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that "Dasyu," in a slightly different form, may have been originally the name of a people whom the Indo- . Eranian Aryas encountered and fought in their wanderings before they entered the Penjâb.' If so, the name early became a common one for enemies," then "subjects," and its origin was thoroughly forgotten by both Eranians and Âryas of India. In point of fact, the fair-complexioned worshippers of Agni, Indra, and Soma found two widely different races in possession. These were undoubtedly broken up into numerous tribes, with different names and under different kings,-as, for that matter, were the Âryas themselves. The Rig-Veda teems with names which at first produce a bewildering impression of chaotic confusion; but we shall see that the patient labors of a band of ingenious and untiring searchers have already succeeded in bringing some kind of order into this confusion, and evolving out of it something that may be called a twilight of history. This groping in a particularly obscure past, unguided by even the scantiest monumental evidence, is materially aided by an observant study of the mixed

1 Nor were these "enemies" always and necessarily of non-Aryan stock. The Dahae (possibly the original" dasyus ") seem to have been "a tribe nearly akin to the Eranians," located "in the Kirghiz-Turkman Steppe, which extends from the Caspian Sea beyond the Yaxartes (now Syr-Daryà)." See Ed. Meyer, Geschichte des Alterthums, vol. i., § 425, p. 525, and Hillebrandt, Vedische Mythologie, vol. i., pp. 94-116. In this most important chapter it is also suggested to identify the wealthy robber tribe of the Panis with the Parnians, whom the Greek biographer Strabo describes as nomads-a sort of Eranian Bedouins-having their abodes along the Oxus (modern Amu-Daryá), and that of the Pârâvatas or 66 Mountaineers," a people whom the Vedic Âryas fought, with the Parouêtai, dwelling in the mountains, also of "foreign" Aryan stock. (Ibid., pp. 97, 98.)

population of India in our own times. "India," writes Mr. Hunter, he who, of living men, has the most thorough and comprehensive knowledge of the immense empire, "forms a great museum of races, in which we can study man from his lowest to his highest stages of culture.

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“A museum of races" indeed; and no one could say so with better authority than the writer of the above lines, since he compiled and published a dictionary of the non-Aryan languages of India, which comprises 139 languages and dialects! Of these but very few, of course, can lay any claim to literary worth; yet the names of several, such as Tamil, Telugu, Kanarese, are familiar to philologists, and hold their well-defined place in the lists of important human speeches. They form two groups, representing two distinct and widely different types or families of languages, answering to the two main stocks or races to which respectively belong the various nonAryan peoples-the Dasyus of Vedic antiquity, the Shûdra of classical Brahmanism, the "low-castes" of modern Hinduism.

8. These main stocks are the KOLARIANS and the DRAVIDIANS. Both came into the land at a prehistoric period far anterior to the Aryan invasion, from two opposite sides: the Kolarians from the east, or northeast, the Dravidians from the northwest-possibly through the very passes which later admitted the Aryan tide. If, as is probable, they found an older aboriginal population, no traces whatever are left of that—unless some of the numerous sepulchral mounds be theirs, and of the rude monuments made of unhewn stone and of upright slabs,

forming the combinations known in Western Europe by the Celtic names of "dolmens" and "menhirs," and circles and avenues, like those of Stonehenge in England, and Karnak in Brittany. Even these crudest forms of monumental art cover presumably several centuries, for, although they betray no attempt at either writing or decoration, they represent two stages of culture, since in some only flint implements and the roughest of pottery are found, while others contain iron weapons, gold and copper ornaments. It is thought that the Kolarians came first, and after spreading over the regions now known as Assam and Bengal, encountered the Dravidian current, which was pushing on from the other end, somewhere in the Vindhya highlands, about the centre of the land, where they converged, or rather collided, and crossed each other, the weaker Kolarians being broken up by the shock, and dispersing among the valleys and forests of this most intricate, though but moderately high mountain-ridge, while the more hardy, more vigorous Dravidians swept on and through the ridge, and flooded the South.'

1 Mr. J. F. Hewitt, whose novel and extremely valuable papers on the " Early History of Northern India" (Journ. of the Roy. Asiat. Society, 1888 and 1889) are freely used throughout this chapter, makes the following very explicit statement : "Wherever the three races have formed part of the now amalgamated population, the Kolarian tribes were the earliest settlers, as we always find them driven into the worst lands in districts where they live together with the other races. That they came from the East is shown by the following facts: First, they themselves always say that they did so; secondly, the most powerful and purest Kolarian tribes are found in the East; thirdly, their languages are allied to those used on the Brahmaputra and the Irâwaddy by the Kambojans and the Assamese."

9. The descendants of the two non-Aryan races are, even at the present day, easily distinguished by their different customs, traits of character, and religions. The Kolarians are by far the gentler. As their chief representative tribe may be considered the SANTALS, who were a million strong in 1872 and who have their home among the hills abutting on the Ganges in Lower Bengal. They are among the more advanced of the pure-blooded non-Aryan tribes and have not adopted anything whatever from their conquerors' civilization. They have no castes or kings, but live in free village communities. Their religion amounts to little more than spirit and demon worship besides the spirits of the forefathers— which the Kolarians, like the Dravidians, the Aryans, and all known races, worshipped originally from fear of their ghosts—there are those that dwell in each mountain, forest, river, well; there is the race-god, the clan-god, and the god or spirit of each family. These tutelary spirits are supposed to dwell in large, ancient trees. This is why-for the modern Hindus have incorporated into their Brahmanic creed this native superstition along with many less harmless ones-there is in or just outside almost every vil lage some gigantic tree which is at once temple, shrine, and meeting-place, often, too, the only hostelry for pedestrians to rest in; the vast circle of shade which such a tree casts around thus becomes the centre of village life; it even does duty as a mart or fair ground, where peddlers and itinerant venders of cakes, fruit, etc., dispose their booths and stands, jugglers, and snake-charmers exhibit their