d Chittapolana or Chiplun unto this
day.

[Illustration: Parashurama and the Chitpavans.]

* * * * *

And it came to pass in the fulness of time, as the Sahyadri-khand tells,
that Parashurama called all Brahmans to a great festival in the new land
which he had created between the mountains and the sea. But the twice-born
hearkened not to his words; whereas the God waxing wroth determined to
create new Brahmans who would not turn a deaf ear to his counsel. Revolving
this decision in his heart he walked down to the shore, and there in the
seaward-gazing burning-ground he met a stranger-people, white-skinned,
blue-eyed, and fair to look upon, and asked them who they were and whence
they came. "Fishermen (or hunters) are we," they answered, "and dwell upon
the seashore, sixty families of us in all." And the God was pleased with
them and raising them to the rank of Brahmans, divided them into fourteen
"Gotras," and made them a solemn promise that should they ever call him to
mind in any real emergency he would come to their assistance. So they dwelt
for many a day, waxing by the favour of God both numerous and learned,
until by ill-hap they hearkened into evil counsel and called upon the God
without just reason. And He, when he learned what they had done, was
exceeding wroth and cursed them, dooming them to sorrow and to the service
of other men so long as the sun and moon should endure. Thus the Chitpavans
gained their Brahmanhood, but lost their right to superiority in that they
flouted the promise of their God.

Such are the legends, popular and Puranic, of the coming of the Chitpavans
to Western India. That some historic truth lies below the garbled tale of
shipwreck and resurrection is partly proved by the physical traits of their
descendants,--of those men, in fact, whose immediate ancestors, employed at
first as messengers or spies of Maratha chieftains, by innate cleverness,
tact, and faculty for management gradually welded together the loose
Maratha confederacy and became directors of the internal and external
politics of the Peshwa's dominions. For to this day the true Chitpavan
perserves the fair skin, the strange grey eyes, the aspect of refined
strength and intelligence, which must have characterized the shipwrecked
mariners of old fable and marked them out in later years as strangers in a
strange land. But whence came they, these foreign immigrants, who after
long sojourn in th