1/4 M AN : PAST AND PRESENT. [CHAP 



Doubtless there has been a considerable intermingling of 

 Baltis and Ladakhis, and in recent times still more of Baltis and 

 Dards (Hindu-Kush "Aryans"), whence Leitner's view that the 

 Baltis are Dards at a remote period conquered by the Bhots 

 (Tibetans), losing their speech with their independence. But 

 of all these peoples the Baltis were in former times the most 

 civilised, as shown by the remarkable rock-carvings still found in 

 the country, and attributed by the present inhabitants to a long 

 vanished race. Some of these carvings represent warriors mounted 

 and on foot, the resemblance being often very striking between 

 them and the persons figured on the coins of the Sacae kings both 

 in their physical appearance, attitudes, arms, and accoutrements. 

 The Baltis are still famous horsemen, and with them is said to 

 have originated the game of polo, which has thence spread to 

 the surrounding peoples as far as Chitral and Irania. 



From all these considerations it is inferred that the Baltis are 

 the direct descendants of the Sacae, who invaded India about 

 90 B.C., not from the west (the Kabul Valley) as generally stated, 

 but from the north over the Karakorum Passes leading directly 

 to Baltistan 1 . Thus lives again a name renowned in antiquity, 

 and another of those links is established between the past and 

 the present, which it is the province of the historical ethnologist 

 to rescue from oblivion. 



In Tibet proper the ethnical relations have been confused by 



the loose way tribal and even national names are 



Proper ' referred to by Prjevalsky and some other modern 



explorers. It should therefore be explained that 



three somewhat distinct branches of the race have to be carefully 



distinguished: i. The Bod-pa 1 , "Bod-men," the settled and 



1 Op, cit. p. 327. Here we are reminded that, though the Sacas are called 

 " Scythians" by Herodotus and other ancient writers, under this vague expres- 

 sion were comprised a multitude of heterogeneous peoples, amongst whom were 

 types corresponding to both varieties of Homo Asiaticus, as well as homologues 

 of //. Europicus and even of//. Mediterranensis. "Aujourd'hui 1'ancien type 

 sace, adouci parmi les melanges, reparait et constitue le type si caracteristique, si 

 complexe et si different de ses voisins que nous appelons le type balti" (p. 328). 



2 Mr W. W. Rockhill, our best living authority, accepts none of the current 

 explanations of the widely diffused term bod (bkot, bJiot], which appears to form 

 the second element in the word Tibet (Stod-Bod, pronounced Teu-Bc^l, "Upper 



