1847.] On the Aborigines of the sub- Himalayas. 1237 



quasi Helotic races, such as the Denwar, Durre and Bramho, who 

 cultivate those low valleys from which malaria drives the ordinary 

 population. That ordinary population, exclusive of the now dominant 

 Khas or Parhatias proper,* above alluded to, consists, between the 

 Kali and the Dhansri, in Nepal, Sikim, and Bhutan, of 1st Cis-Hima- 

 layan Bhotias vel Tibetans, called liongbo, Siena or Kath Bhotia, 

 Serpa, &c, 2nd, Siinwar, 3rd, Guri'mg, 4th, Magar, 5th, Murmi, 6th, 

 Newar, 7th, Kiranti, 8th, Limbu vel Yak thumba, 9th, Lepcha, 10th 

 Bhutanese or Lhopa vel Diikpa. 



I have enumerated the races as they occur, in tolerably regular 

 series, from west to east, in given and definite locations of the old 

 standing : but the first named are found pretty generally diffused 

 throughout the whole extent, west and east, of my limits, though con- 

 fined therein to the juxta-nivean tracts or Cachar region ; whilst the 

 participation of the Gurungs and Magars, as military tribes, in the 

 recent political successes of the now dominant Khas, has spread them 

 also, as peaceful settlers, in no scanty numbers, easterly and westerly, 

 from the Kali to the Mechi. The rest of the tribes have a more re- 

 stricted fatherland or janam bhumi, and indeed the locale of the Magars 

 and Gurungs, not a century back or before the conquests of the House 

 of Gorkha, was similarly circumscribed ; for, the proper habitat of these 

 two tribes is to the west of the great valley, which tract again, (the val- 

 ley) and its whole vicinity, is the region of the Murmis and Newars ; 

 whilst the districts east of the great valley, as far as Sikim, are the abode 

 of the Kirantis and Limbiis ; as Sikim is that of the Lepchas ; and De- 

 va Dharma or Bhutan that of the Lhopas or Diikpas, usually styled 

 Bhutanese by us. These constitute, together with the Sunwars, who 

 again are mostly found west of the great valley and north of the 

 Magars and Gurungs, near and among the Cisniveanf Bhotias, the 

 principal Alpine tribes of the sub-Himalayas, between that western 

 point (the Kali) where the aboriginal tongues are merged in the Pra- 

 krits, and that eastern limit (the Dhansri) where they pass or seem to 

 pass into the monosyllabic tongues of races of presumed Indo-Chinese 



* Parbatia, ^<^, means Highlander, but this general sense of the word is restricted 

 by invariable usage to the Khas. 



t Bhotia is the Sanskrit, and Tibetan the Persian, name for the people who call them- 

 selves Bodpo, or native of Bod, a corruption possibly of the Sanskrit word Bhot. 



