not, of course, form one nation. India is almost a continent like Europe. From the earliest times its richness has attracted various and successive immigrants and invaders, Asiatic and European. Its inhabitants differ as much as the various continental races, and speak languages equally distinct.
We have first the aboriginal primitive tribes, who, migrating from Central Asia and the steppes of Tartary and Tibet, entered India by successive incursions[1].
Then we have the great Hindū race, originally members of that primeval family who called themselves Arya or noble, and spoke a language the common source of Sanskṛit, Prākṛit, Zand, Persian, and Armenian in Asia; and of the Hellenic, Italic, Keltic, Teutonic, and Slavonic languages in Europe. Starting at a later period than the primitive races, but like them from some part of the table-land of Central Asia—probably the region surrounding the sources of the Oxus, in the neighbourhood of Bokhara—they separated into distinct nationalities, and peopled Europe, Persia, and India. The Hindū Āryans, after detaching themselves from the Persian branch of the family, settled in the Paṅjāb and near the sacred river Sarasvatī. Thence they overran the plains of the Ganges, and spread themselves over the region called Āryāvarta (see p. xvi, note 1), occupying the whole of Central India, coalescing
- ↑ These aboriginal tribes, according to the last census, amount to 14,238,198 of the whole population of India. For an account of them see p. 312. note 1, and p. 236, note 2, of this volume.
the suburbs have been calculated in the case of Bombay, making it come next to London as the second city in the Empire. If this had been done in Calcutta and Madras, the numbers for Calcutta (according to Sir G. Campbell's Report) would have been 892,429, placing it at the head of the three cities. Almost every one in India marries as a matter of course, and indeed as a religious duty (see p. 246 of this volume). No infants perish from cold and exposure. As soon as a child is weaned it lives on rice, goes naked for two or three years, and requires no care whatever. The consequent growth of population will soon afford matter for serious anxiety. The Hindūs are wholly averse from emigration. Formerly there were three great depopulators—war, famine, and pestilence—which some regard as evils providentially permitted to exist in order to maintain the balance between the productive powers of the soil and the numbers it has to support. Happily, our rule in India has mitigated these scourges; but where are we to look for sufficient checks to excess of population?
