monosyllabic character
increases, and from the _Tamul_ language spoken between Pulicat and Cape
Comorin, the term _Tamulian_--applicable in a general ethnological
sense--is derived. _Agglutinated_ (or _agglutinate_) is also a technical
term. It means languages in the second stage of their development; when
words originally separate, such as adverbs of time, prepositions, and
personal pronouns, have become permanently connected with the root, so
as to form tenses, cases, and persons--the union of the two parts of an
inflected word being still sufficiently recent and imperfect to leave
their original separation and independence visible and manifest. When
the incorporation or amalgamation, has become more complete; so
complete, as in most cases to have obliterated all vestiges of an
original independence; the _agglutinate_ character has departed, the
second stage of development has been passed, and the language is in the
same class with those of Greece, Rome, and Germany, rather than in that
of the tongues in question, and of many others.

To return, however, to the _Tamulian_ family, meaning thereby a branch
of the great Mongolian stock, speaking, _either now or formerly_, a
language more or less allied to the Tamul of the Dekhan.

The first members of the class, as we proceed southwards from Behar, are
certain hill-tribes of the Rajmahali Mountains--the Rajmahali
mountaineers. Their Mongolian physiognomy is unequivocal;--a Mongolian
physiognomy but conjoined with a dark skin. They have "broad faces,
small eyes, and flattish or rather turned-up noses. Their lips are
thicker than those of the inhabitants of the plain."[35]

The flattened nose reminded the writer of the Negro, and the general
character of the features of the Chinese or Malay; though it is added
that the resemblance is in a great degree lost on closer inspection. At
the same time it has been sufficiently recognized to have originated the
hypothesis of a descent from one of those nations as a means of
accounting for it.

With a slight tincture of Brahminic Hinduism, the Rajmahali mountaineers
are Pagans. _Bedo_ is one of their gods; doubtless the _Potteang_ of the
Kuki, and the _Batho_ of the Bodo. _Gosaik_, too, is either the name of
a god, or a holy epithet; this, also, being a mythological term current
amongst many other tribes of India. Other elements in their
imperfectly-known mythology deserve notice. Their priesthood contains
both _Demauns_ and _D