54 The Ethnology of India. 



caste and good looking Hindoos, so the name is probably not the 

 same. Is every direction, however, there is room for inquiry. 



One word regarding a people in another quarter who have been 

 classed with the Indian Aborigines, the Brahms of the higher parts 

 of Belochistan near Khelat, &c. These people are set down as allied 

 to the Dravidians upon, I think, the slightest possible evidence, but it is 

 one of those things that, having once got into print, is in the absence 

 of farther information repeated again and again, till it seems an 

 established fact. Dr. Caldwell, in his amiable enthusiasm for his 

 beloved Dravidians, and seeking to establish for them an aristocratic 

 pedigree, without acknowledging obligation to the northern Hindoos, 

 seizes upon the Brahuis as the link to connect them with the more 

 northern nations and goes somewhat into the matter. 



The Brahuis are described as a stout, squat, somewhat flat- 

 faced people, fair, with hair and beards often brown if not red. That 

 they have indications of some Turanian element both in feature and 

 speech, may be at once admitted, using the word Turanian in its widest 

 sense ; but for the rest anything in greater contrast to the slim black 

 Dravidian Aborigines, it is impossible to imagine. They are very 

 remote from any Dravidian tribe, the nearest being the G-onds. Their 

 language is not supposed to show any affinity to the Kolarians. 



On the other hand, in one direction we have not far to seek for an 

 explanation of the Turanian element in the features of the Brahuis. 

 The Hazarehs of the hill country near Grhuznee and Candahar have it 

 in a more marked degree, and are without doubt* of Mongolian blood. 

 They seem to be in many ways like the Brahuis, and we are told 

 that at one time they possessed the country on the Khelat side of 

 Candahar, and were nearer than they now are to the Brahuis. That 

 the latter have some of their blood, or may even be a branch of them 

 driven to the hills by Belochees or Hindoos, would seem prima facie 

 the most probable thing in the world. It is then only by the test of 

 language that any Dravidian connection can be assigned to the 

 Brahuis, and in the case of people otherwise so dissimilar and so dis- 

 tant, the linguistic evidence ought to be very strong, to satisfy us. I 

 have been unable to find a paper giving a list of Brahui words said 

 to have been published by this Society, but Dr. Caldwell seems to 

 sum up all the evidence on the subject. He admits that " the Brahui 



