m 



THE ETKNOLOOr OF IOUTH EASTERN ASIA. 



this than of climatic changes The same phenomena are seen w 

 southern India where the ancient IndoAfncan features have evi- 

 dently been greatly changed by settlers or in vaders from 9. W. Asia 

 or northern India.* 



Alth >iigh I shall not attempt to decide what amount of influence 

 the physical geography of S. E. Asia has exerted on the forms of 

 the tribes who inhabit it, I may draw attention to the striking con- 

 trasts which the region presents under the combined inflAmces of 

 physical geography and of race. The differences in habits and cul- 

 ture that are observable appear indeed to be mainly the result of dif- 

 ferences in the physical geography of the region. The inner divi- 

 sion of desolate plateaus and frigid mountains, for^ng a projection 

 of the elevation of Central Asia, and separated from the southern 

 lands and the genial southern winds by a snowy barrier having 

 in many places an absolute height of five miles, faces a vast and 

 dreary "desert and is only connected with the inhabited lands 

 beyond by long and perilous paths which admit of a slight inter- 

 course. The southern ocean, with its arms the navigable rivers, 

 embraces all the outer division, connects its great industrial com- 

 munities with each other and with those of foreign countries, 

 mitigates the cold diffused from the mountainous middle division 

 and its offsetts, and in the more southern districts produces a mild 

 tropical climate, in which warmth and moisture are more genially 

 Wended than in any other region, where the Turanian needs not to 

 swathe himself in sheeps skins or woolen, and seek a meagre subsis- 

 tence by driving his hungry herds over freezing wastes from one 

 scant and treeless oasis to another, but, careless of all covering 

 Bave what civilisation imposes, may lounge beneath uncultured 

 trees laden with food, and get, with little toil, an abundant va- 

 riety of fruits and game in the teeming forest and an exfyaustlesa 

 supply of fish in the sea. In whatever direction we descend flora 

 the table land to the sea, a series of strong contrasts presents itself. 

 In the north everything is pinched and meagre, and the mind 

 reflects the character ot man's outer life and of nature* In the 

 middle region the mountaineers support themselves in rallies but- 



* If the influence of climate prove to be ranch smaller than id supposed, it will 

 then become a question whether in the archaic Turanian times rude tribea of this 

 family did not spread all over Africa as well as over America and Europe, in a word 

 over the whole world. The Hottentots would then appear to be a last physical 

 remnant of the African Turanian us tlie Kin* and Laplanders ot the European. 



it appears very evident from language that there was a time when languages 

 of a Lau-Chinese and Turanian character only existed* The Semitic and Indo- 

 European groups are comparatively modem. The familW in which they origina- 

 ted must have been late onsets ot a Turanian stock. May not the Iranian and 

 Beraitic physiognomy have first begun to prevail then ? A slightly developed 

 Iraniamsm U one of the subordinate varieties of the Turanian organism. An 

 accident may bave led to a family possessed ol it becoming separated and secluded. 

 The rciwonwhy took this Ant place amongst the mountains oft*. W. Asia, and not In 

 TL Ash. must bave little or no direct connection with cb'mate, hecau«e climates 

 similar to ttttM occupied bv many Indo-European raws are found in the Turanian 

 kadi. 



