154 On the Boksas of Bijnour. [No. 3, 



been supposed. It seems exceedingly unlikely that, had they been 

 a tribe of Rajput extraction whom mere accident had driven to take 

 refuge in this inhospitable tract six or seven hundred years ago, they 

 would have, for such a length of time, remained so isolated as they 

 undoubtedly have been, from other sections of Rajputs. But this is a 

 minor difficulty, compared with the necessity to account for the very 

 decided Turanian characteristics of feature which have been mentioned 

 in detail, and which appear to be quite incompatible with a descent 

 from any Indo-European race. 



It may be objected that the language of the Boksas, barring slight 

 dialectic differences, is identical with that of the ordinary inhabitants 

 of this part of this country. But, not to lay too much stress on the 

 circumstance that, in a case of this kind, positive is much more valuable 

 than negative evidence, it is a recognized principle in ethnology, that 

 the physical structure of a tribe, and the nature of their language, may 

 change at very different rates, the possible alterations, in each, depend- 

 ing on very different conditions, and supposing that the Boksa 

 originally sprang from a source different from that of the ordinary 

 Hindustani, and that the physical circumstances in which he is placed 

 are not such as, even in the course of centuries, greatly to alter the 

 peculiarities of feature, &c, by which he was at first distinguished, it 

 is difficult to conceive any position in which his language would be 

 more likely to be rapidly and, at last, completely changed, than that 

 in which he is now placed. Scattered in scanty colonies, over a very 

 narrow strip of country, the language of the inhabitants, on both sides 

 of which (we assume), differs wholly from that in use by him, — 

 when each successive political or social convulsion in the neighbouring 

 tracts, and, for hundreds of years, we know that these were neither 

 few nor slight, was seen to be followed by an influx of these outsiders, 

 what more likely than that his language should, at last, become 

 completely assimilated to that of the latter? 



The fact of the Boksas holding the Hindoo faith, and performing 

 its rites, seems to me to present no stumbling-block in the way of 

 adopting the view that they are of non- Aryan derivation. A race so 

 few in number, and occupying so circumscribed a position, surrounded 

 by Hindoos, and brought into close and frequent contact with them, 

 would be likely to adopt the dominant religion almost as readily as 



