the forests along the skirts of the1 Himalaya,; in the province
of Kum&u-.or. Kumaon, in the country formerly subject to
Nepal. Mr. Traill, injWhis statistical .sketch,cf' Kumaon,
mentions the Dorns or Outcasts amoag the* different ranks
of people inhabiting that country.fr C£ The. Dorns are
very different from the other inhabitants : they are nearly
black and have hair inclining to wool.” :As they are so
different from the higher class in physical character this
writer imagines that they are remains of an aboriginal
population, and that the Rawats, are like: them, and mag ,
have been a part of the same race. This however is but a
conjecture. The origin of the Domsds as yet uncertain, but
it is well known that the aboriginal races of all this mouu^
tainous tract are similar to the Bhotiyahs or-Tibetans, and
approach much more nearly to the Chinese than to Negroes
or Papuas.
JCt seems on the whole that there is no sufficient eyjdehce
to.establish the fact, that India wastunce inhabited* by a race
of Negroes. The following considerations go far towards
proving the negative of such an opinion r;u.
1. As far back as historical accounts reach,;the Indians
had straight or lank hair, and features mnlke the African.
Herodotus says, that “ in the army of Xerxes there Was
a band of Ethiopians from the East,—awo fiXiov dvaroXewv
—who were drawn out next to the Indians. “ These
oriental Ethiopians,” he adds,-!“ in appearance-—efflog —
resemble the other Ethiopians, but differ in their language
and in their hair. They are straight-haired—lOvrpi^Q—
whereas the Ethiopians from Libya, that is from Africa, are
the most woolly-haired of all nations’’^ It is probable that
this description may refer to some of the Indian tribes, but
it is perhaps too vague to afford any important evidence.
Megasthenes reported that the Indians were not altogether
unlike the Ethiopians in aspect—iBiatg. The people towards
the south are, as he says, “ most like them, and they
* Statistical Sketch of Kumaon by G. W. Traill, Esq.—Asiatic Researches,
rol. 16, page 150.
t Herodotus, lib- 7, cap. 70.
are black in colour, but they are not in like manner flat-
uibsed—aifxoi—nor is their hair woolly: nearer to the north
they resemble the* Egyptians
2 . There ■a'Te, as we hav€#'se'en^tribes of people scarcely
at all civilised in thejhills or mountainousi districts of India,
both in proper* Hinddstamand the Dekhan, whom we have
strong reasons for regarding as remains of the aboriginal
population. Many-of* them have never adopted the religion
of‘the Brahmans, nor have they^^eO^Tntermixed with the
Hindoos : they preserve their own languages and habits and.
native superstitions in their1 yemote and seldom-approached
retreats, and it can hardly be doubted' that they retain
their ancient 'physical character: I fehave already collected
authentic accounts of these 'tribe^ and only havfedo remark
at present, that none of them have*the peculiar traits.of
the African Negro.
% di is diffifcult to account for the reported African character
of> the ancient statues in India : probably their'analogy to
the African type may be somewhat exaggerated. It has
been chiefly- noticed in the ¥iafues .of Buddha, which are
generally said, bdth in Ceylon and in Continental India, to
have a broad and rather flat’ face ; but it is very probable
that the countenance imitated in’ «these figures is- the broad
fete ©f the Siamese and Other Indo-Chines&r nations, and
not- the physiognomy of .the African. In the ancient
Singalese temples of Buddha, described by Captain Colin
Mackenzie* in the paper before cited,' the- whole style of
sculpture and of the decoration of the edifices was such as
to persuade - thd author that the builders were from the
Eastern Peninsula of India, and he infers thatthe Singalese
were a colony from that country. In manners and general
character they are known to exhibit many indications of
resemblance to its inhabitants.
Paragraph 2.—Description bf. the Hindoos m General.
I have already cited a passage of Herodotus, in which
that historian speaks of the people of India and mentions
2 E
* Arrian, in Indieis.—Strabo, lib. 15.
VOL. IV.