250 MANUAL OF THE NILAGIRI DISTRICT. 



UAP. XI. traces of another language ; and if unity of language were the only 

 Early *®^^ °^ identity of race and origin^ then the wilder races are very 



History, properly placed in the same family of men as their more civilized 

 neighbours who use a cognate language ; but whether the evidence 

 drawn from the religion, manners, customs, and physical peculiari- 

 ties of some of these tribes bears out fully this assumption is by 

 some still regarded as an open question, though we find no certain 

 traces of an older and essentially diverse people ; for with wholly 

 Bavage peoples it is conceivable that a race might disappear 

 without leaving a trace of its language in the speech of its sup- 

 planters, or adopt that of its conquerors, losing every trace of its 

 original tongue. 



These wilder Dravidian races appear, as the curtain of history 

 rises, to be occupying the highlands and mountains of the 

 Dekhan, especially its western and southern borders and the upper 

 tracts of the Goddvari and Kistna rivers. " At any rate it 

 appears probable from the classical Geography,^' remarks Pro- 

 fessor Wilson,^ " as well as the imperfect character and general 

 tenor of the traditions regarding this part of the peninsula, that 

 a considerable tract of country between the Goddvari and Kistna 

 rivers fi'om the sea coast eastwards continued, to a comparatively 

 modern date, in the possession of scattered and barbarous tribes, 

 or an untenanted expanse of mountain and forest, such as it was 

 when Rama, with his wife and brother, resided in a cottage of 

 leaves near the sources of the Godavari.^^ But although fierce 

 and wild tribes occupied these forests and jungles, yet in the 

 richer valleys of the great rivers and on the plains near the coast 

 were people, dwelling in towns, far more advanced in civilization 

 and the arts, who were engaged in commerce, the highway of 

 which was the Arabian Sea or the Bay of Bengal ; but there are 

 no ruins to evidence to what degree of civilization they had 

 attained. Meanwhile we find the Aryans pushing down along 

 the east and west coast, their course along the sea-board being 

 comparatively easy, and finally forcing their way from central 

 Hindostan in a direct line southwards through the Dekhan. 

 But the resistance of the tribes in possession appears to have 

 been so determined that, although at last the power and 

 civilization of the Aryans obtained a permanent footing in the 

 more fertile and open portions of the Dekhan, and gradually 

 extended to the most southern portions of the Peninsula and 

 even to Ceylon, yet they were compelled to adopt the language 

 of the people, and probably, in the first instance, much of 

 their religion and many of their customs. The Aryan invaders 



1 Descn2)tive Catalogue, Vol. I, p. xcix. 



