had never been cat or combed; their eyes were lively, mid,
and restless ; they were well made and muscular, but of a
spare habit; and in person they chiefly differed from the
Kandians in the slightness of their , limbs, the wildness-of
their looks, and their savage appearance. According to
their own account of themselves, they come from the neighbourhood
of the lake of Birtenne, where they subsisted on
game which they killed in the chase, some roots and wild
fruits, and a little grain of their own growing. They were
profoundly ignorant, could not count above five, were
hardly acquainted: with the rudiments of any art, and,
though they feared demons, as they did wild beasts, they had
no knowledge whatever of a suprème beneficent Being, and
not the slightest notion of any state of existence" after the
present. Yet these men consider themselves civilised, in
comparison with the wilder tribes of Yaidas, who never
leave their sylvan haunts, and whom I have heard Kandians
of a bordering province describe as living almost entirely
on raw animal food, as going quite naked, as having no
superstition, and, in fact, as being in a state very little
removed from that of brutes.”
It has often been observed that Albinos are frequently
seen in Ceylon. Dr. Davy speaks of such persons. I shall
transcribe his remark on one of them. He says, “ The young
Albino, twelve years of age, in England, and certainly in
Norway, would not be considered peculiar; for her eyes
were light blue, and not particularly weak, her hair of the
colour that usually accompanies such eyes, and her complexion
fresh, and rather rosy. She had considerable
pretensions to beauty, and was not without admirers among
her countrymen. Tt is easy to conceive that an accidental
variety of this kind might propagate, and that the white race
of mankind is sprung from such an accidental variety.
The Indians are of this opinion, and there is a tradition or
story amongst them in which this origin is assigned to us.”
CHAPTER XII.
HISTORY OF INDIA CONTINUED.— OF THE RACES OF PEOPLE
INHABITING THE MOUNTAINOUS COUNTRIES WHICH
BORDER O’N: THE HIMALAYA.
S ection I .—General Survey.
I shall have occasion, to survey the extent of the Himalayan
mountain-chain and its, relations to the great highland
region of whieh it may be regarded? as formings part, when
■I proceed to describe thoraces of people who inhabit the
tal|l,e-land of Central Asia. In the present; section I shall
merely trace the geographical divisions', of the Himalaya
and mountainous tracts immediately connected with it,
as furnishing the boundaries whieh limit and mark out the
abodes of the Indian and In^OsTartar nations, who inhabit
the elevated country lying to the northward of Hindustan.
The Himalaya itself is sometimes considered as limited
towards the wist and (feast by ,thq great risers which form on
both sides the boundaries of Hindustan. The sources of
the Indus and the Brahmaputra are, a3 we have observed,
not' Very distant from each other. From a comparatively
elevated tract in the valley which lies to the northward of
the Snowy Chain, these rivers take,.tbeh|j\ rise near the
mountain-lakes of Ravana-Hrada and Manasa, and flow in
opposite directions, the Attok or Indus towards the northwest,
and the Zangbfi or Brahmaphtra towards the southeast.
At no great distance from the same lakes are also the
sources of two other rivers which are very important in the
geography of the Himalayan countries.