ANTHROPOMETRY IN INDIA. 197 



Either (1) the case must be put down to the credit of 

 the transformists, and we must suppose that the influence 

 of media in Bengal tends towards brachykephaly. The 

 only influence of the kind 1 can suggest is that of the 

 drinking water, which in that great alluvial plain may be 

 deficient in calcareous salts. 



Or (2) we must suppose that the views of Col. Dalton 

 and his followers are so far correct that there was at 

 some time or times anterior to history a considerable immi- 

 gration into Eastern India from the north and east, consist- 

 ing ol course of brachykephals, who would permanently modify 

 the cranial form of the inhabitants of Bengal proper, but 

 who did not push forward into Orissa and Chota Nagpur in 

 sufficient numbers or force to produce any permanent effect 

 on the prevailing type there. 



Not that this hypothesis (which, by the way, seems to 

 be favoured by Mr. Risley) 1 is not free from very strong 

 objections. Thus, it is generally supposed, and claimed by 

 themselves, that the Bengali Brahmans have been strictly 

 endogamous at least since their arrival in their present 

 seats, whither indeed the immigration of some of their sub- 

 sections is asserted to have been comparatively recent. 

 We can but suppose that during the period when Buddhism 

 had sway in Bengal its doctrine of equality prevailed to 

 break up for the time the Brahman law of endogamy, which 

 was re-established and made strict, and society reorganised, 

 on the downfall of that faith. Thus only, too, can we 

 account for a degree of family likeness in must of the 

 Bengali castes, the despised Chandals, for example, coming 

 out with dimensions not much unlike the lordly Brahmans. 



We pass next to the second type, which may be shortly 

 named Negroid. Mr. Risley would call it Dravidian, but 

 this seems hardly justifiable as yet, until we know through 

 more numerous and exact observations in other parts ol the 

 great region which is Dravidian in language, that this is 



1 Marco Polo gives an interesting account of the victory of Kublai 

 Khan over the King of Mien (Burmah) and Bangala, about 1280 a.d. ; but 

 we cannot be confident that the Burmese were really the lords of Bengal at 

 that period. 



