1849.] On the Aborigines of Nor -East em India. 453 



valents in Hindi, Urdu, or any other Prakrit, and say if you are not 

 sensible of being in a foreign realm of speech ? And what can that 

 realm be but the North and Nor-East, the Nor- West being no way 

 available to your purpose ? In the second place I would observe that 

 every medium of proof which has been employed to demonstrate the 

 unity of the Iranian family is available to demonstrate the unity of the 

 Turanian ; whilst, with regard to prima facia improbabilities, much 

 greater ones once encompassed the now admitted fact that Hindus, 

 Persians, Germans, English, Irish, Russians, are members of one family, 

 viz. the Iranian, than can attend any similarly perfect demonstration, 

 that Tamulians, Tibetans, Indo-Chinese, Chinese, Tangus, Mongols and 

 Turks are so many branches of another single family, viz. the Tura- 

 nian. Nor are these questions of interest only to the speculative phi- 

 losopher. They are, on the contrary, of vital importance to the States- 

 man who may be led into the most serious practical errors for want of 

 such lights as Ethnology affords. I will give a striking and recent 

 instance. The Chief Secretary of the Government, who is likewise one 

 of the most able and accomplished men in India, in speaking of the 

 educational improveability of the Hindus, has formally alleged the im- 

 possibility of making them worthy and vigorous men and citizens by 

 reason of their race,* when it is really as certain as that 2 and 2 make 

 4, that the race of the Hindus is identical with Mr. Elliot's own ! Glot- 

 tology and Anatomy combine to place this great truth (and in every 

 educational view it is pre-eminently such for all those who are now 

 seeking to make this splendid country capable of adequate British, and 

 eventually in the fullness of time of self-government) upon an un- 

 shakeable foundation. Would that the science of Law, national and in- 

 ternational, stood upon an equally stable basis of numerous, largely and 

 irrefragably inducted facts. 



Having said so much by way of encouragement, upon the extensive 

 bearings and high importance of Indian Ethnology, I will now add a 

 few words by way of caution. Mr. Robinson, in a recent paper upon 

 sundry of the border tribes of Assam, f has not scrupled confidently to 



* Preface to the Moslem Historians of India. I cordially assent nevertheless to 

 the justice of Mr. Elliot's strictures. But I find the cause of the actual evil else- 

 where. 



t Journal, No. 201, for March 1849. 



3 N 2 



