Wallace

and other men of science suppose that a great Lemurian continent once occupied part of the Indian seas; Madagascar on the west, with the Maldives, Ceylon, Java, and on the east Papuan New Guinea, being the present remains of it above sea level. This may have been the original home of the Negrito races of Asia and Africa, which racially and by language show some remote connection. Ceylon, in that age, would have been connected with India by the isthmus now represented by “ Adam’s Bridge,” as the S. Arab sailors called it. Indian legends seem to refer to such a period, in connection with fairy continents and islands, near Cape Kumari, which no longer exist. With this Negrito stock the early Mongoloid populations— Kolarian and Dravidian—mingled, and the dark color of the Himalaic Turanians, together with much in their languages which connects them with Polynesia and Australia, may be regarded as due to such admixture. The Aryans thrust out all the weaker mixed tribes to the extremities of their empire, as the early Kelts were thrust westwards by stronger races in Britain, The Kolarians were the first rudely superior race of India, followed by the Takas, Madras, Kathis, and others above noticed, who descended from the N.W., and are cla ed as Dravidians, These again were followed by the Yue-chi, Su, and other Turko-Mongols of Central Asia. The non- Aryans are mentioned in special articles (see especially under Malis): in all cases the trend was first towards the lower Ganges, and afterwards to the south, until—in our own times—the Madras provinces contain a population of some 46,000,000 Dravidians, while many millions of Kolarians still people the forests and uplands of Central India. 307