XIV.] THE CAUCASIC PEOPLES. 553 



of speech in a region so favourable to such specialisation as the 

 Caucasus'. 



Crossing into Irania we are at once confronted with totally 

 different conditions. For the ethnologist this region 



TVi o 



comprises, besides the tableland between the Tigris i ran ians 

 and Indus, both slopes of the Hindu-Kush, and 

 the Pamir, with the uplands bounded south and north by the 

 upper courses of the Oxus and the Sir-darya. Overlooking later 

 Mongolo-Turki encroachments, a general survey will, I think, 

 show that from the earliest times the whole of this region has 

 formed part of the Caucasic domain ; that the bulk of the indi- 

 genous populations must have belonged to the dark, round-headed 

 Alpine type ; that these, still found in compact masses in many 

 places, were apparently conquered, but certainly Aryanised in 

 speech, in very remote prehistoric times by long-headed blond 

 Aryans of the IRANIC and GALCHIC branches, who arrived in large 

 numbers from the contiguous Eurasian steppe, mingled generally 

 with the brachy aborigines, but also kept aloof in several districts, 

 where they still survive with more or less modified proto-Aryan 

 features. Thus we are at once struck by the remarkable fact that 

 absolute uniformity of speech, always apart from late Mongol 

 intrusions, has prevailed during the historic period throughout 

 Irania, which has been in this respect as completely Aryanised as 

 Europe itself ; and further, that all current Aryan tongues, with 

 perhaps one trifling exception 2 , are members either of the Iranic 



1 It should perhaps be stated that R. von Erckert (Die Sprachen des Kau- 

 kasischen Stammes, Vienna, 1895) claims to have reduced all the non- Aryan 

 tongues of the Caucasus to one stock with 3 main divisions : Georgian ; Cher- 

 kess with Abkhasian; and Lesghian with Chechenz. "Es ergiebt sich eine 

 einheitliche Ursprung aller dtesen Sprachen." But this does not help us 

 much, because the divergences are so great as to leave the primordial unity 

 little more than a hypothesis, possible in itself, but no longer capable of philo- 

 logical proof. Nobody can be convinced by the author's processes. 



2 The Yagnobi of the river of like name, an affluent of the Zerafshan ; yet 

 even this shows lexical affinities with Iranic, while its structure seems to connect 

 it with Leitner's Kajuna and Biddulph's Burish, a non-Aryan tongue current in 

 Ghilghit, Vasin, Hunza and Nagar, whose inhabitants are regarded by Biddulph 

 as descendants of the Yue-chi. The Yagnobi themselves, however, are dis- 

 tinctly Alpines, somewhat short, very hirsute and brown, with broad face, 

 large head, and a Savoyard expression. They have the curious custom of never 



