38 The Ethnology of India. 
villages as a kind of serfs and bearers of burdens, carry palanquins, 
and when out of employ, are apt to be thieves and robbers. A little 
farther west, the Kharwars seem to perform the same functions ; they 
are mentioned by Buchanan as in the outskirts of the Patna and 
Arrah Districts. On the road from Mirzapore to Jubbulpore, where 
it passes through Rewah, &c., the palanquin bearers and coolies are 
Aborigines. When I passed that way some time ago, not having 
then gone into the subject, I did not ask the particular tribe, nor 
have I since been able to ascertain it, but in all probability they are 
Kharwars. 
All these people have in their faces unmistakeable marks of their 
aboriginal origin. But they speak Hindee. ‘This then brings us to 
the difficulty about language. Col. Dalton is not aware of any 
Aboriginal language spoken by the Kharwars. I have had the im- 
pression that in the Mirzapore district they spoke their own language ; 
and Capt. Blunt, who in the last century made a remarkable journey 
from Chunar right through the hills to the Godavery (see Asiatic 
Researches, Vol. 7), almost at the outset of his journey mentions the 
Kharawars of the Singrowlee hills as very savage, and speaking a 
separate and quite unintelligible language. But the Rev. R. C. 
Mather of Mirzapore, who has been good enough to write for me a 
note on the subject (of which I have already made use), and who 
refers toa tour made by the Rev. Mr. Jones, is unable to say that 
any aboriginal language exists in these parts. He says that both 
the Kharwars and another similar tribe, locally called ‘ Majhwars,’ 
speak the Hindee, or at least understand it when spoken. It would 
be very interesting to ascertain if the remains of an original language 
exists among these people, for with them more especially we should 
expect to find the non-Aryan Hindee roots. If aboriginal tribes 
so situated have no separate language of their own, it may arise from 
either of two -causes; either they may have abandoned their own 
language and adopted that of the people who are flooding over and 
as it were submerging them; or the fact may be that, in its most 
radical parts, the language of these latter having been the same as 
their own, an influx of vocables on this common basis may altogether 
obliterate the landmarks by which languages are distinguished. Till 
however, this is cleared up, I think that we must on other grounds 
