1847.] The Antiquities of the Neilgherry Bills, S^'c. 77 



III. The Antiquities of the Neilghernj Hills, including an 

 Inquiry into the Descent of the Thautaioars or Todars, 

 By Captain H. Congreve. 



Chapter 1st. 



Scarcely inferior to the interest bestowed upon the discovery of a 

 Phsenician inscription on a stone on the east coast of South America, 

 or the discovery of the New Continent by the Norsemen long ante- 

 rior to the voyage of Columbus, has been that excited in India in the 

 efforts made to unravel the mystery which envelopes the origin of 

 that remarkable race of men on the Neilgherries called the Thauta- 

 wars. 



Many conjectures have been hazarded relative to their descent ; 

 some fancying they were derived from an Arab stock, others that Ro- 

 man adventurers were their ancestors, while a third party has not he- 

 sitated to express its conviction that these people were a portion of 

 the lost Hebrew tribes. 



Unless the arguments entertained in support of such theories be 

 advanced as weapons to destroy the stabiUty of my own opinions on 

 the subject, I shall probably take no occasion to refer to them. 



The Tliautawars are an inoffensive pastoral race, whose life like that 

 of their ancestors is somewhat nomadic, being spent in roaming from 

 one place to another on their mountains, according to seasons and 

 circumstances. 



Wholly differing in religion, character, usages, appearance, lan- 

 guage, in short in every respect from the Hindoos around them, they 

 are regarded by the Burghers of the Hills with a mixture of admira- 

 tion and respect bordering on veneration ; at the same time, they 

 excite in us a degree of curiosity and surprise prompting us to won- 

 der whence they came, as well as to which of the great families of 

 the human race their ancestors belonged. 



History informs us that irruptions of the ancient Scythians fre- 

 quently took place upon the countries of the South of Asia, in the 

 course of which they penetrated as far as India. 



It is possible that a remnant of one of the Scythian tribes, driven 

 from place to place by the hostility of the inhabitants of the country 

 they invaded, at length found shelter and tranquillity in the mountain 

 fastnesses of the Neilgherries ; a region probably more resembling in 



