1848.] The Aborigines of Central India. 551 



pared by the Rev. Mr. Hurder ; and the 7th from Jabbalpur where 

 Colonel Sleeman's principal assistant drew it up for me. 



The affinities of these tongues are very striking, so much so that the 

 five first may be safely denominated dialects of the great K61 language ; 

 and through the U'raon speech we trace without difficulty the further 

 connexion of the language of the Koles with that of the " hill men" of 

 the Rajmahal and Bhaugalpur ranges. Nor are there wanting oblious 

 links between the several tongues above enumerated — all which we may 

 class under the head K61 — and that of the Gonds of the Vindhia whose 

 speech again has been lately shown by Mr. Elliot to have much resem- 

 blance both in vocables and structure to the cultivated tongues of the 

 Deccan. Thus we are already rapidly approaching to the realization of 

 the hypothesis put forth in my essay on the Koch, Bodo and Dhimal, 

 to wit, that all the Tamulians of India have a common fountain and 

 origin, like all the Arians ; and that the innumerable diversities of 

 spoken language characterising the former race are but the more or less 

 superficial effects of their long and utter dispersion, and segregation, 

 owing to the savage tyranny of the latter race in days when the rights 

 of conquest were synonymous with a license to destroy, spoil and en- 

 slave. That the Arian population of India descended into it about 3000 

 years ago from the north-west, as conquerors, and that they completely 

 subdued all the open and cultivated parts of Hindostan, Bengal and 

 the most adjacent tracts of the Deccan* but failed to extend their effec- 

 tive sway and colonization further south, are quasi historical deductions^ 

 confirmed daily more and more by the results of ethnological research. 

 And we thus find an easy, and natural explanation of the facts that in 

 the Deccan, where the original tenants of the soil have been able to hold 

 together in possession of it, the aboriginal languages exhibit a deal of 

 integrity and refinement, whilst in the north, where the pristine popu- 

 lation has been hunted into jungly and malarious recesses, the aborigi- 

 nal tongues are broken into innumerable rude and shapeless fragments. 

 Nevertheless those fragments may yet be brought together by large and 

 careful induction; for modern ethnology has actually accomplished 



* Telingana, Gajerat and Maharashtra, or the Maratta country, 

 f Brachmanes nomen gentis diffusissimse cujus maximapars in montibus (Ariana 

 Cabul) degit, reliqui circa Gangem. Cell Geogr. 



