276 THE ARYAN QUESTION vi 



Forty years ago, the credit of the Hindoo- 

 Koosh-Pamir theory had risen almost to that of 

 an axiom. The first person to instil doubt of its 

 value into my mind was the late Robert Gordon 

 Latham, a man of great learning and singular 

 originality, whose attacks upon the Hindoo- 

 Kooshite doctrine could scarcely have failed as 

 completely as they did, if his great powers had 

 been bestowed upon making his books not only 

 worthy of being read, but readable. The im- 

 pression left upon my mind, at that time, by 

 various conversations about the " Sarmatian hypo- 

 thesis," which my friend wished to substitute for 

 the Hindoo-Koosh-Pamir speculation, was that 

 the one and the other rested pretty much upon a 

 like foundation of guess-work. That there was 

 no sufficient reason for planting the primitive 

 Aryans in the Hindoo Koosh, or in Pamir, seemed 

 plain enough ; but that there was little better 

 ground, on the evidence then adduced, for settling 

 them in the region at present occupied by Western 

 Russia, or Podolia, appeared to me to be not less 

 plain. The most I thought Latham proved was, 

 that the Aryan people of Indo-Iranian speech 

 were just as likely to have come from Europe, as 

 the Aryan people of Greek, or Teutonic, or Celtic 

 speech from Asia. Of late years, Latham's views, 

 so long neglected, or mentioned merely as an 

 example of insular eccentricity, have been taken 

 up and advocated with much ability in Germany 



