This book so far differs from any previous account of the races of these Provinces that it attempts to supply some more detailed information regarding their manners, customs, marriage institutions and religion. It is perhaps well that this task should be essayed now, however imperfect and unsatisfactory the present venture may be. There can be little doubt that caste is undergoing at present a process of transition. The Dravidian races who skirt the great Ganges-Jumna valleys are becoming rapidly Brâhmanized, and will probably in a few years have lost much of what is peculiar to them and interesting to the Ethnologist and student of the development of popular religion. Even now our Kols, Kharwârs Cheros and Mânjhis are much less primitive people than their brethren, whose manners and institutions have been analysed by Colonel Dalton, Mr. Risley and Mr. Hislop. The improvement of communications, the facility for visits to the sacred shrines of Hinduism, the Brâhmanical propaganda preached by those most active of all missionaries—the Panda and the Purohit, the Jogi and the Sannyâsi—will before long obliterate much of the primitive ideas which they still retain though in a modified form. A long service spent in Mirzapur, the last refuge of the Dravidian races, has, I trust, enabled me to supply some new facts regarding these interesting people. For the races of the plains I have based my account of them on a series of notes collected throughout the Provinces by a number of independent enquirers, both official and non-official, whose services were made available by the District Officers. The work could not have been even attempted without much cordial co-operation on the part of District Officers and a large body of native gentlemen to whose generosity in devoting some of their scanty leisure to this investigation it is impossible for me to do full justice. At the opening of each article I have been careful to name the gentlemen to whose aid I am indebted.