TRANSACTIONS OF THE SECTIONS. 167 



the recent French expeditiou up the Mekong, that certain Tribes are Caucasian ia 

 feature. This, however, probably does not merit much stress. The same has often 

 been said of the Karens of Pegu — a case in which apparently partiality misled the 

 iudgmeut ; for Sir Arthm' Phayre testifies that the Karen national physiognomy 

 IS essentially Indo-Chinese like their language — though in every Indo-Chinese 

 tribe, as he notes, and as I have often obsei-ved, occur occasional and sometimes 

 remarkable exceptions to the prevailing type. 



The occupation of this region has seemed to the most diligent students of the 

 characters and languages of these nations to have occurred in something like the 

 following order. 



Dark relics of the earliest human occupation are probably the Negrito races 

 found in fragmentary settlements in the Andaman Islands, perhaps (as there is now 

 strong evidence for be]ie\-ing) in the great Nicobar Island, in the spinal mountains of 

 the Malay peninsula and in the Philippine Islands, not to speak of remoter regions. 

 The singular isolation and dispersion of a race so low in civilization seems almost to 

 suggest the idea that they are the surviving waifs of some submerged continent. 



13ut supposing the other races to have descended from beyond the Ilimalya, 

 we must assign to the migration of the Malay nations the earliest date. They 

 seem to have left upon the continent as their nearest kinsmen the Chains or people 

 of C/iainpa, if these were not rather a reflex wave of colonization from the islands. 

 To an early tide of migration southward would seem also to belong : — the Mons or 

 Talaings, who occupied the deltas of the L-awadi and the Salwen, the upper part 

 of the Malay peninsula, and probably some part of the valley of the Menam ; the 

 Kilmer, or Kambojans, occupying the lower v.alley and Delta of the Mekong, and 

 flowing over into the Siam basin like the Mons from the other side ; and the Anam, 

 or people of Tongkiug and Cochin China. To these may have succeeded the great 

 family of the Lau, Thai or Shans, who flrst occupied the plateau and high valleys 

 of Yunnan, the middle basin of the Mekong, and the upper part of the Siam basin. 

 In later days this race has flowed back upon the Upper Irawadi and the Brah- 

 maputra, aud has spread south to the coasts of Siam and the Malay peninsula. 



The Karens, and perhaps some others of the lai-ger hill-tribes allied to them on 

 the borders of the Irawadi, probably followed. Then we have the Marama or 

 Burman race, apparently descending the Irawadi, pressing before them the Mons 

 into the Delta, 'the Khyens and like tribes into the bordering mountains. One 

 great branch of the Burmans, by themselves reckoned the elder, passes over the 

 mountains to the shores of the Bay of Bengal, shores which, according to their tra- 

 ditions, they find occupied by JJili/s, or Bakkas— that is, by ogres or cannibal 

 monsters, from whom in after days the country got its name of Rakhain or Aracan, 

 the country of the ogi-es. 



As usual, the course of civilization, like that of occupation, has mainly foUojved 

 that of the great rivers, those highways of the primeval world ; and their valleys 

 and deltas have been the seat of the more civilized monarchies. 



Of these nations that we shall call civilized, then, we have the Burmese still occu- 

 pviug the valley of the Irawadi and the coast-plains and valleys of Aracan ; with 

 the exception of those whom we have made the Queen's subjects, they are still all 

 united under one monarchy. The jVnamites occupy the eastern shores, and are 

 also now so united, except such as have become subjects of France. Between these 

 two is found the great Shan race, whose settlements are difiused from the banks of 

 the Brahmaputra to the Malay coasts and the delta of the Mekong, divided under 

 an infinity of petty princes and tributary to a variety of sovereign governments, 

 parted sometimes widely from one another by populations of alien blood, but every- 

 where displaying a fair amoimt of civilization, everywhere possessing letters and the 

 Buddhist religion, and everywhere speaking substantially the same language — cir- 

 cumstances that seem to corroborate what the traditions of the race assert, bothin 

 Siam and in the remote interior, that they are the fragments of some great community 

 shattered and dispersed. Some fatal want of coherence has split the race into 

 a great number of unconnected principalities, many of which are incorporated in 

 the Chinese province of Yunnan, and others tributary to Burma or to Siam. The 

 latter monarchy (Siam) is now apparently the only independent Shan state of any 

 importance in existence. A portion of the race are foimd in what is now om- own 



