ON ethnology- 
349 
tions only few of these Awtochthones have been spared, yet some remains 
of them may be recognised in the tribes of the Rajis or Dorns, who live in 
the mountainous parts of the Himalaya. Theyall belong to the same wide- 
8))read people with whom but lately in Gondwana English armies came into 
hostile contact to prevent their pillage and human sacrihees ; and it is curious 
to see how the descendants of the satne race, to which the first conquerors 
and roasters of India belonged, return, after having followed the northern 
development of the Japhetic race to their primordial soil, to accomplish the 
glorious work of civilization, which had been left unfinished by their Arian 
brethren. 
Wholly different from ihe manner in which the liralnninicol people over¬ 
came the north of India, was the way they adopted of taking possession of 
and settling in the country south of the Vindliya. They did not enter 
there in crushing masses with the destroying force of arms, but in the more 
peaceful way of extensive colonization (aframas^ under the protection and 
countenance of the powerful empires in the north. 
'I'hough sotneiiracs engaged iu wars with their neighbouring tribes, these 
colonies generally have not taken an offensive but only a defensive part ; and 
it appears that, after having introduced Brahminical institutions, laws and 
religion, eapeci.illy along the two coasts of the sea, they did not pretend to 
impose their language upon the much more ruimcrous inhabitants of the 
Deklian, but that they followed the wiser policy of adopting themselves the 
language of the .aboriginal people, and of conveying through its medium their 
knowledge and instruction to the minds of uncivilized tribes. In this way 
they refined the rude language of the earlier tnhuhitanis, and brought it to 
a perfec tion which rivals even the Sanscrit. By these mutual concessions 
a much more favourable .isstmilation took place between the Arian and 
.aboriginal race, and the south of India became alteiavords the last refuge 
of Braliminicul science, when it was banished from the north by the into- 
lerant Mohammedans. There romnio biill in some |>arts of the interior of 
the Dckhan some savage tribes, never reached by the touch of civilization ; 
yet upon the whole the Arian population, though comparatively small in 
munber, has overgrown the former population, so tliat physically only few 
marks of a ditFerent blood rerauin. It is interesting and important to ob¬ 
serve how the beneficial influence of a higher civilization may be effectually 
exercised without forcing the people to give up their own language and to 
adopt that of their foreign conquerors, a result by which, if successful, every 
vital principle of an independent and natur.nl development U necessarily 
ilestroyed. 
The practical advantage of comparative philology is perhaps less evident, 
because only few have .nvailed themselves of the results of this science, and 
applied them to the practical study of languages. Every one however knows 
liow difhcult it is to learn the first nidiments of a grammar, because all those 
terminations, sufhxes and prefixes, with which our memory is at first over- 
lo.nded, are to our mind but mere sounds and names, while, by tracing their 
origin, their historical development, and their affinity with grammatical forms 
of other known languages, we begin to take some interest in them, and by put¬ 
ting them in connection with other ideas, find it easic-r to keep them in memory 
quickly and firmly. Besides, having once acquired the real understanding 
of any grammatical form, and having put its origin and power into its proper 
light, we can afterwards dispense witli a great many rules which are neces¬ 
sary only from the want of a real understanding of these grammatical forms. 
These forms once thoroughly understood, we acquire a kind of feeling which 
