68 The Ethnology of India. 



the Bengalee, both in some of the popular terminations, in the verb 

 ' to be,' and in other particulars. I had before learned that there was 

 a peculiarity of this kind in the Hindee spoken in the high 

 country immediately south of Bahar, but there I supposed it to be a 

 mere intermixture of the not distant Bengalee. The existence, 

 however, of Bengalee affinities in the patois of Kumaon would 

 seem to suggest the question whether these are not the remains of a 

 form of Arian speech older that the modern Hindee, spoken perhaps 

 before Rajpoots and Jats came on the scene, and then driven forward 

 to Bengal in one direction, into the hills in another. I have not 

 myself any acquaintance with Bengalee, but it would be interesting 

 to enquire if it has any affinities with the older forms of speech in 

 Kashmir and the north-western hills, or again with the Maratta 

 and western dialects. 



To get an idea of the Bengalee formation, I asked a friend the 

 other day a single word, the pronoun ' he' and the genitive ' of him,' 

 which he gave me { $e' and ' Taha' or ' Tali? At this present writing, 

 by way of experiment, I have just turned up these same Avoids in Mr. 

 Edgeworth's small Kashmir Grammar and find \ he,' ' Su ;' ' of him' 



* Teh.' The ' Se' is a very old Arian form, found in the Kaffir hills, 

 which disappears in Hindee and reappears in Bengalee ; but the genitive 



* Teh' in Cashmiree, ' Tali' in Bengalee, seems a singular and hardly 

 accidental coincidence. 



To return, this brings me to the Bengalee Bramins. They all 

 assert a northern origin as a historical fact, and I believe that there 

 is no doubt of it. Still their nationality is altogether Bengalee, 

 and as the Bengalees differ from all other Indians, these Bramins 

 also differ much in language, dress, habits, and general style from the 

 Hindustanee Bramins. 



In appearance they are certainly fairer, larger, and altogether 

 Aryans of a higher type than the mass of the Bengalees. There is 

 much more difference, I think, between Bramins and the mass in 

 Bengal than in Hindustan, Some of them are fine looking men both 

 in size and feature. They regain here too, some (though not all) 

 of the aristocratic and bureaucratic position which they have lost 

 in Hindustan. They have little competition from Rajpoots and 

 rough northern tribes, and might have it pretty much their own way, 



