The Ethnology of India. 1 
bered that the whole of Bengal proper, the N. W. Provinces and 
Oude, the Punjab and Scinde, with part of the adjoining desert coun- 
try, form a great semi-circular plain in which there is no place of 
refuge (with little exception) for remains of aboriginal races; in all 
these countries the modern races live together as one social whole. 
But throughout Central and Peninsular India, while the most open 
plains and best cultivated parts of the country are similarly inhabited, 
there are scattered about, over every province, hills and jungles giving 
cover to aboriginal tribes which hold themselves aloof from the 
general population, and are very different in language, manners and 
other particulars. ; 
It is well known that the great plain is bounded on the north by 
the line of the Himalayas, ‘rising almost suddenly in great and rugged 
height, but yet habitable for a considerable distance inland before the 
snows are reached. That boundary is so uniform that more need not 
be said respecting it, except as regards the northern extremity of 
India. There the plain is not at once succeeded by the Himalaya. 
The range called the Salt Range runs across from Jhelum to Kala- 
Bagh on the Indus, and thence to the Aifghan mountains, cutting off 
as it were and enclosing a sort of triangle, and supporting a somewhat 
elevated country something of the character of the Peninsular portion 
of India, and lying between this Salt Range and the Himalaya. The 
Salt Range, it will be presently seen, is an Hthnological boundary 
of some interest. 
T now commence my survey according to Tribes and Castes. 
First, I take as a great division the black aboriginal tribes of the 
interior hills and jungles. There can, I suppose, be no doubt that 
they are the remnants of the race which occupied India before the 
Hindus. I need not here go into any question, whether any portion 
of them had received any civilization from any other source. It ig 
enough that all these tribes have many ethnological features in com- 
mon. ‘They are evidently the remains of an element, the greater 
portion of which has been absorbed by, and amalgamated with, the 
modern Indian race, and which, mixed in various degrees with the 
high-featured immigrants, has contributed to form the Hindoo of 
to-day. In the South their speech still forms the basis of the modern 
languages. If proof were wanting that the predominance of Caucasian 
