xix CONTINENTAL NEGRITOS 303 



of countries otherwise mainly inhabited by other races, and 

 generally in a condition more or less of degradation and 

 barbarism, resulting from the oppression with which they 

 have been treated by their invading conquerors ; often, more- 

 over, so much mixed that their original characters are scarcely 

 recognisable. The Semangs of the interior of Malacca in the 

 Malay peninsula, the Sakays from Perak, the Moys of Annam, 

 all show traces of Negrito blood. In India proper, especially 

 among the lowest and least civilised tribes, not only of the 

 central and southern districts, but almost to the foot of the 

 Himalayas, in the Punjab, and even to the west side of the 

 Indus, according to Quatrefages, frizzly hair, negro features, 

 and small stature are so common that a strong argument can 

 be based on them for the belief in a Negrito race forming 

 the basis of the whole pre-Aryan, or Dravidian as it is generally 

 called, population of the peninsula. The crossing that has 

 taken place with other races has doubtless greatly altered the 

 physical characters of this people, and the evidences of such 

 alteration manifest themselves in many ways ; sometimes the 

 curliness of the hair is lost by the admixture with straight- 

 haired races, while the black complexion and small stature 

 remain ; sometimes the stature is increased, but the colour, 

 which seems to be one of the most persistent of characteristics, 

 remains. 



The localities in which the Negrito people are found in 

 their greatest purify, either in almost inaccessible islands, as 

 on the Andamans, or elsewhere in the mountainous ranges of 

 the interior only, and their social condition and traditions, 

 wherever they exist, all point to the fact that they were the 

 earliest inhabitants ; and that the Mongolian and Malay races 

 on the east, and the Aryans on the west, which are now so 

 rapidly exterminating and replacing them, are later comers 

 into the land, exactly as, in the greater part of the Pacific 

 Ocean, territory formerly occupied by the aboriginal dark, 

 frizzly -haired Negroid Melanesians has been gradually and 

 slowly invaded by the brown Polynesians, who in their turn, 

 but by a much more rapid process, are being replaced by 

 Europeans. 



We now see what constitutes the great interest of the 



