=The Mīna Tribe.=—We have already had frequent occasion to observe the tendency of the aboriginal tribes to emerge from bondage and depression, which has been seen in Mewar, Kotah, and Bundi, and is now exemplified in the rise of the Kachhwahas in Dhundhar. The original, pure, unmixed race of Minas, or Mainas, of Dhundhar, were styled Pachwara, and subdivided into five grand tribes. Their original home was in the range of mountains called Kalikoh, extending from Ajmer nearly to the Jumna, where they erected Amber, consecrated to Amba, the universal mother,[9.1.15] or, as the Minas style her, Ghata Rani, ‘Queen of the pass.’ In this range were Khoganw, Machh, and many other large towns, the chief cities of communities. But even so late as Raja Baharmall Kachhwaha, the contemporary of Babur and Humayun, the Minas had retained or regained great power, to the mortification of their Rajput superiors. One of these independent communities was at the ancient city of Nain, destroyed by Baharmall, no doubt with the aid of his Mogul connexions. An old historical distich thus records the power of the Mina princes of Nain: _Bāwan kot, chhappan darvāja, Mīna mard, Nāin kā rājā, Vado rāj Nāin ko bhago, Jab bhus-hī men vāmto māgo._ That is, 'There were fifty-two strongholds,[9.1.15] and fifty-six gates belonging to the manly Mina, the Raja of Nain, whose sovereignty of Nain was extinct, when even of chaff (_bhus_) he took a share.' If this is not an exaggeration, it would appear that, during the distractions of the first Islamite dynasties of Delhi, the Minas had attained their primitive importance. Certainly from Pajun, the vassal chieftain of Prithiraj [350], to Baharmall, the contemporary of Babur, the Kachhwahas had but little increased their territory. When this latter prince destroyed the Mina sovereignty of Nain, he levelled its half hundred gates, and erected the town of Lohwan (now the residence of the Rajawat chief) on its ruins.