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been supposed. It seems exceedingly unlikely that, had they been 
a tribe of Rajput extraction whom mere accident had driven to take 
refuge in this inhospitable tract six or seven hundred years ago, they 
would have, for such a length of time, remained so isolated as they 
undoubtedly have been, from other sections of Rajputs. But thisis a 
minor difficulty, compared with the necessity to account for the very 
decided Turanian characteristics of feature which have been mentioned 
in detail, and which appear to be quite incompatible with a descent 
from any Indo-European race. 
It may be objected that the language of the Boksas, barring slight 
dialectic differences, is identical with that of the ordinary inhabitants 
of this part of ‘ this country. But, not to lay too much stress on the 
circumstance that, in a case of this kind, positive is much more valuable 
than negative evidence, it is a recognized principle in ethnology, that 
the physical structure of a tribe, and the nature of their language, may 
change at very different rates, the possible alterations, in each, depend- 
ing on very different conditions, and supposing that the Boksa 
originally sprang from a source different from that of the ordinary 
Hindustani, and that the physical circumstances in which he is placed 
are not such as, even in the course of centuries, greatly to alter the 
peculiarities of feature, &c., by which he was at first distinguished, it 
is difficult to conceive any position in which his language would be 
more likely to be rapidly and, at last, completely changed, than that 
in which he is now placed. Scattered in scanty colonies, over a very 
narrow strip of country, the language of the inhabitants, on both sides 
of which (we assume), differs wholly from that in use by him,— 
when each successive political or social convulsion in the neighbouring 
tracts, and, for hundreds of years, we know that these were neither 
few nor slight, was seen to be followed by an influx of these outsiders, 
what more likely than that his language should, at last, become 
completely assimilated to that of the latter ? ‘ . 
The fact of the Boksas holding the Hindoo faith, and performing 
its rites, seems to me to present no stumbling-block in the way of 
adopting the view that they are of non-Aryan derivation. A race so 
few in number, and occupying so circumscribed a position, surrounded 
by Hindoos, and brought into close and frequent contact with them, 
would be likely to adopt the dominant religion alnrost as readily as 
