ANTHROPOMETRY IN INDIA. 191 



posed to be accompanied by a difference of physical 

 type ; and the former were thought to be the descen- 

 dants of Mongoloid immigrants from the north-east, 

 the latter to be either the remains of an ancient 

 oceanic population, or to have migrated from the north- 

 west from the region where the Brahui had been left 

 behind. 



New light has been thrown on the subject, however, 

 during the last few years by the investigations made by 

 Mr. H. H. Risley, with governmental authority and sup- 

 port, into the anthropometry of the Bengal presidency. 



The ethnology of this part of India — the valleys, roughly 

 speaking, of the Ganges and the middle Indus — had never 

 appeared so difficult as that of the peninsula, though it had 

 its own complexities, and the absence of historical data 

 was almost as deplorable. The prevailing view was that 

 the primitive Aryans, entering the plain of the Indus irom 

 the north-west, had gradually spread eastwards, conquering 

 and civilising until they had occupied almost the entire 

 tract. Some, those who made light of colour and com- 

 plexion as permanent racial characteristics, supposed that 

 the whole population was of Aryan descent more or less 

 pure, and this view was naturally not unwelcome to the 

 educated and patriotic Hindu. Others believed that the 

 twice-born castes, the Brahmans, Kshatriyas and Vaisyas, 

 were truly Aryan, the Sudras, or mass of the population, 

 being descended from the conquered Dasyus, the ancient 

 occupants, more or less leavened, perhaps, by a tincture of 

 the blood of the superior race. It was natural, also, to 

 suppose that, in accordance with the usual rules of mi- 

 gration and conquest, the proportion of the blood of the 

 invaders would be found greatest in the neighbourhood of 

 the scene of their arrival, on the north-western frontier, 

 that is, and in the Punjab ; though the distribution would 

 no doubt be modified to some extent by the greater or less 

 attractions of the soil in the several provinces ; thus ab- 

 original tribes were known to have subsisted in force till a 

 late period in the arid hills and plains of Rajputana, and in 

 the forest tracts of Central India, whereas the Doab of the 



