A still more interesting, because more recent, instance of this sort is that of the Meithei, now known to Hindus as Manipuris. In the Mahābhāarata is told the tale of how the hero Arjuna wandered from his brethren into Southern and Eastern India, and, among other adventures, met (as Æneas with Dido) with Chitrangadā, the fair daughter of the King of Manipur, somewhere near the eastern coast. Some 150 years ago, the then king of the beautiful valley of Imphāl, between Assam and Burma, was thinking of becoming a Muhammadan, by way of courting the favour of the Muhammadan rulers of Bengal. But Hindu priests persuaded him that a better way of linking his fortunes with those of India, rather than with Ava (with whose royal family his dynasty had usually intermarried), was by becoming Hindu with all his people. Imphāl was identified with Manipur, and many of the Meithei race became Vishnuvite Hindus with their ruler, though they retain their primitive Tibeto-Burman language. I may mention a little personal reminiscence to show how completely the change by fictitious adoption was accepted in Bengal. In 1891, my old friend and chief, Mr Quinton, with all his staff, was treacherously murdered at Manipur. Subsequently when I was magistrate of Chittagong, I found that my head clerk, an extremely mild and intelligent Bengali Kāyastha, had celebrated the easily suppressed mutiny at Manipur by writing a drama based on the ancient legend of Arjuna's amours with Chitrangadā! Sometimes an aboriginal tribe will become a Hindu caste without losing its old tribal designation. They will worship Hindu gods without daring wholly to neglect tribal deities, which, as might perhaps be expected, are left chiefly to the women of the tribe. Such a tribe will rapidly assimilate itself to the beliefs and practices of Hindu neighbours, and finally only its name and (except in case of occasional intermarriage with other castes) its physical aspect will remain to testify to its origin. Castes are at present classified as follows: