Page:The passing of Korea.djvu/52

 Korea were very clearly separated. The Kija dynasty in the north had consolidated the people into a more or less homogeneous state, but this kingdom never extended south further than the Han River. At this time the southern coast of the peninsula was peopled by a race differing in essential particulars from those of the north. Their language, social system, government, customs, money, ornaments, traditions and religion were all quite distinct from those of the north. Everything points to the belief that they were maritime settlers or colonists, and that they had come to the shores of Korea from the south.

The French missionaries in Korea were the first to note a curious similarity between the Korean language and the languages of the Dravidian peoples of southern India. It is well established that India was formerly inhabited by a race closely allied to the Turanian peoples, and that when the Aryan conquerors swept over India the earlier tribes were either driven in flight across into Burmah and the Malay Peninsula, or were forced to find safety among the mountains in the Deccan. From the Malay Peninsula we may imagine them spreading in various directions. Some went north along the coast, others into the Philippine Islands, then to Formosa, where Mr. Davidson, the best authority, declares that the Malay type prevails. The powerful "Black Current," the Gulf Stream of the Pacific, naturally swept northward those who were shipwrecked. The Liu-Kiu Islands were occupied, and the last wave of this great dispersion broke on the southern shores of Japan and Korea, leaving there the nucleus of those peoples who resemble each other so that if dressed alike they cannot be distinguished as Japanese or Korean even by an expert. The small amount of work that has been so far done indicates a striking resemblance between these southern Koreans and the natives of Formosa, and the careful comparison of the Korean language with that of the Dravidian peoples of southern India reveals such a remarkable similarity, phonetic, etymologic, and syntactic, that one is forced to recognise in it something more than mere coincidence. The endings of