TJie Ethnology of India. 71 



It might be conjectured that centuries of Mahommedan rule might 

 have caused the retreat of the Bramins from the more open 

 plains to these regions ; but I do not know that there is historical 

 ground for this supposition, and think it more likely that under any 

 rule they would hold their own and circumvent even foreign rulers. 

 Their personal appearance would lead one rather to suppose that they 

 came from the North- West. Many of them are very fair, and I think 

 that there is among them a much greater tendency to the common 

 occurrence of a somewhat aquiline, or what I call sub-aquiline type 

 of feature than among Hindustanee Bramins. A very marked feature, 

 not uncommonly met with, seems to be a light greyish kind of eye. 

 Altogether, I cannot suppose these Bramins to be a branch of the 

 race which, after occupying Hindustan, extended southwards. I can- 

 not imagine how they could in the south, as it were, in some degree 

 have returned towards an earlier type, instead of step by step 

 becoming darker and more Indian-like. It is undoubtedly the case 

 and is a subject of common remark, that all along the West Coast of 

 India the people are much fairer than in the interior, even though 

 most of the interior country above the Ghats is considerably elevated. 

 Some have accounted for this by saying that colour does not alto- 

 gether depend on the thermometer, that the inhabitants of the 

 more umbrageous Coast are less exposed to an unclouded sun and dry 

 atmosphere than the people of the bare and treeless plains of the 

 Deccan, and that thus the difference of colour is to be accounted for. 



I will not say that this cause is wholly without effect, but I think it 

 quite insufficient to account for the whole difference. The Bengalees 

 in a moist atmosphere and amid a luxurious vegetation are generally 

 dark. The blackest of the Aboriginal tribes live in the densest forest 

 country in a moist malarious climate. Even on this very Western 

 Coast I find the Aboriginal Helots of Malabar described as being 



II of the deepest black." We must look then to some other cause 

 modifying the complexion of many tribes on the West Coast, and 

 that I take to be immigration by sea. That there has been much 

 such immigration, is not only probable, but a historical fact. All 

 along the southern portion of the West Coast, a large part of the 

 population is notoriously to a great degree of foreign blood. The 

 Moplahs are to a great extent Arabs, the ' leers' or ' Teermen' are also 



