,8 on the BORDERERS, MOUNTAINEERS, 



Gujarat, who, though Mufclmans in religion, are Jews in features, genius, 

 and manners: they form in all places a diftincT: fraternity, and are every 

 where noted for addrefs in bargaining, for minute thrift, and conflant atten- 

 tion to lucre, but profefs total ignorance of their own origin j thougk k 

 feems probable, that they came firft with their brethren the Afghans to the 

 borders of India, where they learned in time to prefer a gainful and fecivre 

 occupation in populous towns to perpetual wars and laborious exertions on 

 the mountains. As to the Moplas in die weftern parts of the Indian em 

 pire, I have feen their books in Arabick, and am perfuaded, that, like the 

 people called Malays^ ;they defcended from Arabian traders and mariners 

 after the age of Muhammed. 



"On the continent of India, between the river Vipafa, or Hyphajis, to the 

 weft, the mountains of Tripura and Cdmarupa to the Eaft, and Himalaya to 

 the north, we find many races of wild people with more or lefs of that 

 priftine ferocity, which induced their anceftors to fecede from the civilized 

 inhabitants of the plains and valleys : in the moil ancient Sanfcrit books 

 they are called Sacas, Cirdtas, Colas, Pulindas, Barbaras, and are all known 

 to Europeans, though not all by their true names; but many Hindu pilgrims-, 

 who have travelled through their haunts, have fully defcribed them to me; 

 and 'I have found reafons for believing, that they fprang from the old 

 Indian ftem, though fome of them were foon intermixed with the firft 

 ramblers from Tartajy, whofe language feems to have been the bafis of that 

 now fpoken by the Moguls. 



We come back to the Indian iflands, and haften to thofe, which lie to 

 she fouth eaft of Sildn, or Taprobane ; for Sildn itfelf, as we know from the 

 ^languages., letters, religion, and old monuments of its various inhabitants!, 



