VI.] THE SOUTHERN MONGOLS. 1/3 



of the race. This veteran student of the Central Asiatic peoples 

 describes two Mongol types, a northern round-headed and a 

 southern long-headed, and thinks that the latter, which includes 

 "the Ladakhi, the Champas and Tibetans proper," was "the 

 primitive Mongol type 1 ." Thus is transferred to Central Asia 

 the burning question of the long-heads and the round-heads, 

 which, as raised by M. de Lapouge, has for the moment plunged 

 European ethnology into a state of chaos. But the discussion of 

 this subject must be reserved for later treatment. 



Owing to the political seclusion of Tibet, the race has hitherto 

 been studied chiefly in outlying provinces beyond the frontiers, 

 such as Ladakh, Baltistan, and Sikkim 2 , that is, in 

 districts where mixture with other races may be 



and 



suspected. Indeed de Ujfalvy, who has made a 

 careful survey of Baltistan and Ladakh, assures us that, while the 

 Ladakhi represent two varieties of Homo Asiaticus with ceph. 

 index 77, the Balti are not Tibetans or Mongols at all, but 

 descendants of the historical Sacae, although now of Tibetan 

 speech and Moslem faith 3 . They are of the mean height or 

 slightly above it, with rather low brow, very 

 prominent superciliary arches, deep depression at and^rigin^ 

 nasal root, thick curved eyebrows, long, straight 

 or arched nose, thick lips, oval chin, small cheek-bones, small 

 flat ears, straight eyes, very black and abundant ringletty (boncle] 

 hair, full beard, usually black and silky, robust hairy body, small 

 hands and feet, and long head (index 72). In such characters 

 it is impossible to recognise the Mongol, and the contrast is most 

 striking with the neighbouring Ladakhi, true Mongols, as shown 

 by their slightly raised superciliary arches, spare and scarcely 

 curved eyebrows, slant eyes, large prominent cheek-bones, lank 

 and coarse hair, yellowish and nearly hairless body. 



1 " Le type primitif des Mongols est pour nous dolichocephale" (Les Aryens 

 an Nord et an Snd de V Hindoii-Kouch, 1896, p. 50). 



- Thus Risley's Tibetan measurements are all of subjects from Sikkim and 

 Nepal (Tribes and Castes of Bengal, Calcutta, 1891, passim). In the East, 

 however, Desgodins and other French missionaries have had better opportunities 

 of studying true Tibetans amongst the Si-fan ("Western Strangers") as the 

 frontier populations are called by the Chinese. 



:J Op. cit. p. 319. 



