between a leiotrichi race from outside and a Negrito autocthonous race.
Lastly, Dr. Keane thinks that he is able to prove that the Dravidians preceded the Aryan-speaking Hindus and that they are not the true aborigines of the Deccan, they being themselves preceded by dark peoples probably of an aberrant Negrito type.
The question now is 'who are the aborigines ?' The first scholar who discussed this problem from the stand point of philology was Dr Caldwell; and he arrived at the conclusion that even the lowest castes including the Paraiyas are Dravidians and that they were reduced by conquest to the condition of serfs and jungle tribes. He held also that the Dravidians entered India from the North-West. These two hypotheses of Dr.Caldwell's seem to conflict each other, as it is extremely improbable that a very large body of the so called Dravidians consisting of the dark complexioned Paraiyas, Pallis, Kallas and the several hill and forest tribes could have come from northwestern Asia, which has been peopled by the fair complexioned Semitic tribes. There is no philological evidence to show who the aborigines were. Dr. Caldwell does not tell us that there were no people in Southern India before the advent of the Dravidians. If there were no people, the Dravidians should be regarded as the aborigines ; otherwise they are not. He leaves all this an open question. It was, however, taken up by ethnologists, amongst whom Drs. Haddon and Keane are decidedly of opinion that the
