ange the game for a little meal and thus prolong existence over
another span. The marksman armed with a gun will sit up for wild pig
returning from the fields, and in the same manner barter their flesh
for other necessaries of life. However, the prospect of starvation has
already driven many to take the plough, and the number of seceders
daily increases. Our administration, though just and liberal, has
a levelling tendency; service is no longer to be procured, and to
many the stern alternative has arrived of taking to agriculture
and securing comparative comfort, or enduring the pangs of hunger
and death. So long as any resource remains the fatal step will be
postponed, but it is easy to foresee that the struggle cannot be long
protracted; necessity is a hard task-master, and sooner or later the
pressure of want will overcome the scruples of the most bigoted." The
objection to ploughing appears happily to have been quite overcome in
the Central Provinces, as at the last census nine-tenths of the whole
caste were shown as employed in pasture and agriculture, one-tenth of
the Rajputs being landholders, three-fifths actual cultivators, and
one-fifth labourers and woodcutters. The bulk of the remaining tenth
are probably in the police or other branches of Government service.

Rajput, Baghel

_Rajput, Baghel._--The Baghel Rajputs, who have given their name to
Baghelkhand or Rewah, the eastern part of Central India, are a branch
of the Chalukya or Solankhi clan, one of the four Agnikulas or those
born from the firepit on Mount Abu. The chiefs of Rewah are Baghel
Rajputs, and the late Maharaja Raghuraj Singh has written a traditional
history of the sept in a book called the _Bhakt Mala_. [494] He derives
their origin from a child, having the form of a tiger (_bagh_) who
was born to the Solankhi Raja of Gujarat at the intercession of the
famous saint Kabir. One of the headquarters of the Kabirpanthi sect
are at Kawardha, which is close to Rewah, and the ruling family are
members of the sect; hence probably the association of the Prophet
with their origin. The _Bombay Gazetteer_ [495] states that the
founder of the clan was one Anoka, a nephew of the Solankhi king
of Gujarat, Kumarpal (A.D. 1143-1174). He obtained a grant of the
village Vaghela, the tiger's lair, about ten miles from Anhilvada,
the capital of the Solankhi dynasty, and the Baghel clan takes its
name from this village. Subsequently the Baghels extended th