12 Tlie Ethnology of India. 



to the other ; in the course of thousands of years, something of the 

 blood and features of one will be infiltrated into the other. 



Thus it has happened that in India there is a sort of double classi- 

 fication of the people, similar to that which we sometimes see in 

 rocks in which there is a double stratification, one line of strata 

 running say horizontally, and another line crossing the same rock 

 say vertically. When we trace a tribe or caste from one Province to 

 another, we shall find that in some things it retains the class charac- 

 ter, in others it varies according to provincial character, the latter 

 chiefly prevailing in point of language. 



I propose to trace, so far as I can, the different tribes and classes 

 throughout India, irrespective of local nationalities, and to some extent 

 irrespective of language. I had thought that I might after wards, when 

 that is completed, remark on the quasi-nationalities created by the 

 use of special languages and the social specialities of particular pro- 

 vinces ; but I find that our information is as yet so imperfect, that I 

 prefer to leave this latter task to another day. I shall merely 

 make some casual remarks on language and a few other national 

 features, as they occur in the course of my narrative. 



Till we have accomplished an Ethnological Geography, whether 

 Tribal or National, I shall for the most part use the ordinary terms of our 

 Modern Political Geography, and speak of the Punjab and Scinde, 

 Bengal and Mysore. But for facility of reference, I must make one 

 or two explanations. I shall speak of Hindustan and the Hindu- 

 stanees as the terms are applied by the natives, to the whole of the 

 great Central region of Northern India from the Punjab on one side 

 to Bengal on the other, and from the Himalayas to the Southern de- 

 clivities of the Satpoora Bange running across India in about the 

 parallel of 22° Lat. I include in Hindustan, Bahar, (confining the 

 term of Bengal to Bengal Proper) as well as Oude, Rajpootana, and 

 Malwa. South of Hindustan to the West is the Maratta country, which 

 may be roughly indicated as bounded by a line drawn from Nagpore 

 to G-oa. And farther South are the Southern countries, sometimes 

 called Dravidian, first the Telinga or Telugu country to the East, the 

 Canarese to the West ; beyond them again the Tamil country to the 

 East, the Malabar or Malayala country to the West. 



As respects the physical features of these countries, it will be remem- 



