s; as for the
native authorities, they simply try confusions with us; if you
should trust them too literally, or some of them, events such as
the Moslem conquest will not take place for a few centuries yet.
They do not choose that their ancient history should be known;
so all things are in a hopeless muddle.

One thing to remember is this: it is a continent, like Europe;
not a country, like France. The population is even more
heterogeneous than that of Europe. Only one sovereign, Aurangzeb
--at least for many thousands of years--was ever even nominally
master of the whole of it. There are two main divisions, widely
different: Hindustan or Aryavarta, north of the Vindhya Mountains
and the River Nerbudda; and Dakshinapatha or the Deccan, the
peninsular part to the south. The former is the land of the
Aryans; the people of the latter are mainly non-Aryan--a race
called the Dravidians whom, apparently, the Aryans conquered in
Hindustan, and assimilated; but whom in the Deccan, though they
have influenced them largely, and in part molded their religion,
they never quite conquered or supplanted. Well; never is a long
day; dear knows what may have happened in the long ages
of pre-history.

The Aryans came down into India through its one open door--that
in the northwest. But when?--Oh, from about 1400 to 1200 B.C.,
says western scholarship; which has spent too much ingenuity
altogether over discovering the original seat of the Aryans, and
their primal civilization. After Sir William Jones and others
had introduce Sanskrit to western notice, and its affinity had
been discovered to that whole chain of languages which is
sometimes called Indo-European, the theory long held that
Sanskrit was the parent of all these tongues, and that all their
speakers had emigrated at different times from somewhere in
Central Asia. But in the scientific orthodoxies fashion reigns
and changes as incontinently as in dress. Scholars rose to
launch a new name for the race: _Indogermanic;_ and to prove
Middle-Europe the Eden in which it was created. Then others, to
dodge that Eden about through every corner of Europe; which
at least must have the honor;--it could not be conceded to
_inferior_ Asia. All the languages of the group were examined
and worried for evidence. Men said, 'By the names of trees we
shall run it to earth'; and this was the doxy that was ortho-for
some time. Light on a tree-name common to all the languages, and
find in