THK XTHNUUJGY OP THE IHDIA* AHCHlPKl,Aaa. *59 



tribes which belong to the sams continental alliance. Do the 

 continental connections reach beyond the Transindian region ? 

 The mountainous borders of the valley of Assam and the Himalaya 

 arc occupied by allied tribes, some of which are Asianesian in 

 almost ever}' leading trait. When we scale the Himalaya and 

 place ourselves on the great table land of Asia, it might be supposed 

 we would shake off all the insular characteristic?. Far from it; 

 they follow us into Tibet, and when we pass the great southern 

 mountain chains of Middle Asia, and come to the lands of the 

 Turks and Mongol*, and, advancing to the north, arrive amongst 

 the Siberian nations, we still recognize Asianesian traits. If we 

 return to the southern regions and visit the most ancient Indian 

 races, they again increase in number. When we cross the Indian 

 Ocean and make ourselves acquainted with the tribes on its 

 western shores, we are astonished to find that the allied Ea»t Asian 

 characteristics, numerous and varied as they are, yivl.l in importance 

 to the African. If we place the greatest distance that the habitable 

 world allows between Asiauesia and the tribes with whom we 

 compare them, we still find alliances. In Europe they meet us 

 amongst the Finns and Laplanders, the Hungarians, the ancient 

 Britons, the Greeks and many other nations. In America the 

 Esquimaux of the north and the Abipoues of the south, ond a host 

 of other races, have striking Asianesian characteristics. In a word 

 the eastern islanders partake of every great ethnic development of the 

 human race, which has yet been recognized, and if we ask of thfit grand 

 recipient and preservative of ethnic intluences, language, whether it 

 cannot arrest this universal diffusion of the archaic history of Asia- 

 nesia and restrict it to a particular region, it answers that the insular 

 tongues are related to all the principal linguistic families. The al- 

 liances arc by no means slight or accidental. They are substantial and 

 essential, and can be established by a great mass of facts of all 

 kinds, To trace every well marked alliance to its source will bo 

 a labour of immense difficulty, and one which in many directions 

 mav never be completely successful. But the very fact of so 

 wide a range of positive relations leads to one important conclusion 

 at the outset, viz: that the ethnology of Asiauesia in urt illustrate 

 that of every other region of the world, and that its antiquity is 

 probably as great as that of the oldest existing tribes on any of the 

 continents. The insular tribes can be as little derived from any of 

 these as they can be from each other. The ethnie lines of both 

 visibly approach as they are prolonged into the past, but, like the 

 hyperbola and its assymptotes, they never meet. 



Amcn^t all th«*e foreign influences of which the presence can 

 be clearlv traced, two are of the widest extent and greatest import- 

 ance. Tub first is entirely African and Indo-Africaii in its character. 

 It em braced the whole Indian Archipelago, Australia and Papuanesia. 

 Whether it extended to Polynesia and Micronesia I regard as still 

 doubtful. It certainly included a portion of Micronesia. Along 



