12 tanks Ethnology of India. 
to the other; in the course of thousands of years, something of the 
blood and features of one will be infiltrated into the other. 
Thus it has happened that in India there is a sort of double classi- 
fication of the people, similar to that which we sometimes see in 
rocks in which there is a double stratification, one line of strata 
running say horizontally, and another line crossing the same rock 
say vertically. When we trace a tribe or caste from one Province to 
another, we shall find that in some things it retains the class charac- 
ter, in others it varies according to provincial character, the latter 
chiefly prevailing in point of language. 
I propose to trace, so far as I can, the different tribes and classes 
throughout India, irrespective of local nationalities, and to some extent 
irrespective of language. I had thought that I might afterwards, when 
that is completed, remark on the quasi-nationalities created by the 
use of special languages and the social specialities of particular pro- 
vinces ; but I find that our information is as yet so imperfect, that I 
prefer to leave this latter task to another day. I shall merely 
make some casual remarks on language and a few other national 
features, as they occur in the course of my narrative. 
Till we have accomplished an Ethnological Geography, whether 
Tribal or National, I shall for the most part use the ordinary terms of our 
Modern Political Geography, and speak of the Punjab and Scinde, 
Bengal and Mysore. But for facility of reference, I must make one 
or two explanations. I shall speak of Hindustan and the Hindu- 
stanees as the terms are applied by the natives, to the whole of the 
great Central region of Northern India fromthe Punjab on one side 
to Bengal on the other, and from the Himalayas to the Southern de- 
elivities of the Satpoora Range running across India in about the 
parallel of 22° Lat. I include in Hindustan, Bahar, (confining the 
term of Bengal to Bengal Proper) as well as Oude, Rajpootana, and 
Malwa. South of Hindustan to the West is the Maratta country, which 
may be roughly indicated as bounded by a line drawn from Nagpore 
to Goa. And farther South are the Southern countries, sometimes 
called Dravidian, first the Telinga or Telugu country to the Hast, the 
Canarese to the West; beyond them again the Tamil country to the 
Kast, the Malabar or Malayala country to the West. 
As respects the physical features of these countries, it will be remem- 
