1867.] Geography and Ethnology. 587 



" In many parts of India there existed," he said, " rude and 

 even savage tribes, differing widely in manners, customs, religion, 

 and not unfrequently even in language, from the great body of 

 the civilized inhabitants. People in that state of society were 

 found only in hilly or mountainous districts, more or less inac- 

 cessible, and by their comparative sterility holding out little 

 temptation to conquest and occupation. They were never seen in 

 the fertile and well-watered alluvial valleys of the great rivers, 

 which, on the contrary, were inhabited by civilized nations, however 

 differing among themselves in manners and language. Linguists 

 and craniologists had invented a theory to account for this state of 

 things, which supposed the rude mountaineers to be the sole abo- 

 rigines of India, while it imagined the civilized inhabitants to be 

 intrusive strangers, who in a remote antiquity invaded India, con- 

 quered it, and settled in it under the imposed names of Aryans for 

 Northern, and Turanians for Southern India." This view appeared 

 to him utterly groundless, and he went into a lengthy description 

 of the history of the people, their manners and mode of life, and 

 quoted several accounts of the several tribes, in order te refute the 

 view which he had mentioned. After an elaborate paper he con- 

 cluded : — " The mind may safely carry us back to a time in which 

 the social state of India was similar to that of America, when the 

 civilized tribes were few in number, and the wild or savage formed 

 the majority. The Hindu is, beyond all question, a far more highly 

 endowed race of man than the Red man of America ; and civilization 

 would probably spring up earlier, at more points, and attain a 

 higher maturity in India than it did in America. We may even 

 point at the localities in which civilization is most likely to have 

 had its earliest seats. Separate and independent civilizations would 

 probably spring up in the plains watered by the ' Five Eivers,' in 

 the upper valleys of the Jumna and Granges, in the central and in 

 the lower valley of the Ganges, and in the valleys of the rivers of 

 Southern India, such as that of the Nerbudda, the G-odavery, the 

 Kistna, the Cavery, and the Taptee. These nascent civilizations 

 would be independent of each other, and for a long time be as 

 unknown to each other as were the Mexican and Peruvian. All 

 this most probably happened long before there was an Aryan inva- 

 sion, or a religion of Bramah. The state of India at such a time 

 would be a parallel to that of America on its discovery ; the wild 

 and savage tribes would be numerous, and the civilized few in 

 number. Proportionate to its extent, it would have as many small 

 tribes, speaking as many distinct languages as America itself. 

 India has still a score of nations with written languages, but the 

 number of its wild tribes have not yet been counted." 



Altogether, although containing no original matter, we must 

 admit that Mr. Crawford's papers were well adapted to excite 



