1853.] On the Mongolian Affinities of the Caucasians. 27 



with each other, as Latham virtually assumes, are such that their 

 joint operation during ages and up to this hour is alone capable of 

 explaining those physical and lingual characteristics of the Indian 

 population, which Dr. Latham's theory leaves not merely wholly 

 unexplained, but wholly inexplicable. I must however postpone their 

 discussion till I come to treat of the Newar and Khas tribes of 

 Nepal. In the meanwhile and with reference to Dr. Latham's 

 crowning heresy that the most Caucasian of Caucasians (the Tron or 

 Oseti) are " more Chinese than Indo-European," I have a remark- 

 able statement to submit in confirmation of his general, though not 

 his special, position, my agreement with him being still general, not 

 special. 



His general position quoad Caucasus is, that the Caucasian races 

 are Mongolidan ; and, availing himself with unusual alertness of the 

 results of local Indian research, he has, at pp. 123 — 128, given 

 copious extracts from Brown's Indo-chinese vocabularies, as printed 

 in our Journal ; and he has then compared these vocables with 

 others proper to the Caucasian races. My recent paper upon the 

 close affinity of the Indo-chinese tongues with those of the Himalaya 

 and of Tibet, will show how infinitely the so-called " Chinese" ele- 

 ment of this comparison may be extended and confirmed ; and my 

 Sifanese series, now nearly ready, will yet further augment this 

 element of the comparison, which in these its fuller dimensions cer- 

 tainly displays an extraordinary identity in many of the commonest 

 and most needful words of the languages of Caucasus on the one 

 hand, and of Tibet, Sifan, the Himalaya, Indo-china, and China on 

 the other. There is no escaping, as I conceive, from the conclusion 

 that the Caucasian region, as a whole, is decidedly Mongolian, what 

 I have now to add in the shape of grammatical or structural corre- 

 spondences affording so striking a confirmation of that heterodox 

 belief, whilst Bopp's somewhat strained exposition of the Arian cha- 

 racteristics of the Iron (as of the Malay o- Polynesian) provokes a 

 doubt even as to them, despite the Edinburgh Eeview.* It is the 



* No. 192, article Bopp's Comp. Grammar — a work that cannot be too highly- 

 rated, though its style of demonstration is not equally applicable beyond the Indo- 

 Germanic pale. Its spirit may pass that pale, but not its letter, as when the 

 Georgian sami is identified with the Sanscrit tri, Greek rpia and Latin tres. My 



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