The Ethnology of India. 13 



bered that the whole of Bengal proper, the N. W. Provinces and 

 Oude, the Punjab and Scinde, with part of the adjoining desert coun- 

 try, form a great semi-circular plain in which there is no place of 

 refuge (with little exception) for remains of aboriginal races ; in all 

 these countries the modern races live together as one social whole. 

 But throughout Central and Peninsular India, while the most open 

 plains and best cultivated parts of the country are similarly inhabited, 

 there are scattered about, over every province, hills and jungles giving 

 cover to aboriginal tribes which hold themselves aloof from the 

 general population, and arc very different in language, manners and 

 other particulars. 



It is well known that the great plain is bounded on the north by 

 the line of the Himalayas, rising almost suddenly in great and rugged 

 height, but yet habitable for a considerable distance inland before the 

 snows are reached. That boundary is bo uniform that more need not 

 be said respecting it, except as regards the northern extremity of 

 India. There the plain is not at once succeeded by the Himalaya. 

 The range called the Salt Range runs across from Jhelum to Kala- 

 Bagh on the Indus, and thence to the Affghan mountains, cutting off 

 as it were and enclosing a sort of triangle, and supporting a somewhat 

 elevated country something of the character of the Peninsular portion 

 of India, and lying between this Salt Range and the Himalaya. The 

 Salt Range, it will be presently seen, is an Ethnological boundary 

 of some interest. 



I now commence my survey according to Tribes and Castes. 



First, I take as a great division the black aboriginal tribes of the 

 interior hills and jungles. There can, I suppose, be no doubt that 

 they are the remnants of the race which occupied India before the 

 Hindus. I need not here go into any question, whether any portion 

 of them had received any civilization from any other source. It is 

 enough that all these tribes have many ethnological features in com- 

 mon. They are evidently the remains of an element, the greater 

 portion of which has been absorbed by, and amalgamated with, the 

 modern Indian race, and which, mixed in various degrees with the 

 high-featured immigrants, has contributed to form the Hindoo of 

 to-day. In the South their speech still forms the basis of the modern 

 languages. If proof were wanting that the predominance of Caucasian 



