In the very apex of India, the hilly districts of Southern Madras, are numerous early races and tribes, distinct and peculiar to themselves, of whom the Tudas and Cholas are most worthy of notice. The former is as superior in type to the latter as the Caucasian is to the Mongolian. The Tudas are chiefly found in the Nilgherry Hills; they are tall, athletic, and well-formed. Their women, though dark, are singularly pleasing when young. The comparatively treeless character of these hills indicates that in former times large spaces were cleared and cultivated, though at present the Tudas seem to prefer roaming about the hills and leading a nomadic life. In the Dhendigal and neighboring Wynadd Hills appear other tribes, apparently the oldest of all the primitive races of India, and of the lowest type of humanity. They are called Shanars, and are clothed, if at all, with the bark of trees, using bows and arrows, and subsisting chiefly on roots, wild honey, and reptiles. Short in stature and agile as monkeys, living without habitations among trees, they penetrate the jungle with marvellous speed, and seem only a step removed from the orang-outang of Borneo and Sumatra. There is no doubt that these wild people, if not indigenous to the soil, occupied at one time a large portion of this country, and are the remains of that "monkey race" whom the first Aryan invaders met with, and who, with their leader Hanuman, figure so largely in the old poems as the allies of Rama in his conquest of Ceylon. Among these numerous but isolated relics of aboriginal populations there is another and superior race, divided into several distinct nationalities, such as the Tamuls, Telingus, and Canarese, who people the greater part of Southern India. Nevertheless, between them and those still later Aryans the difference, both mental and physical, is plainly seen. There are still current in Southern India a number of languages and dialects, which, though largely intermixed with Sanskrit terms in consequence of Aryan conquest and civilization, belong to distinct families of languages. The most comprehensive of these are the Tamul, Telingu, and Carnatic, showing the existence of separate nations at the time of the Aryan conquest. The Tamul language has no inconsiderable literature of its own. The Mahrattas, whose chief seat is in the Deccan, belong to still another race, although there is now among them a larger infusion of Aryan blood than is to be found farther south in India.