerbudda called emphatically Hindostan, and subsequently crossed that river into the Deccan, or 'south' portion of the country, where they dispossessed the natives as before. There are reasons for concluding that this expulsion of the early inhabitants by the Brahminical Hindoos was characterized by great ferocity on the part of the invaders. The inferior tribes, however, were by no means exterminated. Under the various denominations of Bheels, Coles, Gonds, Khonds, &c., they still exist in the peninsula, to the number, it is computed, of at the least two or three millions. Whether they are branches of the same family or not appears hardly ascertained, but they all possess features in common, and are altogether distinct, not only from the Hindoo, but also from the Thibetan varieties of native tribes near the Himalayan range. They are small, dark, and active, with a peculiarly quick and restless eye, highly barbarous, and owning only a few importations of Hindoo superstitions or civilization. They have little clothing, few arms but bows and arrows, and no ordinary food beyond berries or game. They have no repugnance to killing or eating oxen, and bury their dead instead of burning them. Their religious rites involve much greater barbarism than the Brahminical precepts; indeed, it is alleged by the advocates of Hindoo excellence that the most objectionable practices attributed to the disciples of Brahma have either been imported from these tribes at a late period, or erroneously related by writers who confused the identity of the nations. This is said to have been particularly the case with human sacrifices, which had no place in the original code of the Vedas, while they were so inveterately established among these older tribes, that the disturbances of the present day have actually originated in the defence