Intermediate to the Khonds and the Bengali, in respect to the evidence of their Tamulian affinities, are the mountaineers of north-western India. Here, the preservative effects of distance are next to nothing. Those, however, of the mountain-fastnesses supply the following populations—Berdars, Ramusi, Wurali, Paurias, Kulis, Bhils, Mewars, Moghis, Minas, &c. &c., speaking languages of the same class with the Mahratta, Udiya, and Bengali, but all imperfectly Brahminic in creed.
The other important languages of India in the same class with those last-mentioned, are the Guzerathi of Guzerat, the Hindú of Oude, the Punjabi of the Punjab, and several others not enumerated—partly because it is not quite certain how we are to place them[37], partly because they may be sub-dialects rather than separate substantive forms of speech. They take us up to the Afghan, Biluch, and Tibetan frontier.
These have been dealt with. But there is one population, belonging to these selfsame areas, with which we have further dealings, Bilúchistan has been described; but not in detail. The Bilúch that give their name to the country have been noticed as Persian. But the Bilúch are as little the only and exclusive inhabitants of it, as the English are of Great Britain. We have our Welsh, and the Bilúch have their Brahúi.
Again—the range of mountains that forms the western watershed of the Indus is not wholly Afghan. It is Bilúch as well. But it is not wholly Bilúch. The Bilúch reach to only a certain point southwards. The range between the promontory of Cape Montze and the upper boundary of Kutch Gundava is Brahúi. There is no such word as Brahúistan; but it would be well if there were.
Now the language of the Brahúi belongs to the Tamulian family. The affinity by no means lies on the surface—nor is it likely that it should. The nearest unequivocally Tamulian dialect on the same side of India is as far south as Goa—such as exist further to the north being either central or eastern. Supposing, then, the original continuity, how great must have been the displacement; and if the displacement have been great, how easily may the transitional forms have disappeared, or, rather, how truly must they once have been met with!
However, the Brahúi affinities by no means lie on the surface. The language is known from one of the many valuable vocabularies of Leach. Upon this, no less a scholar than Lassen commented. Without fixing it, he remarked that the numerals were like those of Southern India. They are so, indeed; and so is a great deal more; indeed the collation of the whole of the Brahúi vocabularies with the Tamul and Khond tongues en masse makes the Brahúi Tamulian.
Is it original or intrusive? All opinion—valeat quantum—goes against it being the former. The mountain-fastness in which it occurs goes the other way.
Our sequence is logical rather than geographical, i. e. it takes localities and languages in the order in which they are subservient to ethnological argument rather than according to their contiguity. This justifies us in making a bold stride, in passing over all Persia, and in taking next in order—Caucasus, with all its conventional reminiscences and suggestions.
The languages of Caucasus fall into a group, which, for reasons already given, would be inconveniently called Caucasian, but which may conveniently be termed Dioscurian[38]. This falls into the following five divisions:—1. The Georgians; 2. the Irôn; 3. the Mizjeji; 4. the Lesgians; and 5. the Circassians.