CHAP. xxin. GAPS BETWEEN LANGUAGES, HOW CAUSED. 461 



valleys and high mountain fastnesses, where they maintained 

 their independence, as do the Circassians in our time, in 

 spite of the power of Kussia, 



In the Himalayan Mountains, from Assam to its extreme 

 north-rwestern limit, and generally in the more hilly parts of 

 British India, the diversity of languages is surprisingly great, 

 impeding the advance of civilisation and the labours of the 

 missionary. In South America and Mexico, Alexander Hum- 

 boldt reckoned the distinct tongues by hundreds, and those 

 of Africa are said to be equally numerous. Even in China, 

 some eighteen provincial dialects prevail, almost all deviat 

 ing so much from others that the speakers are not mutually 

 intelligible, and besides these there are other distinct forms 

 of speech in the mountains of the same empire. 



The philologist might next proceed to point out that the 

 geographical relations of living and dead languages favour 

 the hypothesis of the living ones having been derived from 

 the extinct, in spite of our inability, in most instances, to 

 adduce documentary evidence of the fact or to discover 

 monuments of all the intermediate and transitional dialects 

 which must have existed. Thus he would observe that the 

 modern Romance languages are spoken exactly where the 

 ancient Romans once lived or ruled, and the Greek of our 

 days where the older classical Greek was formerly spoken. 

 Exceptions to this rule might be detected, but they would be 

 explicable by reference to colonisation and conquest. 



As to the many and wide gaps sometimes encountered 

 between the dead and living languages, we must remember 

 that it is not part of the plan of any people to preserve 

 memorials of their forms of speech expressly for the edifica 

 tion of posterity. Their MSS. and inscriptions serve some 

 present purpose, are occasional and imperfect from the first, 

 and are rendered more fragmentary in the course of time, 

 some being intentionally destroyed, others lost by the decay 



