In favour of this view is the fact first pointed out by Dr. Caldwell,[348] that the Brahuis in Belochistan speak a Dravidian tongue, and may consequently be considered as a fragment of the race dropped there _in transitu_. But against this view it may be urged that between the Brahuis and the northern Tamils we have a tract of civilized country extending over 1000 miles in which we have no evidence of the passage of the Dravidians, and where it is nearly certain, if it were a national migration, we should find their traces. So far as history is concerned, in such glimmerings of tradition as we possess, they certainly do not favour this view of matters. Not only to they fail to afford us any trace of such a migration or conquest, but at the earliest time at which we find any mention of them the most civilized and important of their communities occupied the extreme southern point of the peninsula.[349] North of them all was forest, but between the Christian Era and the Mahomedan invasion we find the jungle gradually disappearing, and the southern races pushing northwards, till, in the 14th century, they were checked and driven back by the Moslems. But for their interference it looks as if, at that time, the Dravidians might eventually have driven the Aryans through the Himalayas back to their original seats, as the Maharattas, who are half Dravidians, nearly did at a subsequent period. If any clear or direct relationship could be discovered between the Tamil and the Median or Accadian languages of Turanian origin, which the decipherment of arrow-headed inscriptions is revealing to us, it might help a good deal in explaining the original introduction of the Dravidians into India, and the numerous Assyrianisms that exist in the mythology and architecture of southern India. Till, however, more progress is made in that direction, it seems it would be more expedient for the present to assume that the Tamil-speaking races are practically aboriginal, and that the evidences of connexion between them and Babylonia are due to continued and close commercial intercourse between the Persian Gulf and the Malabar coast. That such did exist from very remote ages we may feel certain, and its extent seems such as to justify and explain any similarities that are now found existing in southern India. * * * * * Be all this as it may, as far back as their traditions reach, we find the Dravida Desa, or southern part of India, divided into three kingdoms or states, the Pandyas, the Cholas, and the Cheras, forming a little triarchy of powers, neither interfered with by the other nations of the earth, nor interfering with those beyond their limits. During the greater part of their existence all their relations of war and peace have been among themselves, and they have grown up a separate people, as unlike the rest of the world as can well be conceived.