From the latitude of the Vindhyan chain down to Cape Comorin, and in the forests of Ceylon, the aboriginal populations of India are still to be met with, living in detached communities, distinct in physical appearance, manners, customs, and religions, not only from the Hindoos, Tamuls, Moslems, and Parsees, but from one another. Nothing annoyed our pundit so much as when he heard me call my bhistee, or water-man, "a Hindoo:" "Hindoo nay, maim sahib, whoo jungly-wallah hai" ("Not Hindoo-man, but a savage of the forest"). And, to tell the truth, one could not fail to notice between the Hindoo pundit and the coolie-bhistee as marked a difference as one sees between a high-bred American gentleman of the Anglo-Saxon race and the newly-emancipated American negro. In crossing the Indus one comes upon the relics of ancient races in the dark-complexioned, diminutive, but powerfully athletic natives of Guzerat, many of whom are now the coolies or porters of Bombay. Again, scattered over the Vindhyan and Satpurah mountains and the banks of the Nerbudda and Tapti are other tribes of a very peculiar race called Bheels or Bhils, probably from the Sanskrit word "bhil," which signifies "separate" or "outcasts." The legends of these tribes, one and all, trace their origin to the union of the god Mahadèo with a beautiful woman met by him in a forest. From this union sprang a sort of giant distinguished by his ugliness and vice, who, after having perpetrated a series of horrible crimes, killed the sacred Brahmanic bull of the god, and was banished to the wilderness of Jodhpoor. The history of the Rajpoot princes of Jodhpoor and Odhpoor corroborates this account of the Bhil emigration. The Bhats,[30] or minstrels, of the Bhils still reside in Rajpootana, and make yearly visits to the countries of the various Bhil tribes to celebrate festal seasons with music and song. The celebrated Nádir Singh, a Bhilahah (that is, one sprung from the marriage of a Rajpoot with a Bhil woman), was one of the most formidable freebooters of his time until the establishment of an English settlement at Mhau,[31] when he was compelled to discharge his foreign adherents and renounce plundering.[32]