652 On the Chepdng mid Kuswida tribes of Nepal. [Dec. 



and upon the absence of all traceable lingual or other affinity with the 

 tribes around them. So that I took the Chepangs, the Kusundas and 

 the Haiyus, a third tribe, remarkably resembling the two former in posi- 

 tion and appearance — to be fragments of an original hill population 

 prior to the present Tibetan original inhabitants of these mountains ; 

 and to be of Tamulian extraction, from their great resemblance of form 

 and colour to the Aborigines of the plains, particularly the Kols. It 

 did not for several years occur to me to look for lingual affinities beyond 

 the proximate tribes, nor was I, save by dint of observation made, fully 

 aware that the Mongolian type of mankind belongs not only to the races 

 of known northern pedigree, such as the mass of the sub-Himalayan 

 population,* but equally so to all the Aborigines of the plains, at least 

 to all those of central India. Having of late however become domi- 

 ciled much to the eastward of Kathmandu, and having had more leisure 

 for systematic and extended researches, those attributes of the general 

 subject which had previously perplexed me were no longer hindrances 

 to me in the investigation of any particular race or people. I now saw 

 in the Mongolian features of the Chepangs a mark equally reconcileable 

 with Tamulian or Tibetan affinities ; in their dark colour and slender 

 frame, characteristics at first sight indeed rather Tamulian than Tibetan, 

 but such as might, even in a Tibetan race, be accounted for by the 

 extreme privations to which the Chepangs had for ages been subject ; 

 and in their physical attributes taken altogether I perceived that I had 

 to deal with a test of affinity too nice and dubious to afford a solution 

 of the question of origin. I therefore turned to the other or lingual 

 test ; and, pursuing this branch of the inquiry, I found that with the 

 southern Aborigines there was not a vestige of connexion, whilst to my 

 surprise I confess, I discovered in the lustyf Lhopas of Bhutan the 

 unquestionable origin and stock of the far removed, and physically very 

 differently characterised, Chepangs ! This lingual demonstration of 

 identity of origin, I have for the reader's convenience selected and 

 set apart as an Appendix to the vocabulary of the Chepang language ; 

 and I apprehend that all persons conversant with ethnological enquiries 

 will see in the not mere resemblance but identity of thirty words of 

 prime use and necessity extracted from so limited a field of comparison 



* See Journal for December last. I date their transit of the Himalaya from 

 Tibet fully 1200 years back. 



t See the subjoined note at the end. 



