338 Major-General John Briggs on the 



succeed) by plundering or levying tribute on the inhabitants 

 in the open plains, on the plea of the latter having dispos- 

 sessed them of their native soil. In their pursuit of this 

 object they seldom commit murder, if it can be avoided ; but 

 they sometimes practise cruelty on their prisoners in order 

 to extort confessions of concealed wealth, or to deprive them 

 of the means of escape in the absence of guards, which is 

 effected in the latter case by burning the soles of the feet 

 and the palms of the hands of their captives. 



Captain Newbold, of the Madras army, who has written 

 on the Chenchies of Nalla Malla or Black Mountains, repre- 

 sents those he saw as having long bushy hair, thick lips, high 

 cheek-bones, and small but piercing eyes. Sir Richard Jen- 

 kins and Colonel Agnew confirm this description in speak- 

 ing of the Gonds ; and I believe no instance will be found of 

 those residing entirely on the hills having the aquiline nose, 

 or the delicacy of feature of the Caucasian family. In this 

 respect they partake rather of the Tartar or Thibetan phy- 

 siognomy than of the Hindu. 



The remote period of their settlement in India, and the 

 possibility of an occasional intermixture with the Hindus, 

 may in some cases have somewhat changed their physiog- 

 nomy from that of their ancestors, so as to render it doubt- 

 ful whether or not they are derived from that branch of the 

 human family, though in their habits and institutions they 

 certainly bear a strong affinity to the Tartar branch. 



It remains now to say something of their language. It 

 is not disputed that when the Hindus came to India from the 

 westward, they brought with them that language now recog- 

 nized as Indo-Germanic, and which pervades almost all the 

 spoken languages of Europe, extending from the banks of 

 the Ganges westward to the shores of the Atlantic. 



There is the strongest reason to believe that the Hindus 

 occupied the continent of India, north of twenty-two degrees 

 of north latitude, for twenty centuries in succession before 

 they invaded the south. Hence our ablest Oriental philolo- 

 gists have divided the various dialects in India into two 

 classes called the Northern and the Southern Groups, viz., 

 the Hindi, Bhirji, Guzeratti, Mharatti, Bengali, and Oria, 



