48 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTEAL INDIA. 



of Europe, the Persian of high Asia, and the Sanscrit-speaking 

 "fair-skinned" people who entered India from the north 

 uncalculated ages ago. That influence cannot have been one 

 of climate only, which would have affected all their descen- 

 dants equally ; whereas we see existing the greatest range of 

 diversity, from the light-coloured, noble-featured Brahman of 

 the extreme north-west to the black and negro-like chamar or 

 pariah of the east and south. Everything shows that the cause 

 has been a mingling of the immigrant race with the inferior 

 Tauranian tribes whom they found occupying the soil before 

 them. To judge from physical appearance, few but the highest 

 castes of Northern India can have any claim to purity of 

 Aryan blood ; and the admixture of indigenous blood, as indi- 

 cated by colour and feature, appears to be greater and greater 

 the further we proceed from the seat of the original Aryan 

 settlements in the north-west. It can scarcely be doubted then 

 that the modern Hindus are a composite race, resulting from 

 the absorption of a wave of Aryanism in a great ocean of 

 peoples of a far inferior type, the type in fact represented by 

 such of them as have still remained undiluted in their inac- 

 cessible hills. The force of the wave diminished as it pro- 

 ceeded ; and the gradations in the extent of its influence are 

 now jso subtle that it is hard to say where the line should be 

 drawn to denote a preponderance of the one element over 

 the other. The difficulty is further increased by the circum- 

 stance that the Aryan language, customs, and beliefs, appear to 

 have been carried far beyond any perceptible influence of the 

 Aryan blood, so that whole races who show little or nothing 

 of the latter have become thoroughly imbued with the 

 former. 



Not, however, without notable modification have the Aryan 

 language, religion, and customs, thus permeated the masses of 



