Jabalpúr to Allahabad.

The eight hundred thousand Gónds of the Góndwana are supposed to be
members of the great autochthonal family of ancient India. These hills
of the Góndwana country appear to have been considered by the incoming
Aryans for a long time as a sort of uncanny land, whose savage
recesses were filled with demons and snakes: indeed, in the epics of
the Máhábháráta and Rámáyana this evil character is attributed to that
portion of India lying south of the Vindhyas. The forest of Spenser's
Fairy Queen, in which wandering knights meet with manifold beasts and
maleficent giants, and do valorous battles against them in the rescue
of damsels and the like--such seem to have been the Góndwana woods to
the ancient Hindu imagination. It was not distressed damsels,
however, whom they figured as being assisted by the arms of the errant
protectors, but religious devotees, who dwelt in the seclusion of the
forest, and who were protected from the pranks and machinations of the
savage denizens by opportune heroes of the northern race. It appears,
however, that the native demons of the Góndwana had fascinating
daughters; for presently we find the rajahs from the north coming
down and marrying them; and finally, in the fourteenth and fifteenth
centuries, the keen urgency of the conquering Mohammedans sends great
numbers of Rajpúts down into the Góndwana, and a considerable mixture
of the two bloods takes place. With this incursion of Hindu peoples
come also the Hindu gods and tenets; and Mahadeo, the "great god,"
whose home had been the Kailas of the Himalayas, now finds himself
domesticated in the mountains of Central India. In the Mahadeo
mountain is still a shrine of Siva, which is much visited by pilgrims
and worshipers.

[Illustration: THE GAUR, OR INDIAN BISON.]