In the south of India the foreign element is manifested less than in the north; so that it is the south of India which exhibits the original stock in its fullest form. Its chief characteristics are referable to three heads, physical form, creed, and language. In respect to the first, the southern Indian is darker than the northern--_cæteris paribus_, _i. e._ under similar external conditions; but not to the extent that a mountaineer of the Dekhan is blacker than a Bengali from the delta of the Ganges. Descent, too, or caste influences colour, and the purer the blood the lighter the skin. Then the lips are thicker, the nose less frequently aquiline, the cheek-bones more prominent, and the eyebrows less regular in the southrons. The most perfect form of the Indian face gives us regular and delicate features, arched eyebrows, an aquiline nose, an oval contour, and a clear brunette complexion. All this is Persian.
Depart from it and comparisons suggest themselves. If the lips thicken and the skin blackens, we think of the Negro; if the cheek-bones stand out and if the eye--as it sometimes does--become oblique, the Mongol comes into our thoughts.
The original Indian creeds are best characterized by negatives. They are neither Brahminic nor Buddhist.
The language, for the present, is best brought under the same description. No man living considers it to be _Indo-European_.
In proportion as any particular Indian population is characterized by these three marks, its origin, purity, and indigenous nature become clearer--and _vice versâ_. Hence, they may be taken in the order of their outward and visible signs of aboriginality.
First come--as already stated--the Southrons of the Continent[35]; and first amongst these the mountaineers. In the Eastern Ghauts we have the Chenchwars, between the Kistna and the Pennar; in the Western the Cohatars, Tudas, Curumbars, Erulars, and numerous other hill-tribes; all agreeing in being either imperfect Brahminists or Pagans, and in speaking and languages akin to the Tamul of the coast of Coromandel; a language which gives its name to the class, and introduces the important philological term _Tamulian_. The physical appearance of these is by no means so characteristic as their speech and creed. The mountain _habitats_ favour a lightness of complexion. On the other, it favours the Mongol prominence of the cheek-bones. Many, however, of the Tudas have all the regularity of the Persian countenance--yet they are the pure amongst the pure of the native Tamulian Indians.
