1006 OF THE BRANCHES OF THE HUMAN FAMILY. 



taining an infusion of Sanskritic words), but more closely approximates to 

 the Seriform type ; and many of the hill tribes, in different parts of India, 

 speak peculiar dialects, which, though mutually unintelligible, appear refer- 

 able to the same stock. Now it is among this portion of the population of 

 India, that the greatest departure presents itself from the Caucasian type of 

 cranial formation, and the closest conformity to the Mongolian ; the cheek- 

 bones being more prominent, the hair coarse, scanty, and straight, and the 

 nose flattened ; sometimes, also, the lips are very thick, and the jaws project, 

 showing an approximation to the prognathous type. Now in the opinion of 

 Dr. Latham and Mr. Norris, the various dialects of Northern India (of 

 which the Hindostani is the most extensively spoken) are to be regarded as 

 belonging, in virtue of their fundamental nature, to the same group with 

 those of High Asia, notwithstanding the large infusion of Sanskritic words 

 which they contain ; this infusion having been introduced at an early period 

 by an invading branch of the Arian stock, of whose advent there is histori- 

 cal evidence, and whose descendants the ordinary Hindoo population have 

 been erroneously supposed to be. According to this view, then, the influence 

 of the Arian invasion upon the language and population of Northern India 

 was very much akin to that of the Norman invasion upon those of England ; 

 the number of individuals of the invading race being so small in proportion 

 to that of the indigenous population as to be speedily merged in it, not, 

 however, without contributing to an elevation of its physical characters ; 

 and a large number of new words having been in like manner introduced, 

 without any essential change in the type of the original language. And 

 thus the only distinct traces of the Ariau stock are to be found in the Brah- 

 rninical caste, which preserves (though with great corruption) the original 

 Brahminical religion, and which keeps up the Sanskrit as its classical lan- 

 guage ; it is certain, however, that this race is far from being of pure de- 

 scent, having intermingled to a considerable extent with the ordinary Hin- 

 doo population. There is but little to remind us of the Mongolian type in 

 the countenances of the Hindoos, which are often remarkable for a sym- 

 metrical beauty that only wants a more intellectual expression to render 

 them extremely striking; some traces of it, however, may perhaps be found 

 in the rather prominent zygomatic arches which are common amongst them ; 

 but the cranial portion of the skull presents no approach to the pyramidal 

 type, being often very regularly elliptical. There is a remarkable difference 

 in the color of the different Hindoo tribes; some being nearly as dark as 

 Negroes, others more of a copper color, and others but little darker than the 

 inhabitants of Southern Europe. 1 



851. According to the usual mode of dividing the Human family, the 

 Ethiopian or Negro stock is made to include all the nations of Africa to the 

 southward of the Atlas range. But, on the one hand, the Hottentots and 

 Bushmen of the southern extremity constitute a group which is strongly dis- 

 tinguished by physical characters from the rest of the African nations; so, 

 again, the region north of the Great Desert is mostly occupied by Semitic 

 tribes ( 848): the scattered population of the Great Desert itself is far from 

 being Negro in many of its features; the valley of the Nile, at least in its 

 middle and lower portions, including Egypt, Nubia, and even Abyssinia, is 

 inhabited by a group of nations which may be designated as Nilotic, and 

 which presents a series of gradational transitions between the Negroes and 

 Kaffres and the Semitic races; a large portion of the a,rea south of the 



i For many interesting particulars respecting the physical characters and habits of 

 the wild tribes of the Veddahs of Ceylon, see a paper by J. Bailey in the Transac- 

 tions of the Ethnological Society, vol. ii, p. 278. 



