rumbas, and other wild tribes in this region, are apparently the oldest of all, and probably tenanted Southern India at a time when the Bheels and Gonds still roved as masters over the then forest-covered plains of Hindostan. They are most poor and miserable. Some of them are clothed, when clothed at all, with the bark of a tree,-using bows and arrows, and living chiefly on roots, honey, and reptiles. They are very short in stature, agile as monkeys, penetrate the jungles with marvellous ease, without habitations, and frequently living in trees. Is it not most likely that these wild tribes, once spread extensively through the forests of the country, were the "monkey race whom the first Aryan invaders of the Deccan met with, and who figure in the old poems as the allies of Rama in his conquest of Ceylon?

Around those isolated relics of aboriginal population - so diverse from one another that they may be likened to a broken chain of varicoloured islets-flows a wide sea of the secondary races. These appear homogeneous compared to the diversity which marks the aboriginal tribes; but in reality they are distinguishable into several marked divisions. As the Tamul, Telinga, and Canarese nations, they people the whole peninsular portion of India, from Hindostan to the sea. They are civilised and organised in society therein being as vastly superior to the aboriginal tribes as the organic world of matter is to the inorganic. Between them and the still later-come Aryan races the distinction is infinitely less, and a partial amalgamation and complete intermingling has taken place between them; yet a difference is plainly perceptible both in physical and mental aspect when the two populations are compared in the mass. The original diversity between them and the Aryan or Sanskrit-speaking race of Hindostan is further evidenced by the fact that there are still current in Southern India several languages which, although largely intermixed with Sanskrit terms in consequence of Aryan conquest and civilisation, nevertheless belong to distinct fami

lies of language. The chief of these are the Tamul, Telinga, and Karnatic, each of which implies the former existence as separate nations of the people who speak those dialects. Indeed the Tamul language has a literature of its own, which shows that the Tamul race had achieved an advanced civilisation, independent of (and perhaps before the invasion of) the Sanskrit-speaking Hindoos. The Mahrattas, whose chief seat is in the Deccan, although their power extends far into the plains of Hindostan, likewise appear to belong to those secondary races, rather than to the tertiary or Aryan wave of northern immigration, although the proximity of the Mahrattas to Hindostan has produced in them a somewhat larger infusion of Aryan blood than is to be found farther south.

Fancy the Tamul and other nations of the secondary wave of immigration, interspersed with savage tribes of still more ancient settlement, in possession of the vast plains of the Ganges and Central India, and spreading southward over the Deccan towards Southern India - the rude aboriginal tribes predominating the farther south we go, then we shall have a pretty accurate picture of India at the time when the Aryan or Sanscrit-speaking race appeared on the scene. The foremost division of this great race was the Brahmanical nation, which led the van of the migration, and whose intellectual superiority still entitles them to rank highest amongst the cognate nations which followed and now live side by side with them. Settling along the line of the Ganges, from Hurdwar down to the eastern frontier of Oude and the Rajmal hills, we see them occupying the great cities of Hastinapura, Indraprastha (Delhi), and Canouge in the Doab-and Ayodhya (Oude), Benares, and Palibothra (Patna), farther down the valley-they concentrated more and more to the east, especially in Oude, as new immigrating tribes arrived in the upper part of the Gangetic valley; but they never passed forward into Lower Bengal,-which region continued to be peopled by earlier tribes, of the secondary wave of immigra tion, and (as may be seen at this

day) far inferior both in physical and mental qualities to the population of Upper India or Hindostan. The Kshatriyas, or warrior-caste, of Menu who by-and-by usurped the ruling power in the State, previously held by the Brahmans-appear to have been a small band of king-like warriors, identical in extraction with the Brahmanical nation, and by dint of arms and prestige becoming kings, and furnishing a royal race to the many small States into which the country was divided. In fact, the early Aryans in the valley of the Ganges quite resembled the Hellenic race in Greece, in being split up into a number of small States or citydoms, with a servile substratum of earlier population; and the Kshatriyas (though originating in a profession, not in a single family) may be likened to the Heraclide, who became a royal race to the Peloponnesus. Like the Heraclide, the Kshatriyas by-and-by declined and disappeared, the less distinguished remains of this race being probably absorbed into the numerous and warlike Rajpoot nation, which next arrived from beyond the Indus, and served themselves heirs to the kinghood and warrior-profession of the Kshatriyas. The Rajpoots, who arrived on the Ganges long after the Code of Manu, and probably about the era of Alexander's invasion of the Punjaub, freely interlaced with their Brahmanical kindred; but while the Brahmans congregated chiefly in Oude and the adjoining region to the south, the Rajpoots settled chiefly in Rohilcund, the middle Doab, and Bundelcund. Thus the Bengalees, Brahmans, and Rajpoots formed three more or less distinct zones of population, stretching from the sea up to the head-waters of the Jumna and Ganges. Probably about the same time

the Jats, a less distinguished branch of the Rajpoot family, approached the scene, settling on the rivers of the Punjaub, and completing the series of the Aryan immigrations. The dominant Aryan population did not confine itself to its first seats, but in course of time, overpassing the limits of Hindostan, spread into the Deccan and Southern India. The Brahmans led off the migration several centuries before Christ; and appear to have founded the Pandya kingdom in the south, named from the fair-skinned invaders. The Rajpoots in like manner, with their Jat followers, in due course moved into the same regions, where the Meerassee village-system (by which a certain body share the land, equals among themselves, but regarding all others as their servants) still bespeaks the presence of the republican tribes of Upper India, here settled as oligarchs amongst an inferior population.* The result of these migrations was an infusion of Aryan blood, and still more of Aryan civilisation, amongst the pre-Aryan peoples of Southern India; although the conquering and dominant immigrants kept themselves very much apart from the general population, alike by social and religious distinctions.

In these facts-in this unusual mingling of distinct races, we find the natural cause of the extraordinary caste-system of India. Every dominant people contemns the inferior races with whom it comes in contact, and loves to preserve its own individuality. Caste exists everywhere in fact throughout the world. And the British race, who idolise liberty and equal rights at home, no sooner come into contact with the negroes in Central America than they adopt the principles of caste, just as their far-off relatives the Aryans have done for three thousand

years in India. Caste existed de facto in India from the first mingling of the rival races. But soon the Brahmans, to guard the purity of their own high blood and to rivet or magnify their own dominancy, invented the laws of caste, and coined for them a divine authority. They supplied a natural want of that he terogeneous Indian society. Although the dominant race, the Aryan population itself was composed of separate tribes; and moreover, even in Hindostan, they were interlaced with fragments of alien tribes, who have left their leaven to the present day in the low-caste population of Upper India. Of the four great castes first enacted by Brahmanical law, the three which pertained to the Aryans themselves (viz. Brahmans, Kshatriyas, and the Vaisyas, (the last comprising the common people of the Aryan race) were not marked by any harsh distinctions; but the Sudra caste, into which the whole nonAryan peoples were put, was kept apart by a wide gulf and a galling inferiority. Not that the Code of Manu, with its unparalleled arrogance and severity towards the Sudras, is to be accepted as a true representation of all Indian life. Whether as regards the character and privileges of the Brahmans, or the social bondage of the Sudras, the Code gives rather a picture of what a Brahman wished to be, than of what actually was. It is Índian society idealised by an upper-caste man. In Brahmanical cities, doubtless, the condition of the Sudras or non-Aryans may have been nearly as servile as the Code enacts. But there were in certain parts entire Sudra communities: we read of Sudra kings and Sudra cities, in which cities Brahmans are exhorted not to dwell; and in these communities the non-Aryans would still hold up their heads, and the distinctions of the Code would be but little respected. We even read of Sudras being invited to the court of the Aryan King Yudhishthira, and treated with the same respect as the other guests and princes; and in the Brahmanas appended to the Vedas, we find them even allowed to be present at the sacrifices. The Sudras appear to have been a people located in

towns in the valley of the Indus, and consequently one of the first subdued by the Aryan immigrants, who afterwards extended the name to all the settled (i. e., non-barbarous) tribes of the country-in contrast to the Chandalas and other savage tribes. The system of caste, thus originating in the natural condition of Indian society, when enforced by law and invested with a supposed divine authority, soon ramified all over the country. The Brahmans and Rajpoots carried it with them into Southern India; and partly by necessity, partly by the voluntary action of the people, the original castes, especially that of the Sudras, became split up into endless subdivisions. Adopted at first on natural grounds, as a means towards an end, caste was found susceptible of such wide application amidst the heterogeneous population of India, that it became as it were a fashion,--an institution to be adopted in all circumstances, even where no racial diversity existed. It became the grand law of Indian society-the prime point of social honour: so that (as usually happens in such circumstances all over the world), losing sight of the natural foundation for the usage, people came to fancy caste a thing desirable of itself, and quite indispensable in every well-ordered community. Accordingly, from diversities of race it by-and-by was extended to diversities of trade and profession. Every one piqued himself upon belonging to some caste. Tinkers, tailors, soldiers, sailors-robbers and murderers included-each man secluded himself within a brotherhood of his own. There was hope for every one, in time and in eternity, who could claim a caste however low; nothing but perdition, both here and hereafter, awaited him who had none. the outcasts-those who had fallen or been expelled from castehoodband themselves together in castes of their own. Castes of outcasts!"E'en in the lowest depths a lower still!"

Even

So entirely divorced from its original and substantial cause did this usage become ;-and to such extravagant and altogether hyperbolical lengths is it now carried by an un

reflecting people, who, long centuries ago, made the very common mistake of exalting and glorifying the means as an all-important end * Caste had its uses. Unlike the Spaniard in Mexico, who has sunk into a weak hybrid by coupling with the aborigines, the Brahmanical invaders of India, by instituting caste, have preserved the purity and dominancy of their race. And this was good for as the height of a crowd is just that of the tallest man in it, so, if the Aryan invaders had become diffused among the non-Aryan population, the hybrid race thence arising would never have originated so high a civilisation and philosophy as was accomplished under the kingly and saintly leadership of the Rajpoots and Brahmans. Better an aristocracy to rule and enlighten the masses, than a uniform inferior mass of mediocrity which can never rise above itself.

Even with the help of caste, the Aryans in India, as we shall see, did not escape the influence of the inferior populations around them. But first let us behold them, in the childhood of their race, as they emerge from the northern mountains into the plains of the Indus. In the Vedas, one of the very oldest books in the worldolder not only than Homer, but than the events which he sings-compiled almost as long ago as the Exodus, and many of its hymns written while the Israelites were still in bondage on the banks of the Nile, we catch sight of this remarkable race emerging from its cradle, becoming vocal in literature, and so coming forth from the shadowy abysses of unrecorded primeval humanity into the Dawn; thenceforth to have its history interwoven with that of the other sections

of mankind, and to give its life and civilisation, its arts and science, its laws and philosophy, as an heirloom to the entire species. Grown restless on the elevated plains of Bactria, overpassing the snowy defiles of the lofty Hindoo-Koosh, and descending, through cold and barren Atfghanistan into the plains of the Indus, we seem to find them at first located on the eastern side of that river, chiefly in Sindh and Guzerat, and spread in independent_detachments over the Punjaub. They do not enter this new land of promise as the Hebrews entered Palestine, in a serried mass, organised as a whole, and homogeneous in everything; but rather in detached wavelets, spreading at will over the country-each more or less under leadership of its own, and not all conforming to the same religious ritual. Treeless as are the plains of the Punjaub, Sirhind, and the lower valley of the Indus now, they were covered then with primeval forests; and the bare and arid plains which British rule is endeavouring to reclothe, then waved with the perennial foliage of lofty woods, tenanted by wild beasts or by thinly-scattered aboriginal tribes. Like the AngloSaxons in Northern America, the Aryans sometimes fired the woods before them; for their early hymns tell of dense forests, through which a path is cleared by the "fierceblazing Agni (god of fire), who leaves behind a blackened track." Breezeexcited and flame-weaponed, Agui penetrates amongst the timber: Attacking the unexhaled moisture of the trees, he rushes triumphant like a bull: He traverses the woods, and shears the hairs of the earth: All are

afraid of him as he flies along." Prince Bavya "dwells upon the banks of the Sindhu" or Indus; and the prominent notice given to horses in the hymns-where we read of "long-maned glossy-backed coursers," "prancing steeds, rapid as hawks," and where even the actions of the gods are likened at times to those of horses-indicates the location of the Aryans in the level plains of Sindh and Kattiwar, where the horse is a far superior animal to that found on the Ganges, which latter could never have furnished the illustrations of the Vedas. Or, probably, in their migration, they brought herds of horses with them from the great studbearing steppes of Upper Asia. But they were spreading also by the base of the Himalayas and Aravalli Hills; for we read of mountain-peaks seen shining afar-of caves and waterfalls, and "graceful spotted deer." And so they passed north-eastwards into the Punjaub and Sirhind; other bands of kindred race doubtless passing thither more directly by the passes of the Khyber or Cashmere. They carry all before them, yet not unopposed; for in those old hymns we see them perpetually in dread of a race (or rather we should say many diverse tribes) unlike their own, whom they call robbers, spider-like, and black-who are not mere savages, for they have cities and kings-and who worship a goddess, "Nirriti, with unfriendly looks," whom even the bold Aryans regard with considerable fear and trembling. Nevertheless the gods of the Aryans prevail over those of their black adversaries; and we read how in due time Indra, after destroying or subduing the indigenous barbarians, bestowed the fields on his "white-complexioned friends."

If the Aryans do not speak much of their own cities, it is not because they were mere nomads when they entered India, but because they were a nation on the move. They had numerous flocks and herds, indeed, but they also cultivated the soil and laid it out into fields. They 66 measure the land with a rod". they "plough the earth for barley," and they bring home the produce of their fields in carts." They have

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towns, and practise many of the arts of civilised life. Weaving is an ordinary occupation, and furnishes the poetic imagination of the people with fine and effective similes. "Cares consume me," cries one," as a rat gnaws a weaver's threads." Night," says another, "envelops the extended world like a woman weaving a garment;" and in another place day and night are likened to two famous female weavers, interweaving their threads." They worked in iron, and also in gold; they forged armour and weapons of steel; they had chariots, and carts, and harness, hundred-oared ships, and jars of wine. Merchants are amongst them, "covetous of gain," and whose ships are said, in hyperbole, to "crowd the sea," although no foreign products appear to have been in use. Tradesmen or shopmen, as they would be now - were already up to the tricks of trade; so that the god Indra is besought not to "take advantage" of his worshippers "like a dealer." They had not yet coined money, but gold was esteemed wealth, and would be used as money by weight; and they used to keep their riches in a chest, or, as now, hide them in a hill or a well. Gambling, for which the natives of India have still a passion, was in vogue even then, and cowries were used as dice. We read of debts and debtors, and reverses of fortune,

and of course there are thieves. Medical science, though unarrayed in the pretentious complexity of modern times, was probably tolerably effective. At all events, they anticipated by more than three thousand years our hydropathic doctrine,-one of their maxims being that all healing power is in the waters." They were also acquainted with the virtue of herbs; and one exclaims in prayer, "nourished by the sanitary herbs, may I live a hundred winters." Gold, horses, and bulls are given as presents, and golden rings and earrings are used as ornaments. Horses, indeed, appear to have been very plentiful; and "a hundred vigorous steeds" is not an unusual gift from a prince to a holy man. Chiefs go on forays, have plenty of chariots, sometimes with golden wheels and yokes,

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