1877.] Cust — Non- Aryan Languages of India. 7 



Aryan and Southern Dravidian. Our researches will extend to tracts 

 of country under native sovereigns more or less dependent, and to the 

 wild tribes which inhabit the mountain fringe of the eastern border, or 

 the imperfectly known uplands of Central India. In this direction emphati- 

 cally lies the work of the next quarter of a century, for the harvest 

 is ready, and the oj^portunity is offered, if workmen are forthcoming. 

 For scant vocabularies and grammatical notes must be substituted in 

 all cases good practical grammars, and in some cases scientific gram- 

 mars, which will in due course be followed by scientific comparative 

 grammars and dictionaries, embracing cognate groups, and thus making 

 substantial contributions to the sum of linguistic knowledge in a most 

 interesting direction — viz., just at the jDoint, where the monosyllabic structure 

 is giving way to the earliest development of the agglutinating method. 



Following the same geographical order as the one adopted in last 

 year's note, we commence at the northern angle of India : at the spot where 

 the three religions of Mahomet, Buddha, and Brahma, with their respective 

 languages and written characters, converge. This spot is situated in the 

 territory of the Maharaja of Cashmere, one of the great feudatories of the 

 Empire. To the north of Cashmere proper is Little Tibet, or Bultistan, the 

 capital of which is Iskardo, on the river Indus : in the population there is 

 an admixture of Mahomedanism : the language is ostensibly Bhot or Tibetan, 

 but there is occasional use of an Arabic written character ; in fact it is 

 debatable ground : but in the adjoining Middle Tibet, the capital of which 

 is Ladakh, the population is Buddhist, and the language Tibetan, written in 

 the character peculiar to that language, though derived from the Nagari. 

 The population of both Little and Middle Tibet is civilized in the Asiatic 

 sense, and resides on the highway of a future commerce betwixt British 

 India and the great plateau of Central Asia, the scene of the future conflict 

 betwixt China, the Mahomedan jDowers, and Russia. 



Moving south-east, and crossing the Chenab river in the mountains, 

 we enter the Province of Lahoul or Sj^iti, within the District of Kaiigra, 

 and a component j^ai't of the Province of the Punjaub. There, amidst lofty 

 mountains, in hitherto inaccessible tracts, amidst a sparse and pastoral 

 population of Buddhists, the school-master and missionary have located 

 themselves, and in 1865 and 1866, at Kyelang, the capital of Lahoul, the 

 Eev. H. A. Jaeschke, a Moravian missionary, lithographed a short practical 

 grammar in English of the Tibetan language, with special reference to the 

 spoken dialect and the wants of his mission, and a Tibetan and English 

 Dictionary. He is now employed in Europe in the preparation of a superior 

 work on the same language. This, jDcrhaps, is the only portion of British 

 India proper where the Tibetan language is sjDoken ; but Tibet, with its 

 capital Lhasa, is conterminous with the territories of our ally the Maharaja 



