IIILL TIUBES OF INDIA. 69 



portion of Australia, were not submerged ; but the most of the rest, at one time or other, 

 was. 



As under the gradual sinking of the land, which I su^jpose to have taken place, the ocean 

 encroached upon the great tracts submerged there would be a deluge and a loss of life, such as 

 we can onl)' faintly imagine ; something to which we have no parallel. It may perhaps have 

 been the Noachian deluge, which still dwells in the traditions of every race or tribe on the 

 face of the earth. As the ocean slowlj- and gradually invaded the plains, the inhabitants 

 must have retreated to the high mountain-tops, — become Hill tribes, in fact. Doubtless great 

 tracts of this supposed continent, as is the case in all other continents, consisted of vast plains, 

 which, graduallj' converted into muddy marshes, may have taken thousands of years to sink beyond 

 the depth of man ; and when this was the case, he must have there died off by hardship, exposure, 

 and want of food, long before the sea rose so high as actually to drown him ; but where there 

 were mountains, lulls, or even trifling elevations, a small remnant would be saved, but not without 

 enduring great hardships. On the mountains, so long as other animals, which may have shared 

 the refuge, lasted, they would have a jn'ecarious supplj- of food ; but as the space, and with it the 

 food diminished, bloody struggles must have taken place for space and means of life ; and if we 

 could delve into the heart of some of the atolls we might perhaps find there mute evidence of the 

 strength and desjDair of the combatants, in mutilated relics of humanity. 



Let us assume that all were not so cut off; that before the last familv on the islet was extii'- 

 pated, the gradual downward motion ceased, over a portion of the district of which we have spoken ; 

 that volcanoes and earthquakes spoke of change, and that bjr-and-bye the laud began to rise, or, as 

 the poor inhabitants would think, the sea began to fall, and their lives were saved to puzzle the brains 

 of another race with their afiinity and descent. 



As the land rose above the sea, and the fertile ooze of these tropical seas becaihe rich in 

 verdure, the inhabitants woidd descend and take possession of the land : but by-and-bye, when 

 the northern hemisphere rose in its turn, and was peopled with a fauna, flora, and human in- 

 habitants of its own, the events indicated by General Briggs probably took place. A portion of 

 these northern Asiatics (that is, the Hindoos) invaded India. 



Now what would be the eflbct of such an invasion upon the aboriginal inhabitants who 

 had been previously in very much the same position as that in which the Andamancrs are now 

 left? Let us try to realize it by apph'ing the test to them. Suppose the Indian Ocean 

 to be raised, so as to unite the Andaman and the Nicobar Islands to the mainland on both sides 

 and throw open the plains wliich were but lateh^ at the bottom of the Bay of Bengal, and now 

 were rich in vegetation, to the grasp of the Hindoo and Bm-mese — I shall say nothing of the 

 European, for what would happen were he, with his civilization and knowledge of science and arts, 

 to come in contact with a tribe of savages, furnishes no fair parallel to what woidd take place with 

 a less highly endowed people. Let us turn loose the aboriginal Hindoos and Burmese in milliong 

 to compete with the few Andamaners for the possession of the rich bottoms of the Indian Ocean. 

 The contest would not be long. The fertile plains would soon be seized and appropriated by 

 their more numerous, stronger, and comparativelj'^ more intelligent competitors. The Andamaners 

 would be di-iven back to their old fastnesses — their original mountain-tops. And what woidd happen 

 then ? woidd the Hindoos try to exterminate the Andamaners in order to seize what would be 

 the impregnable tops of the Andaman mountains, or woidd they allow their inhabitants to 

 live as the HiU tribes now do, still, as on an island in the midst of the sea, surrounded by a sea 



