XIV.] THE CAUCASIC PEOPLES. 559 



traits are more effaced, and the Aryan more accentuated. But,, 

 as should be expected, there are many aberrant 



*T*V * 



groups showing divergences in all directions, as Drav i d i ans 

 amongst the Kurumbas and Todas of the Nilgiris, 

 the former approximating to the Mongol, the latter to the Aryan 

 standard. The Rev. W. Sikemeier, who has lived amongst them 

 for years, writes to me that " many of the Kurumbas have decided 

 Mongoloid face and stature, and appear to be the aborigines of 

 that region 1 ." My correspondent adds that much nonsense has 

 been written about the Todas, who have become the trump card 

 of popular ethnographists. "Being ransacked by European 

 visitors they invent all kinds of traditions, which they found out 

 their questioners liked to get, and for which they were paid." 

 Still the type is remarkable and strikingly European, "well pro- 

 portioned and stalwart, with straight nose, regular features and 

 perfect teeth," the chief characteristic being the development of 

 the hairy system, less however than amongst the Ainu, whom 

 they so closely resemble 2 . From the illustrations given in Mr 

 Thurston's valuable series one might be tempted to infer that a 

 group of proto-Aryans had reached this extreme limit of their 

 Asiatic domain and here for untold ages preserved their original 

 type in almost unsullied purity. 



The Dravidians occupy the greater part of the Dekkan, where 

 they are constituted in a few great nations- -Telugus (Telingas); 

 Tamils (numbers of whom have crossed into Ceylon and occupied 

 the northern and central parts of that island, working in the coffee 

 districts), Kanarese, and the Malayalim of the west coast. These 

 with some others were brought at an early date under Aryan (Hindu) 

 influences, but have preserved their highly agglutinating Dravidian 

 speech, which has no known affinities elsewhere, unless perhaps 

 with the language of the Brahuis, who are regarded by many as 

 belated Dravidians left behind in East Baluchistan. 



But for this very old, but highly cultivated Dravidian language, 

 which is still spoken by about 54 millions between 



J Dravidian 



the Ganges and Ceylon, it would no longer be and Aryan 

 possible to distinguish these southern Hindus from 



1 Letter, June 18, 1895. 



2 Edgar Thurston, Anthropology etc., Bui. 4, Madras, 1896, pp. 147-8- 



