I9i STHNOLOaV Of THE INBCH PACIFIC ISIANm. 



fcheir aboriginal languages and manners, and it is proltable tliat 

 amongiei the former Bome wiU be found iDtermediato between the 

 CMnesef the Bimneae and the Tibetan. This region promiseB to 

 be the richest for ethnological discoveries of any that yet remains 

 unexplored in Aaia, or perhaps in the world. All the S. E. Asian 

 tribes appear to meet in it. On the south the upper division of 

 Burmah and the Chines© province of Yiin-nan are known to con- 

 tain many rude tribes akin to the Burmese and the Lau and all or 

 moat of the Turanian races who now occupy the lower basins of the 

 rivera which descend through this region must have been derived 

 from it. The great provinces of Szo-chuen and Kan-suh are also 

 known to contain rude tribes, and the languages of even the more 

 civilised communities of the latter are peculiar * In the western 

 parts of these provinces the Kliam or Si-fan of Mongolian habits, 

 and the true Mongol tribes of the Mongfan and Kukimor Tartars 

 meet the Chinese tribea. In the S. the Mongfim are in contact 

 with the most northerly tribe of the Irawadi basin, the Kbanung. 

 The civilised Chinese have pushed themselves into all the more 

 open and fertile portions of the western Provinces, It is through 

 the Province of Kan*Buh that the great trading route lies which 

 connects China with "Western Asia, and the movements along 

 which must in all eras have aflfected the distribution of the tribes 

 of middle Asia.'* 



In the Introductory paper (vol. iv. p. 441) and in the earlier 

 chapters of this Part the terms Tibeto-Ultraindian and Tibeto- 

 Indian are used as descriptive of these Ultraindian and Indian 

 languages that are allied to Tibetan, but distinct irom the deriv^a- 

 tive Tibetan dialects of the Htmalaj-as. In the Introductory 

 paper I remarked that the languages in question had distinctive 

 features when compared with Tibetan, and that the Tibeto-Indian 

 tribes were directly connected not with the Tibetans but with " a 

 proto-Tibetau era when the present widely spread Tibetan race 

 may have only been one of several rude tranS'^Himalayan tribes 

 speaking dialects of an incipient Tibetan character or even of one 

 nearer the Chinese." The proto-Burmans, it was remarked, 

 " probably occupied some portion of the country on the bounda- 



• According to CWnete writers some of tin; eastern Tibetan dialecta epproxiinftte 

 to tiie CJiitieae, 



