38 The Ethnology of India. 



villages as a kind of serfs and bearers of burdens, carry palanquins, 

 and when out of employ, are apt to be thieves and robbers. A little 

 farther west, the Kharwars seem to perform the same functions ; they 

 are mentioned by Buchanan as in the outskirts of the Patna and 

 Arrah Districts. On the road from Mirzapore to Jubbulpore, where 

 it passes through Rewah, &c, the palanquin bearers and coolies are 

 Aborigines. When I passed that way some time ago, not having 

 then gone t into the subject, I did not ask the particular tribe, nor 

 have I since been able to ascertain it, but in all probability they are 

 Kharwars. 



All these people have in their faces unmistakeable marks of their 

 aboriginal origin. But they speak Hindee. This then brings us to 

 the difficulty about language. Col. Dalton is not aware of any 

 Aboriginal language spoken by the Kharwars. I have had the im- 

 pression that in the Mirzapore district they spoke their own language ; 

 and Capt. Blunt, who in the last century made a remarkable journey 

 from Chunar right through the hills to the Grodavery (see Asiatic 

 Researches, Vol. 7), almost at the outset of his journey mentions the 

 Kharawars of the Singrowlee hills as very savage, and speaking a 

 separate and quite unintelligible language. But the Rev. R. C. 

 Mather of Mirzapore, who has been good enough to write for me a 

 note on the subject (of which I have already made use), and who 

 refers to a tour made by the Rev. Mr. Jones, is unable to say that 

 any aboriginal language exists in these parts. He says that both 

 the Kharwars and another similar tribe, locally called ' Majhwars,' 

 speak the Hindee, or at least understand it when spoken. It would 

 be very interesting to ascertain if the remains of an original language 

 exists among these people, for with them more especially we should 

 expect to find the non- Aryan Hindee roots. If aboriginal tribes 

 so situated have no separate language of their own, it may arise from 

 either of two causes ; either they may have abandoned their own 

 language and adopted that of the people who are flooding over and 

 as it were submerging them ; or the fact may be that, in its most 

 radical parts, the language of these latter having been the same as 

 their own, an influx of vocables on this common basis may altogether 

 obliterate the landmarks by which languages are distinguished. Till 

 however, this is cleared up, I think that we must on other grounds 



