Page:India — Wonderland of the East.djvu/14

 4 Links with the South-East Corner

THE ABORIGINES AND THE OTHERS.

The Aryan immigrant, in invading or colonizing (as he loves to call it) India, must have met the black (and negligible) aborigines, and driven them to the hills and forests. But he also met the mysterious 'third race,' whom we have labelled above as a tomb-builder, and attempted to drive him also out of the fertile plains. It seems that he was not quite so ready to go as the inferior race, and possibly the worst names by which the Aryans describe their antagonists in the sacred writings are more intended for these recalcitrants than for the blacks!

THE THREE REGIONS.

The three natural divisions of India are the mountain barrier, the region of alluvial plains, and the Deccan, or Peninsula proper, divided from the northern portion by the so-called Vindhya Mountains — mere molehills in comparison with the giant Himalayas.

THE 'THIRD RACE' HOME.

This third region is appropriately looked upon as the home of the 'third race' — the Dravidian (or Dravido-mundane, from the two subdivisions of the language). Possibly, of course, the race was driven there, as the Celts and Basques were 'cornered' in Europe by immigrants of similar stock. The claim of the Deccan to have witnessed the growth of the earliest Indian civilization is borne out by the fact of its being one of the oldest of the geological formations. The word 'Deccan' is considered by some to mean,