1877.] Peninsula and the Indian Archipelago. 211 



" Dr. Logan, who had rare opportunities of studying the subject, 

 which he has illustrated by a series of learned pajDers in the Journal of the 

 Indian Archipelago (which died with him in 1859), would divide the lan- 

 guages of the Indo-Chinese into two main branches : 1, the Western Him- 

 alayan, or Tibetan, which includes the Burman, Kakhyen, Karen, and their 

 numerous uncultivated congeners in the valley of the Irawadi and Burum- 

 pootur ; and the Eastern Himalayan, or Mon-Annam, including the Mon, 

 Shan, Cambojan, and Annamite families, and all their rude congeners. It 

 is at this point that we leave the Western Himalayan branch, and enter 

 the Eastern region. We also leave the regions of the direct and indirect 

 influence of British India, the great valleys of the Irawadi, Salwyn, and 

 Sitang, which flow into the Bay of Bengal, and cross a physical and linguis- 

 tic watershed into a country independent of British power, and speaking a 

 more strictly monosyllabic language. Buddhism and the great Hindu 

 civilization still accompany us, and at one point, indeed, the Shan civiliza- 

 tion crosses the watershed and, leaving the valleys of the rivers Mekong 

 and Menam, penetrates to the valleys of the Irawadi and the Burumpoo- 

 tur. The Shan states, which come first under notice, are divided into three 

 groups, which are respectively subject to Burmah, Siam, and China. A 

 fourth group, which is part of British India, known as the tribes of Kham- 

 ti, Ahom, and Aitom, were included in our report of last year. In a 

 narrow wedge of inconsiderable width, yet no less than fifteen degrees in 

 length, the Shan language extends from the Burumpootur in Assam, a 

 province of British India, to Bangkok on the Gulf of Siam. Max Miiller 

 declares that they cling by their roots to the same soil as the Tibeto-Bur- 

 man family, which we have just described. They are known as Tai, are 

 Buddhists, though clinging to old pagan worships of Nats and spirits ; 

 civilized, as an instance of which all the branches of the family have their 

 own special alphabet, all no doubt of the same stock, but all with special 

 variations. Thus we have one alphabet of the great Siamese conquering 

 people, two varieties of the subject Laotians, a third of the Shans depen- 

 dent on Burmah, both the latter affected by the Burmese alphabet, and 

 circular in shape. The letters of the alphabet of the Tal Mow, or Tai Khe, 

 within the Chinese province of Yunan, are diamond-shaped, a fact to be 

 attributed to Chinese influence. The alphabets of the Khamti and Ahom, 

 within the limits of British India, resemble the Shan, but with certain 

 modifications. The language of this Tai family was, no doubt, originally 

 the same, and is still essentially the same. They were a conquering race, 

 who came from the north in historic times, and still hold their own, at the 

 expense of their neighbours, with great power and vitality ; their language, 

 in process of time, became separated into dialects ; there are laws of eupho- 

 ny, and variations of vocabulary, peculiar to each dialect. In the Shan 



