THE ETH*OLO«T OT THE DTpTA* ilCHIPKLAftO. C6 



there. If it be asked by those who believe it to be proved that one 



at least of the £reat successive ethnic foci, if not the first of all, 

 wn* m the region where the Tramindian and Chinese rivers rifle, 

 ■why the Tibeio-Annm nations were distanced in the ethnic march 

 by "tribes of ft far later linguistic development, ami who enmo from 

 a land remote from the focus, the answer ia that it is very doubtful 

 whether, in the earlier stages of human intellect and art,* the direct 

 route from this focus to Asianesia was not much longer in time, 

 than the circuitous one by the (Treat middle highway of Asia and 

 the passes leading into S. W. Asia and Africa,* There would, at 

 all events, he nothing im probable in the conclusion that the N. W. 

 shores of the Indian Ocean were reached sooner than thow of tho 

 vast congeries of mountains of which the greater part of 8. E. A"uo 

 consists. The inner band, some hundreds of miles in breadth, is 

 formed by closely packed chains, tbc principal of which are, in 

 pvt'u' parr, always <vv- r:d with sn..iv. Ti:c U'lnakja U I corn |>a- 

 ratively easy of passage, but they have proved so formidable to 

 man, that the great mass of the population of India appears to 

 have been alwavs derived, not from the adjacent Tibet, but from 

 the westward. X throw the oceanic distances out of the reckoning. 

 As soon as there were boats to be driven across the ocean, they 

 disappeared. Sumatra is ethnically adjacent to Africa, Arabia 

 and India, but its distance from Tibet by the eastern routes, and 

 even by the Himalayan, is enormous for rude tribes. A few weeks 

 would "transport men from Africa to Asianesia, hut thousands of 

 years may have elapsed before the aborigines of Mid Asia reached 

 the borders of the ocean by the 9. E, land routes. If it be further 

 asked why the A fii co-Indian tribes did not people the more ac- 

 cessible parts of the Trans indi an region , as well as Asianesia, if the 

 eastern race had not descended to the sea board fi-om Tibet on the 

 one side or Ynnan on the oilier, I answer that I have no doubt th<»y 

 did, and that we have the strongest evidence of the fact in the 

 negro and quasi-ne^ro tribes that are still preserved in some of the 

 mountains of the Matay Peniiuuia, Siarn and Anam. Lastly, if it 

 be .asked why this anciem population has been so much mors 

 obliterated in Ultraindia than in Asianesia, and why the dominant 

 races, instead of adopting the language of the aborigines, have 

 preserved their own, and probably imposed it on the latter, I 

 answer to the first part of the question that Sumatra, Borneo and 

 Java have been more completely swept of the ancient races than 

 Transiodia, and as nn answer to the last I refer to the remarks I have 

 already made on the character of the migrations into Asianesia, 

 and the verv different one of most continental ethnic movements. 

 I refer both the Indo-African and die Tibeto-Anam movements 



■ The mountain!, fhwettnind marehes roast h»v« repelled tire Mid-A*Un trttx* (nm 

 roakij>g migration* through them, while the »tepp««, vmryiag In their character 

 with the *t a*jn*, and diiTe'ring in tli&rcnt plifle*, turned eud enforced ft *wai*iJ* 

 t£c and occasional migreiiom. 



