Page:Life in India or Madras, the Neilgherries, and Calcutta.djvu/157

Rh South of these again is the Telinga or Telugu, spoken by some 8,000,000 of people.

And still farther to the south is the Tamil, spoken by about 10,000,000.

In the south-west we find Canarese, Malayalim, and other languages of less importance.

It will thus be seen that India must be thought of as a continent rather than as a country; and as an assemblage of nations with certain common features in religion, manners, and character, rather than as a single nation.

The tongue which we were called upon to master, that we might make known the way of life, was the Tamil, the language of the ten millions of souls inhabiting the country stretching from fifty miles north of the city of Madras to Cape Comorin, the most southern point of Hindustan, and embracing the districts of Arcot, Tanjore, Coimbatoor, Madura, Tinnevelly, &c., as well as of the inhabitants of Northern and Eastern Ceylon. This country has been familiarly known as the Carnatic, and the language, though improperly, as the Malabar.

Tamil appears to have been the original language of Southern India, and was highly cultivated before the Brahmins introduced the