48 Annual Address. [Feb. 



is what they term Kankhera which is the plant we know as Riha 

 Boehmeria nivea — the China grass or Ramie). This is also grown in 

 the whole of the Assam valley for the same purposes but is never grownj 

 by the native inhabitants, in any other part of India. The Boehmeria 

 and tlie Chrysanthemum are certainly, the Brassica is almost certainly 

 of Chinese origin, while the employment of this Mallow as a vegetable 

 is a Chinese usage. This incursion of botany into the domain of 

 ethnology is, so far as I know, an entirely new departure and we may 

 hope that Major Prain will find leisure to develope it. 



One curious misapprehension I may take this opportunity of 

 clearing up. In a sketch of the caste system which appeared in the 

 Revue des Deux Mondes in 1894, and has since been published as a 

 separate volume, M. Senart did me the honour of noticing at length some 

 speculations of mine as to the origin of caste. In discussing the nasal 

 index, the percentage of the breadth of the nose on its length, which 

 Professors Flower and Topinard agree in regarding as the best test of 

 race distinctions, I had pointed out that in certain parts of India, 

 if a series of castes were arranged according to their nasal index, that 

 order would be found to correspond substantially with the nccepled 

 order of social precedence. I went on to say " it is scarcely a paradox 

 to lay down as a law of the caste organisation in Eastern India that a 

 man's social status varies in inverse ratio to the width of his nose." On 

 this M. Senart remarks: — "M. Risley aboutit a cette affirmation 

 singuliere, au moins d' aspect : 'C'est a peine une exagei ation d' etablir 

 comme une loi de I'organisation des castes dans Tlnd^ Orientale, que le 

 rang social d'un homme varie en raison inverse de la lavgeur de son nez/ 

 Qui ne resterait un peu sceptique " ? Who indeed, if I had really made 

 the affirmation singuliere which M. Senart imputes to nie ? What I 

 did say was something quite different. M. Senart's criticism in fnct 

 rests on a mistranslation. L' hide Orientale means the whole of India 

 — the East Indies as one might sny; "Eastern India" means the 

 eastern part of India to which, as appears clearly enough from the 

 context, my remarks were limited. The expression is used in much the 

 same sense by Mr. Montgomery Martin as the title of the well-known 

 work — a sort of county history of part of Bengal — which he compiled 

 in 1838 from the manuscript records of Dr. Francis Buchanan*s 

 survey, and by Sir Joseph Hooker in his introduction to the Flora 

 Indica. 



The British Association suggest in particular that anthropometric 

 observations will throw light on the important and difficult problem of 

 the origin of the Rajputs and Jats of Rajputana the Eastern Panjab 

 and their relation w^th the Yu echi and other Scythian races. Now 



