1847.] 



NeilgJierry Hills, ^c. 



87 



riot find in other places where Hindoo Soldiers have died, cairns and 

 urns similar to those on the Neilgherries. 



Chapter 2nd. 



- Blumenbach has separated the human race into five varieties. The 

 first or Caucasian variety includes all the ancient and modern Euro- 

 peans except the Laplanders and the rest of the Finnish race ; the 

 former and present inhabitants of Western Asia, as far as the river 

 Ob, the Caspian Sea and the Ganges ; that is, the Assyrians, Medes, 

 and Chaldeans, the Sarniatians, Scythians, and Parthians, the Philis- 

 tines, Phoenicians, Jews, and the inhabitants of Syria generally; the 

 several tribes actually occupying the chain of Caucasus ; the Georgi- 

 ans, Circassians, Mingrelians, Armenians ; the Turks, Persians, Ara- 

 bians, Aff*ghans, and Hindoos of high caste ; the Northern Africans 

 including not only those north of the Great Desert, but even some 

 tribes placed in more Southern regions ; ^the Egyptians, Abyssinians, 

 and Guanches. 



The Thautawars of the Neilgherry Hills have all the characteristic 

 features of this variety. Their hair is black, copious and curled or 

 waving. The irides vary from dark to brown. The upper and an- 

 terior regions of the head prominent, the face descending perpendi- 

 cularly below them, it is oval and straight ; the features prominently 

 distinguished from each other; narrow and aquiline nose, small mouth, 

 the front teeth of both jaws perpendicular. 



Beyond this I regret I cannot pursue the comparison, for the moral 

 feelings and intellectual powers, which in most of the Caucasian race 

 are conspicuous, are of an inferior standard in the Thautawars. 



Like the inhabitants of Scythia " their indolence" to use the lan- 

 guage of Gibbon refuses to cultivate the earth and their restless spirit 

 disdains (he confinement of a sedentary life." Obeying the customs 

 of their ancestors they migrate from place to place subsisting upon 

 the milk and butter derived from their buffaloes. 



The Scythians, it will be remembered by the readers of Herodotus 

 and Homer, subsisted on the milk of mares which they drove in 

 herds before them from place to place. 



The Massagetoe a tribe of Scythians allowed but one wife to a man, 

 but the Father of History informs us in Clio that she did not always 

 remain with her husband. This is the case amongst the Thautawars, 

 the woman being allowed to choose a gallant from any other family to 

 whom her husband must on all occasions yield the precedence. 



