The Ethnology of India. 145 



■feudal chief ship over the western clans. They have their regular 

 system of democratic representation and self-government by the 

 ^assemblies of Jeergahs and Oolooses ; but like most rude people so 

 situated, no man's nationality goes beyond his own clan (just as in 

 ■civilised Greece, it did not go beyond his own city), and within the 

 clan order is very insufficiently maintained, Afghan individuality in 

 very irrepressible. 



A considerable population of proper Pathans are now our subjects 

 in the distriots of Peshawar and Kohat, and it would be very 

 interesting to examine critically, how far their constitution is really 

 different from that of the Jats and other democratic Indian tribes. 

 It is generally said that as a people they are very different, and non- 

 Indians must be very different from Indians. The language too 

 •shows that, Arian though they be, the Pathans are a branch separated 

 by a wide interval. But still I have not been able to discover by 

 cursory inquiry that their constitution is other than that of the more 

 •democratic Indo-Germans. I rather incline to think that they are 

 probably of the same stock as the Jats and other tribes, but of a common 

 ancestry, long anterior to the entrance of the latter into India. It 

 may be that while some tribes poured into India, others have been 

 gradually working their way though the hills, dispossessing the 

 Khatrees and Khasas and more aboriginal Caucasians who held what 

 is now modern Afghanistan. 



The Aboriginal Arians of the Indian Caucasus. 



I have lately called attention to our ignorance of these most 

 interesting people, probably the remains of the pre-Hindu ancestors 

 of the earliest Hindus. Of the Kaffirs of the most inaccessible 

 portions of the range, between the Kashgar river and Bameean, we 

 jhave heard & great deal, but learned almost nothing. They are 

 thought to be related to Europeans, because they sit on chairs and 

 drink wine copiously. They must be a sturdy race, to have maintained 

 their independence so long. All the other tribes seem to be more or 

 less Mahomedans. There are the " Neemchahs" or half breeds on 

 the southern slope of the Caucasus, between the Afghans and the 

 higher peaks, speaking a language with a strong affinity to the Indian 

 tongues, and which also seems to present some curious affinities to 



