Page:An Australian language as spoken by the Awabakal.djvu/71

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Bian State and the proscription of its wor.sliip must have been so complete as to drive forth Irom their native seats thousands of the people of the four tongues and force them westwards into Africa, or eastwards through the mountain passes into the table- land of Panjab, and thence into the Gangetic Plain. Here, I imagine, were already located the pure Hamites of the Dispersion ; but finding these to be guilty of a skin not exactly coloured like their own, and not understanding their language, these latter Kushites of mixed extraction regarded them as enemies and drove them before them into the mountains of the Dekkan, where, to this hour, the Dravidians and Ivolarians are black-skinned and savage races. Ere long, these Babylonian Kushites were themselves dis- placed and ejected from the Granges valley by a fair- skinned race, the Aryans, another and the last ethnic stream of invaders from the north-west. These Aryans, in religion and habits irrecon- cilably opposed to the earlier races of India, waged on them a relentless war. Hemmed up in the triangle of southern India, the earlier Hamites could escape only by sea ; the Babylonian Kushites, on the other hand, could not seek safety in the moun- tains of the Dekkan, as these were already occupied ; they must therefore have been pushed down the Ganges into Further India and the Malayan peninsula; thence they passed at a later time into Borneo, and the Sunda Islands, and Papua, and afterwards across the sea of Timor into Australia, or eastwards into Mela- nesia, driven onwards now by the Turanian tribes, which had come down from Central Asia into China and the Peninsula and islands of the East Indies.

Many arguments could be advanced in favour of this view of the origin of the Australian race, but the discussion would be a lengthy one, and this is scarcely the place for it. I may, how- ever, be permitted to add here a simple incident in my own experience. A few months ago, I was staying for a while with a friend in the bush, far from the main roads of the colony and from towns and villages. One day, when out of doors and alone, I saw a black man approaching ; his curly hair, his features, his colour, and his general physique, all said that he Avas an Austra- lian, but bis gait did not correspond. I Avas on the point of addressing him as he drew near, but he anticipated me and spoke first; the tones of his voice showed me that I Avas mistaken. I at once suspected him to be a Kalinga from the Presidency of Madras. And he was a Kalinga. This incident tells its own tale. In short, it appears to me that the Dravidians and some tribes among the Himalayas are the representatives of the ancient Dasyus, Avho resisted the Aryan inA^asion of India, and Avhom the Puranas describe as akin to beasts. The existence, also, of Cyclopean remains in Ponape of the Caroline Islands, and else- where onward through the Pacific Ocean, even as far as Easter

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