A history of the Highlands and of the Highland clans : with an ...

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PRELIMINARY DISSERTATION.
T!ip brown or negro-like aborigines of India probably saved tbeniselves
during the flood of Noali on the high mountains of Malabar and the
Ghauts.* In the dialects of the southern parts of India, there appears
to be a number of roots and words received from the aborigines, and
some remains of such words may perhaps be found among the wild
mountain-people in the northern parts. From the Kaukasus, another
branch of this stem seems to have descended upon the banks of the
Caspian sea, and proceeded into Media ; and thence peopled Persia.
Aflerwards they probably migrated into Asia Minor, and first into
southern, and then into northern Europe."f
In this way does Klaproth, founding upon a series of the merest as-
sumptions, coolly set aside the whole Mosaic account of the deluge;
and we need not therefore wonder the same fate has befallen him
with other writers who have departed from the short but distinct
narrative of the sacred historian, namely, being obliged to wander in
Cimmerian darkness, without even an occasional glimmering of light
to direct his steps. For if the Mosaic history be rejected, it is per-
fectly evident that all speculations respecting the original peopling of
the world can rest upon no foundation whatever, as the first dawning of
profane tradition and history is scarcely discernible earlier than 1200
or 1300 years before the Christian era.J In proportion, therefore, as
the Mosaic account is departed from, the more confused and perplexed
do all such speculations become ; an evident proof indeed of the vanity
of human pretensions when opposed to the authority of divine revelation.
From tlie account given by Moses, we must consider the great plain in
the land of Shinar, or Mesopotamia, as the cradle of the human race,
whence, as from a common centre, the diflerent streams of population di-
verged upon the miraculous destruction of the uniformity of speech, and
the creation of a variety of languages altogether distinct from one another.
Of the number and description of the languages thus miraculouslj' brought
into existence, the sacred historian is silent, and, consequently, any in-
quiries to ascertain, with some degree of certainty, either the one or the
other, must, amidst the immense variety of languages and dialects which
now exist, be in a great measure indefinite and conjectural. By the
aid of philology, however, some approximation has been made towards
a solution of these recondite questions, but from the absence of histori-
cal detail, they must ever be regarded rather as curious speculations,
than as points conclusively settled.
At that era when the dawn of history begins to dispel the dark
cloud which had overshadowed the early ages of the world, the western
countries of Europe were occupied by tribes differing from each other
in manners, customs, and language, and distinguished by varieties in
their physical constitution. When the Greek and Roman writers first
The Ghauts and the mountains of Malabar are identicaL
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