30 



THE ETHNOLOGY OP THE INDIAN A RCHITFI. AGO. 



intr into hnlii tit*' "astern and western )i:i-m$. and advancing into t!j ( 

 middle of the ocean that separates the Transindion from the African 

 region, is placed so as at once ethnically to attruct or he attracted 

 by both, and to be affected by the great developments and tdotc- 

 ments along the southern continental districts from the Ganges to 

 the Nile. The ethnic region of the Indian Ocean may thus be 

 considered as embracing at ail period* the eastern districts of Africa 

 and all the south western districts of Asia* Its more usual northern 

 boundary is the great middle plateau of Asia, but this boundary is 

 far from htfatf a permanent one, and the southern region has many 

 connections with the rest of western Asia, aa well as with the 

 Euro-African basin of the Mediterranean; We shall not stop to 

 attempt any more precise investigation of the various kinds of dis- 

 tricts, and their different relations to each other, although we 

 shall hereafter give a general classification of them with re- 

 ference to their comparative inaccessibility and seclusion. Some, 

 like many of the Arabian table lands, from the remotest times to 

 which either history or ethnology can yet go back, have confined 

 and sheltered the same tribes. Others are so open, either from 

 being easy of access, or from lying on or near the ethnic highways, 

 that they have been incessantly exposed to the intrusion of foreign 

 influences. Some, puarded by formidable barriers and almost inap- 

 proachable on one side, have great passes and vallies, mountainous 

 isthmuses or spas, which connect thrm M idi the adjacent districts on 

 the other. The relative geographical positions often differ widely 

 from the ethnic^ The connect urn between the races at the two 

 extremities of the vast plateau of Asia, is greater than that between 

 the Tibetans of the Upper Indus basin and their neighbours the 

 f-Mah Posh of the Hindu Kush ; and, to take a somewhat different 

 liberation supplied by the genius of Europe, Singapore is ethni- 

 cally nearer to all the principal rivers of the Archipelago, said even 

 to numerous countries over the wholeglobe, than totheSahimba,who 

 live within twenty miles of us in the jungles of Battam. So in early 

 ages while, in many regions, the people of the seaboard districts 

 and lower river basins could have had hardly any knowledge of 

 the inner highlands and their wild and scattered men, their rela- 

 tions with eact other must have extended over long lines of coast, 

 and their influence been carried, from time to time, to new worlds 

 washed by the same sea which had nurtured their infant naviga- 

 tion. At present it is enough to draw attention to the fact that 

 numerous varieties exist both in the character and extent of the 

 districts and in their relations; that the latter at any one time, 

 and far more when considered historically, are often exceedingly 

 complicated; that the Indian Archipelago is connected more or 

 less directly with the whole of the region of the Indian Ocean ; 

 and that this connection is of such a kind t hat it must have begun 

 to affect the eastern islands at i \ r . ; rly stage of civilisation, 

 and even while maritime art was in its infancy. As toon as boats 

 began to creep along its coasts, the links of the ethnic chain which 



