CAS THE NATURAL HISTORY OF THE HUMAN SPECIES. •• ss THE NATURAL HISTORY OF THE HUMAN SPECIES, TYPICAL FORMS, PRIMEVAL DISTEIBUTIQN, FILIATIONS, AND MIGRATIONS. ILLUSTRATED BY THIRTY-FOUR COLOURED PLATES, WITH PORTRAIT AND VIGNETTE. LI1 LIEUT.-COL. CHAS. HAMILTON SMITH, K.H. AND K.W., F.tt. AND L.S., PRESIDENT OF THE DEVON AND COBNWALL NAT. HIST. SOC., BTC. ETC. HENR.Y G. BOHN, YORK STREET, COVENT GARDEN. BlOLOGt LIBRARY Q CONTENTS, Page PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS . . ,17 CHANGES ON THE EARTH'S SURFACE SINCE THE COMMENCEMENT OF THE PRESENT ZOOLOGICAL SYSTEM , ... 24 Asia . . . . .26 South of Asia .... 29 The Indus . . . .29 Ceylon .... 34 The Ganges . . . .37 Australasia .... 37 East Coast of Asia . . .40 Arctic Asia .... 44 Caspian Basin, an Asiatic Mediterranean . 47 Europe .... 52 Arctic Europe . . . .55 Western Europe ... 58 The Rhine . . . .61 Great Britain .... 65 Southern Europe . . . 68 Italy ..... 7" The Egeau . . . .73 CONTENTS. Page CHANGES OF THE EARTH'S SURFACE— Continued. Asia Minor .... 75 Basin of the Dead Sea . . .76 Currents of the Mediterranean . . 79 Africa . . . . .82 America 85 West Indies . „ . .87 North America ... 89 The Pacific . . . .91 BONES OF MAN AMONG ORGANIC REMAINS 93 Vale of Kostritz . . . .97 Traditions respecting extinct Species . 104 Human Ossuaries, with Bones of extinct Animals . . . .107 EXISTENCE OF MAN AS A GENUS OR AS A SINGLE SPECIES . . .113 Species or Typical Forms of Man . . 125 ABNORMAL RACES OF MAN . 134 The Giants . . . .134 The Dwarfs ... 139 The Aturian Paltas or Flatheads of South America . . . 145 Remains of other Abnormal Tribes . 150 THE TYPICAL STOCKS. Comparison of Physical Powers and Struc- tural Differences of the Typical Stocks . 155 Intellectual and Moral Characters of the Ty- pical Stocks . . 166 CONTENTS. Page THE TYPICAL STOCKS— Continued. Primaeval Location of Man or position of the Typical Stocks . . . 109 Diagram of primaeval Location of Typical and Subtypical Stocks . . .187 THE WOOLLY HAIRED TROPICAL TYPE 189 THE MALAY SUBTYPICAL STEM . 210 THE AMERICAN SUBTYPICAL STEM . . 232 THE HYPERBOREAN, BEARDLESS, OR MONGOLIC TYPE . . . 202 THE FINNIC, UURALIAN, OR TSCHUDIC SUB- TYPICAL STEM .... 285 The Basques . . . 298 The Ligurians or Llogrians . . 299 TheVeneti .... 303 The Etruscans .... 305 The Finns or Suonii . . . 317 The Huns .... 321 The Khazars . . . . 323 The Hungarians .... 324 The Turks . . . 320 THE ETHIOPIAN OR MELANIC STEM . . 331 The Egyptians ... 350 The Atlantics or Berbers . . • 304 The Nmnidians ... 304 The Ainazigh . . . 304 The Suakim ... 305 The Tuarikhs . . 36'G CONTENTS. Page THE BEARDED, INTERMEDIATE, OR CAU- CASIAN TYPE THE SEMITIC RACES The Arabs . The Hebrews The Babylonians, Chaldees, and Assyrians The Gaurs and Persians THE TYPICAL CAUCASIANS The Kaufirs or Mamoges The Circassian and Georgian Tribes of the Caspian Caucasus The Pelasgian, Dorian, and Hellenic Tribes The Tirynthians The Romans The Celtic Nations The Gctso or Gothic Nations - 437 AfPENDIX KATURAL HISTORY OF THE HUMAN SPECIES. To investigate the History of Man upon zoological principles, and to apply them to the phases of his earliest available historical aspects, requires extensive researches in a multitude of directions — physiological, linguistic, religious, traditional, geographical, and mi- gratorial — for it is by their mutual comparison, that light is thrown on many points, which, without these means, would remain entirely unknown. While the first takes cognizance of every question relating to man's organization, and the position he holds in the scale of being, according to the laws which should guide all systematic researches in animated nature, the second being a faculty appertaining solely to mankind, in- quires into the grammatical structure and the sounds of oral communication, and traces out the families of languages, by means of which the more remote origin, connection, and filiation, of different tribes, is made ap- parent; and it establishes, in proportion as the similarity B IS NATURAL HISTORY OF of tongues or dialects is more complete, the degree of affinity they should bear, without entirely dismissing from the question the fact, that nations at times adopt a new language- to the total extinction of the tongue spoken by their ancestors. It is in cases of this kind that the records of national superstitions, legends, man- ners, and even proverbs, become, in their turn, elements of interest to guide and correct the research. Finally, when to these are added the ancient migrations which the different families of man have passed through, under the various conditions imposed upon them by geogra- phical necessities, conclusions more or less satisfactory may be drawn, even where, as yet, little or no positive historical information is available, to substantiate them by direct reference to written authority. When, however, we endeavour to ascend up to the primeval period of man's creation, and the distribution of his species on the surface of the earth, the resources already pointed out will be found insufficient without the aid of geology, particularly when on the subject of the tertiary and alluvial strata, which contain organic remains of vertebrata ; and, most of all, when these are found to be of mammalia, whose orders and genera, nay species, are still existing in the same localities, or in a more remote climate : because it is in the same deposits of bones that the remains of man occur, though rarely ; and their character and race is the subject of dispute. From the point of view wherein we propose to ex- amine the natural history of mankind, it will perhaps- THE HUMAN SPECIES. 19 be found, like geology, not wholly free from arguments that to some may appear hazarded. In this class of researches, notwithstanding the positive nature of a multiplicity of facts before us, while we endeavour to abide by what we deem to be the truth, it is not in- tended to push the inferences farther than hypotheti- cal results, by means of which the phenomena of nature are best explained, and deserve to become facts in science, so far only as they are warranted by the com- pleteness of demonstration. But, as many points of research are, in their nature, not within the reach of every test, much must remain partially speculative, or possessed of that sole degree of probability which a competent judge may be disposed to award, upon dis- passionate reflection, and the existing state of our knowledge. Man being possessed of the highest privileges and endowments in the whole domain of zoology, becomes the ultimate standard of comparison to which all animated life is referred, his location in systematic arrangement, and the various conditions, physiolo- gical and historical, connected with the species, are, therefore, a subject of the highest interest. His primeval position, the region selected where history and science can trace his first habitation and develop- ment, deserve an attention which it does not seem to have as yet obtained ; for, by investigation in that quarter alone, a more correct estimate of the date of his era, anterior to the great superficial disturbances which have occurred on earth can be arrived at. Hence 20 NATURAT HISTORY OF is drawn the value of a clear view of the facts belong- ing to the cavern and loam deposits of organic remains, without as well as with human bones, and the so called petrified skeletons of man which have been detected on various occasions ; hence also the interest attached to the changes which have occurred on the earth's sur- face, because they may have had a paramount influence on the primeval distribution of man, and constitute the only additional question which philosophical research can attach to the primordial history of the human species. At a later period, minor catastrophes, and the action of human passions, led to known migrations by sea, and to the progress of colonization by land. If the most remote, were causes of the approximation of different species of man, or of the separation of the three great varieties of the human race, taken as a single species, the later were most certainly the source of the minor distinctions, which do exist both between nations of different types and of the same original stem. Although the question of the unity of species, that is, whether mankind is to be regarded as a genus, con- stituted of three or more species, or as only one, com- posed of as many, or of a greater number of varieties, subdivided into races, may never be positively decided ; it will not the less remain an inquiry, of intense in- terest, to trace the several conditions, which, in zoology, are assumed to have a preponderating influence : there- fore, researches directed to the questions, whether the differences of conformation are sufficient in their ana- THE HUMAN SPECIES. 21 tomical and external characters, or the varying degrees of development of the intellectual faculties, amount to a body of facts, sufficient to come to a decision, are of the utmost importance. The laws prescribed, when similar questions are applied to the brute creation, we contend, should be equally imperative, when relating to man in his zoological aspect ; and if no better argu- ment, or more decisive fact can be adduced, than that axiom, which declares, that " fertile offspring consti- tutes the proof of identity of species," we may be per- mitted to reply, that as this maxim does not repose upon unexceptionable facts, it deserves to be held solely in the light of a criterion, more* convenient in systematic classification than absolutely correct. So, again, in forming an estimate of the antiquity of or- ganic remains, in juxtaposition with those of man, where the chemical and other conditions of the bones are the same as those of the mammalia they are found to accompany, they must be judged upon the same principles. With the foregoing elements in view, we desire to enter upon the chain of our researches, reminding the young reader, that no transient facts, solitary examples, or even allusions to names of tribes, legendary or religious, are disposed of, without entering into further details, but, from the necessity of remaining within the restrictions imposed upon us by the want of space, although many may be far from needing- a known history, or they occur merely as fictions, taken from physical realities, such as the mythologist, versed in 22 NATURAL HISTORY OF the philosophy of early history, will immediately recog- nize, notwithstanding that they come upon him under the combinations of a fresh aspect ; but, where traces occur of great nations, and especially of those that have had, or still continue to have, a marked influence on human destinies, a certain extent of detail, we trust, will be justifiable. On questions of antiquity, involving periods of time, and on others, which relate to the measurements of distance between geographical points, it may be well to bear in mind, that the first having no physical in- strumentality, is liable to be contracted to within as- sumed chronological data, commencing at arbitrary epochs, not supported by researches in geology, and often appearing to be of insufficient duration ; while the second being based upon measures of length, either undefined, or varying in different places and times, are, from an innate propensity in the human mind to magnify the unknown, stated to be more than the reality. The purpose before us is, however, suffi- ciently attained, by taking given ages for the one and approximation to true distances for the other. We can, by these means, notice a succession of epochs in the conditions of the earth's surface, each adapted to the existence of vertebrated animals, with it appears an atmospheric state, gradually more suited for mam- malia, of certain orders and families, until it became fit for the reception of man, whose creation may have synchronized with the decay and subsequent disap- pearance of a great proportion of the most powerful THE HUMAN SPECIES. 23 and fierce species, organized to submit to some law of decreasing vitality, yet more than to a cataclystic de- struction. Here, then, we have the heads of those preliminary considerations, which demand some notice of the great disturbances that have affected the earth's surface, since the tertiary period came into operation, and our present zoology started into being. Next will be found requisite, a few details on the bone deposits before mentioned, by whatever agency they may have been formed ; for, as by the former the primordial nations may have been forcibly scattered, so, by the latter, their actual existence in regions now separated by oceans, appear to be indicated. 24 NATURAJ HISTORY OF CHANGES ON THE EARTH'S SURFACE SINCE THE COMMENCEMENT OF THE PRESENT ZOOLOGICAL SYSTEM. THE present superficial character of the earth may be a result of the combined action of sudden violent disruptions, and long durations of gradual disintegra- tions, either operating as restorers of equipoises in the permanent laws of necessity, or as conductors of the slow process of accumulations, which again prepare a great convulsion. Taking the newer pliocene, or second tertiary age, to be coincident with the mighty changes of sea and shore, when volcanic disturbances were still in active operation, and that convulsive state, which subsequent catastrophes, and the succession of ages, have as yet only reduced in number, and moderated in force, when first a congenial atmosphere had begun to prevail; we have an epoch which would include the Mosaic deluge, and terminate with that greatest of all recorded destructions ; one, moreover, supported by innumerable historical confirmations ; although some of these may be attributed to subsequent periods, and to distinct calamities ; such as the bursting of the bar- riers of great mountain lakes, and irruptions of the sea. For these being confounded, in so many and THE HUMAN SPECIES. 25 remote quarters, with one great overwhelming event, it is natural, that the reminiscence should be common to every region of the world. All these, whether sudden or slow disintegrations of portions of the earth, it cannot be doubted, must have had material influence on the distribution of races and human development. It is, indeed, chiefly by the agency of these changes, by the insulation of parts of continents, resulting from submersions ; and again, by the expansion or rising of the submarine floor, whereon islands may have stood, till they united into continents, that many of the pheno- mena of zoological distribution can be best explained ; and if this observation is accepted with respect to brute mammalia, it surely implies that man, at least in some degree, may have had to encounter similar contin- gencies. In order to appreciate the great changes proved, or asserted to have occurred, let us take a short review of those which are the most prominent in the physical history of the earth. 26 NATURAL HISTORY OF ASIA. ASIA, apparently the most ancient integral continent of the earth, it may be surmised, is held aloft by the agency of great subterrene volcanic trunks, whose direction is externally manifested by the huge moun- tain range, which, passing longitudinally from east to west, nearly beneath its centre, forms the general water shed to the south and to the north, and constitutes the hinge, the axis of nutation, to the whole of both its planes towards the two oceans. In the east the chain forms two or more parallel ridges, widening until an elevated table land of prodigious extent is included between them. This plateau forms chiefly the Gobi desert ; its northern boundary consisting of the Altaic chain facing Siberia, and the southern overlooking the great peninsula of India, contains, in the Himalaya system, the highest mountains of the world. * To the westward it is continued by the Hindu Koh, which is the real Caucasus, and perhaps the Paropamissus of the ancients* Further on, the chain of Albars over- * That this lofty chain was toove up at a much more remote period, is sufficiently proved by the presence of banks of oyster shells, discovered by Dr. Gerrard at 16,000 feet above the level of the sea ; and in Thibet, shells fallen from cliffs, still higher, were taken up at the height of 17,000 feet. In Asia Minor, oyster beds are not more than 3000 feet above the sea. THE HUMAN SPECIES. 27 hangs the southern shore of the Caspian, then succeeds Western Caucasus and the mountain groups of Asia Minor and the Crimea, anciently known by the names of Taurus and Tauris ; this, crossing the Hellespont about Constantinople, joins the Balkan to the Illyrian range, and, with broken intervals, passes to the Car- pathian and Alpine systems terminating in the Py- renees ; and that recommencing west of the Sea of Azoph proceeds north of the Euxine, forming the Cymbric Chersonesus. From the culminating points of this central region, to the shores of every sea, we find traditions, historical records, and demonstrated facts, attesting changes of surface and of level truly appalling — several of them having been converted, from physical realities, into mythological fictions. In the north, the Arctic shore has been, for ages, in a constant rising progress. Whole regions have been submerged on the south and east of Asia, particularly between the coasts of Malabar and Ceylon ; and again, vast provinces have disappeared in the Chinese and Japan Seas. Already, in remote times, volcanic activity, mani- fested by upheaving of the earth, relieved the elevated valleys of their lakes ; such as those of Cashmeer and of Nepaul — both events being recorded in the tradi- tions of the people. That of the western Gobi escaped by the upper Irtish, and the lake of Balcach was most likely absorbed, or percolated through the sand in the same direction. In the present era, percussions continue to be frequent in Affghanistan and Caubul, sometimes 28 KATUEAL HISTORY OF destroying houses and whole cities, with many human lives ; and they are still more abundant and violent on the east side, where the mountains dip into the nor- thern Pacific, to rise again and produce desolation in Japan. A diluvian convulsion evidently occurred during the present zoology. It passed over Western Asia, from south to north, affecting the Arctic coast, and snapping a portion of the cardinating mountain ridge, it caused the surface of the earth to sink below the level of any known dry land, excepting the basin of the Dead Sea ; thus the Caspian formed an abyss ; the Aral lake, and, farther west, perhaps the Euxine Sea shared the same convulsion ; for all have the greatest depth of water on the south fide, close upon the most elevated shores, where volcanic detonations are still constantly felt. Notwithstanding the quiescent state of the high sandy plateau of Persia, the frequency of naptha springs, some boiling, others in actual flame, with constant smaller eruptions along the northern coast, and in other parts of the kingdom, attest the presence of numerous ramifications of active fires, once sufficiently powerful to form lofty mountain peaks, whose summits, such as Alburs and Demavend, show by their craters, now extinct or inactive, the vast extent and force of the disturbing agency — perhaps still better exempli- fied in the high cones of Ararat, the loftiest of which recently fell in, and proved this mountain to be also of volcanic origin, crumbling in decay. THE HUMAN SPECIES. 29 SOUTH OF ASIA. TURNING our attention to the south coast, at the Per- sian Gulf, we find the high rocks of Laristan and Mekran bordering on a deep water sea, belted with narrow shores, thus bearing tokens of subsidence ; for though Reesheer, not an ancient place, was abandoned in the seventeenth century, on account of the encroach- ments of the water, Busheer, built in its stead, is already so low, that during certain winds, the whole town is surrounded by the flood. THE INDUS. BEYOND Cape Monze (Ras Moaree), the terminal point of the Lukkee mountains, which form the western boundary of the Indus, we have the great delta of that mighty river. From the point where the stream escapes through the high lands, and now pursues a course almost due south, there are abundant tokens, that originally it flowed nearly south-east, receiving the tributaries of the Punjaub nearer their sources, and reaching the Indian Ocean as far eastward as the Rhunn and Gulf of Cutch, or even of Cambay. But, in a succession of ages, it has either filled a region of little depth ; or, by a constant erosion of the western banks, from longitude 76, the bed of the river has 30 NATURAL HISTORY OP worked westward to 67° 10", over a space of nearly ten degrees. Perhaps allusion is made to the great changes in the direction of the waters of North Wes- tern India, in the pretty mythological tale, anciently composed on the table land of Ommurknntur ; and re- lating the amours and jealous quarrel of the Nerbudda with the Burraet, whose sources are not far asunder ; while the course of the first is westward, that of the latter turns east to join the Jumna. In common with other great rivers of low latitudes, whose course, unconfmed by rocky chains, is obliquely to or from the equator, the Indus obeys a law, pro- bably in consequence of the earth's daily rotation, which impels the current of the stream constantly to abraze its western bank, and to forsake eastern chan- nels ; so also, in Arctic regions, it causes floating ice ever to drift westward, and to pack against all coasts facing the morning sun. The same results still occur ; the current, now in contact with the Lukkee hills, finds them an ineffectual barrier ; for, being gravelly, they are daily undermined, and, at Sehwun, the face of the rock is incessantly carried away. Even the road by which Lord Keene's army passed round its foot was so entirely swept away by the next following freshes, that in a twelvemonth after, boats sailed in deep water over the very spot. In the first ages of the present geological disposition of the earth's strata, the whole space below the Pun- jaub may be deemed to have been a shallow sea, which the enormous deposits of the rh er constantly tended to THE HUMAN SPECIES. 31 fill up, and the surf threw back in the form of sand and gravel, until the whole space was filled, down to the edge of deep water, where the currents generated by the monsoons first had power to act ; then the pre- sent delta, which began higher up, was finally checked or reduced to very gradual additions. Nor is this sup- position visionary. What the daily deposits can pro- duce, in a course of ages, may be inferred from Dr, Lord's calculation ; for he, assuming the discharge of the river to be three hundred cubic feet of mud per second, maintains it, as equal to form in seven months, an island forty-two miles in length by twenty-seven in breadth, and forty feet in depth ; which, though the re- maining five months may not continue an equal daily deposit brought down from high Asia, even with th$ allowance, that a considerable exaggeration may exist in the estimated quantities, is, nevertheless, sufficient to have replenished a gulf of shoal water, of enormous extent, in a few centuries. Proportionably as the cur- rent shifted to the westward, the monsoon winds filled up the abandoned beds of the stream with drift sand, leaving only those of former affluents to continue their course, and the plain to become a desert of sand, formed in ridges, sometimes of considerable height; for the coasts of France, Holland, and of the Baltic near Dantzig, demonstrate, that the surf and winds can elevate them to more than eighty feet, without a single ingredient in their mass to give them real stability. Such is the desert of the Indus from above the junction of the Sutlege (Hyphasis), the lowest of the Punjaub 32 NATURAL HISTORY OF rivers, to the sea-shore of the delta, where Cutch, once a great island, is now a part of the continent. In this vicinity, so late as 1819, a vast surface of sand sud- denly sunk down, upon which a stream of the Indus came towards Lukput by an ancient and forsaken chan- nel from Hyderabad (Pattala ?) to Bahmanabad, and filled the depressed soil in the form of a shallow lake, now called Ullahbund; and many smaller lagoons of similar origin, mere water deposits, are still dispersed on the plains eastward beyond Jeysulmair, to the Hoony river in Marwar.* Proceeding to the opposite coast of the Gulf of Cutch, we arrive at the island of Bate, or ancient Chunkodwar, renowned in the legends of India for the demon Haiag- rieva concealing the Vedas in a conch shell ; and then, on the furthest point of Gujrat, observe Cape Juggeth, at a distance appearing like a stranded ark, or wrecked ship. Here is a celebrated pagoda, connected with diluvian legends, for on this coast was Dwaraca, now represented by Mhadapore, " before the ocean broke in upon the land ; " and it is still pretended, that the annual mysterious bird makes its appearance, as it did in the time of Alexander. Inland, the elevated western Ghauts appear with but an insignificant breadth of plain at their base, continuing from Surat to Cape Comorin, in other respects destitute of indications of * By information, very recently received, it appears that a second submersion, greater than the Ullahbund, has taken place during the present summer (1845) offering a further confirmation of the theory above advanced. THE HUMAN SPECIES. 33 important changes ; but when this most southern ex- tremity of the peninsula is turned, the sea between the mainland and the island of Ceylon is found to be of inconsiderable depth, particularly in the Gulf of Ma- naar, abounding in the pearl oyster; and, from the long and narrow island of that name, on the Ceylon side, a shoal, impassible to ships of burthen, extends across the intervening space to Ramiseram, a similar low and lengthy island, which almost joins a point of land, projecting far out from the coast of the Carnatic. This shoal, based perhaps upon a natural dyke of rock, is the celebrated Adam's Bridge of geographers ; and, at the time of the first European navigators, still re- tained several islands above water.* Both Manaar and Ramiseram are decorated with temples, and the whole region, on either side, is redolent of mythologi- cal legends of the most remote antiquity. The sea, in particular that portion to the north and east of the bridge, denominated the Palk Strait, is the recorded space of a great diluvian submersion, leaving, on the Ceylon side, evidence of the fact, in the cluster of * The channels have shoaled up to little mor.e than four feet water, as we were informed by the late Major Rennell, who had surveyed the vicinity, since the French Admiral, Suffrein, about the years 1780-81, caused vessels to be sunk in them, from an apprehension, that English forces might pass through these gaps, along the Indian shores, without his knowledge, and avoid going round the south side of Ceylon. Though at certain seasons there is a strong cur- rent in the channels, it is likely that the usual tides meet at the bridge, for the lagoons are every where filling up. C 34 NATURAL HISTORY OF Jafnapatam islands, and innumerable lakes and ponds on the Carnatic side, which partly recovered from the inundation. The space of land submerged, extended from longitude 9° to 10° 20" north, and from 79° to 80° 15" east — above 3600 square miles, where man- kind, as it appears, was both a witness and a sufferer. "Whether this particular calamity was one of many post- diluvian events, resulting from a return to equipoises, after a great convulsion in nature, or whether it was in connection with the upheaving of Northern Asia, must be mere conjecture, though it is certain, that the south coast, for ages after, and even now, tends to con- tinued depression. CEYLON. BUT Ceylon, the Lanka, Sinhala, Dwipa, Taprobana, and Salice, &c., of ancient classics, of the Hindoo and early Arabian writers, as well as in the traditions of Southern and Western Asia, and even in the opinion of a great modern geologist, was the primeval abode of man, whose first station on earth lay in the basin of Candy, girt round with high precipices, where the Ma- vela Gonga rises from beneath the summit of Mali or Hamateel, better known in Europe by the name of Adam's Peak. This cone, though not the most lofty in the island, rises to 7720 feet, and is seen, far out at sea, towering over the high girt vale, which flourishing THE HUMAN SPECIES. 35 in vegetation, may well have suggested an idea of Paradise. On the highest summit there is one of those manufactured impressions of human feet, which impos- ture represents to be of Adam or of Budhu, and be- longs to a very early period.* There can be no doubt of the remote civilization of Ceylon, and the ruins of enormous cities, such as Palaesimundus (Arrian), Amu- ragramma, Coodramalli on the pearl coast, and the in- numerable artificial tanks, certainly prove an enormous and industrious population to have once flourished on the island. Although Arabian legends of Ceylon have an air of the greatest antiquity, it is from Hindoo traditions, both in the island and on the main coast, that the my- thological appropriations of the local submersion are confounded with the Mosaic or general deluge of his- tory ; nevertheless, a separate record of the scriptural event may be traced coming from a western source, first distinctly announced at the pagoda of Juggeth, before mentioned; and from thence passing onwards, more and more distorted, till every circumstance is * This was already an ancient practice in the age of Herodotus. Before his time there were some dedicated to Osiris, in TJpper Egypt ; one, ascribed to Hexculest was carved in rock, on the Danube ; others are still found re- ferred to Budhu, in Japan and China. Paducas are com- mon in India. There is one to Moses in Sinai, to the Saviour at Jerusalem, to Abraham in Arabia, to Mahom- med at Mecca, and to a variety of saints in Italy, France, and even in Wales. 36 NATURAL HISTORY OF obliterated, in fanciful tales, at the black pagoda of Juggernaut.* On the coast of the Carnatie, eastward to the Bay of Bengal, where several considerable rivers incessantly pour down their tributes of earthy deposit, not only no perceptible extension of the low coast is discernible, but abrasion by surf, and occasional great sea waves, indicate progressive depression. All the streams are barred, and in deep water the currents are violent ; thus, in 1793, the settlement of Coringa, near the mouth of the Cawvery, was overflowed by three succes- sive seas, with most of the lives, houses, and property, swept away. The ruins of Mahabalipuram, at no great distance from thence, better known as the seven pa- godas, once a great and superb city, demonstrate the sinking soil, by several of the temples being either en- tirely, or already partially in conflict with the waves. Annually, immense expense is incurred to defend Ma- dras from the menacing sea ; and even the black pagoda, notorious for the inhuman religious practices in honour of Juggernaut, is threatened with a similar fate ; and Hindoo legends tell of a primeval temple now beneath the sands. * Consult Nearchus, Ptolemy Kosmos, Knoxt tfpbam, &c. THE HUMAN SPECIES. 37 THE GANGES. IN the Bay of Bengal, where the Ganges is reported to discharge, per day, solid matter, equal in cubic bulk to the great pyramid of Egypt, and the Sunderbunds or Calingas, form a delta of immense breadth, no further extension is observed seaward ; but, according to Major Rennell, a vast surface of land, with the ancient city of Bengalla, once seated at the easternmost branch of the river, has submerged into deep water. Though the peninsula is perpetually disturbed by earthquakes, Allahabad offers one of the few indica- tions of volcanic action, above the surface, by the thermal waters, observed in a deep cave, where " the tree of Adam continues to bud ; " and beyond the Brahmaputra, a iiaptha spring, in perpetual ignition, is held in veneration even in Thibet. AUSTRALASIA. ON the east side of the Bay of Bengal, down to the extremity of further India, the shore, rich in alluvial deposits, brought down by the great rivers from Indo- China, repels the western monsoon, and maintains a powerful seaward vegetation ; but where the Malay peninsula extends towards the great Australian islands, volcanic disturbances again become predominant, pre- 38 NATUR'.L HISTORY OF senting, in their extent, above fifty craters in fearful activity. Disruption and submersion of what may have been a continent, a kind of counterpart to South America, may be surmised, by the shallowness of some parts of the sea, and the exceeding inequality of the submarine floor; the islands, great and small, appearing like the subsisting ruins of a once united region, which the straits of Malacca, Sunda, Bali, the Sea of Banda, &c., have separated, from the effect of immense percus- sions, originating at a great depth. No small confir- mation to this supposition, is drawn from the frequent identity of the two mammalogies, observed on the islands and the neighbouring continent ; in several cases, the species cannot, with any probability, be sup- posed to have been transported, from one to the other, by human intervention. Some of these are Pachy- derms, common to both, and others of the same order, of different species ; such as, 1st, large ruminants : The Banting, Bos leucoprymnus ? Rusa, or Cervus eqiiinus, Elant of the Javanese Dutch. 2d, The Ele- phant ? two or three species of Rhinoceros, a Tapir, and many more. In the distribution of zoological species, there is no other instance of great Pachyderms being confined to insulated locations, and none where the same species occur on two or more of them, and again on the mainland of the next continent. They offer, therefore, additional arguments in favour of the conclusion, that in the earlier period of the existing zoology, all these great islands formed part of the continent ; and that in one anterior to it, the connection extended to THE HUMAN SPECIES. 39 Australia, since fossil remains of great Proboscideans (Elephas angustidens ?) have already been discovered in that soil; notwithstanding that the present mam- malogy, perhaps with the only exceptions of the dog and rat (both imported species), is entirely implacental, with fewer congeners on the Asiatic than on the Ame- rican side of the southern hemisphere. These excep- tions, in the former direction, are chiefly confined to those islands, great and small, clustered together on the north of the Australasian group, and with more ques- tionable connection, extending by New Guinea to the south-east, including several Archipelagos and New Caledonia, all notoriously encumbered with coral reefs, ever the certain indications of comparative shoal waters, and by Torres Straits passing to Australia proper ; for the strait which severs it from New Guinea is almost fordable in many parts, the ship channels being nar- row and dangerous passes. The whole of the islands in question, from New Guinea to beyond the Solomon's group, bear a still greater appearance of cataclysis, not by division so much as by submersion. Beside the singular zoology already noticed, the equatorial islands are the habitation of Simiadce, such as the Gibbons (Hylobates), or long-armed apes, and of two or three species of Pithecus, or Orang Outan, in stature as large as men, and in strength superior to eight or more — of all the brute creation the genus which structurally ap- proximates most to man, who to the eastward, and in Australia, is himself represented by Papua tribes, cannibals so low in the scale of humanity, that were it 40 NATURAL HISTORY OF not for the admixture of other blood, hopes of amelio- rating their condition would appear illusory. They might be considered to form the centre of that antique population, which alone occupied the southern hemis- phere, before the diffusion of the bearded or Caucasian man ; a population primevally formed to breathe and multiply in the heated and moist atmosphere of tropical swamps and forests, at a period when the great Sau- rians and the now extinct Pachyderms existed; and that their native region, extending far eastward in the Pacific, had in great part subsided, leaving the islands and their organic creation, the evident wreck of a for- mer system of existence. EAST COAST OF ASIA. IT is off the east coast of this part of Asia, that the main ramification of galleries passes from Japan to the north, as far as Kamschatka, and to the south, by several trunks, beneath the Bonin, Sulphur, Marian, and Ladrone groups ; and again, by the Philippines, Banda, &c., become connected with the great equatorial centre of ignition in Java and the surrounding craters. Although Chinese history commences with their deified heroes, toiling to clear the upper provinces of lakes and marshes, the sea, particularly between the main coast and Formosa, by many geographical indications, sup- ports the local tradition of submersions ; such as Mauri Gasima, and other islands shown by the shoals, at the THE HUMAN SPECIES. 41 etill remaining Piscadore and Bashee islets; and the tale, notwithstanding a due allowance for the expert impostorship of the natives, seems confirmed, by the fishermen's drag nets occasionally bringing to the sur- face a curiously coloured porcelain, which the art, as now understood in the celestial empire, is unable to produce. The continent is separated from Formosa by a sea, we believe, always in soundings, the shores being bordered with a broad belt of sand, swamp, or sunken rock, generally indications of progressive denu- dations ; and both coasts are not unfrequently visited by calamitous overflowings. Since these lines were first written (1845), if the foreign news may be credited, an event of this kind has again taken place on the maritime provinces and the Yellow Sea, the waters rising in the Gulf of Pechelee, to the destruc- tion of several hundred thousand human lives, innu- merable cattle, the loss of all the houses and provi- sions, and the total ruin of above sixteen millions of the population, who were driven to seek shelter and food in the upland provinces. Even admitting pro- bable exaggeration in the report, it is an event far surpassing the traditional deluges of Greece, or any other recorded in profane history. It is an occurrence that may boldly be claimed as a proof of continued depression of the southern and eastern shores of Asia, and the oscillations produced on the sea by submarine disturbance, which then, like a great tide wave, passes upon the land far above its usual limit. In Japan, volcanic convulsions have been unremit- 42 NATURAL HISTORY OP ting, from periods anterior to the most ancient records of the nation ; for to them alone can be ascribed the repeated discoveries, at great depths, of jewels and manufactured objects, totally distinct from the present, and noticed by all the native literati as more ancient than the existing creation. On the line of volcanic agitation, south of Japan, and near a crater in constant activity, is the island of Assumcion (or Ascension) one of the Marian group (?) — now, like many others of this and neighbouring clusters, low and small : — here there was lately discovered, by the officers of H. M. Sloop Raven, the ruins of a city, still, it seems, known by the name of Tamen. It stands so far in the wash of the waves, that a boat is necessary to land at the buildings, which are composed of very large blocks of stone, some being twenty feet in length. Other reports were sub- sequently brought to Sydney, stating, that one or two other cities, of similar work, were extant on other islands, and equally submerged. One, indeed, seated on an island, named Pouznipete or Seniavane, is men- tioned by Mr. C. Darwin, in his volume on the struc- ture and distribution of coral reefs, but he supposes it to be the same as the first mentioned. * Tinian, how- ever, is not far remote, and there, when Lord Anson * The most recent maps are unsatisfactory with reference to these islands ; and as both Mr. Darwin's account and our own were derived from the Sydney papers, it may be well to remain somewhat in doubt on the truth of the reports. We are obliged to that scientific observer for a note on this subject. THE HUMAN SPECIES. 43 landed, were found two parallel rows of squared upright stones in the form of obelisks, each surmounted by a coping block ; immediately recalling to mind the colos- sal pillar-idols of Easter Island, which are known to have been the work of a departed population, probably of the same race that once inhabited Pitcairn's, the late well known retreat of the mutineers of the Bounty. These antique and now forsaken cities must have been constructed by a people totally distinct from the pre- sent inhabitants, and much more numerous than the existing locality could now supply with food. The group is entirely composed of volcanic cones, and of low coral reef islands ; and we agree with Mr. Darwin in opinion, that they are the remains of land once much greater in extent, but sunken beneath the sea's level, by the effect of the excavations of igneous ex- haustion. The population was once unquestionably organized in a social state ; it may have been a kind of Austral Pelasgian people, distinct from the present Jacalvas Biagoos, or Sea Gipsies, who always live on the water ; but that one has wandered, as navigators and workers in stone, across the whole breadth of the South Seas, is proved by the monuments left on the islands above mentioned, notwithstanding the great distance they are asunder ; perhaps the builders of the great pyramids in some of the Australasian islands, — again repeated, under the name of Morais, in many of the South Sea groups — the same who ultimately passed to the west coast of America, and introduced similar structures at Cholula and many other places ; 44 NATURA^ HISTORY OF models upon which the indigenous civilization of the new world was based and progressing, notwithstanding the vicissitudes of international wars and conquests, until the arrival of the Spaniards laid the whole wes- tern fabric in the dust.* ARCTIC ASIA. BEHRING'S STRAIT is generally of a trifling depth, scarcely forty miles wide, having several denudated and abrazed islands intervening; and the coasts, in many parts, composed more of frozen earth than solid rock. As the water, with several shoals, is floored with fossil bones and shells, and there being no river of importance on either shore of the continents, or near, on the Arctic side, no great pressure can have come from the polar ocean ; and consequently, no great opening, if any, until the Arctic rising of Asia and Europe altered the relative conditions of the two seas. That once there was no current, may be inferred from the islands of New Siberia, and the vicinity being in part composed of ice, mixed with mammoth bones, tusks, and other organic remains, and the presence of several species of land mammals, common to both continents, attests a facility of passing from one to the other, to have been effected by several of them on the ice. While the foregoing statements sufficiently demon • * See Addenda. THE HUMAN SPECIES, 45 strate a continued declination of the south and east coasts of Asia, the case appears entirely reversed, from the lofty central mountain hinge, northward to the shores, facing the Arctic Sea. Chinese documents, of remote antiquity, report the land to have terminated at no great distance beyond the mountain chain of Northern Tahtary;* skeletons of whales having been found 800 miles inland, up the Lena. The enormous loads of debris which some rivers, amongst the largest in the world, incessantly pour forth * According to the Chevalier Paravey, north-eastern Asia was still rising within the few last centuries. The shadow of a gnomon, set up in 1260, by order of Kobi-lay, emperor of China, proves, that the northern coast then ranged between the 63d and 64th degrees of north latitude, whereas, now it is above 70 degrees. — Memoir read at the Geographical Society, 8th Feb. 1841 ; see Biblioth. Orien- tale d'Herbelot, t. iv. p. 171 ; Hedenstroahm. M. Arago remarks, that the ice has greatly accumulated in the Arctic Seas within the latter centuries, and rendered navigation round the polar extremity of Nova Zembla totally imprac- ticable, although the foregoing travellers maintain, that the cold in eastern Siberia decreases sensibly; and this opinion is in perfect accordance with the gradual rising of the Polar shore j for that must increase the power of the sun's rays very considerably, on the oblate spheroid surface of the Arctic Circle. Strahlenberg notices the entire hull of a keeled ship being found in the Barabinsk, between six and seven hundred miles from the sea. Wrangel observed drift-wood above the highest sea level, upwards of 50 versts inland, and other phenomena of risings of the surface. See Eeise. 46 NATURE HISTORY OF from the great central chains of Asia, converting them, during the melting of the snows, for a considerable period, to the breadth of marine straits, and carrying away hills, banks, and forests, in their course ; and con- stantly shift the soil in such a manner, that speaking of a more elevated basin, Cochrane remarks : — " It is but twenty years since the present centre of the river Selinga was the centre of the city Selenginsk." The Obi, Jenissei, and Lena, all overflow to a vast extent, as was already remarked by Abulghazi ; and no doubt, the deposits of so many streams contribute largely to the extension of the shores in the Arctic Circle ; but the increase thus obtained, cannot be of sufficient extent to account for the rapid progress of the land, even where the depth is inconsiderable, and little current exists. It militates against the conclu- sions of the most scientific travellers who have visited the localities ; among whom Strahlenberg, Pallas, and Humboldt, stand conspicuous : and is an opinion, more- over, that every new research tends to strengthen, and one in unison with the belief of all the barbarous tribes that wander over those inhospitable regions. THE HUMAN SPECIES. 47 CASPIAN BASIN, AN ASIATIC MEDITERRANEAN. \ A GRADUAL upheaving of the Arctic shore, chiefly on the north-west of Tahtary, and also to the west of the Oural chain, can alone explain the general fact, which, in the north of Europe, is now fully established ; and furnishes also the best argument to account for the loss of that great inland sea which once spread over the low bed, where now the Obi and Irtish flow united, cover- ing the whole lower Ichim and Tobol, the Barabintz, Lake Aksakal, and the innumerable pools, sea sands, incrustations, and efflorescences of salt, and recent shells. It reached by the Aral to the Caspian, was further connected with the Black or Euxine Sea, at that period inundating a considerable proportion of .Southern Russia, and uniting with the Baltic, had again open communication with the White Sea and the Arctic Ocean, both by the Gulf of Bothnia, and by that of Finland.* The Caspian Sea, by accurate measurements taken in 1844, is eighty-three and a half feet below the Mediter- ranean, or about sixty-five feet lower than the Sea of Azoph ; and Lake Aral, though higher, is still known to be below the level of the Euxine. Both are, with the exception of the Caucasian mountain system, and * See Addenda. 43 NATUFAL HISTORY OF the Elburs chain, entirely surrounded by saline plains of hard clay, and low sandy steppes ; on the west, extended to the Sea of Azoph and the Euxine, and between the Kama, Don, Wolga, Jaik, Lake Aksakal, the lower Ichim, and the Amoo, covering a space of 18,000 square leagues. In addition to the inland seas already mentioned, on the south-east, is the desert of Karakoum, or of black sand, estimated, alone, at 150 miles in length by 100 in breadth, forming a plain without a tree, the floor of an evaporated and perco- lated sea. With the exception of the Oulon-tag, the Hdiglis, and the low Monghogar hills, the surface extends north- eastward, with scarcely an undulation. It is studded, in all directions, with smaller lakes, sedgy pools, mo- rasses, and temporary rivers, which now terminate in small water basins, or are lost in the sand ; and the occasional more elevated spaces are always edged by water-worn indications. The vast lake, which for- merly covered a great space on the south of Khiva, in long. 59°, lat. 41° 15", has disappeared all but a few pools, where the whole region is intersected with vestiges of ancient canals of irrigation, now dried up. These show a second stage or era, when the sea had departed, and rivers still flowed onwards to the Cas- pian. So also the Kirguise steppe, forming the nor- thern portion of the depressed region, is composed of a cold clay, which notwithstanding, was anciently pro- ductive of a remunerating income to the cultivator ; but husbandry continuing to be invaded by a black sea THE HUMAN SPECIES. 49 sand, blown from the north, whole districts are now uninhabitable; and ruins of ancient farms, rendered desolate by a bed of this destroying substance, attest the progress and influence of the northern upheaving. The dust comes up from the Obi ; and the results are comparatively recent, though their commencement must date back to a remote period. They were, no doubt, early a cause of the destruction of the caravan trade, already on the decline during the Roman Empire ; and show that the efforts of Russia to revive it are unavail- ing, because the course of the Oxus being changed, trade no longer reaches the Caspian by boats ; and moreover, water becoming annually more scarce, the nomad hordes of the desert, gradually deprived of cultivation by the inroads of the sea sand, and driven eastward by the want of that necessary element, are necessitated to live by rapine where the earth grants no subsistence.* Rivers like the Jaxartes, now denominated the Syr- deriah or Syhoun, and the Oxus, since called Jeyhoun and Amou, which, according to the ancients, originally flowed more directly westward to the Caspian, are now turned into the Aral — a result which changes in the plane of declivity alone could produce, although the fact has been repeatedly ascribed to the labours of a poor, idle, and scanty population, destitute of mechanical skill, and almost of property in the soil. The Jaxartes now reaches Lake Aral through a sedgy bed, filling the * See Report to the Acad. des Sciences, Paris, by M. Hommaire Dehel, on the levels of the Caspian and Aral, and on the decrease of the Oxus and Volga. April, 1843. D 50 NATURAL HISTORY OF north-eastern angle with, clusters of islands, successively produced by the deposits, bearing the same aquatic plants. The Tanghi-Deriah, said anciently to have constituted the Deltic branch of the Jaxartes, which discharged its waters into the Caspian, is reported to have been turned off by the Khokanians, who, dreading the Khiva robbers might plant colonies of their own people along the stream, raised a bank to cut off the current. Although great rivers are not to be thus turned from their natural course, the dry bed certainly exists. It is now overgrown with Anabasis ama- dendra* The Oxus was stated already, in antiquity, to have changed her course, probably because the bed of the stream shifted repeatedly ; for undeniable vestiges of a broad river course, with upright water-worn banks, occur between Khiva and the Caspian, and notably near Old Ourgengj. Both streams now hasten the re- pletion of the Aral, already of small depth and full of islands ; and these noble rivers, at some future period, may be lost in the sand, or take a course still further * We doubt this being the same as the Janderiah, which forsook its bed so late as 1816; Report of a Memoir by M. A. de Kanikoff, to the Geographical Society of London, November, 1844. It is reported by Arabian authors, that both rivers remained dry £or seven years, about 460, and the statement is countenanced by the appearance above no- ticed, and perhaps still more,, by the prodigious number of Indo-German and Tahtar invaders, which broke in upon Europe about that period. They could not remain in a land without water. THE HUMAN SPECIES. 51 north, to Lake Aksakal, or ultimately reach the Tobol or the Ichim, and terminate in the Polar Sea. Such are the abstracts of statements, and the in- ferences, which establish the existence of an Asiatic Mediterranean, or rather a lagoon sea, in the earlier period of man's presence on the earth ; for, until ages after, though in a gradual progress of evanescence, desiccation was not effected till the bed and mouth of the Obi were elevated, when the mass of waters in the lagoons, no longer fed by external supplies, and being of themselves insufficient to maintain the equilibrium against percolation, and the power of solar heat upon sand and hard clay, absorbed such an amount of mois- ture, that the level of the dry plains is now far below the surface of the ocean. But, so long as there was a sea, Northern Europe was insulated, inaccessible to migration, excepting on the winter's ice, and in the skin or birchen kayaks of polar nations. Geographi- cally, our best course is now to continue the description of the progressive rising of the Arctic soil in Europe, and to return by the Mediterranean to Western Asia, because the chief phenomena affecting changes on the earth's surface are again common to both quarters of the world ; in the north, referring mainly to the same effects as already noticed in Asia, but with more unde- niable proof; and, in the south-east of the Mediter- ranean, marked by volcanic perturbations, passing from time to time through Western Asia to Africa, and sometimes extending convulsively to Western Europe and even to the Azores. NATURAL HISTORY OF EUROPE. EUROPE, in many respects, is only the western prolon- gation of Asia, where features of the great central chain of mountains similarly break, into ramified sys- tems, turned to the Atlantic ; while, on the east, they end or border the Pacific. On each coast there are mighty islands, containing the most energetic popula- tions ; and on each continent are the two forms or races of mankind, which alone have advanced in mental development, without any common point of departure hitherto philosophically substantiated. Both quarters have volcanic spiracula in the seas beyond them and on the shores, though not in the same degrees of activity ; for, while the craters of many on the mainland of Kam- schatka, in the Japanese islands, and on multiplied points in the Chinese and neighbouring seas, are inces- santly incandescent, those of Europe, with exception of the Italian, are dormant or extinct; and though the Azorean cluster turmoils on a smaller scale, Hecla, in the high north, alone has produced devastations within the period of historical cognizance, sufficient to affect profoundly the permanent interests of a resident popu- lation. At the bifurcations of the European continua- tion of the great mountain chains of central Asia, are dislocations of great extent ; among which, that formed oy the great basin of the Euxine or antique Axinus, is THE HUMAN SPECIES. 53 the most remarkable. Its present outlet at the Bos- phorus, dating probably not much anterior to the Greek heroic age, was clearly a consequence of increased pres- sure, produced by the waters of the inland seas, already noticed, increasing their weight towards the south, in proportion as the north was hove up; and both the Ouralian and Sarmatian arms were cut off from their communications with the ocean; but were not to be converted into marshes and deserts, until drained oif by a new outlet, and when the sun could act with power in the process of absorption. Then it was that the emphatical expressions of " the kings of the isles," and " isles of the west," which designate Europe in the oldest human records, were correct in the strictest sense ; and, until the progressive results had been long in operation, man was not able to reach Europe in the strength of numbers, but only by families or small clans of wanderers, in canoes or rafts, on the northern ice, or at the isthmus of Thrace, before it was rent asunder by a volcanic percussion, and the local deluges of Hellenic mythology took place. Russia, west of the Oural chain, exhibits a counter direction of the water courses, which forms a kind of table land in the Vologda province, flowing towards the Caspian and the Euxine, and having only inferior rivers turned towards the pole. Hills or small mountain clus- ters, commence already to rear their heads, amid the marshes and lakes bordering on the Arctic shore, through the whole province of Archangel, becoming more ele* vated westward, after the interval occasioned by the 54 NATURAL HISTORY OF White Sea, till they reach their utmost north and wes- tern limits in the Lapland system. Vologda, and the surrounding high lands of Russia, were then an insu- lated prolongation of the Oural range, full of forests and marshes, with the Euxine reaching to a great dis- tance inland, and the Chersonesus (now Crimea) was a rocky island,* At present, the southern steppes are still composed of sea sands, and the vegetation consists almost wholly of saline plants — Artemisice, Salsolce, and Salicornice — and lakes of salt water are frequent in the eastern parts ; but the great affluents towards the south, attest the desiccation of the soil by a progressive dimi- nution of water. The fact applies equally to the Volga, Oural, and Don, as well as to the Borysthenes or Did&~ per, and the Boug, the sacred stream of antique Russia, the seat of Asa gods, when their Alan kindred still pos- sessed the banks of the Don. At that period, Sacae wandered over the newly recovered plains of western Siberia, and the great streams just mentioned had ceased to form Archipelagos of upland islands, and peninsulas, between shallow creeks, marshy woods, and salt water pools, not even now obliterated, t Leaving * Ai-petri, the culminating point of the Crimea, is esti- mated at 3500 feet above the sea. f The Moscow uplands are given at 460 feet above the level of the sea ; but the base of the hills, and water courses, can scarcely amount to 100 feet, notwithstanding the con- tinuous rising of the upper soil by the deposits from above, washed down by rains and melting snows. In Poland, the canals between the two seas require onlv from ten to fifteen THE HUMAN SPECIES. 55 for the present other considerations affecting the Euxine, till the volcanic system of eastern Europe is under review, we proceed with the Scandinavian pen- insula. ARCTIC EUROPE. FROM Cape North, to the southward and east, as already observed, the Lapland high lands are a system spreading to the head of the Gulf of Bothnia, and in connection with the high mountain chain of Scandi- navia, once formed a great island, the Scansia of Jor- nandes. The gulf and White Sea being still connected, in 1450, by the Kitkacerva, and probably also by the Ulea Lakes ; and, more anciently, the Ladoga and Onega, communicating by the Ozero Sig and Ozero Vigo, with the Arctic Sea. The greater part of Fin- land, thick set with pools, is in itself strong evidence of the fact. At the summit of the Gulf of Bothnia, it had long been observed, that the sea was retiring by slow degrees, not so much from the effect of fresh water deposits, as, according to a common opinion, by a pro- gressive rising of the submarine floor ; for many out- lying rocks, known from ancient times by distinct names, and sung in Runic ballads, for being the basking beds of seals, where daring hunters acquired celebrity in their pursuit, had risen above water beyond the reach locks, although it does not appear that careful surveys had determined the lowest levels. 56 NATURAL HISTORY OF of their ancient amphibious visitors ; parts of the gulf, which, half a century before had been crossed in boats by the French academicians, were converted into per- manent meadow land ; and more minute research dis- closed, at a distance inland, successive lines of beach, each provided with a bed of shells in a very recent state. From these the sea had evidently receded, ac- cording to the changes which an upheaving motion of the land, proceeding from the north, effected on the levels ; and correspondingly raised beaches have since been observed by M. Bravais, on the opposite declivity of the Lapland system, near Hamerfest and Cape North ; which show, by being at greater elevations, the acting forces to be most powerful on the Polar side. More than a century passed — with a view of settling the ques- tion, by positive measurement, copper bolts were driven in several rocks at the mean sea level, and subsequent investigation substantiates, that the rising progress is greatest in the north ; being at the summit of the Gulf of Bothnia, at the rate of 4J feet in a century, decreas- ing to one foot at Stockholm ; and, on the southern, or German shore of the Baltic, at 0, or, as we think, de- clining .* This supposition is countenanced by several * These researches date from the year 1700, when, to mark the true level, copper bolts were driven in, and deep grooves were cut in the rocks. They terminated in 1827 ; the observations being made by Davis, Hellant, Cydenius, Klingius, Rudman, &c. Several French philosophers have made later researches, and confirmed the progress. See Hel. de Beaumont, Mem. Acad. des Sciences de Paris. THE HUMAN SPECIES. 57 submersions in the southern Baltic, already observed, from the year 830, such as those resulting from the great storm, when the island of Rugen was separated from the German shore, and' the successive marine de- pressions of the commercial republics of Winetha, Ar- kona, and Jomsberg, near Wollin ; some enduring to the twelfth century, when their ruin, effected by the hand of man, was followed by submersion beneath the waves. Continuous denudations of the sea shore, or erosions of rivers, furnished the amber of the Baltic from very early ages ; and the check of that trade is now only as it respects discovery of it at sea, but not inland. A prolonged depression on this coast alone accounts for the absence of deltas at the mouths of the Vistula and the Oder, and may be in combination with the changes of surface, which, while the real plane of declivity of the two last mentioned rivers became greater towards the north, did not affect their watershed, and aided in throwing the masses of the Lagoon Sea down the western Russian rivers into the Euxine. 58 NATUR'.L HIS10RY OF WESTERN EUROPE. THE whole of Northern and Western Germany is low and of a sandy alluvial soil, which, without the aid of cultivation and human care, might still be threatened with marine invasion ; and Denmark, in its oldest poetical aspect, was apparently less intersected by creeks and water channels than at present. High sand hills are easily formed by the surf and the wind ; they are no proof of antiquity, still less of durability, as the fact of the sand bank, eighty feet in height, near Dantzig, being broke through in 1843, and forming a new mouth for the river, during an unusually high flood of the inland waters. Some part of the east and south of England was certainly connected with the opposite coast, at a period preceding the change of direction which the Rhine re- ceived, when turning from its ancient bed through the Cevennes, a channel was formed to the north, and the waters first reached the sea by the volcanic basin of Neuwied. Western Germany seems then to have been indented with deep bays, estuaries, and islands, the salt water reaching above Wezel, on the Rhine, where the heaths still abound in sea-shells in a perfect state.* * We have picked up, on the German side of the. Rhine, near Wezel, several univalves, and a pinna, with the hinge ending in a very acute point. These were found on the line of the new chaussee. THE HUMAN SPECIES. 59 No extensive deposits, brought by lengthened water courses, had as yet formed deltas ; for, while the great volcanic craters from the Vogesian chain to Kloster Laach, in the basin of Neuwied ; of the Pulvermar, near Gillenfeld, in the Eifel, &c., were in activity, the Rhine had not broken through in a northern direction ; and the event may be regarded as a consequence of the igneous exhaustion of that region producing a con- siderable change in the levels. The same law which altered successively the courses of the Oxus and the Jaxartes towards the north, may have operated, in a similar manner, on the Rhine, Meuse, and Scheldt. But these important alterations in Western Germany and Gaul, were effected, and their consequences were no doubt considerably advanced, before man was present in Europe ; yet comparatively recent the period may be deemed, since the Arend See, in Brandenburgh, a lake of about sixteen square mile's surface, apparently produced by subterraneous percolation, which causes the earth to sink vertically, in stages each of about forty feet perpendicular, offered a further instance of this phenomenon so late as 1660. It is one of the same class as that subsidence of the earth, which occurred in 1806, near the delta of the Indus. 1 With the prolongation and change of direction in the course of the rivers in Western Germany, the weight of waters, or a contemporaneous percussion, may have shaken the chalky and alluvial shores, converting Britain from a peninsula into an island, and forming the Channel and Dover straits. Waters which, until that 60 NATURAL HISTORY OF period, covered the drainage of the Elbe, the Weser, and the Ems, &c., more anciently communicating, but imperfectly with the Gallic Sea (perhaps at high water only, through the Belgian low lands, behind the chalk cliffs of the coast, to the Liane, south of Boulogne), sud- denly forming a vast current, by means of the new efflux of the Rhine, would give such force to the ebb tide (now first beginning to meet the flowing wave in the channel), that a new aspect would be given to all the shores, even far up the east coast of Britain. Heli- goland, a friable conglomerate, became an island at no very remote period. So late as the ninth century of our era, it was still forty times the present area ; in 1300 twelve times the surface ; but woods, rivulets, pagan temples, monasteries, parishes, and castles, have been swallowed up, and the portion still above water gradually crumbles away. When the Cymbers pene- trated into Italy, they had recently been dislodged, by great encroachments of the sea on their native shores, which were in the low lands of the above named rivers, on the north of the kindred tribes of Friesland, who were repeatedly sufferers from the same cause, down to recent times. Thus, on the river Unsing, which, in the Roman era, reached the sea by a direct course, and later by the Ems, there is noticed the Portus Manarmanis ; and higher up the bank, a place named Siatulanda, both localities being now lost in the waters of the Dollaert.* * If the convulsion, which certainly took place, belonged to so remote a period as a former order of creation, the THE HUMAN SPECIES. 61 THE RHINE. THE whole delta of the Rhine, by the many changes that have occurred in its several arms within the his- torical period, through West Friesland, Holland, and Zealand, prove the unconsolidated condition of the de- posits ; and the depth of alluvial was shown at Amster- dam, in 1604, when a well was sunk, in an abortive attempt to obtain pure fresh water, the workmen find- ing sea-shells and animal hair to the depth of 132 feet.* The lake Flevo, known to the Romans, was evidently not then ancient, since a great portion of West Fries- land, on its banks, sunk down and formed the present Zuyder Zee, leaving of the coast only a chain of islands. The canal of Drusus, now denominated the Yssel, is a further instance of the tendency oi rivers to flow northwards ; for this additional outlet of the Rhine was a proximate cause in the formation of the Zuyder final effect would have terminated long before our historical era. It is more likely to synchronise with the changes in the Polish and Russian inland seas, when a very consider- able alteration must have resulted in the currents and tides on the west coasts of Europe. * See Des Roches Hist, des Pays Bas., vol. i. A learned and exceedingly curious work, which the untimely death of the author has left unfinished. The Ganges offers a similar result, for, on sinking an Artesian well at Fort William, Calcutta, bones of canidse were brought up from the depth of 150 feet. 62 NATURAL HISTORY OF Zee, by breaking through the coast more to the north than the ancient channel, which was a river then known "by the name of Flevus, whose waters were discharged close to the present Flie island. Another great sub- mersion, in the south-east of Holland, was felt at the Biesbosch, near Gertruydenberg, in 1421, when the waters of the Meuse and Waal, suddenly overwhelming seventy-two villages, 100,000 human beings were lost ; but the subsoil must have sunk at the same time, since the whole region has remained beneath the surface, and is now overgrown with huge reeds. The principal mouth of the Rhine, during the Roman sway, is all but obliterated, excepting in name, and the whole coast of Holland has much receded from its earlier tide mark ; for, at the spot where the Rhine mouth entered the sea, there stood a fortress, by some ascribed to Drusus, by others to Claudius, intended to guard the entrance. The whole plan of this structure, with walls of hewn stone, still three feet high when it was last seen, is now buried under the waves, and more than a mile from the present shore.* Coins of Postu- mus, Yictorinus, and Tetricus, with others resembling early Anglo Saxon Skeatta, indicate that the fortress was garrisoned, and therefore, that the river was still navigable after the Roman departure from Britain. * This place is known by the name of Huis-ten Britten. Here several alto relievo figures of the goddess Nehalennia, and many coins have been found during very low tides. The ruins have not been seen above water during the last hundred years. THE HUMAN SPECIES. 63 Farther west is the Roompot estuary, where another Roman fastness is supposed to have existed on the sand bank facing Ter Veer, in the East Scheldt ; and Romerswal, another fortress of the same people, was also a small town, on a bank in the West Scheldt, op- posite Bergen-op-Zoom, where we have seen remains of brick walls, covered with sea-weed and muscles. So late as 1606, the Hock of Holland, Goeree, and other parts of the coast, were invaded and swept away ; and, at this day, "West Capelle, in Walcheren, after similar devastations, is defended by rows of piles, which occur again at Blankenberg, and even at Ostend. It was here, amidst the multitude of low woody islands, formed by the confluence of the Scheldt, Dender, Lys, Nethe, and Meuse, called the Paludes Morinorum, that places of safety existed, whither the inhabitants retreated out of the reach of Caesar's legions. In the middle ages, all this region was still encumbered with swamps and water channels, which extended up to St. Omers or Sethon, * communicated with the sea at Calais and Dunkirk, until the emperor Otho, about the year 980, caused a canal to be dug from the Scheldt to the Hondt, which gradually drained the upland, and now constitutes the Western Scheldt. Persevering cultivation, sustained by manufacturing riches, alone * Sethon, Portus St. Aumeri, now St. Omers, was still a sea port ; that is, had a channel opening to the sea, in 1156, as appears by a charter of Louis VII. Compare Caesar de B. Gr. lib. iv., with St. Paulin Epist. ad Victru, who wrote in the fourth century. 61 NATURAL HISTORY OF succeeded to rescue the drowned soil, and make it one of the most fertile portions of Europe. The old mouth, now the Swyn, between Sluys and Cadsandria, passed through a vast pool, where the largest ships and fleets could assemble ; and the Swyn mouth was still so broad, in latter ages, that both the fleets of King John and of Edward III. succeeded in attacking and destroying their enemies within the port; but in time that har- bour became marshy, and then meadow land. On the side of the Western Scheldt, however, the land dimi- nished, and between 1377 and 1477, upwards of forty villages were submerged, chiefly about Biervliet. On the coast, the village of Scharphout was swept away, in 1 334, to the sands where now Blankenberg is built ; and Terstreep, near Ostend, shared the same fate. In no part of this vast space of alluvial deposit have fossil remains of Pachyderms been observed. In the Rhine alone, and about the shores of that river, bones of two species of Bos and of Cervns giganteus, or Irish Elk, were noticed, and one or two Saurians, referred to Crocodile, have been detected in Upper Flanders. THE HUMAN SPECIES. GREAT BRITAIN. IF we now turn to the British Islands, we find the whole east coast of England marked by devastation and marine encroachment. From Cromer, where the village of Shipden was lost in the reign of King Henry IV., though it is said the ruins are still dis- cernible at very low tides, about half a mile distant from the shore, and thence by Yarmouth and Harwich to Reculver in the estuary of the Thames, the work of erosion is every where conspicuous, and still proceeding. The soil is evidently older than the alluvial of the German rivers, for debris of Proboscidians, of Saurians, and Tortoises, are not unfrequently found imbedded in it. At Dagenham, in Essex, as mentioned in the Phil. Transactions, the Thames bank wall having given way, the soil washed down, in some places, to twenty feet in depth, when " many large trees became exposed to sight, oaks, alders, and hornbeams, one of which bore 1 marks of the axe, and the head was lopped off' " There is no reason for rejecting the tradition concern- ing the Goodwin Sands ; and the disappearance of the island, was a natural consequence of the tides acting upon its low shores, from the time the Straits of Dover were opened, and the calamity, an immediate result of neglecting to defend the banjss by artificial means. The same force which swept away the town of Win- Chelsea, in the reign of Edward I., had long before destroyed the Portus Iccius on the opposite coast, and E £* NATURVL HISTORY OF commenced the gradual denudation of the rocky basis of the Channel Islands, where a tax is still levied and applied to arrest the further encroachments of the sea. If tradition could be trusted, the present channel, within the Isle of Wight, was, in earlier ages, suffi- ciently shallow to be forded at very low tides, where now line of battle ships pass in safety ; but this result is applicable to the whole British Channel, while Pooie harbour is filled up by the deposits of slack water. There is a marked character in the long succession of landslips and " founders " in the vicinity of Lyme Regis and Axminster, resulting indeed from percola- tion to certain underlying strata, but, most assuredly, in connection with a progressive erosion of the floor of the channel. * On the coasts of Devon and Cornwall, numerous marks of ancient sea beaches, hove up far beyond the present tide levels, indicate similar pres- sures, and slidings of superincumbent strata, forcing the beach to rise up in the same manner as occurred near Axminster. St. Michael's Mount, however, is now almost severed from Cornwall ; and the invasion of the sea is still attested by the remains of forest trees, sunk beneath the waters. Beyond the Land's End, the Scilly Islands, now forming a cluster of rocks, were almost wholly united * If similar events, in other countries, were carefully recorded, they would be found surprisingly numerous. Balbi, and Mr. G. Roberts, in his account of the Dowland ana Bindon landslip of 1839, enumerate a great variety oi them. THE HUMAN SPECIES. 6? when first they became historically known, under the name of Cassiteredes. In the Irish Channel, submer- sions, perhaps even greater than in any other part of England, appear to have occurred, and phenomena on shore are equally surprising. A part of the bed of the Severn is stated to have risen, in 1773, to the height of thirty feet, the back water immediately forming a lake, which was drained by cutting a new channel. Accord- ing to Camden, and Bishop Hakewill's Apology, at the time of the Norman Conquest, part of Pembroke form- ed a promontory, extending towards Ireland ; but the space was already sunken beneath deep sands in the time of Henry II., when a violent storm so far un- covered the original surface, that many stumps of trees appeared fixed in the earth, " and the strokes of the axe upon them quite fresh." In the Welsh Triads, Orkney, the Isle of Man, and the Isle of Wight, are styled the three adjacent islands of Britain ; and they proceed to mention the subse- quent separation of Anglesea from the main land. Nennius similarly alludes to the three adjacent islands ; yet, since that period, Orkney became divided into several parts ; and it is evident, that other portions of Wales and Western Scotland likewise became insu- lated. So many important changes, particularly in the British Channel, imply the agency of forces which were not in activity at very remote periods ; for, had they been of primeval date, their operation would have effected the whole of the changes they necessitated long before the dates here mentioned. 68 NATURAL HISTORY OF SOUTHERN EUROPE. RETURNING to the west coast of France, we find tba important invasion of the sea, which, in the eighth century, destroyed a great space of poor and forest land, separating Mont St. Michael from the main shore ; * and, in the Bay of Biscay, the currents and winds continuing the encroachment on the coast, they have in some places advanced two miles within a century. But the Spanish peninsula, forming a plateau the most elevated of Europe, more than 2000 feet above the ocean, without an existing volcanic crater on its surface, is nevertheless subject to violent earthquakes, particularly on the side of the Atlantic. Geologically, as regards ossiferous breccias, the southern point of the peninsula reproduces, at Gibraltar, a stratification which occurs about Genoa, and is repeated in the islands on the coast of Dalmatia. They have all com- pressed, between beds of limestone, innumerable re- mains of mammals, held in a matrix much harder than the bones themselves. In zoological affinity, Spain, and a considerable portion of the greater Mediterra- nean islands, bear an African rather' than an European * There is an earlier great event of this kind recorded in history, in the reign of Gallienus, when one or two Romano- Celtic cities, in Armorica or Bretagne, were destroyed. That in the reign of Charlemagne was equally destructive on the coasts of France and in the Baltic. THE HUMAN SPECIES. 69 • aspect ; and the similarity was much more evident in early times. Spain, having no deltas, with only a few shoals formed by the Tagus, Ebro, and Llobregat, is surrounded, on three sides, by very deep seas, close up to the shore. Farther eastward, within the Mediterranean, the coast of France presents a totally different aspect, for the whole extent of the shores, with little exception, are low, belted on the sea side by a shingly beach, some hundred yards in breadth, and having behind it salt water lagoons a mile or more in diameter, but only a few feet deep. This breakwater of shingle extends to near Aigues Mortes, and the delta of the Rhone ; for that river has evidently supplied the materials for it. At some distance, facing the Mediterranean, a chain of lofty hills contains lavas and extinct craters, particu- larly about Nismes and Montpellier, and again in the department of the Aude, where fossiliferous caverns exist, which will be noticed in the sequel. The hills trend, on one side, towards the eastern Pyrenees, and, on the other, ascending the course of the Rhone, become connected with the Alps; and assuming the name of Vogesians, display basaltic formations and craters, that connect them with the basin of Neuwied. The delta of the last named river is of considerable size, with a gra- dual but slow progress in the sea ; it having been de- monstrated, by measuring the distance between the fossa Mariana and the sea, that from the time of Marius to the present, a period of nearly 2000 years, only about 1000 yards have- been added to the shore. 70 NATUR/L HISTORY OF ITALY. PASSING, for the present, the Alpine system without notice, * we arrive at the Italian peninsula, reposing, in its whole extent, upon an ignited gallery, in per- petual activity, and producing a sea more fathomable than the abysses of the Gulf of Lyons and the Genoese offing. On the Tyrhenian coast, the changes most readily ascertained, occur at the port and city of Pisa, which were originally situated at the mouth of the Arno, whereas they are now above four miles inland ; and the Ansar streamlet, which, according to Strabo, fell into the river close to the town, now terminates ten miles distant. The volcanic soilj alike fertile and deleterious in the maremmas, is in some places unstable, so that even since the fall of the Roman empire, certain spots about Baiae have been sunk below the level of the sea, and again raised up above it, without entirely overturning columns, such as those of the temple of Serapis, all of which, at a certain elevation above their * Remarkable, however, for land slips, anciently more numerous and extensive than at present. In the Alps, frag- ments of Roman roads, with arched gateways, occur among elevated precipices. Hannibal encountered a subsidence of the road on his passage. Those of Mont Grenier, Dia- blerets, Mont Chede, and particularly of the Rossberg, in 1806, are well known ; and that of Cernans, between Dijon and Pontarlier, in the Jura, where the high read sank 300 feetj in 1839, is the last of importance. THE HUMAN SPECIES. 71 base, have been subjected to the boring of Lithodomi, while other parts of the ancient city, and a paved road, are seen beneath the waters. The whole length of Italy exhibits craters, lakes simmering, volcanic pits, crevices emitting sulphureous vapours, till we reach the kingdom and sea of the two Sicilies, where a vast con- centration of volcanic fire permanently discharges from below, smoke, gaseous vapours, flames, and lavas, by the craters of Etna, Vesuvius, and Stromboli. Thucy- dides, Seneca, Strabo, Pausanius, Pliny, and others, mention numerous earthquakes in Italy, when moun- tains were split, cities were overturned, and volcanic islands rose and again subsided. Since the Vesuvian eruption, recorded by Pliny the Younger, no calamity more appalling appears on record than that which took place in 1538, when, in a few hours, Monte Nuovo, a flaming mountain of four miles in circumference, rose out of the earth, destroying the village of Tripergola, obliterating the Lucrine Lake, and caused the ruin of the country to six miles around it ; unless one greater still occurred, when Messina in Sicily, and many towns of Calabria, were destroyed in 1786. No author states, at what period, and to what extent, volcanic convulsion changed the surface of Eastern Italy, and separated Calabria from Sicily, by a disrup- ture now denominated the Straits of Messina. The event can only be surmised by approximation; for, although the catastrophe confessedly took place before written historical record, it was not so remote as to have obliterated the terror impressed upon the memories 72 NATUR/L HISTORY OF of subsequent generations living in the vicinity, or to have worn away the dangerous impediments of Seylla and Charybdis, which intervened at the most adjacent point for crossing from one coast to the other, and probably not long before the foundations of Zancle (now Messina) were laid. The event may syn- chronise with the close of that transition era of convul- sive phenomena, which includes the bursting of the Thracian Bosphorus at the volcanic Cyanean islands ; the Greek deluges; the separation of Eubrea from Attica; and the passage of a large diluvian wave across the isthmus of Corinth, which has left indelible marks on all the coasts in the vicinity, and was parti- cularly recorded at Dodona. * They were the neces- sary precursors of the first swarming of the tribes that came down the Hellespont, and commenced the heroic age of Greece and Italy. In the Adriatic, at the summit of the gulf, we find Adria or Hadria, said to have been built on the sea shore by Tarchon, leader of the antique Etruscan people, about the time of the Trojan war. The present town, standing upon the rubbish of two others, is now fifteen and a half miles distant from the nearest mouth of the river Tartarus, which is still six miles within the farthest point of land projecting in the sea. f It is * Scholiast upon the 16th Iliad, v. 233, quoting Thrasy- bulus, an ancient author, and other comments. f Now Po di Levante, and most likely the oldest bed of the Padus or Po ? The lowest stratum of ruins was at the depth of more than twenty feet. THE HUMAN SPECIES. 73 only of late years, that in making excavations at the depth of several feet below the present surface of the town, a former level was found, with numerous frag- ments of Etruscan and Roman pottery ; and, at a still greater depth, a second floor, where all the earthenware fragments proved to be Etruscan alone, and there were vestiges of a theatre ? In these facts, both the raising of the soil, and progress of alluvial deposits, are de- monstrated in waters but little disturbed by marine currents, and during a space of 3000 years. THE EGEAN. IN the Egean, volcanic disturbances have been and still are exceedingly numerous and destructive. From the remotest periods recorded, islands have risen up from the sea ; such as volcanic Delos, overhung with vapours to the present time; or torn from the continent of Asia, like Samos, with its ancient organic remains of Neiades, and craters, one of which commenced latterly to furnish a rivulet running to the sea ; and other islands, within these few years, have been: visited by earthquakes of the most calamitous violence. Through the Cyclades there came, in remote antiquity, a sea wave, raised up by some volcanic convulsion, which desolated Greece, and is recorded as one of the deluges ; while other percussions opened the passage already mentioned, for lowering the surface of the Euxine into the Propontis, and thence to the Egean; an event 74 NATURAL HISTORY OF commemorated in Samothrace, when that island most likely was separated from the main coast.* It was then the Cymmerion Chersonesus, from a rocky island be- came a great peninsula, and Phanagoria of the Moeotis began to exhibit the cones of deposit from which mud is ejected to the present time. The Euxine, Caspian, and Mediterranean, have shoal water and islands al- most exclusively on the north, and the deepest sea on the south ; but the Euxine alone witnesses percussions, which still continue to elevate the highlands of the Crimea. From the year of the death of Mithridates, to the present period, many severe earthquakes have shaken the promontories of the coast, and caused de- structive avalanches. At Sevastopol, the ancient Sinus Portuosus of Mela, iron rings, originally fixed in the rocks, probably by the Genoese, to secure vessels, in natural docks, close to the shore, are now risen so high above ground, as to be no longer available for that pur- pose ; and, in the autumn of 1844, a sudden heaving of a volcanic disturbance, caused the sea to recede from the whole line of the northern coast, leaving all the vessels then close in shore stranded. In the Caspian, Baku, like Derbent, had its walls * The effects of this sea wave are clearly marked on the east coast of Attica and Peloponnesus. It broke across the isthmus, and left marks of its violence in the Saronic and Corinthian gulfs. Traditional recollections of these enor- mous catastrophes are depicted in the language of St. John — " and every island fled away, and the mountains were not found ;" Rev. xvi. 20. Patmos was in the direct line of this convulsion. THE HUMAN SPECIES. 75 partly thrown down by the sea in 1784 ; yet now it stands a quarter of a mile from the water's edge. The level varies occasionally six or seven feet ; and small volcanic cones still break forth on its shores. In the lake, or rather bay of Ensili, three new islands have appeared since 1811, already showing several willows upon them ; and the back water of the Gemishawas is become fbrdable, though, until recently, it was not to be traversed, the river waters having sensibly diminished, The Caspian is the Deryah Kolsuin of the Arabs, be- cause it is covered with a mist ever hanging on the water. ASIA MINOR. ASIA MINOR appears subjected to the action of at least two subterranean volcanic galleries, which, in connec- tion with the Italian system of ignitions, passing be- neath the Egean, are the agents of convulsion in that sea; and in Greece and Thessaly, produce those me- phitic localities, inflammable rivers, and gaseous ex- halations, which were used in mythological doctrines, and in the prophetic impositions of the Delphic oracle. Others, of at least equal antiquity, existed on the Asiatic side ; and although no conspicuous volcanic crater is pointed out in the peninsula, excepting, at the present Dopos Kalesi, and at Koolah in Catace- caumene, where the lava district reveals volcanic agency, apparently not long dormant. There is, also, 76 NATURAL HISTORY OF at the extremity of the Bosphorus, where the Cyanean craters are submerged, a recent lava formation, parti- cularly conspicuous on the Asiatic shore. No region has been more constantly disturbed by earthquakes than this high peninsula, from the earliest period to the present ; but perhaps most so during the Koman sway, when, in the reign of Tiberias, fourteen, and in that of Julian, not less than one hundred and fifty cities were destroyed in one convulsion. BASIN OF THE DEAD SEA. THESE convulsions of the surface are external signs of the gallery that passes westward ; but there is a second, which turns from beneath Taurus, south to Syria and Palestine, producing, in the valley of Jordan, the cele- brated Dead Sea or Asphaltic Lake, regarded as the deepest basin beneath the level of the sea in the known world, the surface of the water being far below that of the Caspian. No exact measurements of this depression of the soil is as yet rigidly determined, because the in- struments employed for the purpose, the mercury rising to the summit of the tube, have always failed by the excess of their indications, to offer a trustworthy basis for calculation. Russeger, the last scientific traveller, being similarly disappointed, gives, from other cal- culations, the surface of the lake, at the mouth of the Jordan, as 1319 French feet below the Mediterranean ; Jerusalem, by measurement, as 2479 feet above it* THE HUMAN SPECIES. 77 and yet, no traveller remarks, that if these statements be nearly correct, the ridge behind, or west of Jeru- salem, being in sight from the lake, would be more than 4000 English feet higher and loftier than any mountain in Great Britain;* nor is there any notice taken of the levels of the lake as compared with the Gulf of Akkaba — which is nearly on the same level as the Mediterranean — and the elevation of the ridge which parts the Dead Sea from Wady Moosa. Al- ready, before the era of Abraham, it is evident, by the notice of slime pits (naphtha) in the plain of Gomorrha, that volcanic action was kindled ; and when the surface subsided into the Asphaltic Basin, the ridge in Wady Moosa was elevated, and the Jordan, already insuffi- cient to compensate for the evaporation, could no longer flow to the Red Sea. There is at least a certain affinity with Africa in this region, supported by a proportion of the local botany, and by the fish of the Lake of Tiberias. The volcanic flues, branching off, pass through Arabia to Aden, and beneath the Red Sea ; and another, more due west, communicates with Northern Africa, beyond the Egyptian boundary, far into the interior. Fiom Palestine and Syria, eastward to the Indus, * According to measurements of British naval officers, taken after the capture of Acre in 1839, it appears — oy lines of altitude carried from the Mediterranean to the Dead Sea, &c. — that the Lake of Tiberias was 84 English feet below the Mediterranean ; the A rabah al Kadesh, 91 feet ; the Dead Sea, 1337 ; whence it is plain, no region of equal extent, on the earth, presents phenomena of such great dif- ference, for the culminating point of Libanus rises, at Mount Hermon, to 10,000 feet. 78 NATURAL HISTORY OF there are only three rivers of importance that reach the sea. They all unite into one channel ; and although they drain an immense surface, generally arid and sandy, and the Tigris, in particular, is swift, they have no period of inundation like the Nile, but simply freshes in the spring ; and albeit they terminate at the head of an enclosed gulf, they have not formed an ex- tensive delta. The high table land of Persia is esti- mated at little less than 4000 feet above the sea, a most arid desert, but with rivers from the north-eastward, forming the fertile valley of the Helrnund, and termi- nating in Lake Aria or Zurra, anciently much more extensive than the present, having ruins of vast cities in the vicinity, unknown in history and of the remo- test period ; the cradle where Iranian power was nur- sed. From the social systems first evolved on the Oxus and the Helmund, and thence carried to the Tigris, Euphrates, and Choaspes, when combined with those of Egypt and Palestine, the present religious, moral, and scientific state of the world, is almost entirely drawn. The fundamental principles relating to the highest good, and the maxims of the greatest evil, emanated from Western Asia, wherein the ancients used to comprehend the Nile, as far up tho course of tne river as the Nubian frontier. THE HUMAN SPECIES. 79 CURRENTS OF THE MEDITERRANEAN. BUT the isthmus, connecting Egypt with Asia, did not exist at the commencement of the present geological arrangement. TJie Arabian prolongation of volcanic galleries, may, indeed, have dug the channel of the Red Sea, since, on the Abyssinian sides, mephitic lakes and a sulphurous soil, reach from the coast to the mountains, and chains of dormant craters, pass behind the coast, in a south-east direction, even beyond the equator. vSo, likewise, on the west of the Nile, extensive tracts, bordering on the desert, manifest igneous activity, not far below the surface, in ebullitions assuming various fantastic forms. From the period, however, when the Straits of Calpe, the Bisepharat of Phoenician naviga- tors, admitted the Western Ocean to give the present form and extent to the Mediterranean, anteriorly sup- plied with very little fresh water, it may be supposed, that the evaporation, being more counterbalanced by the influx, passing mostly eastward in the straits, and still more at a great depth below the surface, raised the sea to a higher level, and caused the circular course, which now flowing eastward, along the coast of Bar- bary, casts all river deposits brought down that shore into the recess of the two Syrtes, and near the summit of the Mediterranean, sweeps onwards all the Nilotic discharges. At the commencement of the present super- ficial terrene system, when the current first acted upon 80 NATURAL HISTOKY OF the efflux of the river, it threw, similarly, as in the Syrtes, all deposits back upon the coast, and filled the channel of communication from the Red Sea, whose level, somewhat higher, was kept in check by the pre- vailing northerly winds, until a bank was formed, and marshes created, which the same northerly winds, acting upon the sea shore, would supply with dust, and all other currents of air aided to fill up, until the isthmus was formed, and the delta had advanced to the edge of deep water, when first it came within the force of the real sea current. Thus, a space of 72 miles, from Suez to El-Arish, and nearly 180 along the sea-coast from west to east, became a fertile land, where inundation extended ; pasturage, where it is accessible only in part ; and desert or marsh in all the rest. * On the Syrian coast, the Mediterranean current is first repelled by the rocky soil of Palestine, and turned * " It is inferred from geological data, that the Red Sea, in former times, penetrated to the basin of the bitter lake, and there left high water marks, distinguishable at the pre- sent day ; flowing from thence to Lake Mensaleh, thus en- tirely separating the land of Africa from that of Asia :" But Captain Veitch adduces strong reasons against trusting to the operations of nature to excavate for herself a channel again in that way, and shows also, why it would not be expedient to form a navigable channel of still water, with locks between the two seas, or dependent on the Nile. This statement, drawn from actual survey, leaves no doubt of the primaeval separation of the two continents, viewed geo- logically ; and the expected condition of dead water, instead of a current in the channel, should a communication be reopened, is supported by the fact, that a simple process of nature was sufficient to close it. THE HUMAN SPECIES. 81 northward, undermining, in its passage, the sea wall, formed of enormous stones, at the port of Csesarea; but farther on, completing, with the sands of Egypt, Alexander's work, at the isthmus of Tyre. Next, at the Colpian Gulf, the foot of Cilician Taurus again turns the current, which now forced in a direction to the west, is broken into several devious branches by Cyprus, Rhodes, Crete, the Egean Islands, Sicily, the Peloponnesus, and Italy ; but still, not so entirely, but that it is again recognized in the Tyrhenian Sea, and thence sweeping the deposits of the Rhone along the coast of Gaul ; and, finally, allowing the unevaporated portion to pass out at Calpe, or to resume again a new circular course. * * It is the enormous evaporation and the very scanty supply of river water in the Mediterranean, that causes its waters to be deemed even more salt than the ocean. The direction of its currents is traced by the species of fishes, periodically entering the straits, from the west coast of Africa, and in those that remain permanently, either in shore, in soundings, or beyond them. 82 NATURAL HISTORY OP AFRICA. OF Africa, the most striking feature is the tabular form of its structure, standing immoveable, like a huge bulwark, almost centrally beneath the equator, without a plentiful vegetation, almost without forests ; with few undrained lakes, and, consequently, few great rivers, who derive their supplies of moisture from clouds coming from distant regions, and furnishing a diminish- ing supply ; for their is an acknowledged dessication in progress, observed alike in Morocco, at the Cape, and most in Abyssinia. Perhaps the oldest of the conti- nents, it appears exhausted. "With a vigorous animal and vegetable life, thinly scattered, or confined to par- ticular valleys, and with proofs of a desert state so remote, that no other region can produce a similar example ; namely, in the Baobabs (Adansonia digit- tata), of ninety feet in circumference, a bulk so enor- mous, as to induce Adanson to assert, that they contain- ed full six thousand rings of annual growth ; that is, an age which no other living organic body on earth can claim. * In this great region, the Nile alone, of all * There are oaks in France, Switzerland, and even in Great Britain, above thirty feet in circumference, which may be 3000 years old. A chestnut on Etna, not one of the largest or oldest, left a portion of a side shoot, not contain- ing the inner core or circles, which, nevertheless, afforded 1700 rings of annual growth. Baobabs thrive best on arid plains. THE HUMAN SPECIES. 83 the rivers, is of ancient interest in what relates to the history of Man. Though, for centuries past, little or no addition has "been made to the delta, the coast lakes have materially decreased in depth, and the bed of the river is now much higher than in antiquity, since the plain of Thebes is, during inundations, in many parts under water. In Abyssinia, mountains for- merly covered with forests are become pasture lands ; and a large river, the Kibber, which descends from the south-west side of that great mountain system, proceeds obliquely to the eastern coast, and is suddenly arrested at its mouth, under the equatorial line, by a broad beach of shingle, through which the waters percolate to the Indian Ocean. On this side, no other facts of interest are offered, excepting the great volcanic spiracles, forming islands far out to the south-east ; and a whole range of craters on tne outside coast of Madagascar, probably with submarine trunks that connect them with the series on the main coast ; and the straits themselves, which perhaps were formed by the collapse of a part of the Comoro Islands. Down the coast, to the Cape of Good Hope, and thence along the western shores to Mauritania, no objects of a direct interest to our present researches present themselves, excepting those clusters of volcanic islands, with craters on peaks of very great elevation, which were believed, by the ancients, and by many moderns admitted, to be the wrecks of the Atlantis, recorded by the priests of Sais as the site of a fearful 84 NATURAL HISTORY OF deluge, which, it seems, was confounded with a similar event, already recorded among the devastations of Greece. In the plains of Morocco, among the high lands of Abyssinia, in the bed of the Quorra (Niger) in Congo, and at the Cape of Good Hope, similarly formed table mountains, with precipitous sides and limestone summits occur, and with deep valleys or flats between them, produced by forces that cannot, now be satisfactorily explained. We may add, that while all the ancient adventitious populations have greati.y decreased, the indigenous negro races alone continue to expand. THE HUMAN SPECIES. 85 AMERICA. AMERICA, stretching from the Arctic to the Antarctic Circle, has the great chain of cardinating mountains in the same direction, with indications of far more awful convulsions than are remarked on the old continent ; for here the nutations of the great ridge, instead of influencing the continent, like the Himalayas, with a gradual action upon their abutting planes, have snapped near the fulcrum of its western side, nearly two-thirds of the whole length, from Terra del Fuego to California, and sunk that portion of the continent in such deep sea for many degrees seaward, that scarcely an island remains above water. Freed, it would seem, from the adhesion of the broad surface, as naturally belonging to this side as on the other, and to counterbalance it, as is the case in Asia, the Andes, in their whole extent in the vicinity of the ocean, retain volcanic activity in full force, and consequently heave up, at the present time, as perseveringly as at the remotest periods. They continue to rise with every great shock of an earth- quake, perhaps affecting the whole height of the moun- tains, but certainly the western or maritime side, where successive stages may be traced to a great elevation ; and rocky heads, lines of beaches, and shoaling waters, become more and more evident ; as if nature laboured, to recover from the deep, a portion of long-lost terres- 86 NATURA^ HISTORY OF trial soil.* The multitude of enormous volcanoes in the Andes, do not appear to have depressed the east coast to a perceptible submersion ; or rather, to what is more than fully replaced by the deposits of the vast and numerous rivers which intersect the whole surface. It is, moreover, stayed by the mountain systems of Brazil, Guyana, and Venezuela ; from whence, and from the basins at the foot of the Quindiu Cordillera, and the Pacaraima mountains, have been effected man^ entire discharges of elevated lakes, such as the Amucu and Savanhas of Dutch Guyana, while the swamps of the Parana, and the lagoons on the coast, remain un- changed. But at the northern extremity of South America, where the Andes present an interruption in the direct chain, a branch turning eastward, and then to the north, shows a connection from volcanic Trinidad, through the West Indian Islands, till the mountain character, but not the volcanic connection, is lost in the island of Cuba. All this enormous surface, from Bar- badoes to Vera Cruz, forming the two distinct basins of the Caribbean Sea and Gulf of Mexico, present many indications of a violent disruption belonging to the pre- sent geological superficies of the earth, and perhaps not remote in date from the submersion of Atlantis on the African coast. A series of volcanic craters, still in violent ignition, may have worked on the single moun- tain ridge, of no great breadth of base, pressed by * In most volcanic upheavings, there follows a subsi- dence, nature endeavouring to return to its anterior equi- librium ; but the result is rarely down to the former level. THE HUMAN SPECIES. 87 the unceasing action of the tropical current, labouring in a gyration, which impels the Atlantic Sea, on the north of the equator, and strengthened by the trade wind, broke through the mountain barrier directly opposed to it, perhaps not unaided by the collapsing of the submarine galleries, or struck by some great sea wave, rushing from the African or from the Azorean regions, under the impulse of a mighty earthquake. On examining the Windward Islands, the Grenadines, between St. Vincent's and Grenada, point out where the force of the current was most violent ; and the rocky hills, from Tobago to beyond Curacoa, almost always perpendicular on the north, and sloping to the south, attest its continuity through the Carribbean Sea. WEST INDIES. THE Windward Islands are, in this view, only the remains of a vast mountain chain, still impeding the currents, sufficiently to produce a very considerable difference in the sea levels between their east and west coasts, or, as they are obviously checked, according to their respective localities. Thus, in the port of Havannah, the sea is thirty-six feet lower than at the north side of Guadaloupe, according to the observations of Jonnes, compared with those of Humboldt and F. de Bellevue. If the great current were not restrained by the islands, and by the coast of Yucatan turned into the Florida Strait, the sea level at the isthmus of 88 NATURAI HISTORY OF Panama, now by some asserted to be twenty-four feet lower than the Pacific, and by others to be equal in elevation, or differing only as the tides on either side may be at full, would rise perhaps sufficiently to sepa- rate the two great portions of America. Here, then, we have a not improbable diluvian event in the western portion of the world, sufficient to account for all the traditions locally current — in the supposition, that the progenitors of the present population were already in part upon the spot. Some authors have assumed the American cataclysm to be the same as the Atlantic; but what is more evident, is the volcanic agency in both, and the ignited galleries passing be- neath the ocean, with spiracula in the western African islands, and the Azores completing the electrical circle on this side, as the Kamstchatka volcanoes and the Caroline and Japanese effect xm the other. THE HUMAN SPECIES. NORTH AMERICA. NORTH AMERICA having fhe rocky mountain portion of the Cordilleras for central watershed, although it is less disturbed by volcanic convulsion, in proportion as the ridge is further removed from the sea, and has not dis- charged a great proportion of the inland lakes that weigh upon the eastern plane of its surface, is never- theless not so free of igneous agency as to escape the West Indian ramification, which passes through the Floridas and South Carolina, to the plain of the Mississippi, where earthquakes left permanent tokens of their force in 1811. Over a considerable part of the eastern side of the great mountain ridge, more parti- cularly where ancient lakes have been converted into morasses, or have been filled by alluvials, organic re- mains of above thirty species of mammals, of the same orders and genera, in some cases of the same species have been discovered, demonstrating their existence in a contemporary era with those of the old Continent, and under similar conditions. But their period of du- ration in the New World may have been prolonged to dates of a subsequent time, since the Pachyderms of the United States, as well as those of the Pampas of Brazil are much more perfect; and, in many cases, possess characters ascribed to bones in a recent state. Alligators and crocodiles, moreover, continue to exist 90 NATULAL HISTOPwY OB» in latitudes where they endure a winter state of tor- pidity beneath ice, as an evidence that the great Sau- rians in that region have not yet entirely worked out their mission ; whereas, on the old continent, they had ceased to exist in high latitudes, long before the extinc- tion of the great Ungulata. The vast extent of sandy alluvial territory, from the Gulf of Mexico to the sum- mit of Long Island, appears as if it were a late deposit, in part debris of the Mexican and Carribbean portions of the continent, carried north, and thrown off when the gulf stream was formed. At the mouth of the Mississippi, the sea, of small depth along the whole coast, continues to recede before the delta of the river ; and the Florida and Carolina shores northward, form a series of lagoons on the ocean side. The stream rushes onwards in a north-east direction, and with a gradually decreasing velocity and temperature (though both are still very perceptible off New York), until it is finally neutralized at Nantucket, and the last particles of deposit suspended in it are precipitated to form the banks of Newfoundland. A continent torn asunder and washed away, alone could furnish the immense alluvial surface and submarine banks here noticed. The rivers of the United States and Canada, are not of a nature to have added more than feeble deltas, such as that of the Hudson at Sandyhook. Great changes are commemo- rated by the Indians in their mythological and legen- dary tales, both in the direction of the tides and in ancient accumulations of ice. * * See Appendix. THE. HUM AN SPECIES. 91 THE PACIFIC. THE Pacific and South Seas are likewise replete with evidence of great geographical mutations ; some have already been noticed, and the active progress of coral reefs proves the vast proportion of space beneath the waves, either still sinking lower, or again tin a re- ascending state. Volcanic cones, far from continents, like flaming beacons at sea, towards the South Pole, as Hecla is in the north, may be elaborating elements for future geogonies, or heave up regions now sunken, on the southern side of the equator, more particularly where a peculiar zoology, living and fossil, appears to point out that one existed at an anterior period ; and, by the evidence of the great Struthionidae, such as Dinornis, only recently extinct, that animals of such bulk were not originally confined to islands not larger than New Zealand ; which, moreover, is replete with craters nearly all dormant. THE foregoing statements have been submitted, "in this place, somewhat more at length than the nature of the present volume would seem to warrant ; but, that we apprehend, no view of the primeval history of Man can be complete, without reference to the conditions of existence which obtained in the first more calamitous 92 NATURAL HISTORY OF ages of his presence on earth. Though particular points in the changes here alluded to may be doubted or de- nied, still sufficient will remain to substantiate the influence they must have exercised upon human distri- bution, upon man's earliest wanderings ; and they will finally establish, we think, the fact of his coexistence with the latter period of the great Pachydermous era. We have, in fact, both sacred and profane authority for diluvian convulsions of great magnitude, when the earth was inhabited by human families, in quarters very distant from each other, and when many genera of, animals may have perished. If, in the opinion of geo- logists, more than due importance has been ascribed to the action of volcanoes, the answer is, that the violence of subterrene fires was unquestionably much greater, and its presence much more generally manifested than in succeeding ages ; since it can be shown, that scarcely one fortieth of existing craters is now in activity, 01 about one hundred in four thousand ; and yet, that there are still about two thousand eruptions in a century, or about twenty per annum ; moreover, Iceland offers a comparatively recent example to what extent a vol- canic eruption may ruin a great region of fertile country. Since this was written, another devastation has taken place in the same island. THE HUMAN SPECIES. 93 BONES OF MAN AMONG OEGANIC REMAINS, FOR the further illustration of this important question, it is requisite to examine whether the organic remains of extinct animals, found in the soil, and chiefly in limestone caverns and clefts of rock, are accompanied by human remains, bearing similar characters of anti- quity. Although, as yet, few systematic researches on this head have been made, even in Europe, and it is likely, that in many bone deposits, no human exuviss have been noticed, still, a sufficient number of instances attest to the fact, and leave the question open, only on the ground, that they were accidental cases, not belong- ing to the same period.* Donati, Germer, Rasou- mouski, and Guetard, maintained, that human bones had been found, intermixed with those of lost species of * Baron Cuvier, in the last conversation we had with him on this subject Cm 1824), admitted, that although the human fragments discovered at Cette, near Monaco, and in caves of the Appenines, might be more recent, the opinions, then in vogue, would require considerable modification. 94 NATURAL HISTORY OF mammiferae, in several places : they had been detected in England,* in caves and fissures, enumerated by Professor Buckland; they were found at Meissen in Saxony, and at Durford in France, by M. Firmas. A fossilized skeleton, found in the schist rock, when exca- vating the fortifications of Quebec, in part preserved in the museum, at the seminary, excited no attention ; and the well-known Guadaloupe skeletons, one of which is now in the British Museum, had been pronounced recent upon hypothetical reasoning. Those discovered by M. Schmerling, in the Liege caverns, were similarly disposed of; and the reports of Dr. Lund, residing at Lagoa Santa, in Brazil, respecting partially petrified human bones, found by him in the interior of the country, and represented to have been in the same condition with those of numerous animals now extinct, which accompanied them, attracted no more than incre- dulous attention, although they were represented to have belonged to that singular flat-headed form of man which will be noticed in the sequel, t But the fact of juxtaposition of the bones of extinct mammals and of man, recur so often, that some may be mentioned more in detail, thus : — In the caverns of Bize (department of the Aude), in France, human * At Kirkby, in Yorkshire, in 1786, in the fissures o" a limestone quarry. t Dr. Lund lias since discovered another deposit of fos- silized bones, in the province of Minas Geraes, along with several entire human skeletons. He enumerates, in the same deposit, forty-four species of extinct mammals, among which the horse occurs abundantly. THE HUMAN SPECIES. 95 bones and shreds of pottery were found in red clay, mixed with the debris of extinct mammalia, among which were recognised those of Ursus arctoides, Cervus anoglochis, a species equal in size to the common Stag ; Cervus reboulii, Capreolus tournalii, and Lefroii, &c. Soon after, the celebrated Martin de Serres, examined the caverns of Pondres and Souvignargues, and de- tected the remains of human skeletons and pottery, in the same deposits with bones of a lost species of Rhino- ceros (R. tichorinus), a small kind of Equus and a Stag (Cervus cataglochis). On the Rhine, skulls of gigantic Bisontes and Uri occurred, and Dr. Boue found human bones mixed with others of extinct species at Lahr. In the vicinity of Xanthen, beneath an altar-stone, the head of a Cervus giganteus (Irish Elk), and a quantity of ashes, were discovered. In 1833, human bones were found, together with those of Ursus speleus, U. angustidens, Hyaena, and a Feline not much less than a lion, Elephant, &c., were detected in caves near Liege, beneath a thick coat of stalagmite. About the same period, ;the Rev. Mr. M'Enery, collected from the caves of Torquay, human bones and flint knives, amongst a great variety of extinct species, such as Elephant, Rhinoceros, Ursus angustidens, Hyaena, &c., all from under a crust of stalagmite ; and reposing upon it was the head of a Wolf. Before that period, and repeatedly since, caves have 96 NATU^Afc HISTORY OF been opened by quarrymen, at Oreston, near Plymouth, several of which had bones, such as of Elephant, Rhino- ceros, Ox, Horse, Hyaena, and abundant coprolite, de- noting, that they had been the dens of Carnivora. Among them we detected the upper portion of a humerus of man, which was immediately thrown away upon being pointed out to the possessor ! * Other caverns exist in the Plymouth Hoe; and, no doubt, also be- neath the present level of the sea, for several teeth of Elephants have been washed up by the surf. Other deposits have been found at Yealm bridge, and most of the bones applied to mend the roads, before scientific men had notice of the discovery. Those at Kitley, we believe, have not been disturbed ; but eastward, human bones, with their usual accompaniments, have been collected from a cave near Brixham, by the Rev. Mr. Lyte and Mr. Bartlett. There were, in this deposit, shreds of pottery, like those of the caverns of Bize, in France; and it is said the locality bore evidence of smoke, which renders it probable, that it had once been inhabited by troglodyte savages. Fragments of pottery were discovered by Captain M'Adam, in the escarp- ment of calcareous breccia, at least 200 feet above the level of the sea, and about 100 beneath the vertex, five miles north of Monte Nuovo, near Naples; and not within the sphere of action, when that crater rose out of the earth. * This is not the only instance of the kind. Collectors, in the plenitude of ignorance and prepossession, determined that human bones were of no consequence. — See Appendix. THE HUMAN SPECIES. 97 VALE OF KOSTRITZ. AN instance more remarkably clear, because more care- fully observed, is that of the vale of Kostritz, near the river Elster, in Upper Saxony, where, about fifty years ago, gypsum quarries were opened, in a generally un- dulating country, .sufficiently elevated to preclude all supposition, that inundations can have had the least influence on the deposits, since the present geological arrangement, and without external evidence of the existence of any caverns. The soil is of the usual red loam, which, both in France and in England, incloses organic remains, and here, as in South Devon, covers the limestone formation of the whole country. Masses of stalactites occur beneath the surface ; and, at the depth of twenty feet, bones of large land animals were discovered in the loam of the greater cavities. At Kos- tritz, in particular, the gypsum is intersected by caves and fissures in every direction, and connected with each other, but filled throughout with the red alluvial clay, containing, in clusters, bones of mammalia, and among them of man. They were first described, in a lucid manner, by Baron von Schlotheim, who summed up his account by saying : — " It is evident, that the human bones could not have been buried here, nor have fallen into fissures during battles in ancient times. The human bones are few, completely detached and isolated. Nor could they have been thus mutilated G 98 NATULAL HISTORY OF and lodged by any other accidental cause in more mo- dern times, inasmuch as they are always found with the other animal remains, under the same relations, not constituting connected skeletons, but gathered in various groups," &c. Beside those of man, of different periods of life, from infancy to mature age, the bones of Rhino- ceros, a great Feline, Hyaena, Horse, Ox, Deer, Hare, and Rabbit ; bones of an Owl were found ; and, since the paper of the Baron was published, portions of a small Elephant, of Elk and Reindeer ; facts, which, in this case as in others, confirm the coexistence of spe- cies in the present zoology, on the same area.* Of man, fragments are in the possession of the Prince of Reuss, Baron von Schlotheim, Dr. Schotte, and other individuals residing near the spot ; and Mr. Fairholme, who went purposely to Saxony, to convince himself of the facts, by careful examination of the locality, brought home specimens, which he presented to the British Museum. It appears, that all the bones are not precisely entombed within the caverns or the fissures, since a fragment of an arm, and a thigh-bone of a man, were dug out of the clay at eighteen feet of depth, and eight feet below two phalanges of a Rhinoceros. As the facts relating to the coexistence of human remains, with the bones of a mostly extinct mamma- logy can no longer be denied, it remains to be ascer- * Cuvier remarked the coexistence of Elk, in all respects appearing to be identical with the present, the Asiatic Ele- phant, and other tropical animals in the same deposits. THE HUMAN SPECIES. 99 tained, whether the explanations that have been offered, with a view of proving that they are of a more recent date, can be substantiated. Those found in the clefts of lime rock in England (1787), were reburied or thrown on the public road, without further notice. The late Rev. Mr. M'Enery disposed of those he found without examination ; and, as it appears to us, his replies to our interrogations, and his letter, after- wards published, did not exactly coincide, since there was some disparity in the bones not being all found above the stalagmite, but partly below. The criterion for pronouncing on the age of vertebrata remains, we believe, rests solely, beside the circumstances of loca- tion, upon the absence or presence of animal matter in them ; in the first case, a bone sticks to the tongue, in the second, it is not adhesive. No series of experi- ments elaborately made, so far as we know, has yet determined to what extent the criterion can be trusted. Mr. Franklin Bellamy, with his usual patient caution, submitted a portion of bone from the Yealm Bridge Cave, weighing one drachm ; and also a piece of bone, of the same weight, taken from one by the road side, that might have been exposed for many months ; each was placed in a separate glass vessel, containing diluted muriatic acid. As soon as the fossil bone was im- mersed, a violent action commenced to disengage car- bonic acid; gradual corrosion, or removal of earthy matter succeeded, and, in the space of seven hours, the bone was reduced to a spongy flocculent mass, which having become lighter than the fluid, rose to the 100 NATURAL HISTORY OF surface in the shape of a mere pellicle: this being extracted, weighed eleven grains. In the other vessel, a quiet and gradual escape of gas took place. In the space of seven hours, the earthy matter had been ex- tracted to one-half of the depth of the piece ; and, after the process was complete, it remained at the bot- tom, and retained the original form of the immersed fragment. It was fibrous, soft, highly flexible, and elastic, and weighed eighteen grains. By adding sul- phuric acid to the liquor, after removing the masses of animal matter from both vessels, sulphate of lime was obtained ; and, when weighed, they were found to cor- respond very nearly. The fastidious caution of Mr. Bellamy did not suffer him to regard this experiment as conducted with the greatest nicety. At our request, he submitted a metatarsal bone of Hyaena, from the same cavern, to immersion in one-sixth of muriatic acid to five-sixth's of water ; but, in this case, after the earthy matter was thrown off, the animal substance remained so abundant, that the bone retains its com- plete form, is only translucent, and remains at the bottom of the liquor, as if it were a recent specimen, of which it preserves all the. characters. Pieces of human skull, from a sub-Appennine cavern, in Tuscany, probably not less than twenty-five or thirty centuries old, appeared thoroughly fossilized, or rather entirely deprived of animal juices, and in a chalky . state. On examination, in proper chemical tests, by Dr. Armstrong of the Royal Naval Hospital at Ply- mouth, and by Mr. Oxland chemist, both gentlemen THE HUMAN SPECIES. 101 came to conclusions, which did not invalidate Mr. Bel- lamy's investigation, though they presented a smaller quantity of gelatine or animal matter than was obtain- ed from the bones above mentioned. Human bones, from the Brixham Cavern, were said to be recent, though they appeared to us as if the extremities had been gnawed, and marks of teeth were traceable at the sides. Not far from the cave where these remains were found, there was dug out of the sand, a thoroughly fossilized head of a deer (Rangifer ?), within a few feet of a humerus of some great feline, not less than a Panther, but having all the appearance and colour of a recent bone. Great dissimilarity exists in the condi- tions of the bones of extinct mammals, undoubtedly arising in part from their relative ages, but still more from the localities where they are found deposited. Those of Megatherium, often discovered on the surface of the Pampas of Brazil, necessarily differ from bones located in clefts of limestone rocks in the same country ; again, there is a change between these and the Masto- dons of the clayey bone licks of North America and gravels of England ; and, still more, between those of the Asiatic Mammoths, which are so perfectly fresh, that bears have devoured the flesh after many ages of preservation in ice or frozen earth. The bones found in Gibraltar breccia, are not in the same condition as those dug out of the red loam or clay beneath stalag- mites. They are dissimilar even in the same caves, and therefore we may infer, that the criterion whereby their age is to be determined is exceedingly question- 102 NATURAL HISTORY OF able, and consequently, that human bones found among them, and under similar conditions, should not be made exceptions upon hypothetical assumptions, but treated similarly with those around them. No new theory of guesses should be admitted for every recurring case. With regard to the pretence, that they may have dropped into the caves, it is to be observed, that few of these receptacles have been found to have perceptible openings, excepting such as have been accidentally made in later times ; besides, no accident could place them under the stalagmite subsequent to its formation. When recourse was had, to the supposition, that after the ossiferous formation was completed, either by deposits caused by floods, by the gradual accumulation produced through the intervention of resident carnivora, or in any other way, they were buried in the caves ; without considering that savages, who, as the presence of flint knives proves, could with such implements hardly break through the dense stalagmite crust, and, from their nature, would scarcely be willing to effect a passage through what must have been viewed by them as solid rock ; when, within the distance of a few yards, they would bury a relative, worthy the trouble, with ease, in the common soil.* If, in truth, the human bones found among the others had been placed in those recep- tacles by the hand of man, there would be tokens of * To a comparatively late age, when tools were not want- ing, human bones are found deposited very near or on the surface, not buried, but covered with heaps of stones or earth, forming cairns or barrows. THE HUMAtf SPECIES. 103 human care ; they would be found connected, and the skulls, by far the hardest bone, and longest preserved, would not be wanting, as they generally are ; nor, in that case, would the human remains be deprived of animal juices, exactly in the same condition as those in the bones of extinct species ; that is, varying accord- ing to circumstances, as they occur in both. With re- gard to the evidence attempted to be drawn in support of the theory, that the human remains are more recent, because fragments of pottery have been found with them ; and, in one case, that the cavern indicated the effect of smoke, it is surely unnecessary to remark, that savages are still human beings, who make use of fire and of earthenware, particularly in cold and temperate climates, provided they are not nomads ; therefore, that the presence of human bones indicate the exis- tence of both fire and culinary utensils. Cuvier, more profound and more cautious, simply replied, " pas encore," when he was asked whether human bones proved to be coeval with those of extinct mammalia, had yet been discovered. This was in 1824.* * In this, as in other cases, Cuvier made it a rule, to answer only for his own personal observation; and the human skulls, found in the Appennines, he considered as demanding further research. — See Appendix. 104 NATURAL HISTORY OF TRADITIONS RESPECTING EXTINCT SPECIES. THOUGH the remains of Mastodon angustidens, found on an elevated site of Peru, of Toxodon, Macrau- chenia, and Mylodon, may, in America, point to a more remote antiquity ; the bones of Megatherium, in Brazil, are on or near the surface, in a recent state, and in the same condition as those of horse, often accompany- ing them, whose bones are, nevertheless, accepted as belonging to an extinct species ; now, could they have resisted disintegration during four or five thousand years, considering both of these to have lain exposed to, or at least within the influence of a tropical sun, and the periodical rains ? Yet they occur often on the surface, and the bones of the pelvis have been used for tempo- rary fire places, by the aborigines, wandering on the Pampas, beyond the memory of man. In North America, although such remains as are now usually discovered have lain sunken in clay or mud, deposited by former lakes, the fact is not invariable ; and exclu- sive of Dr. Lund's discoveries in Brazil, there are native legends, which indicate traditional knowledge of more than one species. Such is that of the great Elk or Buffalo, which, besides its enormous horns, had an arm protruding from its shoulder, with a hand at the extremity (a proboscis). Another, the Tagesho, or Yagesho, was a giant Bear, long bodied, broad down THE HUMAN SPECIES. 105 the shoulders, thin and narrow about the hind quar- ters, with a large head, powerful teeth, short and thick legs, paws with very long claws, body almost destitute of hair, except about the hind legs ; and therefore it was called " the Naked Bear." Further details are furnished by the Indians, which, allowing for inade- quate terminology, incorrectness in tradition and trans- lation from the native dialects to English, leaves a surprisingly applicable picture to a species of Mega- theridce, perhaps the Jeffersonian megalonyx. The colossal Elk, another name for the Mastodon, or Pere aux Bceufs, points out, that with designations of exist- ing species, the Indians describe extinct animals with a precision, which, in the state of their information, nothing but traditionary recollection of their real struc- ture could have furnished. We remember seeing, in the United States, a rib, supposed to have belonged to a fossil ungulate species, which bore undeniable marks of a wound, apparently given by some sharp instru- ment of human invention. Tradition, in the East Indies, similarly mentions the Aula or Auloc, Elephant-horse, a solid ungulated proboscidean, supposed to be figured in Kindersley's specimens of Hindoo literature, where the Macaira, represented in Budhu zodiacs, is again seen beneath the monster horse ; and, still more singularly, bears the same form in a Peruvian bas-relief, always resem- bling the presumed figure of Dinotherium giganteum, or rather, with the characters of an aquatic probosci- dean. 106 NATUP iL HISTORY OF The Uri and Bisontes of the Hercynian Forest have disappeared, and the Machlis of Csesar, if it was iden- tical with the Sech and Schelch of the middle ages, and the same as the Irish Elk, by Breton bards trans- muted into the Questing beast of romance, was a real existing species, so late as the eighth century, and per- haps even to the fifteenth ; it is nevertheless an extinct animal, and its bones are found under circumstances similar to the Megatherium of America, and nearly in the same chemical condition. Next, we have the exuviae of existing species, exclusive of horse, beaver, &c. ; the Elk is not unfrequently found among those of extinct animals, in the same regions where that ruminant now resides ; and we ask, by what theory, compatible with the sentence pronounced upon otners, these are to be disposed of? THE HUMAN SPECIES. 107 HUMAN OSSUARIES, WITH BONES OF EXTINCT ANIMALS. Now, the inference which we desire at present to draw from the foregoing facts, is solely, that the extinction of several lost species of the so called fossil mammalia was not entire, nor anterior to the first appearance of man on earth, nor even to his dispersion over the greater part of its surface ; and therefore, that the asserted alterations in the atmosphere, by the increase of carbonic acid gas, if it did not affect their vitality, must have been shared by man, and at most can have operated only by very slow degrees.* In order to show this probable coexisting state, other caverns may be mentioned, which were discovered in the calcareous mountains of Quercy, in the commune of Breigne, dis- trict of Pigeac, and department du Lot, nearly in the centre of Southern France. They occur chiefly on two mountains, on opposite sides of the valley, at an eleva- * Captain Mf Adam, in M. S. Lectures, gives the English coal formations alone to have returned : — Oxygen 7,706,700,800 cubic feet. Absorbed carbonic acid . . 3,128,530,809 cubic feet. But since the remains of birds, of marsupials, &c., are dis- covered, belonging to the eocene period, there does not seem to exist any reason for presuming a marked atmos- pheric difference could prevail, since the more perfect vertebrates were in being. 108 NATURAL HISTORY OF tion of more than 300 metres (nearly 1000 feet) above the river Sele, and at a locality which appears to be connected with circular and rectilinear fortifications, whereof the ruins bear a resemblance to what are com- monly called Cyclopean walls, such as occur in Asia Minor, Greece, and Italy. Here it is, that an unknown people actually did bury, or at least made ossuaries of the dead, at a period so remote, as in all probability to be anterior to the arrival of the historical Celtae, who were themselves colonists ere the Gauls established their power west of the Rhine. The people in ques- tion, though barbarian, was not a mere assemblage of savages. It was stationary, if we can trust the defen- sive structures to have been its work, and had social institutions, at a time when the rhinoceros and extinct reindeer had not departed. An obscure and remote tradition, pervading the present inhabitants, that among other localities, there existed caverns, on the right side of the river, replete with wondrous treasures ; an entrance into one was at length searched for, and in 1825, digging in a spot judged to be favourable, at the depth of three feet, the excavators found a human skeleton, and an iron tool of a forked shape. They continued to sink a shaft to the depth of 18 metres, about 56 English feet, until they encountered a stone barrier of human workmanship ; and having forced a passage, the workmen discovered three branches or natural galleries, and passed by one of them into the desired cavern. Instead of treasures, however, human bones were found in great quantities. They were THE HUMAN SPECIES. 109 mostly disposed in the crevices of the rock, with evident care, and others were pressed regularly into a cavity, and covered with a flat slab, surrounded by a circle of very clean white stones. By the precautions that had been taken to block up every entrance with walls of stone, and the success with which it had been performed (since the shaft by which an opening was forced did not reach the real entrance) ; the whole manifested that it had been a tribal necropolis, formed with great respect for the dead, at the same time that a strong impression was created of its remote antiquity, from the circumstance of these human remains being accompanied by the head and three teeth of a rhino- ceros, antlers of a small species of reindeer, the head of an extinct species of stag, the shoulder-blade of a very large bovine, and the canon bone of a horse. In this case, we hear of no stalagmite, no red loam ; there is no mention of hyaenas or other carnivorous animals, and only a few remains of herbivora, which may have been deposited in the human ossuary, because they had served for sacrificial purposes in honour of the dead. It is not probable, if they had been found in the loca- lity, when cleared for a sacred purpose, ihat there would not have been many more, and in company with debris of carnassiers, or that they would not, in that case, have been removed without exception. If the ossuary was formed by progenitors of Basque, Eus- carra, or Cantabrian tribes (the most ancient marine Hyperboreans of the Ouralian or Finnic stock in Wes- tern Europe), the presence of sacrificial heads and NATURAL HISTORY OF antlers, would call to mind a similar practice still in vogue, among the kindred pagan tribes in the Arctic regions, where elk and reindeer horns invariably deco- rate the tumuli of the dead, and would substantiate the inference, that the lost herbivoras here mentioned, in- cluding a rhinoceros, were still existing at a time when the people in question were already settled in Southern Europe. From the foregoing observations, we have no grounds for objecting to the coexistence of man with departed species, and we may naturally expect his debris to be- come more abundant, in proportion as the others are less numerous, and will contain an increasing number of the last extinguished, or of such as are still in being : — Ruminants, among which may be reckoned Urus, Bison, Elk, Reindeer, Sheep ; and Carnivora, more particularly Bears, Felinae, and wild Canidae, whereof the Wolf is among "the latest. We have adduced the foregoing facts and inferences, not so much to establish the implied dependence that should be placed upon them singly, but as inducements for the general reader to bear them in mind as a whole, without which the conditions of human life, in a primeval state, such as man's distribution and earliest migrations, cannot be fairly reviewed. Thus much we have deemed necessary, foregoing, at the same time, to search beyond the later age of the great pachyder- mous distribution. In a mental physiological retrospect, we might per- THE HUMAN SPECIES. 1 * * haps, fancifully, but not without truth, cast a pictorial glance over the aspect of organic nature, as it may have been presented to the light of day in the bright- ness of youthful creation, with verdant meads and dense forests, composed of botanical families still ex- tant, abounding in Palms of different genera, in species of giant Arundinacea and Marsh Plants, at this day flourishing in warm regions. Imagination might be- hold remaining Pachyderms on the borders of lakes ; huge ruminants swarming on the plains ; Saurians not as yet reduced in location, and numbers basking or floundering on the banks of the waters ; Hyaenas by the borders of the wood, or glaring from opening caverns ; and, perhaps, a distant solitary column of white smoke ascending from the forest, the certain indication of Man's presence, as yet humble, and in awe of the brute monarchs around him ; possessing no weapons beyond a club, nor a tool beyond a flint knife ; timid on earth, because he is still unacquainted with his own rising superiority over other animated beings, though they be more powerful than himself; and igno- rant of his destiny to survive their duration of exis- tence, though he may already have witnessed convul- sions, which, while they tend to benefit him, and set bounds to the rest, are yet causes of apprehension, because he cannot wholly escape their operation. Whether such a condition of life, one that may be seen at the present time in those regions and latitudes, where the active minded European has not yet over- turned the old innate habits of savage life. Whether 112 such an existence dates so far back as 6000 years, or 7322, according to Professor Wallace, or does not amount to forty-two centuries, is not, in our view, a question of importance; since, between the dates of Man's creation and the present, there is abundant proof, not only of one general diluvian catastrophe, but also of many others more or less important ; and these alone, in a great measure, are sufficient cause for the dispersion of Man to all the points of the earth where he is found to reside, and in many places where the marks of his presence evidently date back to a very remote period. THE HUMAN SPECIES. EXISTENCE OF MAN AS A GENUS, OE AS A SINGLE SPECIES, ALTHOUGH the existence of Man upon the face of the earth, to a very remote period, cannot be denied, it still remains a question in systematic zoology, whether mankind is wholly derived from a single species, divided by strongly marked varieties, or sprung successively or simultaneously from a genus, having no less than three distinct species, synchronising in their creation, or pro- duced by the hand of nature at different epochs, each adapted to the peculiar conditions of its period, and all endowed with the power of intermixing and repro- ducing filiations, up to a certain extent, in harmony with the intermediate locations, which circumstances, soil, climate, and food necessitate. Of these questions, the first is assumed to be answered in the affirmative, notwithstanding the many difficulties which surround it ; and a very recent author, of undoubted ability, has gone so far as to conclude, that man necessarily consti- tutes but one single species. The inference, at first sight, appears to repose almost wholly upon authority without physiological assent, excepting where physio- H Ill NATURAI HISTOKY OF logy itself rests again upon an assumed conclusion. Now, with regard to the second proposition, notwith- standing an unnecessary multiplication of species suc- cessively adopted by other philosophical physiologists, it cannot be denied, that by their hypothesis, many phenomena, most difficult of explanation, are solved in a -comparatively natural way, and so far deserve more implicit confidence. For the first, scientifically taken, reposes mainly upon the maxim in natural history, which declares, " That the faculty of procreating a fertile offspring, constitutes identity of species, and that all differences of structure and external appear- ance, compatible therewith, are solely the effects re- sulting from variety of climate, food, or accident; consequently, are forms of mere varieties, or of races of one common species /* The second, on the contrary, while admitting the minor distinctions, as the effects of local causes, regards the structural, taken together with the moral and intellectual characters, as indications of a specific nature not referrible to such causes, albeit the species remain prolific by inter-union, which, ac- cording to them, are the source of varieties and inter- mediate races. In systematic zoological definitions, the first may be regarded as sufficiently true, for general purposes of classification ; but, physiologically, it cannot be assumed as positively correct, since there are notable exceptions, most probably in all the classes of the animal kingdom, * Buffon and Cuvier have made their definitions some- what more complicated; but essentially the same. THE HUMAN SPECIES. 115 from the lowest up to the most complicated ; and there- fore, when applied to mankind, it is of little weight, since even the exceptional law, assumed by the writer who regards the human races as necessarily of one species only, is more likely to operate in the usual generical form of animated beings, than by acting in- versely, granting to one specified type, the attributes that belong, in all other instances, to a genus ; and so far supporting his own doctrine of a progressive crea- tion. In physics, dogmas are admissible only so long as they are not disproved. Since the fissiparous pro- pagation of some animals is established, " Omne animal ex ovo" is no longer asserted to be an universal maxim, nor that all parturition of mammalia is derived wholly from uterine gestation ; for, without referring to classes of a lower organization, fertile offspring is obtained among several genera of brute mammals, from the union of two or more so called distinct species ; or the definition of that word is several ways incorrect. Frederic Cuvier, sensible of the fallacy embodied in the maxim above quoted, endeavoured to prop it up by an argument drawn from the asserted gradual decrease of prolific power, in a breed of hybrids, obtained from the union of a wolf and dog, reared by Buffon, an experiment often referred to, but not carried out with the care and perseverance required to render it of substantial weight. We have, for example, among carnassiers, the wolf, dhole, chakal, and dog ; that is, all the diurnal canidse, if the dogma were true, would form only one species I. 116 NATURAL HISTORY OF diversified merely by the effects of chance, food, and climate, though all of them reside together in the same regions, such as India, and maintain their distinctions ; or the species Canis alone, as now classified, must offer the union of three or more, aboriginally different. This is plainly indicated by the great inequality in the num- ber of mammas ; for they are not always in pairs, and vary from one individual to another, from five and six to seven, eight, nine, and ten.* No condition of exis- tence that we know of, can produce such an anatomical irregularity, without a presumption, that it arises from the intermixture of different types ; and the opinion is further borne out, by other structural differences in dogs, strictly so called, amounting to a greater diver- sity of forms than there are between that species and the wolf, dhole, or chakal ; differences which maintain themselves, with very slight modifications, in the ex- treme climates, whither Man has conveyed the various races, large or small, and amounting, in some cases, to greater hindrance to the continuation of so called varieties, than are recorded to have obstructed the experiment between wolf and dog already noticed. The Felidce offer another instance of blending two or more species without apparent difficulty. The breeds of the domestic cats produce with the wild species of * On the property of a relative, there was lately a bitch, of the Spanish mastiff breed, twenty-nine inches at the shoulder, who brought forth twelve puppies at one birth ; indicating even a greater disturbance in the original spe- cies, and proving, that mastiffs are by no means so sterile as is pretended. THE HUMAN SPECIES. 117 the Himalaya mountains, the booted of Egypt (Fehs maniculata), the wild Indian (Felis Pennantii), and the original tortoise shell — all regarded as distinct ; yet remaining prolific, with but small appearance of being varieties. * Among Pachyderms, the horse, and still more evi- dently, the domestic hog, by the great irregularity in the vertebral column, &c., indicates a plural origin. Again, in Ruminantia, goats and sheep intermix, producing permanently fertile hybrids ; although the genus Ovis, exclusive of the Argalis, offers several species in a wild state, which have themselves every appearance of being the types of different domestic races, that have been blended into common sheep after they had been separately subjugated. Such are the Sha, a species of Little Thibet ; the Koch of the Sulei- many range, having only five molars ; the Persian Sheep of Gmelin ; and the bearded or Kebsch of Africa, which is sufficiently aberrant to have been placed in a subgenus, denominated Ammotragus.} Another ex- ample may be pointed out in the promiscuous breeding of common cattle with Zebu (Bos Gibbosus, a species * There is, besides, the brown black-footed cat of north- eastern Russia, and others that may claim a distinct origin ; but whether the Jaguar of South America, and the black variety (Jaguarete) forming a common cross-breed with the Leopard of the old continent in our itinerant menageries, be successively prolific, is not satisfactorily determined, though the hybrids so obtained, are asserted to be both stronger and healthier than a genuine breed. t I believe, by Mr. Blyth, who first distinguished several of the above species. 118 NATURAL HISTORY OF born with two teeth already protruded) ; with the Gayal, (Bos Gayceus) ; and with the grunting ox (Bos Pce- phagus). Finally, let one more instance be named from among the Rodentia, where the hare and rabbit of Europe, and the variable hare of America, produce a continued progeny ; more particularly when the hybrids are again crossed with one or other of the pure species — a condition likewise the case with all the foregoing. Those who, in the eagerness of defending a dogma, have erroneously assumed, that the conditions of hy- bridism, among animals in a state of nature, were well understood, have likewise asserted, that they were con- fined to domesticated animals, or at most, to cases where one of the parents was domesticated ; and there- fore, in all cases, formed vitiated, degraded, and excep- tional instances, should likewise have reflected, when the question is raised respecting the specific distinctions of Man, that if his influence be thus powerful upon the brute creation, it should not be denied to be still more efficient between the species of his own genus, where the degradations inflicted by slavery, and the corrup- tion of so many varied institutions, have an empire independent of climate and food in much more durable operation. Enough, we deem, has been said, to satisfy the reader of the exceptional character of the definition above quoted, and therefore, that it is not one to be assumed, with confidence, on the question of the typical forms of Man. THE HUMAN SPECIES. 119 Reverting to Buffon's experiment of breeding be- tween the wolf and dog, intended by him more with a view to ascertain the reality of their common origin, or specifical identity, and by Frederick Cuvier pointed out as solved, because, according to his view, it established an increasing sterility in the successive generations, we have already stated, that neither sufficient care nor con- tinuity was given to the experiment ; and that one single pair, of homogeneous origin, continuing propa- gation through successive offspring, without a single cross of renovating blood, would, in all probability, end in similar sterility, or at least in sensible degradation. Hence it remains to be proved, whether it would not hold equally between two such dissimilar forms of Man, as a typical African negro and an European, conducted upon the same principle, of admitting no intermixture of a single collateral.* We doubt, exceedingly, if a mulatto family does, or could exist, in any part of the tropics, continued to a fourth generation, from one stock : perhaps there is not even one of five genera- tions of positive mulattoes (hybrids in the first degree), from different parents, but that all actually require, for continuity at least, a long previous succession of foreign influences of white or negro, mestise, quartroon, sambo, native Indian, or Malay blood, before the sinew * It is even pretended, by many white colonists, that no negro woman, having born a mulatto child, is ever after the mother of a black ! She becomes, they say, in that respect, sterile. But surely this must be very doubtful, although our researches do not invalidate the assertion. 120 NATURA ^ HISTORY OF and substance of a durable intermediate race can be reared. When the case is referred to Mongolic blood, placed in similar circumstances, or when merely kept approach- ing to equal proportions with that of a Caucasian or Ethiopian stock, or even with any very aberrant, the effect would be the same. If the moral and instinc- tive impulses of the beardless stock be taken into account, they will be found to operate with a singularly repulsive tendency. Where the two types come in contact, it produces war, ever aiming, on the Mongolic side, at extermination, and in peace striving at an absolute exclusion of all intercourse with races typically distinct. In the wildest conquering inundations, lust itself obeying its impulses only by a kind of necessity ; myriads of slaves carried off and embodied, still pro- duce only a very gradual influence upon the normalisms of the typical form, and passing into absorption by certain external appearances, with very faint steps. * War and slavery seem to have been, and still are, the great elements, perhaps the only direct agents, to produce amalgamation of the typical stocks, without which no permanent progress in the path of true civilization is made. From war has resulted the inter- mediate races of man, in the regions where the typical * This aversion to interunion with the bearded races is a result of experience, proving the superior activity of those who have sprung from such races, and become conquerors. Oenghiz, Timur, and Nadir Shah, were directly, or in their ancestry, descended from Caucasian mothers; and hence, also the jealous exclusion of European women from China. THE HUMAN SPECIES. 121 species overlapped, strove for possession, and were forced to withdraw or to submit to absorption. Periods of repose seem even to be requisite before new in- fluences are efficient ; and thus, by degrees, commences that state of amalgamation which the necessities of the case, and the conditions already mentioned, prescribe to generate secondary forms of Man, by combinations, where new habits, new dialects, new articles of food, together with at least change of climate in one of the constituents, had their legitimate sphere of action. It is thus, where the foreign influence of infusion is mo- dified by a change of climate, that mixed races spring up and have a continuous duration beyond the pale of their primitive centres of existence, until the ground is contested by the purer races, when they fall a prey to the victors, are exterminated, absorbed, or perish by a kind of decreasing vitality, or are entirely obli- terated.* The centres of existence of the three typical forms of man, are evidently — the intertropical region of Africa, for the woolly haired — the open elevated regions of north-eastern Asia for the beardless — and the moun- tain ranges towards the south and west for /the bearded Caucasian. But, with regard to the western hemis- phere, it may be asserted, that it is not a centre of any typical stock, since the primeval Flatheads have already * Yet this apparent obliteration must ever affect sub- sequent forms and mental conditions in the victors, which the physiologist ought to bear in mind, where known, or indicate when only suspected. 122 NATURAL HISTORY OF disappeared ; and though the partial population of the bearded form had been overwhelmed by the Mongolia, it is in turn now fast receding, and the woolly haired, brought in chiefly by modern navigation, it may be foreseen, will ultimately secure to itself a vast homo- geneous region, without other change in characters than slight intermixture, advancing education, and local circumstances, can effect. Although, on debatable ground, a race may be dis- lodged, evidence of their having had possession of it remains in the population of the more inaccessible moun- tains and forests ; and this fact is still oftener observable, when distinct races of the same type have contested the tenure of the soil. We see both these cases repeatedly exemplified in all the more isolated mountain systems, for the chains are guides to further progress. It is shown in the Neelgherries, the Crimea, the Karpa- thians, the Pyrenees, the Alps, the Atlas, and even in the group of Northern South America — all the resi- dence of very different tribes, driven to take refuge in them at various periods ; and a single ridge or valley often separating people totally distinct, in religion, language, and aspect : the conditions of their several states of existence, often produce a more certain and impressive history of the transactions in foregone ages, in a given country, than its best chronicles afford. Thus, the temporary tenure of Caucasian tribes, the Kintomoey, Scythi, Yuchi, Yeta, and Sacae, are the overlapping nations in the northreast of the centre, and in north-western Asia, is proved by their insulation or THE HUMAN SPECIES. 123 expulsion by the Mongolia, to whom the whole expanse is the more genial ; while, for the same reason, this last named stock could not maintain its conquests in Europe, nor to the south of the central ridge in Asia. But the white and negro races of Africa readily intermix. The woolly haired form has there no pre- tensions on the debatable land between them. The Caucasian might have assumed mastery beyond it, had not the force of nature interposed ; for this race does not and cannot multiply in the centre of negro exis- tence ; and in the warmer valleys of the intermediate spaces, such as that of the Nile, only a mixed Semitic stock possesses durability. It has been calculated, that since the introduction of the Mameluke power, not less than five millions of well-chosen colonists, of both sexes, from higher central Asia, have been introduced, not to wear out a life of slavery, but one of power and rule, yet no fourth generation of this stock can any where be shown in Egypt, even with all the additional aid of Syrian and Persian females, to supply the defi- ciency.* The force of a true Negro expansion is felt coming from the centre of Africa. It presses upon the Uaftres, the Abyssinees, and the west coast of Nigritia. Morocco is already ruled by black sovereigns; and the antique semi-Caucasian tribes of the north part have greatly diminished. * The same result is asserted to be observed on the banks of the Ganges; though, in the South Sea Islands and Australia, the bearded stock multiplies in itself, and with semi-Caucasian Malay races. 124 NATURAL HISTORY OF As it is with individual life, so families, tribes, and nations, most likely even races, pass away : in debat- able regions, their tenure is only provisional, until the typical form appears, when they are extinguished, or found to abandon all open territories not positively assigned them by nature, to make room for those to whom they are genial. This effect is, itself, a criterion of an abnormal origin, for a parent stock, a typical form of the present genus or species, perhaps with the sole exception of the now extinct Flatheads, is, we believe, indestructible and ineffaceable. No change of food or circumstances can sweep away the tropical woolly haired man ; no event, short of a general cata- clysis, can transfer his centre of existence to another ; nor can any known cause dislodge the beardless type from the primeval high north-eastern region of Asia and its icy shores. The white or bearded form, parti- cularly that section which has little or no admixture, and is therefore quite fair, can only live, not thrive, in the two extremes of temperature. It exists in them solely as a master race, and must be maintained therein by foreign influences ; and the intermediate regions, as we have seen, were in part yielded to the Mongolia on one side, and but temporarily obtained, by extermina- tion, from the woolly naired on tne other. . THE HUMAN SPECIES. 125 SPECIES OR TYPICAL FORMS OF MAN. WHETHER we take the three typical forms in the light of distinct species, or view them simply as varieties of one aboriginal pair, there appear, immediately, two others intermediate between them, possessing the modi- fied combination of characters of two of the foregoing, sufficiently remote from both to seem deserving, like- wise, the denomination of species, or at least of normal varieties, if it were not, that the same difficulty ob- trudes itself between every succeeding intermediate aberrance. Hence, from the time of Linnaeus, who first ventured to place Man in the class Mammalia, systematists have selected various diagnoses for sepa- rating the different types or varieties of the human family ; such as, the form of the skull, the facial angle, the character of the hair, and of the mucous membrane. But the skeleton and internal structure may not have been sufficiently examined, in all conditions of exis- tence. It does not appear, that a thorough research has yet been made in the successive cerebral appearances of the foetus, nor of the character the brain of infants exhibits, immediately after parturition, in each of the three typical forms. M. de Serres, indeed, has led the way, and already, according to him, most important discoveries have resulted from his investigations ; for, should the conditions of cerebral progress be more 126 NATTJRAI HISTORY OF complete at birth in the Caucasian type, as his dis- coveries indicate, and be successively lower in the Mongolic, and intermediate Malay and American, with the woolly haired least developed of all, it would follow, according to the apparently general law of progression in animated nature, that both, or at feast the last men- tioned, would be in the conditions which show a more ancient date of existence than the other, notwithstand- ing that both this and the Mongolic are so constituted, that the spark of mental development can be received by them through contact with the higher Caucasian innervation : thus appearing, in classified zoology, to constitute perhaps three species, originating, at different epochs, or simultaneously in separate regions, while by the faculty of fusion, with the last or Caucasian, im- parted to them, progression up to "intellectual equality would manifest essential unity, and render all alike responsible beings, according to the degree of their existing capabilities — for this must be the ultimate condition for which Man is created. Fanciful though these speculations may appear, they seem to confer more harmony upon the conflicting phenomena sur- rounding the question, than any other hypothesis that rests upon physiology, combined with geological data and known historical facts. * * The higher order of animals, according to the investi- gations of M. de Serres, passes successively through the state of inferior animals, as it were in transitu, adopting the characteristics that are permanently imprinted on those below them in the scale of organization. Thus, the brain of Man excels that of any other animal in complexity of THE HUMAN SPECIES. 127 How much remains still to be done, may be further instanced in the mental faculties, which have been even more neglected ; neither have they noticed religious organization and fullness of development. But this is only attained by gradual steps. At the earliest period that it is cognizable to the senses, it appears a simple fold of nervous matter, with difficulty distinguishable into three parts, and having a little tail-like prolongation, which indicates the spinal marrow. In this state it perfectly resembles tho brain of an adult fish ; thus assuming, in transitu, the form that is permanent in fish. Shortly after, the structure be- comes more complex, the parts more distinct, the spinal marrow better marked. It is now the brain of a reptile. The change continues by a singular motion. The corpora quadrigemina, which had hitherto appeared on the upper surface, now pass towards the lower ; the former is their permanent situation in fishes and reptiles, the latter in birds and mammalia. This is another step in the scale. The complication increases ; cavities or ventricles are formed, which do not exist in either fishes, reptiles, or birds. Curiously organized parts, such as the corpora striata, are added. It is now the brain of mammalia. Its last and final change is wanting, that which shall render it the brain of Man, in the structure of its full and human development. But although, in this progressive augmentation of organized parts, the full complement of the human brain is thus attained, the Caucasian form of Man has still other transi- tions to undergo, before the complete chef d'ceuvre of nature is perfected. Thus, the human brain successively assumes .the form of the Negroes, the Malays, the Americans, and the Mongolians, before it attains the Caucasian. Nay more, the face partakes of these alterations. One of the earliest points where ossification commences, is the lower jaw. This bane is therefore sooner completed than any other of the head, and acquires a predominance which it never loses in the Negro. During the soft pliant state of the bones of the skull, the oblong form which they naturally assume, approaches nearly the permanent shape of tho 123 NATURAL HISTORY OF and traditional opinions and practices, and the connec- tion they have with the external world, assuredly de- mand rigorous and dispassionate inquiry. In general, the leading character, somewhat arbitrarily chosen, is held up as singly sufficient and uncombined with others ; some of the most important points in the question remaining unnoticed ; and sometimes the conclusions are drawn at variance with the systematic rules pre- scribed in zoology on all other occasions. No common concert is the result of this variety of systems ; and a great number of arbitrary divisions and causeless names are introduced — the proof how little zoologists are agreed in their views — while the main points are scarcely influential ; and more than justifiable stress is laid on coincidences of language, which, notwithstand- ing they have unquestionable weight, are not as yet sufficiently discriminated for the general acquiescence of linguists ; and should, moreover, be used with some regard to the occasional oblivion of a parent tongue, by the encroachment of another, brought in vogue by a conquering people.* American. At birth, the flattened face and broad smooth forehead of the infant; the position of the eyes, rather towards the sides of the head, and the widened space between, represent the Mongolian form, which, in the Caucasian, is not obliterated but by degrees, as the child advances to maturity. * We refer to such as the dialects of ancient Italy, Etruscan, &c., obliterated by the Roman Latin; the Cel- tiberian and Turdetan, by the Latin and Spanish ; the Syriac by Arabic ; Celtic by the Latin and French ; the Celtic of Britain by the Saxon and English ; the Pelhevi and Zend by Perso- Arabic ; the Mauritanian by the same ; THE HUMAN SPECIES. 129 All, however, appear to have taken but slight notice of numerous races of the several forms of Man, which have been entirely extinguished, and to have assumed, for incontrovertible, that the structural differences observable in nations are solely the result of changes of climate, food, and other conditions of existence, which a careful attention to history does not confirm ; and which, if they operated at all, must be a result of the long continued action of the same causes upon the portions of mankind placed within the sphere of their operation ; such as arid or moist tropical heat ; arctic cold ; open mountain ridges, or low swampy forests : ye't, there is so little certainty, that such causes do or would effect the modifications ascribed to them, that it is not even proved they influence the brute creation to any extent, except in clothing ; and the three normal forms of Man, in every region which is sufficiently genial to sustain the persisting duration of one of them, feel the effect but slightly ; and as there are only three who attain this typical standard, we have in them the foundation of that number being exclusively aboriginal. This inference is further supported by facts, which show, if not a succession of distinct creations of human and many more. Those who wish to view the abstract form of the classifications of Man, zoologically considered, will find an interesting article in the Edinburgh Journal of Physical Sciences, by William Macgillivray, fol. vol. i. ; and in the Animal Kingdom, commenced by Linnaeus Martin ; two works, which, it is to be regretted, were dis- continued from want of public support. I 130 NATURAL HISTORY OF forms, at least probabilities, that their different cha- racteristics are of a remoter date than the last great cataclysis of the earth's surface; for the admitted chronological data do not give a sufficient period of duration between that event and the oldest picture sculptures of Egypt, to sanction the transition from Caucasian bearded to the Negro woolly haired, or vice versa, as both appear on the monuments. In that case, the operation of the decided changes would have passed through all their main gradations in three or four centuries, without any subsequent perceptible addition in as many thousand years ; * or should the beardless stock, which never becomes intensely black, be regarded as intermediate, the difficulty is increased ; and it may be remarked in addition, that the first admis- sible appearance of this type, in historical records of the west, is incomparably more recent. Cuvier, and other eminent writers, viewed the typical forms of Man to have descended from different high mountain chains of the world after the deluge, and therefore dated them at least as old as that period. But if they were in * There are, besides, such facts as the perfection of style in building, in drawing, and in hieroglyphic intaglio sculp- ture, remarkable in the oldest monuments ; not surpassed, but even receding to inferior execution, in subsequent ages. A national multitude must have risen out of few parents — all the subordinate arts invented, and so far carried to per- fection, as to be available for scientific purposes, such as architecture, &c., in some cases exceeding our present capa- cities, or demanding the utmost ability in the moderns to equal. All this, without mentioning Etruria, Bactria, Assyria, India, and China. THE HUMAN SPECIES. 131 their characteristics the same before, by what force in nature did they suddenly, in a short time, change to their present distinctions, after that event ; or if they were clearly possessed of them, then the remoteness of the time renders all trust-worthy decision impossible, or favours, more than it contradicts, that the tropical conformation was the most general, and the Mongolic next, because both extremes of temperature are not incompatible with its vitality; and the bearded type last, the highest, the best endowed, and destined ulti- mately to elevate the others by its contact ; and iinally, supports the same facts in the location of species which are observed to exist in the distribution of animals and plants in particular regions, according to their nature and structure. Thus, reasoning merely from facts, the woolly haired type again bears tokens of greater anti- quity than either of the other, and it may have been of Australasian origin ; not necessarily black, for colour alone is of very secondary importance. Other distinc- tions of a specific character will be found, when those of the three forms are explicitly enumerated ; and thus far their separation as species might be claimed as established, but that there remain still other considera- tions which should not be overlooked, since they tend to an opposite conclusion. — (See Plate.) Among these, perhaps not one is more forcible than the fact, that the lowest form of the three is the most ready to amalgamate with the highest. Again, that both the beardless and woolly haired acquire the 132 NATURAL HISTORY OF Caucasian expression of beauty from a first intermixture, and very often both stature and form exceeding either type ; and, in the second generation, the eyes of Mon- goles become horizontal, the face oval. The crania of the Negro stock immediately expand in their hybrid offspring, and leave more durable impressions than when the order is reversed. Even from the moment either typical stock is itself in a position to be intel- lectually excited by education, it is progressive in development in succeeding generations. Here, then, at the point of most intense innervation, the spark of indefinite progress is alone excited, and communicated in power, precisely according to the quantity received. For the rest, gestation, puberty, and duration of life, exclusive of accidental causes, are the same; and in topographical location, though each is possessed of a centre of vitality, yet all have races and tribes scattered in certain directions through each other, and to vast distances, at the very first dawn of historical investiga- tion. This may be the cause why all nations acknow- ledge a great deluge, although they do not foresee a second ; but almost as universally expect a conflagra- tion. It is, however, true, that the obvious inference to be drawn from the foregoing remarks, does not amount to a demonstration, that mankind sprung from a single pair, or is of one species only, since there are numerous proofs, notwithstanding a permanent diver- gence, of the three types having been constantly in sufficient contact to learn great general traditions ; and the diluvian fact itself was of such magnitude, that it THE HUMAN SPECIES. 133 may have been actually witnessed by all. But then, the intention of an aboriginal unity of the species is at least so far indicated, by the circumstance of Man's typical stock, having all a direct tendency to pass upwards towards the highest endowed, rather than to a lower condition, or to remain stationary. However, these remarks appertain solely to the traditional, geographical, and historical considerations, leaving untouched the structural phenomena, which the physiologist must weigh and value according to their true importance, if so be, that the solution can thereby be effected, and bearing in mind how circum- scribed is our knowledge of the exceptional laws of nature. Without, therefore, coming to a peremptory conclu- sion in the present state of our knowledge, and having stated so far as space and our means permitted, the principal conditions of the questions at issue ; questions which are, after all, in a great measure speculative, and whereof the result can in no shape have weight, where the moral obligations of Man regard his inter- course with fellow Men ; let us now proceed, first, to take a view of extinct abnormal races of our species ; and then, after noticing generalities, offer a somewhat detailed account of the three great typical forms which constitute the human family. 134 NATURA^ HISTORY OF ABNOEMAL BACES OF MAN. GIANTS AND DWARFS. THERE were, in early antiquity, nations, tribes, and families, existing in nearly every part of the earth, whose origin and affinities appear so exceedingly ob- scure, that they have been transferred from physicu realities to poetical mythology ; and, under the name ^ of Titans, ^Eooras, Hastikarnas, Danaras, Gins, Deeves, Thyrsen, Dwarfs, Swergi, Elves, and Fairies, regarded as personifications of phenomena in nature, although the inverse may be assumed with more probability, taking the pretended creations of mere fancy to be, in their origin, derived from physical realities more or less distorted. Such are the Giant and Dwarf races of mythology, romance, and history, both sacred and pro- fane.* They occur in the traditions of most nations ; * The extent of Giant legends is shown, from their having no satisfactory interpretation, except in the Scythian (Gothic) mythology ; yet they are interwoven in all the earliest Greek mystical fables, without being intelligible to them. It seems as if there did exist, in Asia Minor, a par- ticular version on this subject — for it is not a Greek my thus which has served the Jewish fabricators of their pretended THE HUMAN SPECIES. 135 and in both hemispheres their physical existence has survived to within late ages ; provided, in considering the question, we reject wild impossibilities, and adopt, in their stead, the subdued impressions compatible with the sobriety of nature, reducing them to an admissible stature, and view them more by the brutal ferocity of their manners, coupled with superior physical powers, than as absolute monsters in size and energy. At a period when animal development and muscular strength alone gave pre-eminence, it causes no wonder that the possessors of those qualities should abuse them. They were the source of the first desires of conquest for do- minion's sake. They caused nations of more lofty structure, almost all arising among the nomad shep- herds of temperate latitudes — perhaps Shetae, Kheta, or tribes of milk-eating Scythae, to wander southward, and establish supremacies over weaker constituted people ; first as conquerors, next as a privileged body, and last, as families, among the subjugated populations, till in- termixture, or new conquerors, partially effaced the dif- ference of nationality. Thus, the myrmidons of Achilles may have been identical with the Penestes of Thessaly, the Helots of Sparta, the Charotes of Crete, Gymnetes of Argos, and Conephores of Sicyon, which were all tribes enslaved by foreign conquerors. Thus, with Book of Enoch, where it treats of the commerce the Egre- gori, or fallen angels, had with women. The Giants beget Nephilim (Scandinavian Niflem), and then Eliud (ElfenJ. This is almost like the Edda, and may have been forged after the first captivity, when some Jews certainly visited Armenia. See Lactant. and Syncell. 136 NATURAL HISTORY OF scarce an exception, Giants are ever found in juxta- position with Dwarfs, who, in reality, are the mere subjects of the other, and perhaps little inferior in sta- ture, but certainly not so well supplied with food, and its consequent physical results. Hence, in the early ages, each party sees Giants among the leaders of the enemy, and only heroes in its own. Here, again, the rapid decline from conquering tribes to single families, sinking still to individuals in a tribe of casual birth, who on some occasions were elected to be Roman emperors and Gothic chiefs. At a later period, they pass into a kind of brutal champions, kept for the sport or for the wars of chieftains in the middle and feudal ages, or for show, as certain men are still retained in Asia. Such Giants, in remote times, were the leaders and princes of idolatrous Egypt and Canaan, Apoplieis, Og, Goliath, &c. Such the first horsemen conquerors of the Bedoueeu or Ethiopian Arabs, still obscurely designated in the national lore as fair and blue eyed, till the Almighty turned them red, and then black, in punishment for their iniquity.* And in mythological dualism, the red-haired Typhon, Baby, or Anteus, types drawn, equally with the Nephilim, from the red and fair haired nations of Northern Asia, Gog and Magog (Haiguge and Magiuge, or the lofty and kindred lofty) Scythian tribes ; the Cyclopians and Lestrigons, the Thyrsen or Tyrheni, and Raseni. Such the deified heroes of Greece and of Etruria, always represented naked, like the Bare- sarks and Blaumans of the north, and Gaurs and Hunen * See Tarikh Tebry. THE HUMAN SPECIES. 137 of the Celtic and Teutonic nations. Such, finally, the Goths still figured on the brazen bas reliefs of the cathedral gates at Augsburg, * and others lately dis- covered during some excavations in the Tyrol. Naked championship was a custom preserved by Greeks, Gauls, Britons, and Franks. So late as the year 1578, the Scottish Highlanders still fought naked against the Spaniards, at the action of Rymenant, near Mechlin. The Baresarks were true Giants in their manners, in their liability to fits of phrensy, paroxysms already characterized in the deeds of Hercules, and like the Malay muck. In Moslem Asia were the Chagis, naked fanatics of giant stature, in the wars of the Crusades ; and there still remain Shumshurbas, Pehlwan, Kawasses, prize-fighters and wrestlers, often possessed of immense muscular strength, kept in the pay of grandees, like the ancient Blaumen of the north, or like Orson in romance;! beside these, a nation of primeval invaders of India, denominated Cattie, even now contains many warriors above six feet high, with a powerful muscular structure ; and revealing the origin whence it came, by the occasional presence of light coloured hair and grey eyes. * These gates are certainly older than the eleventh cen- tury ; the male costume renders it likely, that they really belonged to the palace of Theodoric, at Ravenna, and the workmanship, that it is Byzantine. t The chained giant Widolt with the gavelock, and Wade with the hammer, of the " Heldenbuch and Niebe- lungen" romances; and the wrestler Charles, in " As you like it," belong to this clas 138 NATURAL HISTORY OF As might be expected, physical Giants flourished longest in the colder temperate regions of our hemis- phere, and are traced on the American continent, in the Mexican records, and high nosed human forms in relief ; while there exist also several tribes of American Indians, of very large stature, bearing, in general, marks of a partially distinct origin from the others, and still more from the Esquimaux. Again, in the cold extreme south, the Patagonians, likewise apparently differing from the more stunted Fuegians near them ; and the Araukas or Arookas, perhaps a mutation of the Indian Azooras, compared with the now extinct Flat- heads ; and in both cases, fast disappearing, by reason of recent interunion with tribes of lower stature. South Africa, again, is in the possession of a lofty race of Caffres, with their champion, Aba-lafas, by the side of the dwarfish Bosjemans and Dokkos ; and in the moun- tains of northern China, men above six feet in height occur. But it is doubtful, whether, in any region, they do not all, directly or indirectly, spring from the original bearded stock of High Asia ; therefore conquerors, and always a master race. They have been often and long cannibals, the earliest possessors of horses ; and hence doubly meriting the Chinese name of horse faced ; be- cause, in addition to the first possession of the animal, all the lofty tribes of mankind have elongated fea- tures. * * In the list, among the giant tribes of Syria alone, we find so many, that it is evident they were mere families, ruling, most likely by conquest, over Canaauitish tribes — THE HUMAN SPECIES. 139 THE DWARFS. THE races below a middle stature, frequently sinking to the form of Dwarfs, though seldom noticed but in Nephilim, Rephaim, Zuzim, Gibborim, Enakim, Zamzumim — some being distinguished by a malformation, having six fingers and six toes on the hands and feet ; of which there is a counterpart in the legends of India. Of the stature individuals may have attained, are the examples of Teuto- bochus, king of the Cymbers, whose head overtopped the spears, bearing trophies, in the triumph of Marius. The emperor Maximinus exceeded eight feet; Gabarus, an Arabian, in the time of Claudius, was nine feet nine inches high ; he was shown at Rome. In the reign of Augustus, Pusio and Secondilla were ten feet three inches in height ; their bodies were preserved and shown in the Sallustian Gardens. The Emperor Andronicus was ten feet high, according to Nicetas. Herodes Hercules was eight feet. Porus, six feet nine inches. Charlemagne, .seven feet. George Castriot, or Skanderbeg, and George Freunsberg, nearly eight feet. Without, therefore., vouching for the exact measurements here given, we have still sufficient evidence to show, that even in recent times, men of high stature, and of immense strength, have been historically conspicuous. The last trace, in Great Britain, of the Giant character, may be perceived in the Broinech of the Hebri- des, where they were called Gruagaichs, Gruage feachd; a hairy bandit ; concealed in the glens, and coming forth at night to plunder. During the operation of the Berlin and Milan decrees, we have personally known, in London, a Moor, usually named Gibraltar, captain of a neutral mer- chant ship, who was visible, at a great distance, in the Strand, head, breast, and shoulders, above the hats of the passing crowd ; for he measured six feet seven inches and a quarter ; and was, in all respects, of the finest proportions, and of very considerable acquirements in languages, &c. , 140 NATURAL HISTORY OF conjunction with Giant tribes, are nevertheless muc more numerous, more generally diffused, and be evidence of greater antiquity, wherever they are locat< In some instances supplying, by ingenuity, the want of superior strength, they appear possessed of a certain progress in civilization greater than the conquering tribes. Either from a kind of instinctive impulse, aiding natural intelligence, or from a docile spirit taking counsel, when the sense of physical inability prevails ; from experience ; or from instruction obtain- ed in the Caucasian or even Mongolic stocks, to which they appear directly or indirectly related — they are miners, metallurgists, smiths, and architects, When not driven to the woods and fastnesses, they have agri- cultural habits and superstitions of a low polytheistical character, but bearing evidence of systematic organi- zation. These qualities, in conjunction with retiring defensive habits, have, in every region, conferred upon them mystical properties, generally marked in legends by more excessively reducing their stature. Thence, we have Indian mythological Balakhilyas and Dwara- pulas ; in Western Asia, Eliud, Peri, Gin ; Celtic Dubh ; Northern Elfin ; Dwergar, always marked with Ouralian, Finnic, and Mongolian peculiarities ; passing to more poetical fairies and pigmies, and then to true Fins, Laplanders, Ostiaks, Samoyeds, Skrelings, and Myrmidons (of Achilles) afterwards named Elfin, in the woods of Thrace, and in the Hartz, Tyrolean, and Pyrenean mountains, where they are evidently the pre- sent Basques ; all attesting a similar dualism of fancy - UNIVERSITY THE HUMAN SPECIES. \ 141 °A- and fact, as was shown to exist in the GiantsT~" They bear, however, beside their diminished stature, one common character in physical history ; namely, that all the races, where by superabundant intermixture the distinctive marks are not effaced, are swarthy, with black hair and black eyes, growing still darker in southern latitudes, till at length they become positively black, and the hair assumes a woolly characters, Still, among these, some may be seen of ordinary stature, and others are stunted by habitual want of food. In this shape they are, in Asia, recorded to have existed under various legendary names ; and they now occupy many localities, but greatly debased by persecution. Indeed, their intermediate races, and still more and more, as they pass into the purer type of the Papua or Negro, have suffered, and continue to suffer, the unmitigated oppression of Caucasian superiority. In hot regions, where a powerful vegetation supplies the means, some of the most brutal tribes, such as the Vedas of Ceylon, Cookies, and Goands of Chittagong, east of the Brama- putra, reside in trees, with little more contrivance, or the use of reason, than is evinced by Chimpanzees, the great apes of Africa. The Pouliahs of Malabar are no better, for they also form a kind of nests, in trees, beyond the reach of elephants and tigers, never asso- ciating with other nations, and not even permitted by the Hindoos to approach within one hundred yards. In open mountain country, these nations are more commonly troglodytes, dwellers in natural grottos ; and only in colder regions, inhabitants of caves, excavated 142 NATURAL HISTORY OF by their own industry. Mat tents, bark and skin huts, belong to a third class ; and all are, or have been cannibals ; but this appears to be a condition of exi tence, which, at some time or other, was a habit in highest and noblest races ; for human sacrifices always the last symptom of the expiring custom.* To the east of the Indus, we find the primeval natl of India, sometimes typified, in mythological poems, Hanuman and his monkey followers ; but historically shown to designate certain human tribes, since the Ranas of Odeypoor, heads of the Sesodya tribe, noblest of the Rajpoots, claims to be descended from the monkey god, which they pretend to prove, by a peculiarly elon- gated structure of the coccyx in their family. The fclaim establishes much more clearly, that the Bheels of this region, primeval inhabitants, and still the most numerous portion of the population, were the chief means of conquest in the wars of Lankadwipe or Ceylon ; although they had many wars with their more western conquerors. The nation is further mixed up with Brahminical mythology ; for Bhil, the chief god of these foresters, slew Heri, one of the Pandoo family. Bheel likewise shot Chrishna with an arrow ; and the Kabandaz of the same primeval stock are related to have captured Rama. These, with many others, ex- tending to beyond the Brahmaputra, may be considered as the physical Nagas of Sanscrit lore ; that name * The Mexican sovereigns, in the time of Cortez, were still obliged, by law, to taste human flesh once in the year. The Goands do the same as a religious behest. THE HUMAN SPECIES. 143 being still applied to the Cookies, whose inveterate cannibalism we have already mentioned ; and other tribes of the same source, such as the Chong, extend to the extremity of the Malay peninsula. * The nations of this class, mystified in the records of tradition, mythology, and legends, are again prominent in Southern Asia; such as the Nagas and Nishadas, the Acephali of Greek authors, or Nimreks, Flatheads, Dombuks, Kakasiah, or Black Brethren ; in Persian lore, they are the objects of constant persecution and extermination, by the earliest heroes of the first Iranian riding conqueror tribes — Husheng, Temurath Divbend, &c., who sometimes vanquish Deeves, at others subdue the black tribes of southern Persia, among whom there appear to have been one or more, whose foreheads were naturally, or perhaps by art, greatly depressed — a cha- racter we shall soon see which occurs again in America. Bones and crania of men, with this conformation, have been found in Yemen ; t profiles of Negroes, similarly conditioned, occur in Egyptian figures, published by Gau and others ; and the same frontal structure is ob- served in portraits referred to Caratchai (Black Circas- sians, more probably Koords) allied to the Georgian stock, as if they still bore testimony to the ancient in- termixture with the black Colchians mentioned by Herodotus. (See Plate.) * There are tribes of negroes in Central Africa, likewise known by the name of Nagas ; and Cookies is again the name of the dark slaves of New Zealand. f Communicated by an officer who was employed in surveying that coast • 144 NATURAL HISTORY OF To the west of Persia the Chna or Canaanites, and Ethiopian Arabs, before the inroads of the Giant Scythic horsemen, appear to have belonged to the same family of nations, extending northward to the Col- chians before named. To this day there remains a clan of crisp-haired Arabs on the Hieromax, east of the Lake of Tiberias, with Mongolic features, by profession graziers, and, like the Hottentots, destitute of horses. To the west, in Africa, exclusive of the basis of the ancient Egyptian population, these abnormal tribes appear again to recur in the Hottentots, Bushwanas, Boshemans, and probably Dokkos, who may be the pigmies of ancient fable. Certain it is, that Hebraisms, and Semitic words, in proper names, &c., are abundant, from the mouth of the Nile to the Cape of Good Hope. Thus, the Indian Parbatia, Naga tribes, as well as the African Bushwanas, have all indications of a remote intermixture with the Mongolic races ; and this character is retained in the earlier forms of their idols, always represented with crisped hair, oblique eyes, and ears detached from the side of the head ; and it may, perhaps, be traced in another direction, among the swarthy Kirguise. THE HUMAN SPECIES. 14> THE ATURIAN PALTAS OR FLATHEADS OF SOUTH AMERICA. OF all abnormal nations, the most singular were those Flatheads of South America, whose bones and skulls now remaining, furnish the only proof, that a people, with such strange conformation of the cranium, have positively existed ; and if we could now ascertain, to what extent they likewise differed from the other typical forms of man, in the physiological conditions of struc- ture of the softer parts; such, for example, as the pecu- liar epidermis which Monsieur Flourens ascribes to the whole red race of America ; a quality which they, as the most normal of them, may have possessed to a still greater extent ; the question would assume a para- mount interest — one, perhaps, more indicative of a distinct origin than any before noticed. Dr. Tschudi, describing this form, in his paper on the ancient Peruvians, remarks on the flattened occiput of the cranium, and observes, " that there is found, in children, a bone between the two parietals, below the lambdoidal suture, separating the latter from the infe- rior margin of the squamous part of the afterhead ; this bone is of a triangular shape, the upper angle between the ossa parietalia, and its horizontal diameter, being twice that of the vertical. This bone coalesces at very different periods with the occipital bones, sometimes K 146 NATURAL HISTORY OF not till after six or seven years. In one child of the last mentioned age, having a very flat occiput, the line of separation was marked by a most perfect suture from the squamous part, and was four inches in breadth by two in height." In remembrance of the nation where this conformation is alone found, the learned doctor denominated this bone Os. Incce ; and he further remarks, that it corresponds to the Os. interparietalis of Rodentia and Marsupiata.* These characters had been previously noticed by Mr. Franklin Bellamy, in a paper read by him to the Naturalist's Society of Devon and Cornwall, together with remarks which do not occur in Dr. Tschudi's communication, and are, nevertheless, of considerable importance. Comparing the cranium of two Titicaca children, with skulls of Europeans of similar age, he found the frontal bone, the parietal and occipital bones, of the former, all considerably larger than the latter, elongating the head posteriorly, and throwing back the whole skull. This peculiarity was greatest in the cra- nium of an infant, not many days old, and lessening with growth in the older head; therefore it was not absolutely the result of bandages ; because the natural effect of these would tend more to increase than to decrease this result. From the email flattened fore- * Recent investigations, conducted by Sir Robert Schom- burgk, show the Maopityan, or Frog Indian tribe, at the sources of the Corentyn, to be naturally flatheaded. D'Or- bigny's Aymaras cannot be of the same stem ; and the gene- ralizing conclusions of Dr. Morton, to say the least, are premature. THE HUMAN SPECIES. 147 » head there could not be much space for the anterior lobes of the brain. The orbits were exceeding strong, with a somewhat elevated ridge, and the bones of the face harder and more solid than those which were pro- duced for comparison. Dr. Lund likewise observed the incisor and molar teeth of adults to be worn to flat crowns — a character which occurs also in some ancient Egyptian jaws, and in heads of Guanche mummies. Here, again, we have characters so marked and de- cisive, that if the case were applied to a lower animal, systematists would not hesitate to place it as a separate species ; and the comments of physiologists, who refuse their assent, not being in harmony with the admitted definitions, are more specious than convincing. It ap- pears, that the nation to which this form of head was peculiar, although with all the signs of very low intel- lectual faculties, had nevertheless made advances in civilization, which several of the Asiatic abnormal tribes have never even attempted to acquire. They built houses, of large stones, in a pyramidal form, having an upper floor ; and judging from certain re- mains of their implements, and the contents of their graves, they were peaceable beings, most likely under the controul of superiors, not of the same stock, even from periods anterior to the formation of the Inca system of civilization. Mr. Pentland, we believe, first brought this singular race into notice, from skulls dug up near the shores of Lake Titicaca, Dr. Lund found others, even in a fossilized state, in the interior of Brazil. They were discovered in limestone crevices, in 148 NATURAL HISTORY OF company with bones of different species of extinct animals ; proving both the remote age when this form of Man already existed in America, and the extent of surface it is now known to have occupied. As the Budha, and several other idols of India, constantly re- present Man with profiles taken from a very low type ; so, in America, the Flathead form appears to have had a commanding influence in the ideal divine of the human head ; for the depression of forehead and occiput is found artificially reproduced by many tribes in both the southern and northern continents ; and specimens of these are observed among human remains, buried in the high sea sands of Peru itself; but these last men- tioned have, in general, the occiput flattened obliquely, with but little apparent artificial anterior depression, evidently the effect of the back of the head having been secured to a board during infancy, as is still a practice in the north. The same form of the head is likewise observed in the high nosed bas reliefs of gods and heroes, both sculptured and tooled in the ancient temples and buildings of Yucatan and Southern Mexico ; the representations of a people now likewise extinct, and by the indigenous tribes referred to the Giants of their primeval ages. The account is not without some probability, since the profiles belong to a race entirely distinct from the general population of the western hemisphere, and is only conformable to the high statured races of Asia ; excepting some tribes of North America, who, by their traditions, came from the north- west, are still of a lofty growth, and bear the aquiline THE HUMAN SPECIES. 149 features, which may prove their descent from a kindred race. Several of these, like the Osages, not uncom- monly reaching the height of six feet eight inches ; but since the great disturbance of location, produced by the European influx, they have latterly intermingled with other tribes, and are now fast effacing their particular characteristics. Perhaps the Yucatan giant master- race disappeared, when the Astecs prevailed in Ana- huac, from causes of a similar nature. Upon the whole, the nations with depressed foreheads, when under the guidance perhaps of Gomerian masters, seem to have a community of other characters, such as constructiveness. which distinguish the Paltas of South America as well as the older Egyptians. 150 NATURE HISTORY OP REMAINS OF OTHER ABNORMAL TRIBES. FROM the occasional destruction of whole tribes and races, which is sometimes caused, even in modern ages, by the sword, by contagious diseases, or by new modes of life, and the introduction of vices before unknown, it is evident, that numerous populations of the human family have disappeared, without leaving a record of their ancient existence. We may instance savages in the British Islands, who had flint knives, a kind of earthen pottery, and dwelt in caves. They were con- temporaneous with hyaenas and lost species, for their bones are found in the same deposits; consequently, they are older than the Cynetae, who preceded the other Celtic colonies in this island. Continental Europe affords instances of several more whose history is a blank, although there remain scat- tered families, with peculiar marks of distinction, in evidence of the anterior existence of communities of the same kind. Some, still extant, seem to have been objects of slander and persecution, under several suc- cessive social systems, denied the rights of common humanity, without a comprehensible cause, and even in defiance of the kindness which Christian pastors evinced for them. Others are still said to be untractable, not- withstanding the government endeavours to make them adopt the manners and duties of civilized life. The caves, with human bones, in Quercy, already mention- THE HUMAN SPECIES. 151 ed, belong to this class. Such are the Cagots of the south-east of France, by some asserted to derive their name from a contraction of Can-goth, because they are a residue of the Goths, who, being anciently Arians, were held in detestation by their neighbours ; they were stigmatised as lepers, and refused entrance into church by the common doors, &c. This people, either an ancient residue, or latterly forced to a vagrant life, extended, under many different names, to Guienne, Beam, Bretagne, and la Rochelle, being sometimes confounded with Gypsies, although they were known before the arrival of the latter, and even enjoined not to appear abroad without the mark of a goat's foot sewed upon the outer garment. King Louis XVI. first ameliorated their condition, and the French re- volution finally swept away all the remaining legal disabilities.* In the forests of ancient Dauphiny, there exist also relics of another population, unrecorded in history, but commonly ascribed to a Saracen or Moorish origin, stragglers of those who invaded France in the seventh and eighth century, and were unable to escape. There were Caucones in the Peloponessus, Conconi (drinkers of horse blood), and Cheretani, in the Eastern Py- renees ; but they and the Almogavaries who have been absorbed. The Chuvash, still found scattered in the provinces * There are recent accounts of this people, written by Baron Ramon, as well as ancient notices by Ochenartus, 11 Vasconice notitia." Bel Forest, and Paul Merula. 152 NATURAL HISTORY OF of Kasan, Sembirsk, and Orenburg, in Russia, are a still more obscure race of men. They seem to be the remnant of a semi-brute population, which was scat- tered on the arrival of the more intellectual Caucasians. In mental capacity, the Chuvashes are reported to be inferior even to the Ostiaks and Samoyedes. They live without taking the slightest notice of the world around them, in a condition little elevated above the Orang Outang. While increase and activity is every where witnessed in their vicinity, they alone remain stationary ; industry and civilization excites in them no desires, no wish to be partakers of prosperity ; none ever show inclinations to barter, or to be stimulated by gain to increase the means of comfort or of personal happiness, still less to learn any trade. Their countenances are stupid, their habits incurably lazy, and their religion, for they have a worship, the most degrading idolatry. Their language is barbarously imperfect, and their manners and customs are stiD more revolting. The Assassins, Ansarie, Batenians, Dozzim, Laks, and Yezeedis of South Western Asia, still persecuted, but not wholly exterminated, are tribes of primeval origin variously mixed. The Gypsies, Zingari, Sinde, may be of the same stock as the Tschinganes at the mouth of the Indus, who are themselves a tribe of mixed oriental Negroes and Caucasians, and are likewise connected with the Gungas or Indian Gypsies, and Laubes of Africa, who may all be instanced as examples of the development of human beauty, whenever the typical races are crossed ; THE HUMAN SPECIES. 153 for, while this result is impressed on the whole of the Asiatic stems, the Laubes, dwelling in the Jaloff country, in Western Africa, though of the Zingara race, are remarkably ugly and diminutive, probably because they are unmixed even with the Negro tribes around them. In one characteristic they all unite, namely, to be by predilection, wanderers without a home ; not graziers nor cattle-dealers, but tinkers and pilferers. Another outcast race, in Central Africa, are the Cumbrie Blacks, whose origin is still less known. Though they are con- sidered to be genuine Negroes, they are not permitted to have a national existence, but are treated as slaves by all the other tribes in Yaouri and Engarski. This fact is sufficient to prove them of a distinct origin, and their present character to be superinduced by the lust and lawlessness of conquest and oppression. The Guanches, perhaps identical with the ancient inhabitants of Fernando Po, both sallow nations ; the first latterly, the second not yet extinct, appear on the skirts of Africa, as remnants of a race of tenants of the soil, before the expansion of the Negroes. The cannibal Ompizee of Madagascar, copper coloured savages, who fed upon each other till they are nearly or perhaps now entirely destroyed, may have belonged to the same stock, for they have no national affinities with any other people of the island. We may mention here the Benderwars, a Joand tribe on the Nerbudda, who devour their aged and sick in honour of Kali ; the Ogres or Gholes of Rajahstan, known by the name of Rak- shassas, Pisachas, or Bhutas, Aghori, Mardikohrs, &c., 154 NATLftAL HISTORY OF feeders on human carrion, whose habits are already mentioned by Ctesias, and are still not entirely extinct. Other tribes there are, equally aberrant, almost as de- graded in mind and form, but caused by the wretched conditions of their existence, or by an apathy of cha- racter, which no force of example or change of circum- stances seems to affect ; such are the Samang Dwarfs of the Malayan mountains, and the black Inagta of the island of Lasso, whose stature seldom exceeds four feet eight inches. It will be an interesting object of con- sideration for anatomists, who may be placed in favour- able conditions for observation, to examine the brain of children belonging to these races in the foetus, and particularly after birth, as it may be expected to dis- play a still more imperfect state than that of a Negro infant. The foregoing discussions have chiefly had for object, to offer some points relating to the physical history of man, which, it appears, have not as yet been viewed in the light here shown ; perhaps, because the facts relating to them are uninteresting and few, or are con- cealed under a dense veil of tradition and figurative mystification, with only occasional glimpses that can be appreciated, and therefore difficult to grasp, and un- certain in the application; still, when collected into somewhat of a series, give consistency to conjecture, and frequently bestow upon it most, if not all the conditions of historical truth. As we proceed, names of nations THE HUMAN SPECIES. 155 and tribes above indicated among the unassignable in the family cognations of man, may again appear with more detail, clothed in the form they seem to have passed into, and become known and well-defined races. COMPARISON OF PHYSICAL POWERS, AND STRUCTURAL DIFFERENCES OF THE TYPI- CAL STOCKS. LET us now proceed to review the structural charac- teristics of man, in their general application to the distinction of species, varieties or stocks. Among these, Camper's observations on the facial angle which distin- guishes the three typical races, taken in a general view, are most important. The human head, seen vertically, or from above, conceals, in the Caucasian form, nearly every part of the facial surface ; whilst the same view of the woolly haired type demonstrates the narrowness and obliquity of the forehead, by exposing the greater part of the face. A smaller obliquity may be observed in the cranium of the Mongolic stock, but differing from both the preceding by the lateral expansion of the cheek bones. Hence the facial angles, taken by draw- ing a line from the opening of the ear to the nostril, bisected by another line dropt from the prominent part of the forehead to the most advanced edge of the upper jaw, taken on the profile view of the head, produces 156 NATLRAL HISTORY OF an angle, which, according to the number of degrees it is found to open in Camper's hypothesis, advances the forehead towards a vertical structure, gives prominence to the anterior lobes of the brain, and consequently developes intellectual capacity. But this criterion, though generally true in all mammalia, if the question be referred to man, is liable to the objection, that whole races have the orbital crests, at their junction, on the lower edge of the frontal, so prominent as to prevent the facial lines touching the forehead, which from that point falls suddenly, both in the natural structure of the flat-headed nations of Asia, and in the heads by nature or artificially depressed, such as occur in America. In other respects, where the facial line can be drawn fairly, there is no doubt of the general correctness of the principle, provided a vertical view upon the skull, according to Blumenbach, and another upon its base — the lower jaw being removed as recom- mended by Professor Owen — be likewise employed to form a comparison. The highest intellectual bearded nations present, by the Camperian method, individuals rising to eighty-five, and even nearly to ninety degrees. These are, for example, occasionally observed in the Teuto-Sarmatian nobles, and, more rarely, in other European nations;* but beyond the perpendicular line * In a series of portraits, representing Polish, East Prussian, Silesian, Bohemian, and Moravian nobles, they occur frequently. The late Count Harach, from our per- sonal knowledge, was remarkable for this feature : i. e., a lofty and broad, very nearly vertical forehead ; and, it must be added, that many so distinguished, were conspicuous as THE HUMAN SPECIES. 157 of forehead, there occur only indications of morbid' development, and ideal exaggerated profiles of Greek divinities, whose overhanging brows, and deep seated eyes, produce the effect of a calm shadowy frown, which we learn to view as an attribute of majesty and con- scious power. Much, however, and indeed the essen- tial, in all mental constitution, must depend upon the proportions of the cerebral structure being in sufficient harmony for their rational operation ; and this condi- tion is found preserved, without material injury to ratiocination, where both the anterior and posterior portions of the brain are distorted by artificial pressure in infancy, or where the volume is small, by the retreating low angle of the forehead ; whether or not the case applies to a whole race, or to an occasional individual among bearded tribes. It appears, that individual interunions between the typical races, not only tend to the superior development of form and capacity in the offspring, but that the same tendency continues to operate between different tribes; the constant crossing of Celtic with Teutonic* blood, upon a Perso-Arabian basis, being perhaps a principal cause of the early progressive civilization of Southern and Western Europe; and the stationary statesmen and warriors, probably all as ambitious men. It were to be wished that portrait painters paid more minute attention to this object— we mean, placing the aperture of the ear in relation to the nostril. It is important to them for the sake of truth, and to the physiologist for the same reason ; since, without accuracy, he cannot draw fair con- clusions from painted human likenesses. 158 NATURAL HISTORY OF character, chiefly observed in the Mongolic races, "being a result of the want of the same acting cause. Not- withstanding the desire of the beardless type to violate its own prohibitory laws, intermarriage with Caucasian women is decidedly more sterile than the union of the bearded and woolly haired sexes. Where human laws prevent intermarriage, nature endeavours to be avenged through the more powerful operation of the passions, by means of interunion with foreign slaves, by abduc- tion, and by child stealing ; whence result a certain restoration of the balance. There are localities in Europe, where the frequent intermarriages of the same families, produce constantly individuals defective in constitution, mind, or limbs. Without intermixture of races, the ratiocination of mankind appears inoperative to certain particulars in life. Nomad nations may not wander with their cattle solely from inclination. Necessity is the first cause. But there are tribes, such as we have already named, who are not to be taught by example, or by the advan- tageous results of undertaking certain things that their inclinations reject. The Jews probably never were a truly agricultural people, working with their own hands. The Veneti, Heneti, Gwyniad, or Ventse, were always the real commercial pedlars of antiquity. The Arme- nians are nationally merchants, from London to Bok- hara. Neither were ever warriors ; they traded solely ; and the last mentioned continue to act on the same principle. They lived under the shield of the strongest warlike people that would protect them ; the first, under THE HUMAN SPECIES. 59 Etruscans, Gauls, and Romans, till the fall of the "Western Empire ; and the second under still existing governments. Some nations decline the use of horses, others abhor the plough or a sea life. The Gypsies are always tinkers. These predilections must there- fore depend on modifications of the brain. That the volume of brain is in relation to the intel- lectual faculties, is clearly proved by Dr. Morton's researches, who, having filled, for this purpose, the cerebral chamber of skulls belonging to numerous specimens of the Caucasian, Mongolian, Malay, Ame- rican, and Ethiopian (Negro) stock, with seeds of white pepper, found the first the most capacious, and the Ethiopian the smallest ; though there may be some doubt whether the Negro crania that served for his experiment, were not, in part at least, derived from slaves of the Southern States of North America, who being descended from mixed African tribes, and much more educated, have larger heads than new Negroes from the coast. We have personally witnessed the issue of military chacos (caps) to the 2d West India Regiment, at the time when all the rank and file were bought out of slave ships, and the sergeants alone being in part white, men of colour, negroes from North America, or born Creoles, and it was observed, that scarcely any fitted the heads of the privates excepting the two smallest sizes ; in many cases robust men, of the standard height, required padding an inch and a half in thickness, to fit their caps ; while those of the non-commissioned officers were ad^sted NATJRAL HISTORY OF £ without any additional aid. Though, on one hand, it is here stated, that the Negroes, from the coast Africa, were, in all probability, still less favoured tl the measurements of Dr. Morton proved ; it is, on the other, equally true, that the progress of development, and the elevation of the forehead, in the mixed off- spring between the woolly haired and white races, is often effaced in a second generation. It is so always much sooner than the apparently insignificant characters of the colour of the skin, and the crispness of the hair, which is never totally obliterated till after the fourth generation, when the African character may be deemed absorbed.* It is advanced as established, that an ac- cidental effect in the external characters of an indivi- dual may become permanent in a race. But accidental appearances must have a cause, and terminate when that cause disappears. Men covered with hair, or with a horny skin, may reproduce this character in their offspring ; but then it is exceptional, and disap- pears in the next generation. Albinism is more evi- dent, and therefore believed to be more frequent in the woolly haired races of man ; but in the sandy plains of the north-west of Europe, the same appearances occur, though not quite with the marks of disease ; it is mere absence of colouring matter in the system. Among * The effect of employing Negro wet nurses, universally adopted in the tropics, may be suspected to have some influence on the appearance and temperament of white children. Numerous instances of external marks, and of qualities for good or evil, may be traced to the practice ; for none of the same kind occur in Europe. THE HUMAN SPECIES. 161 Mongolic nations it is unknown, or very rare, and it is equally so with the aboriginal tribes of America. The stature of mankind is unquestionably influenced by the adequate supply of wholesome food ; and hence the civilized nations of moderate climates are more generally of an equal standard than barbarians and savages, among which the hunter and pastoral nomad tribes arrive at the greatest stature. But, in these cases, a Caucasian element may be expected to be present, whether we take the Miao-tze of China, the Caffres of Eastern Africa, the Patagonian Araucas of South America, or the Creeks and other tribes in the north. For, if some latent cause of this kind did not produce the difference, all other tribes in the same climate, and under similar conditions of food and mode of life, would acquire a similar height ; yet this is not the case ; and it is even known, in both the Americas, that the union of two tribes, differing in this respect, has produced, in one generation, the disappearance of a superior growth. Ancient history likewise represents the northern Gauls (Belgae), and the Teutonic nations, as far superior in stature to the civilized Romans, though they do not appear, in their barbarous habits, to have been better fed than the tall tribes of North America. In gracefulness of proportion, the American mixed white races with Negroes, both of French and British, and still more, of Spanish origin, yield to none a. any part of the world ; and it is a mistaken notion elieve in the assertion, that the standard contour L 1 G2 NATUR '.L HISTORY OF of beauty and form differs materially in any country. Pashion may have the influence of setting up certain, deformities for perfections, both at Pekin and at Paris, but they are invariably apologies which national pride offers for its own defects. The youthful beauty of Canton would be handsome in London ; and the Tahtar nations, in the days of their conquering career, married the daughters of semi- Caucasian nomad princes, or notoriously selected, for their chiefs, the same class of European or Caucasian forms as they still purchase from Circassia and Persia, Affghanistan, Cashmere, and India. * Luddee, the young wife of Abba Thule, chief of the Pelew Islands, was handsome on the Caucasian model ; so are all the beauties of Malay or other blood in the South Sea Islands ; the most admired young females among the Arookas and the Caribs. The Chip- peways likewise have many beauties; and so was Harriet, the belle of Lorette Sauvage, a Huron village near Quebec. In all these cases, both Europeans and natives agreed. Human growth, according to Professor Quetelet, is not completed until the 25th year, at least in Belgium ; but this period is supposed to be shorter in other coun- * It is from these sources that the energetic innervati on was principally derived, which gave birth to the great Toorkee Mongole conquerors, both in the west and in China. Such, for example, was Alancona, wife of Pesouka Bahander, of the Niron Toorkee tribe of smiths ; Purtin Congine, daughter of Conjorat Khan, the ambitious w^t'e of Genghis, and Toorakina Catan, wife of Octai. THE HUMAN SPECIES. 163 tries ; certainly so within the tropics, and in very warm regions, where development and decay is universally allowed to be more rapid. Weight is another element in the consideration of races, as this quality materially influences physical strength, and consequently bestows confidence, enter- prise, and success. An instrument, the dynamometer, has been invented to measure the relative scale, and they have shown savage nations to be strong in pro- portion to the abundance and wholesomeness of the food they possess ; but in all cases hitherto examined, civilized Europeans surpassed them ; * and, it appears, English exceeded French.; or perhaps more correctly, the Teutonic stock surpassed the Celtic, both in strength and weight, although the Irish Celts are said to be taller and heavier than the English Saxons. As yet, no great stress can be laid on results obtained from an imperfect instrument, partial inquiries, and questionable nation- alities ; still enough is determined to reject an opinion, often prevalent, that the moderns are degenerate when compared with their ancestors. The conclusion is fur- ther controverted, by an experiment made at Goodrich Court, where the splendid collection of ancient armour is classified, with rigorous attention, both to date and nation, by Sir Samuel R. Meyrick, the enlightened and * The strongest North American Indians are asserted to fail against the ordinary power of wrist of Europeans ; that is, when each side place the right elbow to elbow, and cross the fingers through each other's hand, striving to bend -the opposing wrist back. The fact was established by the 60th Regiment in Canada 164 NATLKAL HISTORY OF munificent possessor. Two gentlemen, one of middle stature, with ample chest and shoulders, and the other somewhat taller, but of more slender structure, en- deavoured to find armour sufficiently large to fit either one or the other, and failed, in a collection where, we believe, they had a choice of upwards of sixty complete suits of plate, all defensive armour, which nevertheless had been worn, in preceding centuries, by chivalry, and persons of distinction, in England, France, Ger- many, and Italy. Hence King John, Petit Jean de Saintre, the Constable of Bourbon, the Prince of Conde, (" ce petit homme tant joli,") and Nicolo Piccinino, were not the only valiant men of small proportions in the feudal ages. At the present period, the British upper classes are probably of higher stature than the aristocracy of any other civilized people ; * but taken nationally, the Prussian, and all the fair-haired natives of the north-west of Europe, are of greatest height, since the standard size for the military service is above that of any other people in Europe. Northern Chinese, or Highland Tahtars, we have been informed by a general officer, who served in the late war, were found to be fully equal, in stature and bulk, to our stoutest grenadiers; but we have since learned, from another officer, that when these men appeared on the field, * Mr. Laurence, in his work on the Natural History of Man, may have easily found Englishmen of six feet and more in height, and Negroes below that standard ; but had he visited tropical market places, and compared the stature of our planters and sailors by that of the Negroes, he wou most likely have found the white men the smallest THE HUMAN SPECIES. 165 they were found to be Miao-tze ; that is, a people of Caucasian or Caucaso- Malay origin. Elasticity of frame, is, however, a quality very distinct from weight and strength. The Caucasian of Europe is trained to harder manual work than other races ; but it may be doubted whether he could ride continuously, like Turkish Tahtar messengers, or Per- sian Chuppers ; or, whether he could sustain the fatigue of such unceasing marches as the aboriginal American warriors perform; or run on foot with the speed of Bechuana Hottentots ; or even compete with New Hol- landers, the most slender limbed race on earth. When, therefore, comparative trials of strength are made with other nations, the selection of the modes should not be more than one half in favour of those which Europeans are most inured to. Captain Cook found his seamen unequal to a boxing contest with Hapaceans; there have been Negroes able to dispute the sparring cham- pionship of the English fancy ring; and beside the porters of Constantinople and Smyrna, celebrated for prodigious strength of loins, there are Pehlwans, pro- fessed wrestlers, in middle Asia, whose physical powers are certainly equal to any Europe can produce. It is not by comparing French or British seamen, as Peron did, with natives of Van Dieman's Land, New Hollanders, or Timorians of torrid regions, all noto- riously of small bone and light weight, that a true estimate can be obtained of the relative strength of savages. The experiment should be tried likewise with Caffres, Patagonians, Araucanos, and Osages, 166 NATURAL HISTORY OF notwithstanding these nations train tUeir powers mor to active exertions of body than to heavy manual toil ; for, if the trial were made with women, it may be expected, that in most cases, Europeans would be in- ferior to savages, excepting those who are particularly destitute of food ; or, if it were made between popula- tions of the bearded race, such, for example, as French Canadian boatmen and English labourers, there is no doubt, that the last mentioned would as greatly surpass the first, in the toil of agricultural labour, as they would be outdone by them in the lasting exertions of poleing ; that is, pushing boats up the current of rapid streams by the help of poles. INTELLECTUAL AND MORAL CHARACTERS OF THE TYPICAL STOCKS. CONFINING the number to three, because they alone are possessed of the extremes of difference in struc- ture and colour, and because they have received/ as before stated, centres of existence, where the others cannot predominate, we shall find proceeding from them sub-typical stems, always interposed at the geographi- cal points of contact between the two nearest types; and, further on, third and fourth branches, or races and nations, consisting of more divergent forms, which have combined the characters of all the three in greater or less proportions,* while, over the whole, are spread * The ancients, in several of the trinal combinations which play in their doctrines, seem to have an allusion, THE HUMAN SPECIES. 1GT adventitious distinctions, sprung from changes of cli- mate, latitude, food, mode of life, and the innumerable other influential conditions of existence ; conditions that affect, though in a less degree, the typical structure, the external appearance of Man, and that acquire a deep- seated power over his intellectual faculties in their possible development, and consequently also in their contraction, externally observable. Therefore, in rea- soning upon them, we must be guarded against certain prepossessions of self-esteem, which the educated man of the bearded stock, and indeed mankind in general, is apt to entertain of strangers ; for the same tendency is ever at work between nation and nation, and between every sub-division of the human family, however formed. In the description of characters, scientifically taken, we can only point out what they are, without having the power of stating what may be eventually evolved ; and, though already assured, even with the apparently most degraded nations, that moral rectitude is fully under- stood, nay, often put in practice by the savage, to the disgrace of the rapacious Christian who visits his abode ; not ashamed to use knowledge for the purpose of deception, and illusions for his own gain, though the consequences carry destruction to his victims. When perhaps unwittingly, so far as the Greeks were concerned, to the three typical stocks, in the evocation of Hecate (a Scythian divinity), for the ceremony demanded a waxen triform image, whereof one was to be white, the second red, and the third black. These indications are significant on a spot such as Tauris, notwithstanding the usual expla- nation, which refers them to the triune doctrines of India. 168 NATURAL HISTORY OF bearing in mind what our own remote progenitors were, we must allow that all men, and all races, bear within them the elements of a measured perfectibility, probably as high as the Caucasian; and it would be revolting to believe, that the less gifted tribes were predestined to perish beneath the conquering and all- absorbing covetousness of European civilization, with- out an enormous load of responsibility resting on the perpetrators. Yet their fate appears to be sealed in many quarters, and seems, by a pre-ordained law, to be an effect of more mysterious import than human reason can grasp. * As therefore we cannot attain, in our state of know- ledge, satisfactory conclusions on this head, it becomes the duty of all to assert, at least, the rights of humanity, in their indisputable plenitude ; although to us, in particular, as mere naturalists, it is a bounden duty to confine ourselves to known historical and scientific facts. * There is, however, a great distinction to be drawn between conquest that brings amelioration with it to the masses of the vanquished, and extermination, which leaves no remnant of a broken people. It seems, the first condition is only awardable to the great typical stocks, effecting incorporations among themselves ; the second almost inva- riably the lot of the intermediate, which, in the most favourable cases only, are absorbed. THE HUMAN SPECIES. 169 PRIMAEVAL LOCATION OF MAN, OR POSITION OF THE TYPICAL STOCKS. As the more detailed characters of the typical stocks, their real or primaeval location, and the diffusion of subsequent races, cannot be readily understood without some retrospect of the geographical conditions of the earth, not only with regard to the convulsions already mentioned, but likewise as they bear upon the position of the great chains of mountains, seas, and deserts, and the direction of leading rivers, it is important not to overlook them, wherever the influence they must have exercised in the question under review is clearly ascer- tainable. Mankind, when first it becomes historically known, is already diffused over the greater part of the eastern hemisphere, and probably far beyond it, even to the western ; yet it appears to have departed from the vicinity of a common centre, or at least to have primsevally formed several stocks, clustered in the vici- nity of that high central region of Asia which comprises the external rampart, and perhaps interior of the vale? of Thibet, and the so-called Khangai * of the Gobi desert ; for this was, approximately, either the seat of Man's first development, so far as it can be now traced, or the space where a portion of human beings * Khangai, or oases, verdant river courses, and lakes, \vhich occur in several places. 170 NATURAL HISTORY OF found safety, when convulsions and changes of surface, which may have swept away a more ancient zoology, had passed over the earth, and were introductory to a new order of things. The Gobi or Shanioo region is a true Shinar or Djeen, a series of sandy deserts, intersected, at great distances, by mountain ridges, and not unfrequently by rivers ending in lakes, which all naturally tend to separate small populations, and to keep them isolated, so long as numbers do not compel the inmates to seek for more abundant subsistence. This state of being, urges Man equally to a shepherd's life and to a beginning of agri- cultural industry. Around this space can be traced several high mountain systems, bearing the names of God, of Heaven, and of Snow (purity), for these are often expressed by the same words, such as Himaleh, Thianchan, Bog, &c., and mythical traditions with- out geographical localities, where Pagan nations, at various times, centred the habitations of their gods, or progenitors, in spaces of eternal snow ; such as Mount Meru, Kaf, or the oldest Olympus, find here, in Bogtag, Himavali, and the peak of Himavahn, real geographical positions. It is there we find the Chu- mutaru peak of snow ; and Somero purbut, created by Mahadeo for his retreat and throne, when, like another Jupiter, he fled from Ravan ; the Hindoo diluvian Titan, is clearly the snowy group at the sources of the Ganges. In this high region are the local sites com- memorative of traditions more than once" repeated, at successive more distant stages, in proportion as the THE HUMAN SPECIES. 171 earliest nations moved further from their original com- mon centre, or mythical tales spread onwards with time. There is Natibundana, perhaps Dhawalaghiri, where the patriarch god himself, in the form of Kapila, conducted the ark, and secured it to the rock, according to Hindoo lore ; and, on the north, where the Tahtar legend places Nataghi, the boatman god of the moun- tain, with his family, in one of the peaks of Altai ; for it is not a fact which always marks a pagan source, as has been remarked, when Man's existence is made to commence after the diluvian cataclysis. There is con- stantly a record of antecedent existence, though not a history, among early nations. It is variously told, but not the less the same in substance, in both hemispheres, and in the South Sea Islands. Although, in Central Asia, no very distinct evidence of a general diluvian action, so late as to involve the fate of many nations can be detected ; still, there can- not be a doubt, that with scarce an opposable circum- stance, all Man's historical dogmatic knowledge and traditionary records, all his acquirements, inventions, and domestic possessions, point to that locality, as con- nected with a great cataclysis, and as the scene where human development took its first most evident distri- bution. The animals subdued for household purposes by the earliest nations, are found upon or around it, in all directions ; like the dog, universally spread where Man resides ; and the hog, found radiating from points, where the wild species occur, from south-east to north- 172 NATURAL HISTORY OF west ; the horse, ass, and camel, in directions original! commencing from the west side; so again, sheep, and goat, still existing wild in the form of more than one species on the same borders ; whilst even the elephant walked once through the more southern woods ; and the wild cat, similar to the European*, now haunts the same, and prowls far onwards in the north. Of birds, Gallinacea, all originating in the south-east of Asia ; several kinds of poultry are wild in the woods ; and one domesticated species, at least, was carried, in Man's earliest migrations, onward to Egypt and the west of Europe, as well as to the furthest islands in the South Seas ; perhaps even to Chili, before the arrival of the Spaniards. On the western side, at least, are found the parent plants of many fruit-bearing trees and shrubs, now naturalized in Europe ; the walnut, chestnut, filbert ; the apple, medlar, cherry, and almost all the wild and cultivated berries, and the vine at no great distance. * Wheat and barley, of more than one variety or species, occur on the skirts of the same central region, some thriving at more than 10,000 feet of elevation in the Himalayas and in China, with buck wheat and oats, on the plains of the north-west, and onions, turnips, &c.> growing wild in many places ; wild flax and hemp on the northern plains ; and, in Cashmere, the valleys even possess edible gourds, pumpkins, and melons, whereof one or two species flourish in the arid deserts ; even the * The vine is now cultivated about Llassa, in Thibet, 29° 40" north latitude, and may also be indigenous. THE HUMAN SPECIES. 173 lotus, celebrated in Egypt, was derived from some part of India. It would be vain to look for so many primitive elements of human subsistence, in a social state, in any other portion of the globe. Nearly all of them were originally wanting in the western Caucasus ; and the civilized development of Egypt could not have occur- red without the possession of wheat, barley, flax, the leek, garlic, onion, and many other objects, all foreign to Africa.* These can have been brought westward only by colonies practically acquainted with their value. In the devious course of the nations moving westward, the mulberry, apricot, and the date palm, may have proved an early resource to the traveller ; and further on, the olive, fig tree, and plum, were no doubt luxuries ; but the sorbus, and more certainly the citron, were a later importation from beyond the Indus, as well as the orange, which came from China last of all. Rice was most probably a substitute for corn, first perhaps cultivated in China, or Indo-China, where the requisite heat and watery soil naturally present themselves, f On the west side of Thibet is the huge table land of * Triticum sativum; Triticum spelta, still wild near Ramadan ; Hordeum vulgare, in Northern India and Tah- tary ; Allium csepa, &c., wild in various places. t In Egyptian representations of tribute, brought by subjugated nations from " far countries," it is pleasant to remark, among many objects, living plants and shrubs, care- fully transported for replanting, and, by those accompany- ing them, are evidently from an eastern region. These figures likewise bear the Swasteca, or a similar cross, indi- cative of a symbolical creed. 174 ' NATURAL HISTORY OF Paraere, the back-bone of the world, not yet distinctly marked in maps ; a more real umbilicus of the earth than any other of the sacred centres of primaeval society. Here is the mysterious Lake Surikol, at the source of the Oxus, where local belief pretends that the Jaxartes and the Indus have both affluents rising at no great dis- tance, while the Kash-gar, on the east of the summits, flows towards the rising sun. To the west are the mountains of Northern Hindoo-Koosh, the probable seat of the first Celto-Scythse, for in these regions was afterwards established a Macedonian empire, which, without an original consanguinity with the local nations, could not have lasted even for one generation. . Most primaeval nations have traditions of a primor- dial city of the gods, of the progenitor heroes of each stem — a Babel, Nagara, Pasagardae, or Asgard. It appears that Balkh (Kham-balu *) is at least the most prominent, so far as the western and southern nations are concerned, notwithstanding that the present Bamean, with the interminable troglodyte habitations around, may well represent the spot where increased population, finding insufficient food, would be excited to discord ; and an appeal to force would naturally end in the weaker party being driven to exile or dispersion. Though other traditions may be more purely Cau- casian, mention may be made of some, perhaps, no less important. Among these is the very ancient name of * The first Cambalu, or rather Khan-balk, is not Pekin. Samarcand, the first horse fair, and thence commercial city, is at no great distance. THE HUMAN SPECIES. J7o !Neel-ab, Blue River, given to the Indus by the earliest Semitic tribes in the east, and similarly applied to the Nile of Egypt, causing that confusion in geographical ideas which believed the river of Africa to come, by some unknown way, from the east, until the expedition of Alexander cleared up the error. It is curious, that the Sutledge of the Punjab is still the Blue River; pointing to Cashmere (Kaspapyrus) as the first seat of the Perso- Arabian races. The oldest form of social existence was parental, or by families, which soon expanded into the patriarchal, still retained by nomad pastoral nations. With others it broke up by the separation of the priestly dignity from the head paternity of tribes. As soon as dogmas and political considerations multiplied, the struggle between authority by birth, and the suggestions of expediency, began ; for ambition pleaded the claims of valour, justifying them by surrounding dangers and the inefficiency of nonage ; the pontificate demanded an undying adequacy of purpose, upheld by sanctity of example : arguments which, being repeated as the social existence spread wider, hierarchies were instituted, and ike rights of pleading the cause of justice, or the art of healing the sick, became separated, or classified into learned orders. In religious feeling a deism, perhaps a form of Bud- hism, can be traced back to Central Asia as early as the reign of Sesostris. The Vedas, not much, if at all later, show the possession of a higher truth than the subsequent philosophizing social dogmas, depending 176 NATURAL HISTORY OF upon dualisms and astronomical fancies could teacn and those in the east have a more reasoned cohesion than the Egyptian, and still more, than the Greek and Roman poetical physicalities, drawn from eastern sources and misinterpreted. In high Asia we find the legends of Europe extant in their sources. Many of the arts of social life are similarly derived from thence; every wave of invasion westward bringing new ideas; and, in later ages, the crusaders, coming from the east with loss and shame, still returned with the additional infor- mation they had acquired. From Madagascar, back to the Indus, we find a similar connection ; and, in the South Seas, there are everywhere evidences of an Asiatic priority. Finally, the western continent of America is redolent of Malay, Mongolic, Ouralian, and even purer Caucasian sources, in physical as well as traditional objects. In order to proceed to their various destinations, each typical stock naturally followed the great rivers in their course, for these are the natural directing lines of na- tions exploring the way to unknown regions ; and the necessity of facilitating progression is the cause why all tribes, however rude, are acquainted with some mode of conveyance by water. Other roads were early indicated, by local necessities, differing from the sub- sequent caravan routes, which took directions from and to points already known to be most favourable for trafficking with distant nations, who had objects of barter to exchange, and therefore, on both sides, had an interest in the speediest and safest passage. From THE HUMAN SPECIES. 177 the well-known proceedings of subsequent ages, it is clear, that outcasts and scouts, then hunter families, would naturally be the first adventurers, and tribes would follow onwards only as far as immediate neces- sity or convenience might dictate ; pushing further when more was known of the world before them, and pressure from new colonists urged them from behind. Starting through the gorges of the great river outlets to the plains, and following their course, or ranging along the flanks of mountain chains, to turn deserts, or escape the necessity of attempting elevated ridges or interminable swamps, which were or might be impas- sable ; while, at the same time, water, game, and wild fruits would be most abundant. Deserts and plains are never so absolutely impassable as to prevent ulterior progress. Water is found in some localities, and occasionally verdure; and these oases are soon marked by the wanderer, who then guides his family or moving tribe along them, till they reach a better region. Impediments of this kind are therefore incentives to progress, and generally much less obstacles than morasses and dense forests ; for it is by the river courses alone that these last are penetrated. In the progressive colonization, some leading tribe would find a natural obstacle to retard or prevent its further migration ; halting on the spot, other clans would come up ; and where no forests near the sea, nor a great stream, would favour the structure of rafts or canoes, intercourse occurring, more or less knowledge M 173 NATURAL HISTORY OF of the acquirements and experience each had gained would be the result, although it might "be obtained after collision, by much slaughter and suffering, if not by the subjugation of one of the parties. Yet, out of these disasters rose almost all the elements of civilization; and it may be remarked, as a fact of constant occur- rence, that human intelligence is perhaps never fully awakened to a progressive social system from suffering alone, but by intermixture, when races are packed together on the ultimate border of a sea, checked or forced to pass close upon or through each other, and to appeal to the sword. Thus, Palestine and Egypt, seated on the bridge that leads into Africa ; Ionia and Greece, on the ferry of the Hellespont; Tangier and Cadiz (the Bisepharat of antiquity) ; Bab-el-mandeb, the gate of tears, or passage into Africa ; even the isthmus of Panama, all attest the fact, together with an. additional result, which shows not so much the stationary people, as that which has passed on, to be likewise foremost in civilization. Such was Egypt compared with Syria, Greece in respect to Asia Minor ; Spain with Africa ; such was Peru to Mexico ; and Western Europe is now, in comparison, to the east. Total civilization is not even produced by the mere compulsory mixture of nations moving in the same direction ; it requires the additional influence of the modes of thinking and acting, from sources coming through other latitudes, to pull down and reconstruct a system that will accept of a progressive march of reasoning, independent of ancestral routine. Had the THE HUMAN SPECIES. 179 northern nations, by their own ambitious free will, not crossed upon the older migratory movement that came from east to west, such civilization as Egypt, Greece, and Rome had conferred, notwithstanding that marine influences had greatly aided in the development, must have continued stationary, then decayed, until they fell to ruin.* A want of such concurrence, as already observed, may be the sole cause why China has remain- ed stationary ; for even the slight shock lately given to that empire by Great Britain, has already had an effect, disproving the common opinion, that the Mon- golic mind cannot advance beyond a certain point. No people of the typical stocks could arrive at a progres- sive social existence, without intermixture of one or more branches of the homogeneous nations of the beard- ed and beardless forms ; and through these, such rudi- ments of advancement as can be traced among the woolly haired, were likewise engendered. While nations pushed each other forward, and con- tested the possession of desirable territories, sudden extermination of the vanquished people generally lent but trifling aid to intellectual advancement ;, there was scarcely a desire to make slaves, where food was often insufficiently abundant for the victors ; but when the great roads of colonization had been trodden by many nations to the verge of oceans, the result was different, * The power of habit, of educational prejudices, is for- cibly seen, in Christian Rome continuing wild beast and gladiatorial exhibitions, though both had been repeatedly scenes of martyrdom, until they were stopped by a Pagan, held to be a barbarian, because he was a Goth. 180 NATURAL HISTORY OF because by that time Man had learned to subdue the horse for his convenience, whereas, until that moment, the ox alone appears to have been used for the saddle.* This conquest over brute power again commenced in high Asia, perhaps about Samarkand, but more cer- tainly on the great plains north and west of the central table land ; and with the aid of this valuable acquisition, began the era of invasion for dominion's sake ; at first, in a more cumbrous manner, by charioteering; but, soon after, riders, on the backs of their horses, passing rapidly over immense distances, and almost entirely from east to west, carrying few or no wives or children, obtained both by the sword, and even spared the van- quished male sex, in order to enslave it.f From conquests by military invasion, there thus arose privileged families and tribes, a master class, in nearly every nation, marked even at present, in many instances, by a distinct exterior, notwithstanding, that with scarcely an exception, it is issued from a cognate stem. Only time softened the bonds by gradual inter- unions, and by new conquerors again subduing both master and slave. In Europe, where the history of foreign subjugation is best preserved, there are in- stances of three or more having passed over the same * This was certainly a practice of Hindoo princes, before the horse appears, and even long after. It is still in use among the Caffres, who ride their Bakeley oxen in war ; and by mendicant fakeers in India. t Yet there are examples, down to the ninth century, when Christian kings (Franks) could direct the slaughter of every male whose height surpassed the length of the con- queror's sword THE HUMAN SPECIES. 181 people, each in turn crushing the former privileged orders. All were originally pastoral tribes, and they fiontinued to conquer so long as agriculture had not yet fostered the other sciences of civilization ; and de- fensive war was unavailing to scattered husbandmen, whose masters' subdivided power thwarted each other, and left the masses little worth defending. The nations who seem to have escaped servitude, it may be remark- ed, retreated to mountain regions, where cavalry had no advantage. Such are the Nilgherries, the Vin- dayan system, the western or modern Caucasus, the Alps, the Pyrenees, &c., all peopled by refugees, not by Autochtones. Mere insular situations did not afford equal security, because boats conferred the same in- vading facilities which the horse produced on land ; and hence even the more remote South Sea Islands are not without a master race, which, in whatever way attention is turned, will ever be found to be directly or indirectly of the Caucasian stock, excepting only in those centres of existence where the two other typical forms of Man reside ; for one of these, sensible of an inferior innervation, is possessed of a well-founded jealousy of the bearded race, and by political precau- tion endeavours to exclude it; while the other rests secure in the effects of climate ; and both abuse their good fortune, by at least inflicting subjection each upon kindred tribes ; but much more restricted in the extent, by the increasing progress of the Caucasian. West of Central Asia, all records agree in pointing to the east for the direction whence nations migrated. 182 NATURAL HISTORY OF Only three exceptions occur, where the course was a return homewards from anterior progression. Such was the Hebrew from Egypt to Palestine, the Ionian from Greece to Asia Minor, and the Nogay Tahtar from Russia to China. If the Egyptians, led by a Sesostris, penetrated to Bactria, a fabulous Bacchus to India, the Gauls to Greece and Galatia, and the Mace- donians to the Punjab, beyond the Indus, they were mere conquering inroads, which lasted only for a few generations, sustained in some degree by the aboriginal homogeneousness of the invaders with the races in pos- session of the land. The pseudo-Greek kingdoms, not- withstanding the great national influx of that people in Western Asia, had no permanent tenure ; and the Romans, the Crusaders, and the modern French, have only produced military occupations, not national coloni- zations. None are historically known to have departed from the inter-Pontine Caucasus, though many came westward, by the route of Armenia, with more or less delay in that high region, because the avenues leading south and west, from both sides of the Caspian, to Asia Minor, Syria, and Africa, mainly pass through it. * Had the first population of mankind radiated from the Ararat of Armenia (for the word is generical),t all the present nations of the west, whose great movements are historically traceable to the high Oxus and Jaxartes * Of course, the dispersion of the Jews eastward, and some more recent forcible transpositions of western Cau- casian tribes to high Asia, are not here regarded. t In the Circassian tongue Ararat, Arak, or Areck, simply denote a peak. THE HUMAN SPECIES. 183 (such as the Gomerian Celtae, and the Indo-Germans, Yuchi and Sacae), would have travelled without being pressed in the rear, across deserts, up great rivers and high mountain ranges, before they multiplied, for no other purpose than to return over the same ground, that they might thence continue still further west than they had been east, and delay peopling only that por- tion of the globe which is unquestionably the most im- portant of the whole ; or for the sole purpose of fetching the physical elements of social life already mentioned, which western Caucasus never spontaneously produced, and to learn at a distance, forms of speech, fundamen- tally belonging to the oldest Scythic, or a parent San- scrit— a language found to influence, with very few exceptions, every known grammatical tongue in the world, though, in its present shape, it may be a mix- ture of various dialects. Asiatic early lore proves this primseval tongue to have originated in the southern and western Highlands already noticed, and to exist still in many idioms, spreading from their border through India, Indo-Chma ; and, with less evidence, to Australasia, far more than to the west, in Europe, Persia, and Syria ; and none of its dialects positively belonging to western Caucasus. The present Imeri- tians, Circassians, &c., though they may have a just claim to be of the purest bearded typical stock, like the Coords or Gaurs, were originally riding conquerors, and were driven into their present fastnesses at a com- paratively recent period. If we turn to India, although the woolly haired stock 184 NAT UP VL HISTORY OF may have retained, from priority of diffusion, a typical nucleus within the tropics, expanding even westward, there is a master race, of a distinct origin, domineering over the oldest discoverable tribes, gradually more and more intermixed, till, from pure white, it becomes posi- tively black, without therefore being deprived of a superior aspect, which the Caucasian blood alone con- fers. It extends, with few exceptions, down to very near the equatorial line, where, indeed, contamination is still observable ; but the mastery of a foreign race evidently disappears. These conditions recur, in a south-western direction, along the Persian and Arabian maritime provinces, and eastern Africa ; the Caucasian, whether brownish or black, preponderating numeri- cally towards the shores of the Mediterranean, exactly in the ratio structural conformation would prefer, if left at liberty. This intermediate sub-typical race, in all its shades of colour, is the Ethiopian of antiquity, and seems to have included those tribes which were held accursed by several of the most ancient white immigrators in Western Asia. The Mongolic nations record, in the same manner, their descent from high mountain ranges, and the early struggles of their heroes in draining marshes, teaching cultivation, letters and metallurgy ; in time making even regular observations on comets, when the wisdom of Europe was hidden in a howling wilderness, and long before science amongst us assumed a rational shape. * In America, all the tribes that retain traditions of - * See Biot on Comets. THE HUMAN SPECIES. 185 their origin, point to the north-west, with the excep- tion of the extinct Flatheads, whose history is wholly unknown. They have propelled each other east and south, although certain tribes of the most ancient re- sidents in the south-east, and Patagonian regions, may form exceptions; and there are traditions, even in Mexico, of marine strangers from the east ; for man soon passed from fishing on the lake, or paddling in a stream, to adventure his person beyond the surf of seas and, when it served his purpose for coasting, trusted to the simplest materials to support his weight. Cata- marans of three dry pieces of wood, and a staff, with flattened ends, for oars, have been in use for uncounted ages, on the rolling seas of Madras ; and models like them are often dug out with the bones of ancient Peruvians, where the inhabitants have similar breaking rollers to encounter. Coracles, made upon a frame of twigs, with the skins of seals, oxen, and horses, belong- ed to most nations of the Old Continent ; birch kaicks to the Arctic people of both ; and canoes of solid wood, hollowed out, to every portion of the globe. When these had attained a certain bulk and adequacy of struc- ture, a family might transport itself from one end of the world to the other in a few seasons, merely by coasting. Thus did the messenger of Vasco de Gama pass, in an open boat,* from Diu, in the East Indies, * It is supposed that lago Botello used a pattemar, or Cutch native boat, in this daring voyage. The vessel was half decked; but only 16i feet long, 9 broad, and 4$ in depth. 186 NATURAL HISTORY OF round the Cape, to Lisbon, in safety. In this manner opinions, languages, and records, were transmitted unadulterated, from the Euxine and Asia Minor, as far as Britain, in a single generation ; while the tribes whose fate it was to travel by land, were compelled to fight their way onwards for ages, gradually losing all memory of the pristine fatherland ; and unable to recognise their ancient kindred, when they met again in the west, but by broken accents of a once common language, as is sufficiently evident in the meeting of the devious tribes of Gomerian Celtae. In the view here taken, mankind might be primi- tively arranged somewhat in the form of the diagram opposite, supposing the apex of an equilateral triangle to point to the north : — Thus, we have the southern line representing the Himalaya chain, with its great streams ending at the Indian Ocean ; the eastern similarly leading to the Pacific ; and the western to a sea gradually contracted into the Caspian ; and the intermediate, conducted by geographical necessities, reaching the South Seas, the Northern Pacific, and from thence to America, the Polar and Western Regions, and the Erythrean Seas to Northern Africa. Of these, however, the Caucasian alone bears evidence of commencing development upon the table land, and under the shadows of the western chains ; the Mongolic being at first no nearer than the THE HUMAN SPECIES. 187 188 NATURAL HISTORY OF eastern extremity of the Gobi, and the woolly haired type coming up to, and along the skirts of the southern chain, rather than commencing primaeval diffusion so far to the north of its general centre of existence. The review of typical and sub-typical forms of Man, intended to be submitted here, appears to be best arranged, by taking in succession — the woolly haired — the Malay and mixed races of the South Seas — the American abnormal nations — the Mongolic or beardless — and the Ouralian and Toorkee. From these we arrive at the true Caucasian, whose early history being best known from the south-east side of the central region, will require, that first the mixed semi-woolly haired tribes of South and Western Asia be examined, in order that the great influence and expansion of the bearded stock may be established ; and the records of its principal races will form the remaining subject of consideration. Beginning, therefore, with that form, whicl may likewise on that account be considered as the most ano>«nt we find — THE HUMAN SPECIES. 189 THE WOOLLY HAIRED TROPICAL TYPE * THE woolly haired, tropical, dark coloured stock, im- properly called Atlantic and Ethiopic, is considered to be most distinctly typical, where the maximum of de- velopment is found, in the peculiarities of structure and faculties that distinguish it from the other normal forms. It is that which predominates in Central and Western tropical Africa — a form of Man of good stature, though seldom attaining six feet in height, and falling as rarely beneath five feet six; the facial angle varying from 65 to 70 degrees ; the head being small, laterally com- pressed ; the dome of the skull arched and dense ; the forehead narrow, depressed, and the posterior part more developed ; the nose broad and crushed, with the nos- trils round ; the lower jaw protruding, angular, but more vertical in nonage ; the mouth wide, with very thick lips, black to the commissure, which is red ; the * By this denomination is understood, not wool strictly speaking, but hair so highly frizzled as to appear like the wool of Iceland sheep ; and in coarseness so rude, that the wool of a Negro head, struck with the knuckles, frequently cuts the skin to the bone. The pile of the beard, &c., is equally file-like or lacerating. These effects we have re- peatedly witnessed. Though within the tropics no micro- scopes of sufficient power were at hand to test the fact, the general impression was, that this kind of hair is angular ; and we doubt, that Dr. Pritchard's observations on the sub- ject are wholly satisfactory; the less so, since the hair of the head seems to have been exclusively examined, in all the researches we have been able to consult. 190 NATURAL HISTORY OF teeth large, solid, and the incisors placed rather liquely forward. The ears, which are roundish, rather small, standing somewhat high and detached, are said, like the scalp, to be occasionally moveable'; the eyes always suffused with a bilious tint, and the irides very dark. The hair, in infants, rises from the skin in small mammillary tufts, disposed in irregular quincunx, and is in all parts of a crisp woolly texture, excepting the eyebrows and eyelashes. In men it is scanty on the upper lip, generally confined to the point of the chin, without any at the sides of the face, excepting in late manhood. On the head, it forms a close hard frizzle of wool; in the pure races never hanging loose, nor rising into a kind of mop ; and the breast some- times has a few tufts ; but the arms and legs are with- out any. The throat and neck is muscular ; and, with the chest, shoulders, abdomen, hips, back, upper arms, and thighs, very symmetrically moulded ; * but, com- pared with the Caucasian, the humerus is a trifle shorter, and the forearm longer, thereby approximating the form of Simiadae. The wrists and ancles are ro- bust; the hands coarse, with phalanges rather short, particularly the thumb ; and the palms are yellowish. * The late Sir Francis Chantrey's magnificent cast of a Torso, taken from a Negro in London, bore ample testi- mony to this fact. Our own sketches of the naked figure, drawn during a residence of twelve years within the tropics, gave so much additional proof, that the great sculptor was tempted to copy several for his own use. With regard to the other sex, the tropics alone produce the combination of infantine natural grace with the full de- velopment of female maturity. THE HUMAN SPECIES. 191 The legs have the shin bones slightly bent forwards, and the calves placed high up ; the feet broad, heavy, squarish, with the soles flat ; the os calcis less promi- nent ; the toes short, more equal in length ; and all the nails strong, short, and broad. The skin is soft, silky to the touch ; in the new born infant, dull cherry red, gradually darkening to the permanent depth of shade ; beneath the epidermis the mucous membrane, loaded with a colouring matter in the bile, causes the melanic appearance of the skin, which varies, however, from deep sallow to intense sepia black ; darkest in health ; and that colour always distinctly aifects the external glands. It is likewise the source of an overpowering offensive odour, spreading through the atmosphere, when many are congregated in the hot sun. The silky texture of the epidermis is more liable to erosion from pressure than that of white men. It is a character as organic, or more so, than the arched dome of the skull, and the perpendicularity of the vertebral column, which are quoted as the sole cause, why burthens are best borne by Negroes on the head instead of the back ; for their general structure is athletic, the gait erect, free, and in young persons not ungraceful. It appears that some tribes in Dongola and Sennaar have one lumbar vertebra more than the Caucasian, and &**• stomach corrugated.* In general, the female * " Observations sur les battaillons Negres du Cordofan an service de Mehemet AH en Egypte et qni servirent en Candie." By a German surgeon. The same remarks ara likewise offered, \ve believe* by Dr. Madden, Travels, &c. 192 NATURAL HISTORY OF arly to. pelvis is wider, the aperture round, and both sexes have the hips remarkably well proportioned. The bones of the typical nations are heavy, well knit, or with the apophyses fitted to receive broad insertions of the muscles; and the dome of the skull is particular! solid ; but the ribs slender and flexible. Hence groes, of all human beings, are distinguished for fight- ing, by occasionally butting, with their heads foremo like rams, at each other, the collision of their ski giving a report that may be heard to some distan< Even women, in their brawls, have the same habit. The dense spherical structure of the head, likewise, enables several tribes to shave their crowns, and in this exposed state to remain, with the lower half of the body immersed in water, under a vertical sun. This very structure may influence the erect gait, which occasions the practice, common also to the Ethiopian or mixed nations, of carrying burthens and light weights, even to a tumbler full of water, upon the head ; a feat which they effect with perfect safety and gracefulness.* Most of the black nations are capable of protracted toil, without much injury to their frames ; they wil- lingly share labour with the female sex in a state of * Though the practice is general, pride nevertheless can counteract it; for we have invariably seen the Jamaica Maroons carry their produce to market on the back, and take their rest under distinct trees, apart from slave Ne- groes, because, as they told us, they would show themselves " free like Buckra man !" A second jar of water, Negroes always carry upon the palm of the hand inverted. THE HUMAN SPECIES. 193 independence as well as in captivity; they dig, hew wood, carry, walk, or row, for many hours, in a tropical sun, without repining. They multiply on mountain and in morass, in sterile and in rich soil, throughout the tropical region. Though a new locality like South America be not their original centre of existence, they spread, on both sides, beyond the equatorial belt, over the lower degrees of the temperate latitudes ; do not decrease in the presence of Caucasians when not over- worked by their taskmasters; and flourish under the fiercest solar heat, where other types of man decay or perish. In constitution, they escape or withstand many of the most virulent epidemics, among the rest, small pox, so fatal to all the American races ; and others, incidental to the tropics, or introduced by Europeans, visit them with less violence. In South America, where the indigenous tribes diminish, in regions where white men are but little known, the Maroons or Negroes, escaped from Portu- guese, Spanish, and Dutch slavery, increase ; they have established independent communities in the swampy regions of Guiana, and still more, between the rivers Amazon, Iza, and Japura, where, under the name of Jurie Negroes, they occupy an extensive territory, since they expelled the Moruas and Maruquevare Indians. These, however, together with the Haytian, the Ja- maica Maroons, and Guadaloupe Quelehs, as well as all the West Indian and North American woolly haired populations, being the offspring of the greatest inter- mixture of different African tribes, and not entirely free 194 NATURAL HISTORY OP of European and American Indian admixture, are ex- cited by acquired knowledge, under new circumstances, and therefore capable of a united and reasoned energy. They have mostly lost the peculiar features belonging to the different African parent tribes. Their heads are larger, as is seen also in Dr. Morton's measurements, who, we are inclined to believe, was not aware of the rapid change that takes place in the development of the skull ; though, even in Europe, the difference of size in heads of the educated and uneducated classes, among civilized nations, is no secret to hatters. In this con- dition, colonial born Negroes are often ingenious handi- crafts. We have known a slave cooper, whose owner refused to grant his emancipation for less than £600. They make good masons and joiners ; and excellent steersmen at the wheel and tiller are not uncommon. The voice of Negroes is feeble and hoarse in the male sex ; exceedingly high and shrill in females ; the sense of sight is acute ; that of taste sufficiently delicate ; hearing sharp ; with notions of time, but very little of melody ; yet fond of music, and constantly handling instruments of the most imperfect kind, excepting a species of harmonicon, made of slips of bamboo, or of a set of sounding stones ; if it be that these are of their own invention. They have drums and a kind of cas- tanet; but stringed instruments are derived from a Moorish source. Though the physical qualities are well developed, the intellectual are low, in some tribes quite puerile ; yet the moral impulses are not unfrequently of a most noble nature. They offer, therefore, a discordant THE HUMAN SPECIES. 195 mixture of qualities, wherein the good predominates, till the European, not misguided by personal interests or prejudices, cannot refrain from feelings of affection for them. They all believe in some kind of future state, though religious sensations are with them superstitious and childish mummeries, too often connected with fetiche necromancy, which deals in the crimes of poison- ing and murder. Thought is habitually dormant, and, when roused, it is manifested by loud soliloquy and gesticulations, regardless of circumstances. War is a passion that excites in them a brutal disregard of human feelings ; it entails the deliberate murder of prisoners ; and victims are slain to serve the manes of departed chiefs. Even cannibalism is frequent among the tribes of the interior. But these habits were once not unknown to the highest endowed Caucasians ; human sacrifices belonged to the heroic age of Greece ; to the historical of India, Phoenicia, Carthage, Egypt, and Celtica ; to nations who must have known better, and were not, like the African savage, in mental nonage, without neighbours to teach a better doctrine or more humane example ; for, wherever higher moral duties have been promulgated to Negroes, they have been quickly accepted, Notwithstanding the listless torpi- dity caused by excessive heat, the perceptive faculties of the children are far from contemptible. They have a quick apprehension of the ridiculous ; often surpassing the intelligence of the white, and only drop behind them about the twelfth year, when the reflective powers begin to have the ascendancy. 196 NATURAL HISTORY OF Collectively, the untutored Negro mind is confiding, single hearted, naturally kind and hospitable. We speak not without personal experience, "the female sex is affectionate, to absolute devotedness, in the character of mother, child, nurse, and attendant upon the sick, though these be strangers, and the often experienced reward scarcely amounting to thanks. As housewives, they are charitable to the wants of wayfaring visitants ; within doors orderly ; and, personally, very clean : they are joyous ; noisy ; in the night time indefatigable dancers equally with the men, who are in general orderly, trustworthy, brave and unrepining. Both sexes are easily ruled, and appreciate what is good, under the guidance of common justice and prudence. Yet, where so much that honours human nature re- mains— in apathy, the typical woolly haired races have never invented a reasoned theological system ; dis- covered an alphabet ; framed a grammatical language ; nor made the least step in science or art. * They have scarcely comprehended what they have learned; or retained a civilization taught them by contact with more refined nations, so soon as that contact has ceased. They have at no time formed great political states, nor commenced a self-evolving civilization. Conquest, * The simple formulse of Negro languages remain, when they are obliged to learn European ; thus, all the Negro slaves of tropical America speak a dialect in form the same as the general African tongue, though the words are Spanish, Portuguese, French, English, Dutch, or Danish. Education and time has no doubt made the present genera- tion more grammatically correct. THE HUMAN SPECIES. 197 with them, has been confined to kindred tribes, and produced only slaughter. Even Christianity, of more than three centuries duration, in Congo, has scarcely excited a progressive civilization, because it is unat- tended by the stimulus of a stranger race (for the small number of Portuguese officials, priests, exiles, criminals, and slave merchants, are inadequate, and of all Euro- pean nations least capable of stirring the mind to activity, by education, and the example of exertion) ; notwithstanding that the nations south of the Zezere have a more intellectual aspect, and have a barter trade across the continent to Mozambique. Thus, the good qualities given to the Negro by the bounty of Nature, have served only to make him a slave, trodden down by every remorseless foot, and to brand him for ages with the epithet of outcast ; the marked unceasing proof of a curse, as old as the origin of society, not even deserving human forbearance ! and true it is, that the worst slavery is his lot, even at home, for he is there exposed to the constant peril of becoming also a victim, slaughtered with the most revolting torments. * Tyrant of his blood, he traffics in slavery as it were merchandise; makes war purposely to capture neigh- bours ; and sells even his own wives and children. A second stem of the typical group is the eastern tropical or Samang, which we shall continue to deno- minate Papua, notwithstanding recent investigations have endeavoured to confine this name to a more hybrid * See Bowditch's Mission to Ashantee. 198 NATURAL HISTORY OF population of the Australian islands. It is in general greatly intermixed with Hindoo, Mongolic, and Malay blood ; and in comparatively few localities, sufficiently pure to retain the close crisp woolly scalp which is the most decisive criterion of the fact ; for, so soon as, in any warm climate, there is foreign alliance, the wool becomes bushy, and rises into a huge round mop ; and if there be still greater connection, it droops and gradually turns into incipient curls. By this token the amount of adulteration may be traced, independent of the colour of the skin, with perhaps no exceptions, although it is true, that there is in some cases a tendency to variation, in the offspring taking, in one birth, a more decisive maternal character, and perhaps in the next a paternal, even to the extent of modifying the hair, particularly between true Negroes and hard lank-haired South Americans of the Austral-Malay cast of structure. These remarks show, that the earlier Egyptians had only a casual knowledge of the true Negro populations ; for, when these were first noticed, they occupied, it seems, the highlands behind the east coast of Africa ; and the ages they may have nestled in the central regions, without farther progress westward, may be surmised, from the Phoenician navigators, who reached that coast by the Atlantic, not mentioning the presence of real human beings to the south of Cape Blanco, since they brought back to Carthage specimens or skins of the Chimpanzee, which at no time could exist to the north of the great rivers, where alone there are trees and food. The abnormal are pourtrayed on Egyptian THE HUMAN SPECIES. 199 temples, often repeated, with great bushy heads ; but real Negroes may be alone intended in the figures of black human victims, significantly offered to a Python god. In Asia the circumstances were different; to this time the Hubbashee clans of real Negroes exist in Laristan and Mekran, in Persia, and even on the Hel- rnund ; and are evidently of the primitive race to the south of the Himalaya chain as well as southern Persia. * This type forms the primaeval inhabitants of the Australasian and many tropical islands, although they have been rooted out or subdued to form a low cast of slaves in most of them ; and notwithstanding that a remote idolatry, of Papuan origin, can still be traced out in parts of India, and sovereign families even claim descent from monkey gods, that is, from primaeval Bheels, the worship has changed to Brahmanism, and the ruling dynasties are now of high cast Caucasians, as will be shown in the sequel. Only, in the larger islands, the Papua tribes are in general still found masters of the central mountain forests. Rarely, how- * Professor Wilson, in his notice of the animals, &c., mentioned by Ctesias, gives some account of the Kalestrii ; and in my manuscript note upon it, I find, that " there were other tribes, higher up the country, and nearer the sources of the Indus, who were very black, drank no water nor ate corn, but lived on the milk of their flocks." These were, perhaps, the typical Asoors or Azuras of Hindoo mytho- logy. Abulghazi speaks of black people residing between the Hylas (Cabul?) and the Indus, vol. i. p. 15. The pre- sent Aghori, by Ctesias, named avfyoirtforof, and by the Per- sians Mardikohr, still occasionally feed on putrid human flesh, and reside in caverns about Aboo, among the Jains. They cannot well be Caucasians, nor are they Mongoles. 200 NATURAL HISTORY OF ever, is this branch of the Negro stock equal in stature and vigour to the African. Sometimes varying to yel- lowish-brown, it is in colour sooty black ; in stature often so diminutive, that the small heads they have appear large, the more in disproportion, because the extremities are feeble and slender. Such at least is the case with many of the tribes still possessed of retreats in the Malay Archipelago and Peninsula ; but this form of the woolly haired stock, unlike the African, dimi- nishes rapidly before the encroachments of Malays, Arabs, and Europeans. Many of them prefer death to slavery ; others vegetate in that condition, their mar- riages not producing more than one or two children ; and some, becoming Mahometans, form mixed popula- tions, where Horafoura and Malay, Hindoo and Arab, Chinese and European, have been promiscuously mixed, and their characteristics obliterated. In this way Western Asiatic nations, with more undulating or lank hair, were likewise formed, by intermixture with the low fronted Dombuks, Nimreks, and Kakasiah, or black brothers. They may have influenced even the black Kalmuks, the Colchians of Herodotus, and the black Bedoueens. From the geographical position of the purest Papua Negroes, it is evident, they have been the first race expelled the coasts and plains, since they are insu- lated in the mountains, or driven to the unhealthy equatorial points, where other tribes cannot multiply. Hence, they are the oldest primaeval race, even if it should be denied, that they are a population of anterior THE HUMAN SPECIES. 201 date to a great territorial cataclysis, which submerged a continent beneath or on the south of the line. It is also evident, that around them, and northward, up the idus, to the southern foot of the Himalayas, the ishada) most ancient nations, with some relation to ie distance from their equatorial centre, bear strong marks, in structure, intellectual capacity, habits, colour, and hair, of a succession of intermixtures with races coming down by the gorge of the Bramaputra, and along the eastern secondaries of the great mountain range, causing a Mongolic adulteration; and, on the north-west, by the Cabul and Indus, another of Cau- casian blood, passing to the plains of India in over- powering numbers; and by the Ganges and Jumna; likewise along the western flanks of the range from Cashmere, and indeed from China itself, where, in the earliest ages, the bearded race had numerous colonies. But there is no evidence of the woolly haired stock possessing, at any time, the valleys above the secon- dary ranges, since none are now found shut up in the colder mountains ; and the bearded races, tenants of the region, are fair, and not unfrequently marked by grey eyes, and light or red curled hair, showing how remote was the starting point from whence they first proceeded. Both the earliest known invasions of the Indian pen- insula, coming in successive waves, demonstrate how variously crossed and intermixed have been the popula- tions already, before the recorded historical repetitions of the same movement took place. Similar events were equally in active operation to the south-west, 202 NATURAL HISTORY OF through Persia and Syria. While a proportion of black races may have coasted towards Africa, others doubt passed through the isthmus of Suez, and by the Arabian shore into their present central region, leavi marks of their progress in the Mekran, and other fi eating Suakim on the African shore. The Papuan stock, notwithstanding mental and phy- sical deficiences, has advanced to the pastoral and even agricultural conditions, when not molested by invaders, and favoured probably by some foreign innervation ; for, in a pure unmixed state, no eastern Negro tribe has passed beyond the profession of hunter, or is ob- servable on islands at more than a moderate distance from its Australasian centre. The inapprehensive character of their constitutions, or an impulse which leads them to the sea, induces both African and Papua stems readily to accept a marine mode of life. They are generally excellent swimmers ; they dive fearlessly, and will fight the shark in his own element. Yet they have never invented the construction of large canoes, such as the Malay and American make with so much skill. The marine enterprise, however it may have been occasioned, is manifest even among tribes residing far inland;* such, for example, are the brave * The fearless propensity to venture on the sea, was shown in Jamaica, during our residence on the island, by two very young new Negro lads, both natives of the inte- rior of Africa, who could know little more of a water life than perhaps fishing on the Niger ; yet they stole a canoe ; and, unprovided with food or water, went to sea from Port Royal harbour, with the resolution of returning to their own counjry! The poor lads were fortunately picked up the s THE HUMAN SPECIES. 203 and honest Menas or Kroomen of Western Africa, who all become in some degree sailors ; and colonial Negroes, who are often seamen in the merchant service. In what manner the black Caribs of St. Vincent first reached the Western Hemisphere is narrated upon questionable evidence. Those said to be remains of this adventitious race, are still excellent boatmen ; and if Peter Martyr (Decads) may be credited, there was a Negro population already established on the coast of America* before the arrival of the Spaniards. On the west coast of Africa the most energetic tribes are Coromantees, very black, and marked on the cheeks with tribal scars. They are a daring and martial people ; when enslaved, often rebellious. The Eboes, on the contrary, are less vigorous, paler in colour, with a more slender form and elongated features. They are a gentler race, yet more truly savages ; and, though addicted to despondency and suicide, they were for- merly sought for house servants. The Widahs or Fidahs are of the stem usually called Papaws and Nagas in Africa; they resemble the Papuas of the Indian Ocean more than any other race ; and they assimilate likewise with the Eboes, but are still more submissive as slaves. They have a baboon-like expression, and by a merchant ship, when they had already drifted far out to the south-west, and were nearly dead from exhaustion. * Peter Martyr, who wrote from the manuscript docu- ments of the first discoverers then still living, cites Vasco Nunez meeting with a colony of Negroes at Quariqua, in the Gulf of Darien. This, it should be remarked, is anterior to the introduction of black slaves. 204 NATURAL HISTORY OF the peculiarities of the Negro type strongly marked. Among them, in particular, the Naga tribes practise circumcision, and have other eastern indications about them ; the Cumbric Negroes may belong to this branch ; and the Mocos, who file the teeth in order to resemble the Lion, are still cannibals, and the most savage of the Papaw nations. Like the eastern Papuas, they are of a dirty black colour, and have the same Jewish rites as the rest. Hebrew or Semitic words occur in their dialects, as in the Houswana tongues. Ideas, and perhaps affinity with the Angola and Benin tribes, recall to mind the still existing barter trade across the continent to Mozambique, and this may point out the route from the east by which they may have come to their present location ; for, had they spread from west to east, no oriental words or institutions would be found in their ancient national dialects or habits. In Eastern Africa, the woolly haired races, though occupying a vast extent, are likewise of intermixed origin. The whole east coast is possessed by nations tinged with Arabic blood ; the extreme south by appa- rently an outcast Mongolic population ; and, from the north, Gomerian tribes have likewise produced com- mixtures to beyond the Senegal. Among these, ancient Numidians appear to have been propelled by Arabian conquerors, and to have originated the red and black Poulas, so called in proportion as the brown or black colour of their skins predominates. These have horses and camels, unknown to all other Negroes, and are now Moslem. The Jaloffs are a branch of this stem ; and THE HUMAN SPECIES. 205 the Mandingoes, once a nomad people, bear evident tokens of a more northern origin, only in part effaced by intermixture with true Negroes. Beyond the Menas or Kroomen, on the Gambia, there are, however, im- portant nations of true Negroes, such as the Basus and Buyere on each side of them ; and in the interior of Africa the mysterious Ba-u-ri. Of the African stock the most conspicuous abnormal stem is the Kafir or Caffre, a race which, having a Semitic innervation, has risen in stature, intelligence, and beauty, above all the tribes of nearly pure Negro blood. They have formed states of some extent ; they build large towns ; possess the art of smelting and working metals; are very considerable graziers; and have some agriculture. The Caffres have trained their war or Bakeley oxen to be ridden in battle;* have large, and, in some measure, organised armies, distin- guished by decorated spears for ensigns, and shields painted with different cognisances for each corps. Among the men there are individuals nearly seven feet in height ; and the women frequently possess con- siderable beauty. Extending on the south-east coast to Port Natal, they have all, it is asserted, formerly * No doubt, oxen were ridden in India before war horses were introduced by the north-western conquerors. There exist allusions to the practice ; and I have copied an Indian Rajah, seated on his war ox, from a painting on ivory. Siva on the bull Nundi represents the same fact ; and the African Caffres having the like custom, may indicate the region whence they emigrated, and the date, as anterior to the arrival of domesticated horses in southern Asia. NATURAL HISTORY OF migrated from the north-west, or Central Africa ; but this is evidently only the expansion of increased popu- lation, which, in earlier ages, shrunk from'the barren coasts, and, since returning, have directed their march to the south-east. Next, or perhaps superior to them in energy, are the Galla or Sidana nation, constantly encroaching on the Abyssinian states, and containing several mighty tribes ; such as the Sooalla, seated from the equator to Mozambique ; the Soomallees on the north of them, and the pure Gallas in the interior, who are chiefly com- posed of Carrachi and Boiran tribes — all speaking dialects of one great language. In the east, the propensity to an aquatic life is like- wise manifest, for true Oriental Negroes inhabit the Nicobar islands, and spread through many Australasian, Philippine, and more eastern groups, though they are often intermixed with Malay or with Hindoo races, who have modified their characteristic distinctions, and there also, in general, constituted a privileged order among them. This occurs even among the Tasmanians, the lowest race of oriental Negroes, and now nearly extinct, yet still familiar with water. The New Hol- land Papuas, who, for want of trees serviceable for excavation, venture out upon slips of bark but slightly bound together at the extremities, or on pieces of drift wood, not capable to support them until their bodies are partially immersed ; nay, on the central lakes of Africa, Negroes venture out, riding a stick, having two open THE HUMAN SPECIES. 207 calabashes, one before, the other behind, which buoy them up sufficiently, to admit in them the fish they catch, and stun or kill with a billet. The Papuan of Australia is, in many respects, the most sunken of human beings, and is partly mixed with Horafoura tribes, whose presence is indicated by the hair being more drooping and matted, the features less debased, and the limbs more masculine. Some tribes towards the north are even fair, and appear to have a tinge of Malay blood, perhaps imported by the Trepang fishers on the coast. If the woolly haired type, in the oriental portion of its distribution, is often of the smallest and ill made proportions, there are instances (perhaps, indeed, of races already somewhat mixed) where they rise to six feet high, and possess powerful frames, as was lately discovered in the interior of Australia. But, in all, where any religious sentiments have been observed, they seem to be imported, or sink into the lowest puerilities. This is also the case in Africa, where the divinities are spectres ; or are reptiles, lizards, insects, birds, or beasts; gods in one season and game in another; or they are wretched little idols they call Fetiche, a word derived from Pet tribes in Eastern Africa, and just precede the moro o 210 NATURAL HISTORY OF mixed races, which, like the Ethiopians of Asia, passed the Red Sea at the straits of Bab-el-mandeb, ascended the Nile, or crossed that river to the west: for that movements of this kind were long continued, is appa- rent, from the Nagas or Norages, who visited Spain and the Mediterranean islands under Norax, so late as the dawn of authentic history. Taking the whole southern portion of Asia westward to Arabia, this conjecture, which likewise was a con- clusion drawn, after patient research, by the late Sir T. Stamford Raffles, accounts, more satisfactorily than any other, for the Oriental habits, ideas, traditions, and words, which can be traced among .several of the present African tribes and in the South Sea Islands; it points out the primaeval cities of the woolly haired people in Nangasaki, or rather, in its ancient form, Nagaraki, according to Pfitzmayer ; Nagara, now Cash- mere ; Nagara, the known capital of a most ancient Naga people.* Further, in the plains, are Nagpoor, and a ruined city without name, at the gates of Benares (perhaps the real Kasi of tradition), once adorned with statues of a woolly haired race ; and lower still, on the Indus, Pattala, the ancient empire of the Naga or ser- pent kings, before it became a mythological legend. * This Nagara stood on the Indus, between latitude 32 «ind 33, and was a Dionysiopolis according to Ptolemy ; but more probably the fanum of some Naag Sahib, a serpent god with human sacrifices, such as the Naag tribes had upon the upper Nile, and still retain in Cutch. Naag and Naga, if it be a Sanscrit word, is also well known in more than one African dialect. THE HUMAN SPECIES. 211 These cities existed, and a given social state was ad- vancing to civilization among the typical woolly haired tribes of higher Asia, but declined and fell, from the moment the Hindoo races invaded Bharata or the pen- insula of India. The people, nevertheless, which they subdued, expelled, and vainly endeavoured to extirpate, survived, in scattered purer groups, in the more inac- cessible parts of the continent, chiefly along the subor- dinate ramifications of the Himalaya range, from the Indus to Indo-China, and the Malay peninsula ; or in the form of hybrid tribes, even at present lurking in the Vindaya chain, and spread through the southern states to Ceylon. Taking the characteristics of some tribes still remaining for the general standard, they were a strong built under sized people, with a depress- ed forehead, frizzled hair, crushed nose, thick lips, and black skin, all to some extent cannibals, and incapable of rising, by their own intellectual powers, much beyond the degrees of social improvement they had attained ; yet not so low, but that some of the worst features of their religious and moral notions were adopted by their conquerors. The names of the nations varied of course. Among the most ancient and general, was that of Nats, Nagas, Nishadas, Kabendas, Bhils, and Puharees. * * Several of these names recur, most significantly, among the Negro tribes of Western and Southern Africa, particu- larly those of Nagas or Nagoes, Puharees, Menas, and per- haps Galla ; for in India the Gwalla, or grazier profession, is the same as that of the African Gallas, who also bear another Asiatic and their true name of Sidana. Gal, Gail, in Celtic, moreover, denotes a stranger or wanderer, there- fore radically also a nomad. 212 NATURAL HISTORY OF They are now found under similar denominations, such as Cutchees, Bheels, Binderwars, Paharias of Bhangul- poor, and Mongheer, who are complete Papuas ; there are the Sedies of Canara, Dacoits of Bengal, Ghonds of Ghondwana, Koolies or Kholes, Lurka Kholes, Cookies or Xagas of Indo-China ; Bedas or Yedas of Ceylon, &c. In Persia are the Hubbashie and Mekran fish eaters ; and the Jamaules, near Aden, and the Ovahs of Mada- gascar, are partially mixed races. The most aberrant of all are, however, the Houswana nations, the Hottentots, Bushmen, Coranas, &c., all of a lemon peel or dirty yellow colour, and often with strange peculiarities of form ; speaking dialects inimi- tably articulated, and possibly forming a hybrid race of Mongolo-Papuan origin : one flung abroad at so remote a period, as to have preceded both the true woolly haired tribes, the Ethiopian, and the Caucasian nations, since they, together with the Ompizee of Mada- gascar, a portion of the inhabitants of Fernando Po, and the ancient Guanches ef Teneriffe and the islands of the west coast, seem to have belonged to the same origin, and to have been driven off in all directions by the Negroes who succeeded them, * until, at a later period, they effected interunions, which form some of * To this expelled sallow people, may be ascribed also the ruins of houses, which are reported to have been still visible in the Canary Islands, at the commencement of the ninth century ; as related by the Irish Monk Dicuil, in his curious \vork, " De Mensura Orbis Terrse." He wrote in the year 829, and is better known by the name of the " Anonymous of Ravenna." THE HUMAN SPECIES. 213 ihe modifications among the black tribes, and constitute the existing populations above named. That certain tribes, of a partially civilized race, pre-existed in the present Caifraria, is even proved by the rectangular stone walls of old Leetakoo (Leetakoon, in the Caffre dialects, denoting the old stone buildings), the ruins of which still remain, in a country where the Amazula, Bachapin, or Caffre population, never have built a house but of reeds and clay. In north eastern Africa, an expansion similar to that in the south is taking place : the Cushi, Kopths, Mauritanians, Abyssinians, and Arabs, gradually dimi- nish or become absorbed ; the Negro races press for- ward, by the Bahar-el-abiad, upon Egypt, and through the desert, upon Morocco, not so much by conquest as by the increase of their numbers ; a result which con- tinued slavery only tends to hasten. Such also has been the consequence in Hayti and in Central America ; nor can the evil effects impending over Brazil, and even over our own colonies in the west, be avoided, but by timely liberal and humane laws, aiding a true, zealous, and applicable system of education. The really good qualities, and single heartedness of the Negro, may then be safely expected to evolve that quiet co-operation and patriotic feeling which justice will teach him to appreciate; but the prejudices of colonists have still much to retrace and to unlearn. Fear alone imparts moderation and reason upon masses, who believe they derive an advantage from injustice. 214 NATURAL HISTORY OF Before concluding, we may mention here the grada- tions through which intermixtures of the typical stocks are distinguished in the West India Islands. The off- spring of a black and a white parent is denominated a Mulatto ; a black and a mulatto produce a Sambo ; a black and a sambo a Mungroo ; and a black and a mungroo is again completely black. But, in this case, the disturbance in the intellectual qualities is not again obliterated ; it remains, to a considerable extent, of a more developed character than in a true Negro of unmixed origin. A mulatto, however, and a white, generate a Quartroon ; a quartroon and a white a Mestie ; and a mestie and white a complete white, having already, before the emancipation of the slaves in all our colonies, the legal rights of a white man of pure blood. Yet this class of persons still, in general, have black and curly hair; the nails on the fingers remain.darker and ill shaped ; the feet are indifferently formed ; and, in their propensities, much of the Negro origin continues to be traced. The Spaniards carry their distinctions to a seventh generation. As the early history of the real Ethiopic nations is better known by means of the connection and hybridal descent they drew from the Caucasian races, we shall enter into more detail respecting their primaeval filia- tions and migratory movements, when treating of the bearded tribes which first invaded India, and pursued, subdued, and absorbed the Negro population in South Eastern and South Western Asia, and Northern Africa ; THE HUMAN SPECIE?. 215 an inquiry that can be followed out by certain geogra- phical necessities, and by a right appreciation of many ancient mythic tales, notwithstanding that historical data are few and scanty.* * Our personal observations on the Negro races, it is proper to mention, commenced in 1797, on the coast of Africa. They were continued, on both portions of the American Continent, and in the West Indies, to 1807; during which period the slave trade remained in activity, and new Negroes, as they were termed, coming from diffe- rent nations, could be examined, and their characteristics compared at most of the tropical sea ports. The distinctive characters then possessed by them, are now confused or obliterated, by commixture of the different races, by educa- tion, and other changes of circumstances in the Western Hemisphere, and are no longer accessible on the coast of Africa. Hence, several remarks above made cannot now be entirely verified in any quarter. From what is here stated, it follows, that the observations, more or less care- fully made, extended over hundreds, belonging to very dif- ferent tribes of Western and Central Africa, exclusive of North and South American, and West Indian colonial-born Negroes. 1UTUKAL HISTORY OF THE MALAY SUB-TYPICAL STEM. PURSUING our course of investigation onwards towards the east, we find, from a commencement somewhere on the gorges of the Brahmaputra, where that mighty stream turns towards the Ganges, an intermediate form of Man ; one which, in a most remote period, was per- haps seated farther to the north, about the sources of the great rivers which rise to the eastward of that stream. This stem now extends across the great pen- insula of Indo-China, or has been propelled, by the pressure of genuine Mongolic races and mixed Indo tribes, not only to the extreme south of the peninsula, but driven onwards, beyond sea, to the islands of Australasia, to Madagascar, the Archipelagos of the Pacific; and, it would seem, even to South America, before that continent was visited by the great migra- tions which came down the coast by the west of the Cordilleras. Conquered on the mainland of Asia, tribes of Malays, no doubt, reached the peninsula of Malacca at a remote period, but not before Java and Sumatra, Borneo and Celebes were detached from it; for not- withstanding that the deep channels, extant in their present waters, soundings, and shoals, spreading even to the vicinity of Australia and New Guinea,* indicate * Earl's Report in Journal of Geographical Sciences. THE HUMAN SPECIES. '211 the comparatively recent period when a great disrup- tion of the land occurred in those latitudes, or the present conditions of the coasts were completed, still the presence of a more ancient or a more purely typical race, on the centre and on the west coast of the two first mentioned islands, seem to prove that these were anterior, and the Malays only the second or more pro- bably the third source of the present population. Preceding the arrival of the Malays, there was al- ready extant, as the scattered fragments of the former population prove, the Oriental Negro stock, both on the continent and in the islands ; and coeval with the first mentioned tribes, the black Hindoo mixed Cau- casian stem seems likewise to have been urged to the same coasts. Thus, the adulteration of the woolly haired stock was effected in two directions, and the Malay stem, apparently resulting from the union of Caucasian with Mongolic tribes, caused that great variety of feature, complexion, and form, which it is known to possess, without therefore obliterating the perceptible sub-typical general resemblance which constitutes the characteristic marks of the whole race. If the Malays were a real typical stock, they would likewise possess a nucleus, or centre of existence, exclusively adapted for their permanent abode, whereas the contrary is clearly shown, by the presence of unadulterated races, and mixed tribes of the other two stocks, in both conditions suited to the same geographical region. This circum- stance likewise indicates the probability of a great atmospheric change in relation to Man, after a diluvian 213 NATURAL HISTORY OF cataclysis, if it be admitted that this equatorial vicinity was once the real Nigritia of the woolly haired type. Now, as it is evident the centre of development belong- ing to this type is at present in the tropical regions of Africa, and, as was before shown, that there are indi- cations of a third being in preparation, under the same latitudes in South America, while the Oriental is gra- dually disappearing, it might be asked, whether there is not here the indication of a submerged continent, and another instance of that progressive migratory move- ment from east to west, of expansion and decay, or- dained to be the fate of the great human typical stocks, and impelled by laws whose operation may be perceived without affording the means of tracing their causes beyond probable assumptions ? Yet this physical pro- cession over the earth by longitudes, may not be with- out ultimate connection with that intellectual march of Man by latitudes, which, while departing from the tem- perate regions of our northern hemisphere, and arriving at the extremity of the habitable south, appears to repeat, on a greater, the workings of civilization which it commenced on a less scale in Europe, and thus to be evolving the mysterious problem of human fusion into one great family, led by one religious system, and train- ed to the sciences and literature of Europe. As the Malays are nowhere expansively homoge- neous, and in most places only tenants of coasts or parts of islands, varied marks of national adulteration are constantly perceptible. In general, however, their distinctive characters are marked by a comparatively THE HUMAN SPECIES. 219 small head, measuring, in the capacity of the skull, according to Dr. Morton, from sixty-four to eighty-nine cubic inches ; a diversity in itself sufficient to demon- strate the mixed nature of their origin. The dome is high and rounded, with a low forehead : the face is flat and broad : the nose short, expanded at the wings : the mouth wide, with projecting upper jaws, and teeth resembling Negroes : the skin varying in colour from clear brown to dark clove : the auditory aperture elevated, and consequently with a depressed forehead ; nearly as much so as in the woolly haired type ; but commonly distinguished by prominent ridges of the orbits overhanging the eyes ; and we have seen a light brown so-called Papua girl, from one of the South Sea cannibal islands,* whose forehead had the lengthened form assumed to be peculiar to the American races. In the more typical tribes, the Malay's hair is coarse, lank, and shining, like the Chinese : more aberrant, it becomes undulating and bushy, till in still more adul- terated races, it rises in the high curly mops which attest the intermixture of blood to be not less than half with woolly haired families. This condition, however, most frequently advances the physical improvement of the possessors, and even the intellectual, when there is an additional innervation from a Caucasian source. The beard is often plucked out, generally scanty in the purer hybridism of the Malay composition, nor does it increase to the full honours of a well furnished fringe, up to the ears, unless when there are again other indi- * From Tikienitri, a sandal wood island. 220 NATURAL HISTORY OF cations of a Caucasian infusion. In that case, consider- able stature is likewise not unfrequent ; while, without the exciting cause just mentioned, a lank spare struc- ture is the more usual, and the lower extremities are often somewhat deficient and short among the tribes addicted to marine lives. In moral capacity, the Malay races are inferior to the Mongolic, yet they exhibit, like them, intellectual vitally, great bodily activity, and considerable manual dexterity as well as enterprise. The temperament of true Malays is treacherous, the disposition ferocious, implacable, and the nervous sys- tem compatible with a kind of insensibility to bodily pain ; hence, fits of ungovernable passion are always breaking forth in acts of indiscriminate murder, brought on by an abuse of ardent spirits, opium, and bang (sm'oking hemp). These occur so frequently among them, that in most European settlements, where this race is apt to congregate, particular police regulations and precautions are taken to obviate the greatest mis- chief; and it is not unusual to kill the maniac on the instant, as the only effectual preventative ; since in- stances are recorded, where they have run up the spear that had transfixed them, and thus have sabred the spearman. This frenzy is commonly known by the name of Muck, MooJc, MengamoJc, in Sumatra, and Wude in India. To the same insensibility may be ascribed their ferocious unyielding spirit in battle. They fight to the last gasp, never ask, and scarcely will accept quarter, nor profess thanks for mercy and the cure of their wounds. THE HUMAN SPECIES. 221 The great affluence of Arab merchants and fanatics has converted the more polished Australasian tribes of Malays to Islam ; the others are still Pagans of very different creeds, generally not resting upon any reason- ed system ; but Christianity is now spreading rapidly through the zeal of missionaries, in the Polynesian islands, where, however, the Caucasian stock is more deeply mixed up in the composition of the nations, than in the great islands nearer the Asiatic shore. All, however, record, in somewhat similar forms, a great diluvzan catastrophe, have the same notions about the Maker! or Dragon Serpent, a dragon fish god, assailing the moon, the crescent boat during eclipses ; notions alike remembered in Central Africa, Peru, China, and Ceylon, as well as in Borneo and Sumatra. They are essentially the same as the Indian legends of Vishnou, the Tahtar Nataghi, can be traced in the Scandinavian and other heathen mythologies of Europe and North America, being all distorted ver- sions of the Scriptural record in Genesis. The languages of Malay nations, influenced by the various causes before noticed, and even by the contact of antique detached tribes, whose original affinity can- not now be traced, have produced great differences of opinion among ethnologists, as regards their classifica- tion ; the learned William von Humboldt vainly claim- ing a unity of origin from the identity of the dialects spoken by a great proportion of the Polynesians, whom he and others regard as Malays. But, although we do not mean to deny a pervading intermixture of Malay 222 NATURAL HISTORY OF blood in the composition of these tribes, still, as they vary, from absolutely Oriental Negroes, to nations having most striking characteristics of true Caucasians, the sole test of language, even if it were beyond dispute, is scarcely of sufficient weight to determine the whole question. It should be remembered, that all the Malay dialects abound in Sanscrit words, which, be they bor- rowed from the tongues of the present Indo-China, or from the Telinga of the peninsula, are still evidence of a pervading Caucasian admixture. Indo-China, the primaeval abode of the Malays, bears Sanscrit names in every locality, whereas the Polynesian languages are without these characteristics in the words and gram- matical structure. There are, moreover, monuments of Man's presence in many islands, from the Ladrones, in the Chinese Seas, and Tinian, to Java, the Marquesas, Easter, and Pitcairn Islands, monuments, not the work of the present existing nations, but raised at so remote a period, that all memory of the facts connected with them is departed even from mythical tales ; yet they are constructed upon principles positively akin to Cau- casian reasoning and Caucasian skill. Tribes of this type have left strong evidence of their ancient preva- lence in the present mop headed Figees, the brown curly haired Marquesans, the dark haired Hawaiians, and the variously featured New Zealanders, in all of which, though the masses of population indicate mix- tures of lower origin, the chiefs point to a true Cauca- sian descent, in their whole external conformation, and still more in the intellectual faculties they possess. It THE HUMAN SPECIES. 223 is from this high order of ancestors, it appears most probable, that the pyramidal Moral's, and other monu- ments, have been derived ; for in the Malay peninsula, and where that stem has resided the longest, all the religious structures they acknowledge are bell shaped, notoriously made of straw, rushes, mats, and poles ; or at most, they are of a Mongolic character, built with wood and mortar. Now, if we compare the Egyptian pyramids, the ruins of the supposed temples of Belus or tower of Babylon, and of Baradan in Persia, it will be found, that one of them certainly had four towers, and from the shape of the ruins, it had also a projection or propylon, characteristics which mostly occur again, and with the same cardinal aspects, as the Great Morai of Suka, in Java, of Temurri, at Poppara : that at Atte Hura, and the base of the Fiatookas, like the Mooau at Tonga, and others in Polynesia: there are occasionally similarly constructed successive terraces, forming pyra- midal elevations in the Marquesas, and elsewhere, and these are again repeated in America, with exactly the same forms — one of these, at Cholula, exceeding in area and in cubic quantity of artificial accumulation, both the great tower of Belus, and the great pyramid of Cheops, taken together.* The forms of all these structures indicate a common religious system, more ancient than the extant idolatries ; they may be claimed * The base is square, and covers forty-four acres, the upper platform somewhat more than one acre. The eleva- tion at present is 177 feet ; but this is partially diminished by the ruinous state of the lowest platform, and is exclusive of the temple which adorns the summit. 224 NATURAL HISTORY OP by a solar theism, distinct from the subsequent elabo- rate astronomical religions, but containing the basis of what has since been ascribed to Foh and Budha, which both Mongolic and Eastern Caucasians have long re- vered on the continent, and in the Asiatic Archipelago. The Malay form, whether composed of two normal types, or of three, in various quantities of admixture, can be traced to Ceylon, where the blowpipe, the out- rigger canoe, and other peculiar customs and words give evidence that it visited at least the southern por- tion of the island. In the same manner, and by like evidence, they are found to be a component part of the populations in North Australia, Polynesia, and pro- bably in the eastern portions of South America, where the blowpipe is likewise in use, and a variety of prac- tices, customs, opinions, weapons, -and industrial arts ; feather mantles and caps, tasselled swords and war clubs, support the opinion of a community of origin, which is still further substantiated by legends and tra- ditions. The Malays, as before hinted, do not extend far into the interior of the east coast of Sumatra ; the local tribes belong to the Orangulu, extending thence to the Rejang Islands : apparently they originate from a mix- ture of the Negro type with aberrant Caucasians, or Indo-Chinese, having the slender points, pale yellow colour, and even the practice of allowing the nails to grow, of a Mongolic character, though they crush the nose, and draw out the ears, in order to look more like Papuas. In Java, the Malay stem is still less predo- THE HUMAN SPECIES. 225 minant ; for the oldest population was a race of Negro cannibals, termed Gunos, who were assailed and driven into the mountain fastnesses, by a nautical people, the real Javanese, under the command of their legendary hero, Passara. Now this name, as well as Javana, i.e. mixed, a mixed people, are both of Sanscrit origin, and show that the invaders were Indo-Caucasians, with perhaps only a mixture of Mongolic, that is, Malay blood : the oldest religious edifices are of Indian cha- racter; and from names, such as Pen-y-gawa for a chief; Kralon, a palace; Sasakadom, a hall or temple, might indicate a branch of Pandoo wanderers, Go- merians, allied to the Pelasgian and Celtic tribes of the west ; a conjecture further strengthened by the Morai pyramid of Suka before mentioned. The Javanese ap- pear to have sent colonists to Madagascar, since known by the name of Jacalvas, who similarly waged war against the cannibal Anachimous, and were for many ages noted marine pirates, distinct from the Joasmees, who are of Arabian origin. Further east, in the island of Borneo, where true Malays have the ascendency, but only reside on the coasts, there is another people distinct from them, partly sedentary, and in part exclusively nautical. These are the Orang Darrah and Orang Laut, men of the soil and men of the sea, one maintaining an unequal struggle against the Malays, and the other pirates from birth, and always residing on board their proas ; free- booters in every sense, and ready to aid in the oppres- sion of their kindred race inhabiting the interior. Both 226 NATURAL HISTORY OF are nationally denominated Dyaks, are fairer than the Malays, and most likely allied to the Joasmees before noticed. They are of the Horafoura stem, also marine adventurers, who, having for ages frequented the north coast of New Holland, have certainly caused a further hybridism among the Papuas of that region, and are themselves the most mixed branch of Indo-Caucasians in Australasia, with a language and religious notions originally unconnected with any Malay source. The tribes of Borneo, here enumerated, are evidently older possessors of the soil than the Malays, and the most ancient in these seas excepting the Eastern Negroes, who may be regarded as absorbed by them in this great island, since none of the purely woolly haired stock are now known to remain in the country. Celebes is principally inhabited by the Boun, Bou- ginee, Buges, or Bugesses, of which one nation is called the Macassar, and the whole appear to be of the same stem as the Horafouras. Here they are again fairer than the Malays, with very long black hair, and soft silky beards and whiskers. Their original language, more allied to southern dialects of India, with the ad- mixture of Sanscrit, is now much corrupted by the Malayan. The women of this island are the hand- somest and most polished of the eastern seas, setting the fashions which other nations strive to imitate ; and a more advanced civilization is shown in several articles of their manufacture, which are carried in native vessels as far as Fort Cornwallis. The male popula- tion are mercantile resolute seamen ana the reputation THE HUMAN SPECIES. 227 they possess for valour, has caused the name of Macas- sar to be regarded as equivalent to warrior. It may be questioned, whether the possession of some parts of Malacca, near Salengore, and Point Romania, at no great distance from remains of the Samang expelled Oriental Negroes, is not also an indication that the Buges tribes came from this portion of the continent ? The same observation is equally applicable to the Magindanao, who are also Horafouras, that reached the island when the Philippines were still wholly possessed by Papuas or Bangel-bangel savages. Such, again, are the Bissayans of Lu^on ; the races found onwards to Tywan or Formosa, and the Ladrones, who are all pos- sessed of Hindoo tokens of affinity, mixed with evidence of an original consanguinity with the Japanese, parti- cularly to the eastward ; and, according as either pre- ponderates, adopting a Caucasian or a Mongolic ratio- cination : these mental qualifications are evinced, in the readiness many have shown to abandon their an- cient idolatry : and the preference they give to the law of Mahommed, rather than to the Christian, is in con- sequence of the former having had merely teachers to spread the new doctrines, while the latter endeavoured to make proselytes by means of Portuguese and Spanish conquerors. Of all these tribes, the Pagans were, or still are, cannibals; the others have certain forms of governments established, and often written laws, in alphabets of their own construction, having scarcely any retrospect to Chinese ideas ; and they were so little in communication with pure Mongols, that it was not until 228 NATURAL HISTORY OF after the arrival of European navigators, that bodies of colonists, from the celestial empire, made their appearance in Lu£on and Java. Even in Formosa the population was alien, until refugee emigrants, escaping from Mantchou conquest, reached the island in the seventeenth century, when the Dutch were already in possession of it. But notwithstanding this historical fact, Caucasians from Eastern China, Indo- Arabs from Western Asia, and unnamed tribes from the Malay peninsula, seamen from choice or necessity, had long before laid the basis of the resident populations, being in a more or less state of degradation by Oriental Negro interunions. They formed the numerous pirate communities, Orang Laut, Sea Gipsies, Jacalvas in Madagascar, Idaan, Marootzie, Sea Dyaks in Celebes, Biagoos or Bragus in Borneo, some partially sedentary, others entirely dwellers on the seas, shifting their stations with the monsoon, so as to be always under the lee of land ; and, among other superstitions, like western Hindoos, sending a model canoe, cursed and loaded with the sins of the people, far away on the ocean. Their legends and romances, most particularly in Sumatra and Java, are of Hindoo origin ; and vast temples of Indian divinities, such as that of Boro-Budor in Java, point to a Brahminical religious system prevailing there before the Arabian innovations of Islam came among them. From families of these tribes, rather than from pure Malays, the ma- jority of the Polynesian islanders are composed ; their chiefs still bearing the marks of higher Caucasian castes than the vulgar, who were, from the first, servants and THE HUMAN SPECIES. 229 rowers ; and both together are the descendants of wan- derers, blown off by untoward monsoons, in like manner as are still frequently witnessed, in a similar condition, on most islands of the South Seas. While the European navigator and conqueror is in- variably held to be an enemy, nothing but ancient amicable reminiscences can account for the peaceful passage of Chinese and Japanese traders through most, if not all the seas infested by the vast pirate fleets be- fore mentioned. A tacit law of common affinity binds the inhabitants of the South Seas, even to the most remote islands, sufficiently to receive among them the shipwrecked or storm-driven wanderer on equal terms, excepting where the resident population is of purer Papua stock ; for these regard all others as conquerors, and usually treat them in the light of victims. The South Sea islanders, beside feature, hair, and personal conformation, show their consanguinity with Caucasians most distinctly in the structure of their minds. While other savages and barbarians are in- curious, merely satisfied with childish surprise, or value only the superior means of destruction possessed by Europeans ; they alone, though so near the savage state when first visited by our navigators, were struck with the wonders of civilization in a right spirit. No other tribe of Man was so desirous of learning the useful, the peaceful, and ornamental arts of Europe. Some exam- ples may be quoted of other races listening with respect to the doctrines of religion, and becoming imperfect proselytes ; but the Polynesians, even when they were 230 ORY OF still cannibals, embraced Christianity with ardour, i now hold it with an intelligent sincerity, that enables converts of a late date to become messengers of peace to other tribes, and open the path for more educated teachers. They alone have shown examples of chiefs, quitting the pleasures and prejudices of local conside- ration, who, for the pure love of benefiting their native land, have entered as common sailors on board British ships, that they might visit England, see, learn, and adopt improvements in ship building, navigation, and agriculture; procure seeds of tritica and leguminous plants, and advance civilization. Others used the pleni- tude of power to encourage the same object, to learn the alphabet — to read, write, and cypher ; they set up a printing press, and had the honour to throw off the first printed words of the native language. They have shown, when at war with the white men of Europe, instances of romantic forbearance- and valour, under impressions of unjustly suffering a public wrong. All these seeds of human progress have developed in the first generation, since they have become acquainted with better things, and are going on notwithstanding the evil examples but too commonly held out to them. If therefore, Frederick Cuvier, when descanting on the trifling external characters of some mammalia, nearly allied in structure, be right to recommend rigorous researches in their relative 'moral instincts and intel- ligence, in order, by their aid, to establish a primaeval unity of a genus, how much more important must the same method prove in researches after the aboriginal THE HUMAN SPECIES. 231 unity of a sub- typical stem of Man ? If there were no such other indications as have already "been noticed, by these facts alone we may with confidence appeal to the presence of a considerable portion of Caucasian blood, in the composition of the master race of the Polynesian islands. It is undeniably conspicuous in some of the groups, less so in others, and evident in despite of lin- guistic considerations, which, to say the least, are still not sufficiently mature to admit the generalizing con- clusions of Humboldt. The Maori tongue of New- Zealand is an example, which, while it shows the pre- sence of a Semitic element in the composition, is but feebly tinged with Malay ; perhaps, by reason of the great majority of its component words being the off- spring of Papua dialects, the basis of the population being originally of Eastern Negro derivation, only by degrees amalgamated or destroyed. Whence these two races came, can now be only conjectured from the remi- niscences of the people, that two immigrations originally took place on these islands ; they still name the loca- lities, and assert one to have come from the east and the other from the west. To individuals or families of the earliest Polynesian wanderers, the introduction of at least one system of doctrine, in South America, may be ascribed ; and to another, of Caucaso-Mongolians, a second, which appears to have reached the north-west coast, and finally to have established itself on the pla- teau of Anahuac. These considerations lead us to the New Continent, before the two historical architypical stocks of the Old can be traced out without interruption. 232 NATTF.AL HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN SUB-TYPICAL STEM. THOUGH researches on the primitive population America may be deemed unphilosophical, "because 1 conclusions are not amenable to positive proofs, yet the inquiry is not without profit ; and surely, so long as physiologists continue to admit the maxim, that man- . kind consists of one species only, it must involve, as a consequence, the necessity of migration, in order to people the earth in all its habitable portions ; or it de- mands a plural creation of the single species, sufficiently diversified to be adapted to the varieties of climate and circumstances wherein they are found to exist ; in which case, the term " species" assumes a different ac- ceptation, and confounds the notions hitherto attached to it, notwithstanding that no positive definition has been undeniably established to guide the naturalist. Always regarding the flat-headed Paltas, Aturians, or primaeval race of South America, as anomalous, though evidently mixed with tribes of a more marked origin, and admitting that of them some small clans, such as the so-called Frog Indians, with probably others, are still in being about the valleys on the east side of the Cordilleras, we cannot but remark, considering the an- tiquity of the deposits and extensive range where their bones are discovered (from Brazil to the west coast of THE HUMAN SPECIES. 233 America), that the stock is fast passing away. It has been supplanted for ages, by the Guarany and other nations, in Brazil, whose Malay aspect countenances the supposition of their original arrival in the New World somewhere about the Californian coast, whither they seem to have transported, along with legends already pointed out, the practices of boring the septem of the nostrils, the lobes of the ears, and even the lips and cheek bones, for the purpose of inserting therein bits of bone, of shells, wood, feather, or leaves.* These, and other fashions before described, they have in common with many islanders of the South Seas and coasts of the Northern Pacific ; and if they are not of foreign origin, they most assuredly are startling coincidences. But that these, and nearly all other invaders of the west coast, intermixed with the flat-headed aboriginals, is shown in the artificial means employed by the former to obtain the resemblance of the flathead conforma- tion ; inflicting for this purpose daily torture upon their infants, till the desired effect is produced. Torture, self-imposed, is indeed a part of the educa- tion of most American tribes, and the habit is suffi- ciently indicative of the small irritability of fibre they possess, in common with the Mongolic and Indo-Papua races of Asia. If the typical Flatheads were not a distinct species * Dr. Burchellj Prince Maximilian of Wied, and many other travellers, entertain similar ideas with ourselves. The present physiologists who draw other inferences, are not always reconcileable to each other when their arguments are generalized. 234 NATURAL HISTORY OF of Man, they were, at least, the oldest and first wan- derers that reached the American continent.* They appear to have possessed in Peru, elements of social progress before strangers came among them, provided always that the Titicaca and other remains of this type represent the Peruvian people before the Yncas obtain- ed the sway, t The question would certainly be more doubtful, if the imitation of their cranial form had not been adopted by races of strangers in both Americas, and even by the aquiline nosed hero tribes, whose por- traits still adorn the ruined temples of Yucatan, where they represent giant divinities in the character of con- querors. Such homage was never paid by conquerors to the vanquished, unless these last were in possession of indisputable superiority in arts, or in the forms of * Natives of scattered southern Islands, such as the Male- colese, and sallow Papua-Malays of some sandal wood islands, all distinctly marked with very elevated frontal bones, seem to countenance the probability, that there were men of this form in Polynesia, but then their frontal does not appear depressed. t There is a statement somewhere, that the Yncas per- mitted one or more villages of Flatheads, taken during a war of conquest to the east of the Andes, to settle near the capital ; but this seems to be at variance with Dr. Tschudi's observations. It may be right to repeat here, that writers speak often in very indefinite terms of American flat- headed tribes, there being certainly three very different in form ; the first, those whose crania are naturally depressed ; the second, with the occiput obliquely flattened in a vertical manner (this belongs also to Peru, and is seen on the Yu- catan images) ; the third is the North American, where both the frontal and occiput are pressed down, bulging out laterally. See Plate of Skulls. THE HUMAN SPECIES. 235 their institutions, and then the consequence is natural. We see the proofs of it in the Turkish imitations of the Byzantines, and in the Mongolic of the Chinese. The foot of Man has pressed many a soil which later travellers assume was never trodden before them. Navigating antiquity knew many geographical facts that scholastic prejudice neglected rbr the sake of gram- matical pursuits. From King Alfred's writings we know the voyage of Othere towards the North Pole; and that even from England, navigators visited distant seas in the ninth century. Dicuil's incidental notice of Iceland, in the beginning of the same age, was not ob- served till of late years. The Scandinavian discovery of Greenland was long doubted ; though it is now proved that these hardy seamen pushed their discovery along the coasts of America, beyond the equator, to Brazil. We have discredited, with equal resoluteness, the dis- covery of Newfoundland by the brothers Zeni, Vene- tian navigators, seventy years before the voyage of Columbus, according to Cardinal Zurla. Documents published at Copenhagen, prove the same coast to have been repeatedly visited by the Northmen from the years 980 and 1000 to 1380 ; and the Biscayen whalers seem to have equally known this region by an accidental south-easterly storm, which drove them from their fish- ing station off the Irish shores, in the reign of King Henry VI., that is, about 1450 ; and all this incredu- lity and apathy, when the names of Brazil, of Antillia, and the country known as Newfoundland, were already noted, though not correctly laid down in the chart of 236 >* iTURAL HISTORY OF Andrea Bianca, "bearing date 1436, still in the library of St. Marc at Venice. Columbus himself found the rudder of a ship cast on the beach at Guadaloupe. This would be a natural consequence of any ship being disabled, and driven to the south-west, till it falls in with the trade winds, which, perpetually blowing in the same direction with the currents westward, drive all floating bodies onwards to the coast of the New "World.* What, there- fore the ancients, and more particularly the Phoenicians and Carthaginians, nay, the Celtae may have done, be- yond the Atlantic, is not even entirely a conjectural question, since there are still extant elements of a Semitic dialect in certain tribes of South America, and of Celtic in the north ; and without the arrival of some mariners from the coasts of the Old Continent, the legend of Quelsalcoatle, a Toltecan legislator, with Budhistic, perhaps Christian dogmas, could not have been framed prior to the arrival of the Spaniard ; yet Cortez was told that he returned to the east ; and hence arose that general belief, that beings of a superior na- ture would again visit the west from their abode beyond the broad ocean, was fully established in Anahuac.t * See Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal, No. 75, October, Jan. 1845, where this question is treated more at length, in a notice of the Travels of Prince Maximilian of Wied. t If the painted chronology of the Mexicans could be relied on, the legislator priest came with the Toltecs to the plateau of Anahuac, which would then be in A.D. 648. It was asserted, that he began the pyramid of Cholula. There was another legislator priest, named Votan, who arrived THE HUMAN SPECIES. 237 Rut, stimulated by the discoveries of the Portuguese, the power and commercial vigilance of Spain success- fully blinded for a time the scholastic apathy of the rest of Europe, and persuaded political ignorance that it was Columbus who first made the discovery of America. Thus, every probability supports the opinion, that men from Europe or Western Africa had reached the New World long before the assumed discovery of Columbus ; yet it does not follow, that any who were carried to the west by the trade winds ever returned. The Scandina- vians, however, reached the coast at a high latitude, where the north-western winds prevail in autumn, and the marine current sets towards Europe. Hence they returned to Iceland or to Norway with little uncer- tainty. Disregarding for a moment the probabilities already mentioned of the subsidence of a great extent of land in the Pacific Ocean, it is evident, that from the east of Asia and the Polynesian Islands, the principal immigra- tions of mankind have taken place. Of these the Pit- cairn and Easter Islands, nearest to the coast of South America, are remarkable for the colossal idols of stone, which have been observed in both, though the first was for a time believed never to have been inhabited before the arrival of the mutineers of the Bounty, and the other is now in the possession of a race who do not claim the fabrication of them. It may be observed, in much earlier in Mexico, but then the chronology now ad- mitted must be wrong. See Don Antonio del Rio. Teatro critico Americano, by F. Cabrera. 238 NATURAL HISTORY OF confirmation of the removal of Polynesians by war, by design, or by stress of weather, to the eastward, that to the 20th degree of south latitude, and to more than 200 leagues at sea, a south-west and south cold wind blows, with a current coming from the pole, and setting towards the south-west coast, drives floating bodies on the shores of Chili. Easter Island, the farthest eastward of all the Polynesian groups, containing inhabitants, is as remote from them as from the longitude where these winds and currents prevail ; hence the casual arrival of Polynesian wanderers could scarcely fail to reach the coast of Chili ; and subsequently they were, it is obvious, driven east- ward, to commix with the Brazilian tribes, and south- ward, to form the race of Araucas ; others, perhaps from the Sandwich Islands, are the progenitors of the tribes on the Sacramento river, on the north-west coast, where the women still wear the Maro, and the men have short undulating hair, with beard and whiskers very soft and silky. That another immigration was continuous for ages from the east of Asia, is sufficiently indicated by the pressure of nations, so far as it is known in America, being always from the north-west coasts, eastward and southward, to the beginning of the thirteenth century. It appears to have taken place mostly by the Aleuthian Islands, and southward, to the Columbia and California. Here, also, the facilities for this purpose were mostly furnished by nature, and the propelling cause when landed, is likewise detected, by the country supplying little food between the rocky mountains and the sea. THE HUMAN SPECIES. 239 The Northern Pacific was navigated by Japanese tribes in ancient times, and is so even now, although, since the appearance of European navigators, the trade has been discontinued, if not absolutely forbidden ; yet, within these few years, a British vessel boarded a Japa- nese junk within two days sail of the Californian coast, and found that it had drifted, without human care, for many months, and that, of forty of the ship's company, only seven persons survived. This vessel having lost its course, was carried by the prevailing winds and cur- rents of that portion of the Pacific to the eastward, and was in all probability wrecked on the American coast, after the living people had been taken out of her and saved.* Here then we have likewise, on the east side, in- stances, not of facilities, but of necessary consequences, of vessels reaching the west coast, so soon as they are placed within the influence of the winds and currents which prevail, either constantly or at certain periods of the year, in the latitudes above indicated ; nor is there a want of proof, that canoes, with a proportion of Poly- nesians, have survived the hardships of four months at sea ; nor that they have been found at eight hundred leagues distant from their homes ; -for both facts are noticed by our navigators in the tropical Pacific, and by the Aleuthians, a continuous chain of islands passing from one quarter of the globe to the other, a route is established, as if they were intended for an easy and * They were carried to the Sandwich Islands, and thence, by the first opportunity, sent on to their native land. 240 NATURAL HISTORY OF speedy method of crossing between them. But though timber for canoes and sea rafts is abundant, both on the north and south points of departure, there is scarcely any near the western coast of America to keep up marine habits, nor are there navigable rivers without bars, nor ports with safe places for landing, but mostly every where an open, barren, sandy, or rocky shore, beaten by a heavy surf.* Hence, on this side of the Americas, if arrivals were not frequent, departures were impossible, excepting in the more northern latitudes ; and that these had been crossed and re-crossed may be presumed, even in case the assertion of Chinese scholars? that America was known by the name of Fu-sang, and mentioned in the great annals of the celestial empire, down to the fifth century of our era, was a mistake. t The absence of Chinese forms of speech on the American continent is not absolute, since the Othomi language, spoken on the north of the valley of Mexico, is raono- * The surf in many places is as high and violent as at Madras, and there being little wood procurable on the coast, the natives invented great floats of inflated seal skins, which are still in use. They had formerly catamarans, like those on the Coromandel coast. Models of these are fre- quently found, with a double bladed paddle, in the graves of the aboriginal inhabitants ; but, from California to Peru, rafts, balzas, or janjadas served, capable of carrying great loads with safety, sailing with uncommon speed. See Charnock's Marine Architecture, vol. i. p. 13. Balza wood is a very light kind of palm. t See C. Frederick Neumann and De Guines, though Klaproth supposes Niphon or Japan is meant ; Japan, however, bears a different name or names in the annals. THE HUMAN SPECIES. 241 syllabic. In Europe, we know the existing eastern tongues of the Mongolic stock so imperfectly, that the work of Dr. Pfitzmayer on the Japanese, though not directed towards the spoken dialects of the more remote islands of the empire, yet shows that the learned had, until lately, a very slight acquaintance with it, and often mistook written Chinese for the Niphon language.* Even the learned Chinese is more a lettered than a nationally spoken vehicle of thought ; and in both the empires, the written is partly different from the spoken tongues, though the characters, being symbols instead of alphabetical signs, can be interpreted by words in several languages, differing in every other respect from each other. Thus, there cannot be a reliance on argu- ments drawn from the difference of the American lan- guages from the Mongolic ; they vary among the dis- tinct families of North America, as much as from any Tahtar tongue ; and there exist sufficient coincidences and similarities in the sounds of words, as well as in the opinions, manners, and practices of the natives, resembling those of Eastern Asia, when taken with the other arguments already produced, as to overthrow the whole fabric of an exclusively American aboriginal species or form of Man, constituting the races of that continent, always excepting the Flathead type, which, it must be owned, constitutes an ingredient very gene- * A Dictionary, in the so-called Tirokana characters, con- taining 40,000 words, is in preparation, by Dr. Pfitzmayer, at Vienna. Q 242 NATURAL HISTORY OF rally diffused through the native tribes, but not their principal portion. Even the most determined advo- cates of the original unity of the races reject the Esqui- maux, who are admitted to be of an Asiatic stock, when they should also reflect, that in the northern por- tion, several tribes of the present Indians, such as the Iroquois, confess, that they dwelt themselves in the high north, before they migrated to their present habitation ; while the Tschutski of Eastern Asia are assumed to be of the American stem ; accommodating the conclusion to a reversed order of migration, which, with singular inconsistency, admits the practicability, on hypothetical grounds, in favour of utter savages, what it refuses to the ancient and middle ages of great and organized nations, who were navigators both on the east and west of the New World ; and for times, when facilities for that purpose were apparently more at hand than in later ages ; for, by strangely reversing the natural order of human dispersion, another, and probably not an in- considerable transition from Asia is disregarded ; one which, being taken in connection with the more imme- diate facility, by an entire, or almost an entire com- munication by land, when Behring's Straits had not yet greatly widened, obviated all serious difficulty. At that period not only Esquimaux, but Finnic, and the north- eastern Caucasian races, hereafter to be mentioned, had no doubt inducements which brought the parent fami- lies of the high nosed and other nations of North America to that continent ; and the influence of rigo- THE HUMAN SPECIES. 243 rous winter seasons, must have gradually induced them to seek milder latitudes, where more plentiful means of subsistence were accessible, in the same manner as the nations of Northern Asia and Europe, have and ever will continue to do when they have a chance of success. It is perhaps here that we must look for the sources of those multiplied evidences of Asiatic origin, shown by most, if not all the American tribes ; both those of the Mongolic or of the beardless stock, and of the true Caucasian ; for when the former of these had journeyed almost entirely southward, tribes of the latter appear to have occupied their abandoned localities, and in a pure condition, or blended with such as remained be- hind, to have passed on across the isthmus, or the straits, to the American shore, whither they, in their turn, were followed by the Esquimaux or Skrelings, who, it is evident, came last, since their descendants have never been able to penetrate more to the south than to the shores of Nootka. All these occurrences coincide with the known pro- gress of the Caucasian nations to Western Asia and to Europe. They account for the presence of similar in- scriptions in Siberia and in America, and for many of the facts of the peopling of the new continent at a later period than the west of the Old World ; they admit, without violence, the usual immigrations of distressed marine wanderers, whether they were of Malay or of Phoenician origin ; and even of African as well as Oriental Negroes ; such as the colony of the former, found at Cariquel, near the isthmus of Darien, or the 244 NATURAL HISTORY OF now exterminated Charruans* of the Guarani, or like the latter, found in a mixed state on the shores of California. This view gives sufficient time for the local intermixture of the races with the flat-headed aboriginal, whose peaceful phlegmatic habits readily yielded to the turbulent activity of male adventurers, and accounts for the various other phenomena which attend the question under consideration. In the successive struggles of nations, which must have ensued, for hunting grounds or for dominion, the more advanced have evidently been obliged to yield to those from the north. Whether both originally came from the same quarter, or one had previously arrived by a marine route, the result was the same. The proofs are seen in the ruins of vast castral cities, and human tumuli, still extant in the United States ; in the Maen Stones and Cromlehs of the more eastern regions ; t in the pyramids and temples possessed by the successive nations of Mexico ; and, if the singularly squared cone in the middle of a lake of northern California, be wholly or in part the work of Man, it may be a memorial of departure, or a mark of direction for other tribes, per- haps similar to the semi-artificial pile of Chehel Suton — that antique landmark of migration, and directing guide of caravans, situated on the edge of the western Gobi Desert, almost midway between Pekin and Constan- * These may be the same Sir Walter Raleigh mentions as having lank hair in Guiana, where he observed them. + At North Salem, New York ; at Winipignan river, on the Ohio, &c. THE HUMAN SPECIES. 245 tinople, or Serica and Byzantium. At all events, it would then point out the station which the builders of similar edifices in America once occupied in their ear- liest day, and confirm the conjecture, that the Wapi- sians of Guiana, at least, are of those tribes, which at a period long anterior to the march of the Ulmecks and Toltecs, nations of a kindred race had passed over the plateau of Anahuac. Beside the monosyllabic Othomi language, there is a similar mode of connecting sounds into long strung words, pervading the American, Astec, and Maya, approaching Finnic and Tahtar dialects ; the syllables Ac or Ak, UJc and Kuk, often recur in the northern Indian tongues ; and Tla and Tie in the Mexican : sounds which are again found in the speech of the Arctic nations of both continents. In addition to these rude and simple characteristics of a mixed Tahtar and Finnic form of speech, there are Scythic words, that is, words of Sanscrit origin, which can scarcely be coincidences, and rather show that some tribes, perhaps of kindred Yuchi, passed over to the western continent. Again, Semitic words occur rather profusely in the Carib and Makusi dialects,* and strik- * Thus, in the Dakotah dialects, which convert M to W, the Teutonic Mag, large, becomes Wah and Wale, great, superior, master. Wehrman, warrior, is converted to We- rowanie, a war chief, &c. Sachem, a priest chief, may be derived from the same root as segfor, a priest, from sagen, to speak, and belong to the series with gesach, schah, &c., authority, right to speak, to command. Hooloo is holy, sacred ; min, many, plural ; Hogh or Oug, high, superior, &e. In other dialects we find Eloa to denote God ; and, in the Carib, Makusi, &c., there are, among many other, Tamoosi, 246 NATLRAL HISTORY OF ing coincidences of similarity between certain tribes of Australia and the Fuegians of the Straits of Magell are pointed out by Captain Stokes, in his voyage of covery lately published. One, more, or all the nations of America had, besii creeds, usages, and traditions, in common with stems the Old Continent, and particularly with Asiatic tribe Such, among others, were the diluvian legends and the celestial dragons' attempts to devour the moon during the appearance of an eclipse. Next, there still exists in the northern portion a basis of pure Deism, coin- ciding with the common belief of all the nations of high and northern Asia. It was ever independent of tribal and subordinate divinities, and admits of various forms, such as Shamanism, with its demonology, and the more moral system of Budhism ; one being outwardly remarkable for sorcery, incantation, the magical drum, and rattles; the other for several religious monastic orders, for penances, self-mortification, and undying chief priests, and both recurring in the New World ; nay, tokens of what seems a Christian doctrine are detected in the worship of the cross, repeatedly found carved among the ruins of Palenque*. There are, more- over, evidences of Hebrew lore in the metal plates dug out of the same ruins, where the serpent is represented Phoenician, Tammus, for God j Karbet is the same as Grabit, a house ; together with usages and opinions closely allied to those of the ancient nations of Syria. The Mexican words Atzlan, Tlapallan, Teno titslan, without radical meanings in the language, are readily convertible into very appropriate appellations in several Caucasian languages. THE HUMAN SPECIES. 247 twisted round a tree ; and another, with a naked human figure, kneeling in the attitude of supplication, sur- rounded by huge monsters, among trees of a tropical forest.* What makes these representations still more remarkable, is, that though they belong to the high nosed Toltecs, the mystical figure in distress has neither the features nor flat occiput of that people, nor the pos- ture of prayer which belonged to the idolatrous nations of Anahuac. They had, it is true, a serpent or Naga worship, and believed that tutelary genii appeared to mortals in the animal forms assigned to constellations. But this very fact is again an indication, that even the astronomical signs of Asia had passed over to them, for they were figured in astrological books which were em- ployed for incantations by an Astecan order of priests. The medicine men, with their drums, are still perfect counterparts of Siberian Shamans, who perform their mummeries with a like instrument, similarly painted. The nations of Anahuac were acquainted, like the Tahtars, with a great dragon standard ; had, like the Thibetans, huge banner lances, such as are still planted before Lamaite temples and palaces ; and there were ensign spears similar to those of ancient Bactria : one of these was the Shiemagun of the Chippeways, the other was the guiding sign of the Chocktaws, during their great migration from the west. The Mexicans * The priesthood kneaded maize flour with blood, and baked it in the form of the god of war, then broke and gave it in morsels to the people, who partook with signs of humiliation! See Prescot's valuable History. Was this Budhism ? NATURAL HISTORY OF xico •lier had some adorned with wings and feathers like the Huns and early Turks. The nations of the plateau of Mexi< had all a practice of fixing several ensigns or bann< stuck in ferula, at the back of a warrior, like the earlie: Chinese, or they attached them to their shields ; which was likewise not unexampled in Asia. Symbolical de- vices, almost amounting to real heraldry, designating even at this time many tribes of North America, were thoroughly understood in Mexico, and are likewise well known to all the Tahtar nations of Asia. They had, it is asserted, the use of a peculiarly Chinese instrument, the well-known gong ; but more likely it was a great drum, audible, according to Bernal Diaz, to the distance of two leagues ; the same as the Nakaia of Southern Asia. In common with Tahtar nations, nuptials were symbolized by the ceremony of tying the garments together of the two contracting parties ; and, like them, there was only one lawful wife, though there might be a plurality of concubines. In very ancient graves, not far distant from Niagara, human debris have been detected, having with them a reversed shell of the whilk (Buccinum) exactly similar to the Shonk found in the tumuli of ancient Ceylon.* Peru, with its Palta people, instinctively builders, has left ruins of huge walls, surpassing the Cyclopean and Pelasgian structures of the older continent in bulk, and superior to them in artistic skill. From the insti- * The fact was communicated to us by Captain Chapman, late Royal Engineers, who had examined both instances on the spot. THE HUMAN SPECIES. 249 tutions, religious, humane and moral, the legislator of the Yncas has rarely been considered by the learned to be of indigenous origin, but more generally as a Ja- panese or a Brahman philosopher, who, if he were an Asiatic, certainly did not traverse the Pacific alone. Several nations in both parts of the continent, had, like the Oceanians of the South Sea, and of the north-east of Asia, a bone thrust through the cartilage of the nose ; they had also swords with tassel handles, like the Malays, feather mantles, and decorations like natives of the Sandwich and other Polynesian islands. The progressing nations, and, in particular, among those of Anahuac, the Mexicans, were a bearded and hairy race, and being in a state of greater civiliza- tion than other American tribes, they were in a con- dition of representing more circumstantially the tenor of their ancestral history. Accordingly, they had tra- ditions, supported by hieroglyphical maps, which mark- ed the stages of their ancient migration from the north to their arrival on the plateau of the Andes, where they founded Mexico in 1325 of our era, according to Cla- vigero. They had then already resided at Tula and its vicinity for above a century, gradually dislodging other tribes, who had successively pressed upon each other from the same quarter. These were chiefly the Acal- huans, Chichimecas and Toltecs, whose first arrival is referred to so early a time as the year 648 ; and even these were posterior to the Ulmecs : but the dates may not be safely relied upon ; and the charts themselves, though still existing, at least in copies, cannot be 250 N.A rURAL HISTORY OF deciphered with trust-worthy precision. The point of primaeval departure, is, however, designated "by the names of Atzlan (the Eden, or land of nourishment), and Huehuetlapallan, which has been interpreted, the bright abode of ancestors, a region which certainly lay in the north ; and, when coupled with the departure, includes likewise the west. This region was certainly not the valley of the river Gila, in California, notwith- standing that a cognate language is still spoken there, and that ruins of magnitude attest there was anciently a people resident on the spot already in a progressive state of civilization. It is probable, that this people were the Astecans, who may have resided on the locality until they had increased to a nation, and were forced to depart by pressure from behind ; for sedentary nations do not abandon cities and temples but by force, or by the fear of foreign and unknown invaders, from whom they expect no mercy. It is a curious coincidence of time, that these great recorded migrations in America, correspond sufficiently well with the same kind of mi- gratory and invading wars in Asia, which precipitated the Yuchi from Chinese Tahtary westward, and brought the Hyatili or White Huns first to conquer Cabul and Bactria ; being followed by true Mongolic nations till their hordes established themselves beyond the Danube and the Vistula. These are uncontrovertible signs of the great expansion which the beardless stock then made in north and eastern Asia ; and may well account for clans of Caucasians, such as still have possession of sundry mountain chains in China, taking refuge towards THE HUMAN SPECIES. 251 America, by a route sufficiently near the Arctic Circle, to give the north and west for a true point of their first abode on that continent. Followed, as all fugitive nations are, by their enemies, no doubt real Mongolians came after them ; and both, in departing from eastern Asia, lost their horses and their nautical habits. Thus, these mi- grations of distinct types may be a cause of the inter- mediate character of the present Aleuthian Islanders.* With these facts before us, it is vain to assert, that all American races, excepting the Esquimaux, have originally sprung from one stock ; for many more coin- cidences could be enumerated ; and while one like the last mentioned is admitted to be of the beardless type, of Ouralian or of Finnic origin, surely others could migrate in a similar direction, at earlier periods, when, in all probability, this passage was much more practi- cable; and, according to observations made by Biot, the climate less severe than at present. More than twenty tribes of Indians, of the present territory of the United States and Canada, record their migration either from the north, or from beyond the Rocky Moun- * See Warden's Antiquites Americaines. Pennant's Arctic Zoology, Introduction ; where many other customs, common lo the Scythians and to the North American na- tions, are enumerated. There is a Japanese map now in the British Museum, which marks islands in the straits of Behring, and notices the region by the name of Ya-zue (the kingdom of the dwarfs), that is, the diminutive Esqui- maux. This map, presented by Ksempfer to Sir Hans Sloane, is therefore of comparative antiquity, and shows Behring's Straits to have been known to the Mongolic stock, long before Behring made the discovery, or Cook fixed the real position of the two coasts. 252 NATURAL HISTORY OP tains. Many of these nations have therefore occupied a high northern latitude on the west coast ; regions now mostly in the hands of Esquimaux tribes, who, as they have replaced them, have evidently arrived after their departure : the former tribes, not emphatically fish- eaters, but hunters, when, from single families, or from a race mixed with the indigenous Flatheads, they had increased to tribes ; and when in that little productive region, where game is rare, they could no longer re- main stationary, must have sought subsistence in and beyond the mountain chain ; for to the east only, with the exception of the valleys of California, could they find the bison, the elk, the white mountain goat, the ahzata, argali, prong-horned antelope, and the wapiti stag. In pursuit of game, they must have come upon the sources and feeders of the great rivers that run to the south-east, and fall into the Gulf of Mexico or the Atlantic. They would naturally follow their course, or crossing the Ohio and Mississippi to richer woody re- gions beyond the Alleghanies, occupy the eastern pro- vinces of the present United States and Canada. Other tribes of the west, probably immigrants of later periods, and possessed of higher attainments, even with a rem- nant of nautical means, descended between the islands and the coast, till they reached the rivers now signifi- cantly denominated de los Martires, and de los Pira- inides; and thence, crossing the Colorado, rested for some ages in the valley of the Gila.* Here they gra- dually multiplied, advanced in civilization, and raised * Surely these point out two or more of the Astecan halting places. THE HUMAN SPECIES. 253 those structural monuments which are still to be seen in their ruins ; thence, in successive waves, ascending the plateau of the Andes, they made their appearance in Anahuac, to seize new and perhaps better settle- ments ; but, from their new position, eventually for- saking all acquaintance with navigation. Thus are shown those successive proceedings of na- tions in the New World, which were counterparts of the well-known invasions of the northern tribes in the Old ; both radiating from a common centre ; surmount- ing obstacles of seas, deserts, swamps, forests and moun- tain chains ; surviving mutual slaughters, victories and defeats, till they reach the utmost limits of the habit- able earth. If now we inquire whether the nations of America attest, in their structure, the various origin here shown, or have a uniformity of characteristics, which many eminent physiologists, together with Dr. Morton, contend for, we shall find great evidence of a common type very generally, but not unexceptionably pervading the nations in question. It is found chiefly in the great vertical prolongation of the frontal bone, though this distinction we have before noticed is not exclusively American : it varies in size, probably, ac- cording to the degree of intermixture different tribes have received — there being, besides, populations on the coasts of the sea of Okotsk, and even on Saghalin Island similarly distinguished.* Many Japanese, particularly * It is externally apparent, in some abnormal tribes of the Polynesian islands, and exclusive of the Flathead Pal- tas, most conspicuous in peak-headed natives of Kotzebue's and Ali- tiave as of 254 NATURAL HISTORY OF Bonzes of the lower classes of the nation, have the forehead remarkably depressed. In several portions of the New Continent, the oblique eyes, complexion, and other characters of Mongols occur, as among the khoolis of Terra del Fuego; but the Chilenos ha strikingly Hindoo features. In general, however, it is evident, that the nations o; this portion of the globe possess a marked similarity of physical characters. They have a small skull, varying in the capacity of the cranial chamber from 100 to 60 cubic inches, according to Dr. Morton's measure- ment. It approaches the Mongolian in shape, but the summit is more rounded, and the sides are less angular. In some tribes there is a somewhat more pointed crown, and the back part is often flattened, in most cases arti- ficially so : the cheek bones are high, the forehead natu- rally rather low and depressed : the nose prominent; in a few tribes aquiline : maxillae powerful, the mouth rather large, and the lips full if not tumid. The eyes of all the nations are black, and the hair rather scarce, lank and coarse ; though, among the Arauca mountaineers, and also on the west coast, grey eyes, and lighter coloured hair is sometimes seen. These tribes also are as fair Sound, on the north-west coast, who, though they do not belong to the Esquimaux stem, are more like natives of the east coast of Asia ; and if these are claimed as a portion of the Tschutski race, then they would show the last men- tioned to be originally not American but Asiatic, nay Finnic; and consequently, that the cranial conformation in question is not peculiar to the New World ; but an ex- cessive divergence arising in an abnormal stem, where the sutures close more slowly than in the typical stocks. THE HUMAN SPECIES. 255 as southern Europeans. The South Americans are more yellow than copper-coloured ; but, in the northern portion, the skin is reddish, agreeing with the distinc- tive name which the native tribes bestow upon them- selves ; that colour being formed by a peculiar tissue below the epidermis, according to Monsieur Flourence ; but yet not nearly so vivid as we have often observed it to be among French and Spanish fishermen in the West Indies.* The Caribs are intermediate ; some tribes of Guiana much darker than Mulattoes, and the Californians almost black, or dark like Samboes. In most respects the aboriginal population may be divided into the yellow tropical semi-Malay stem of the eastern regions of South America, and the Caucaso- Mongolians of the north, and of the Cordilleras, along the whole west coast of the continent. The frame is in general symmetrical, rather tumid, in the one below the middle stature, in the other portion generally above it, and among some tribes equal to the largest men of the old continent. With regard to mental qualifica- tions, the nations of North America not having passed beyond the state of hunters, show, for want of the la- bouring ox and conquering horse, the characteristics of others in the same condition. They are active, vigilant, * We have personally compared, and drawn from life, many individuals of different tribes : — Fuegians, Brazilians, Arookas, Caribs, Mosquito Indians, Seminoles, &c., of the United States, and others in Canada of different northern tribes. The highly developed reddish colour may be a result of the long continued action of dry sharp winds in the prairies of Upper North America. 256 NAURAL HISTORY OF daring, revengeful, restless, cruel, but capable of lofty feelings, full of hospitality, of the love of truth, and < vast earnestness of purpose when once their attentio is roused. Ruins still extant in nearly every region of the continent, and still more, history, as written by their enemies, attest that they could work out systems of self- development, creating civilizations which were fast ad- vancing to a more reasoned maturity, notwithstanding that the foundations were often stricken down by suc- cessive hordes of new invaders, till the whole was finally crushed by European zeal and cupidity. For, notwith- standing our view of a foreign element having worked in the development of the indigenous social institutions, it must be recollected, that a few strangers cannot sway a distinct people, unprepared to receive their sugges- tions ; they must be homogeneous, the result of time and of national engraftings, before they can take root. Now, the Mexican civilization was a reconstruction of one or more preceding it ; and the Ulmec and Toltec, so much older, were most likely not the first that per- vaded the warmer regions of Western America ; there- fore the American mind, resulting, as we claim it to be, from two typical stocks of Man, is only inferior in capacity, so far as the existing races are more or less re- moved from the means of attainment of social improve- ment ; and the cold philosophy of modern science, which inflicts the accusation, is not totally destitute of cognate participation, in producing the conditions of existence it stigmatizes. Luckily, a host of writers, and among them lately, Prescot, have fairly summed up what the THE HUMAN SPECIES. 257 intellectual powers of the aboriginal races had already attained, without the intervention of European science. Writers, in general, more dazzled with Mexican splen- dour, because that empire was more within reach of European curiosity, have not regarded Peru with suffi- cient discrimination, perhaps because its splendour and civilization was more suddenly and more universally trodden down by the European monsters who invaded it; and fewer documents of its condition have come down to our time. But the nation which had advanced to the established practice of bloodless sacrifice in its worship, had surely gone far beyond the Mexicans; and although we do not know how much of scientific progress was the property of one or of both the two empires, the bas-relief carving already mentioned, where the sun is represented in the centre of the system, with other planets in the irradiated circle around it, shows, that children of the sun, though they claimed them- selves to be, had a better notion of the planetary dis- position than Europeans possessed to a late period; and that the superior men of the nation were not blinded by the solar dogmas of their religion, is proved by the memorable reply of Ynca Tupac Yupan-gui to the monk Valverde, wherein he rejected the belief, that the sun was a living body, creating all things, but thought him to be " like an arrow which per- forms the flight intended by the archer who shot it off." The Peruvians of history appear to have been a partial compound of naturally flat-headed Paltas, and a mixture, probably, of the dominant tribes, with partly 258 NATLtfAL HISTORY OF artificial flattened occiputs ; "but the figures of Yncas, preserved in early Spanish documents, offer neithei of these deformities. The first were most likely the working castes, the second the privileged, and the last appears to have been confined to one sacred family. Cyclopean structures,* or walls, fortifications, and pyramidal elevations, raised with enormous stones, be- long certainly to the oldest population. It is likely that others, particularly those evincing greater skill, were constructed during the sway of the second, and that the Ynca period only adapted them to the system of solar Budhism, which it can scarcely be denied formed the basis of -their institutions. Of the Crom- lechs of America appearing to be identical with the Celtic, known all over Europe and Asia, we wish not to say more than that they are, to a certain extent, evidence of the early wandering of some Gomerian tribes to the New World ; and of the Northmen it is now proved, that they reached the east coast by a western course from Iceland, and wandered much further to the south than was suspected in earlier times. Whether any of these survived and amalgamated with the local races, is a question not likely ever to be settled. The decay, amounting to prospective extinction, ob- served to be the lot of the American races, is moreover a further proof that they are not a typical people, but that they are stems occupying debateable ground, which we have before shown are alone liable to annihilation, * Such as Chulucanas, on a secondary ridge of the Cor- dilleras, as well as pyramidal instances of tombs. THE HUMAN SPECIES. 259 or to entire absorption. Yet, in some parts of the tro- pical latitudes, in Yucatan for instance, so great an amalgamation of the white with indigenous tribes and with negro imported slaves, has taken place, that this mixed population, becoming sensible of numerical su- periority, as well as of the more intense energy they possess in those climates, are now asserting their power, and ultimately this hybrid race may prove a more serious opponent to the white Man's insatiable cupi- dity, than the descendants of European conquerors have yet had to encounter. We have not space to enter into the geographical details of the distribution of the indigenous tribes, fur- ther than has been already done, nor to advert more par- ticularly to their dialects ; for hordes, without letters or great national expansion, and which are constantly subdividing, exterminating by mutual slaughter, or perishing from constitutional liability to disease, and therefore by no means able to form durable communities and persisting dialects. This last observation is already perceptible in the catechisms and prayers printed in the Huron and other languages, by French missionaries, not quite a century ago, and now only understood, in consequence of daily repetition and careful explanation. At least, such was the information we received on the spot. One people we must, however, except from the rest, namely, the Carib, or that portion of the Carib tribes which still occupies parts of the maritime border of north-eastern South America, because, as we have before observed, many opinions, institutions, and even 260 NATURAL HISTORY OP words in their language, bespeak an intercourse that once appears to have existed between the ancestors of the present families and a Semitic nation, perhaps Phoenician or Hebrew. That they were once not a sedentary nation is evinced, since they still refrain from travelling in the interior, unless previously pre- pared for it by peculiar ceremonies, excepting one tribe, which is remarkable for enterprise, and, in a small com- pany, will fearlessly penetrate among hostile nations, much in the character of fighting pedlars. The Caribs were, like their prototypes of the Old World, a nautical people, partly cannibals and conquerors, over all the islands of the West Indian seas, having commenced some generations before the arrival of Columbus ; their career of invasion by those nearest the coast, and gradually extending their enterprise to the north and west, till they had subdued all to the east of Hayti, where, at the time of the Spanish discovery, they had as yet only secured dominion for themselves in the vicinity of Samana Bay. It is erroneously asserted, that no indigenous people of America had contrived sea-going vessels of any size ; for, if the information we received while in the country be trust worthy, with- in a sandy portion of the border of the river Yuna, in this very bay of Samana, a sunken canoe was found buried, which was nearly 100 feet in length, propor- tionally broad, and what was considered to be suffi- cient evidence of the period when it had perished, was the discovery of a stone vessel, a stone cassetete, and an axe of flint, all within its hollow. Canoes of great THE HUMAN SPECIES. 261 capacity were necessary to nautical invaders of popu- lous islands, and the materials for constructing them abounded on the north coast of South America ; and, indeed, in the northern portion, there still remain rude sculptures of very long vessels of this class, manned with numerous rowers, particularly on tide rocks in Massachusetts, and elsewhere. At foot note, page 251, we should have noticed, in confirmation of the northern and marine migration of some tribes, that the Chichimecs relate, that after they emerged out of seven " caves" (islands), they tra- velled to Amassiemecan, or the northernmost portion of America. Perhaps they were Aleuthians, and the term caves, if not denoting islands, may refer to canoes, which, in many languages, bear names allusive, like caves to hollowness, Alvei. The legend is exceed- ingly like that in Strabo, which relates to the original seven Cyclopeans, who first came from Lycia by sea. They evidently designate ships' crews, since they be- gan soon after to build works of huge stones, such as those near their caves at Nauplia, &c. Votan, the third personage in the Mexican Calendar, according to Francisco Nunes, was the leader of seven families, who came from an island to America, and then brought seven more to the same country. But the bishop of Chiapa is questionable authority. HISTORY OF THE HYPERBOREAN, BEARDLESS, OR MONGOLIC TYPE. FROM what has been stated in the foregoing pages, < the two preceding extensive subtypical stems of the great family of Man, our chief aim has been, to pro- duce some of the reasons, which at least seem to sub- stantiate the conclusion, that both are results of amal- gamations of two, or of all the three normal stocks, separated from their original centres of existence at different epochs ; part whereof may be of so remote a date, that they precede a portion of those great terri- torial dislocations already pointed out, which affected both the Northern Pacific as well as the equatorial and southern seas. Whether the period in question syn- chronised with the avulsion of the plane of earth which originally abutted on the western base of the Cordilleras, is not now a question to be discussed in the bearing it might have on human existence, since there are sufficient evidences to show, that the present tenants of the island groups can mostly be traced to more recent periods ; and the traditions of the northern hemisphere in both continents, tend to prove the arctic nations, of the present time, to be of comparatively late expansion over their now dreary abodes. The ques- tion, however, is not without some curious circum- stances affecting the beardless type, which we pointed THE HUMAN SPECIES. 263 IT Y out as first traceable in the north-eastern flanks of the great central table land of Asia. But more attentive search seems to establish the fact, that even there, dur- ing many ages, it cannot have been the dominant stock ; for, as on most other occasions, we find the older races of Man, that possessed a given country, and were obliged to yield to the power of later invaders, hold to ie last in the fastnesses of mountain ranges, so we observe here, from the Chinese annals, whole nations of Caucasians, Kinto-Moey, Yuchi, &c., possessed of vast portions of Thibet and Eastern Tahtary, and maintaining their ground to the times immediately preceding and succeeding the Christian era, when they were first driven westward, whilst others are now found subdued and incorporated with the Celestial Em- pire, though still retaining their distinctive characters of ample beard, horizontal eyes, and lofty stature. They are spread in population about the river Amour and the hill countries, while others, such as the Miao-tze (cat-people), and the Mou-lao (wood-rats), occupy in the south the wildest mountains in Se-tchuen, Koei- tcheou, Houkang, and Quangsi, to the frontiers of Quang-tong. None of these nations and tribes can have penetrated eastward, from Thibet, after the Mon- golian races were fully established in the plains. They must therefore be of anterior date; and, as we see above, in the case of the Yuchi, the residue of a people driven from the more fertile plains, by the force of invaders. All the way to the Malayan peninsula, every known event tends to prove here, as in America, NATURAL HISTORY OF that a succession of invasions followed upon each < from the north, and formed variously amalgamated nations, still marked by strong distinctions in Indo- China, Australasia, and the South Sea islands.* The facts here stated, when accepted to the extent they of necessity imply, establish, that the Mongolian type was not primaevally predominant in Thibet, and at most hung only on the north-eastern flanks of the plateau of Tahtary, in the same manner as the woolly haired appears to have done on the southern. Yet there was assuredly a huge development of this stock at the most early human period, which, as ik could not be concentrated immediately on the high land, was clearly produced in the north-east, most probably from the basin of the upper Lena to the sea of Okotsk, and bounded on the south by the mountains of the Jablonoi and Tugurek chains, that is, between 55 and 65 de- grees of north latitude ; for it was through the passes, at the head waters of the river Vitim, that it appears the Mongols first pushed their conquests forward among the Yuchi, then in possession of the southern borders of Lake Baikal, and the Mandshures subju- gated the Shagallian territory, washed by the great Shika or river Amour, where the ruins of most an- * In proof of the departure of the Mongolia nations from the high north, may be shown, that they always look to the south as the object of desire, naming the west by the same denomination as the right hand, and the east as the left, therefore totally distinct from Caucasians, who uni- versally, from a religious motive, look to the east, and call the west the back. THE HUMAN SPECIES. 265 cient cities, captured and abandoned by the beardless stock, are still to be seen. Desolate cities, with stand- ing gateways, in a great degree perfect, and monstrous statues, akin to, but far more elaborate than the more early Scandinavian and Gothic works of art in Europe, ndicate no very remote period when they were for- ken, and testify, that the religion once predominant had more affinity with the northern Caucasian doc- trines of the west, than with the Budhism, Shamanism, or any other superstitions known among the beardless nations.* Having before shown the opinion, drawn from high authorities, and corroborated by Chinese annals, that while the Polar Sea covered, to within recent ages, se- veral degrees of latitude in northern Asia, the climate must have been considerably milder than at present, and consequently have facilitated migration to the east- ward, even if Behring's Straits had then already its present dimensions, and the Aleuthian islands did not form a more continuous chain than they now exhibit. These circumstances may account both for the Caucaso- * Par-hotan, city of the Tiger, a mass of extensive ruins on the Kirton-Gura of the Kalkas, and to the north of Mongolia. The Kirton-Gura communicates with th« Amour by the Kulon-nor lake. The ruins are in latitude 48, and in longitude a little west of Pekin. Though not built by the Mongolic nations, this and other cities were no doubt occupied by them till after their conquest of China, when to permit another hardy population to grow up con- centrated in the north, was no doubt found to be unad- visable. 266 NATURAL HISTORY OF Mongolic propulsion to America, and for the compara- tively late period of development which that stock dis- plays towards the south and west. The earliest Chinese annals may not in reality be- long to the beardless races, but be an appropriation made by them after their first conquests were effected ; for the Chinese heroes and social institutions, includ- ing Foh himself, have, in their human relations, cha- racters that do not belong so much to them as to their predecessors, the Kinto Moey, or Yuchi. They have also usages, like the feast of lanterns, which have no proper meaning in their legends, though, like the Hoolee of India in substance, they may be regarded as the same, since they are both dedicated to the opening spring. It is doubtful, whether at Canton the votaries of Budha understand the hymns sung by them in his praise ; for they are obtained from Ceylon, though the religious system itself is derived originally from Thibet, or perhaps, with still more certainty, from the more western portion of High Asia, before the Hyper- borean diffusion reached that quarter. The beardless stock, in its primaeval abode, may not have attained the full stature of Caucasians. Migra- tion to more southerly regions ; still more, innervation derived from interunion with bearded races, probably gave it the development now attained; for no giant tribes are recorded among the unadulterated nations of Mongolic origin ; and many instances occur, where, like Anna Comnena, speaking of the first appearance of the Turks, they are described to be of small stature. THE HUMAN SPECIES. 267 Here, like in other cases, it should be borne in mind, that the ruling tribes and royal clans, the greatest sharers in the division of spoil, possessed the principal proportion of Caucasian captive females, and thence acquired an external superiority of aspect, as well as much greater cerebral expansion. This fact is forci- bly shown in the Osmanli and Toorkee dynasties of Europe and Persia. Mythology and romance notice dwarfs and Pypilikas, or gold finding ants (possibly a mode of describing the gold miners of the Altaic range), Tschutski, Jakoutski, or others, not perhaps pure Hyperboreans, such as the iron working Niron tribes of Mongolia, appropriately typified by griffins and dragons, since these very monsters have been their national ensigns from the remotest ages ; and at seve- ral times conquerors have issued from among them, desolating the earth, and forming the greatest as well as the most transient empires in human history.* Whether the Phryni and Seres of antiquity, men- tioned by Pliny, Strabo, and Ptolemy, were really of the beardless stock in possession of Kashgar and Yar- kund, and associated with the Tokhari as early as the Macedonian conquest, may well be contested, since the conjecture of Dr. Vincent, that for Scythise should be read Sindh, is proved to be incorrect. The southern glens of that region being the spontaneous land of the mulberry tree, had then, no doubt, their own different * Such as Ogus Khan, about 657 B. d, to Genghiz Khan, about 1154 A, D. 268 NATURAL HISTORY OF species of indigenous silk- worms, which they still pos- sess, and from their produce the name Serica was de- rived, as well as Seres, without reference to the origin of the nation that then had rule. There can be little doubt, but that they were Caucasian Scythians of re- mote times, since the name of the Tokhari has been read phonetically among the vanquished tribes repre- sented on Egyptian temples, where the conquests of a Thothmes or Remses are depicted, and the population of those high lands is not even now Mongolic. What the earlier Greeks related of the Seres, who were re- ported to be satyrs, eighteen cubits in height, suffi- ciently proves they knew the name only in connection with some colossal statues of Indian or of Bactrian divinities. The Chinese, in their earliest records, seem to deno- minate the whole beardless stock Le Hin, or black haired people, according to the old classical comment on the Yaou Tan, in order to distinguish them from the foreign races, which are designated as invariably red or fair haired ; that is, Yuchi. The Mongolic type is, in truth, unknown to ancient history in the shape of organized nations ; but isolated tribes have penetrated westward at early periods, more or less mixed up with that subtypical stock which formed the Finnic or Ouralian nations, whose presence in Europe we shall shortly mention. Those among them which are least mixed by Caucasian interunion, certainly still retain the characteristics evidently be- longing to the most pure and ancient Hyperborean THE HUMAN SPECIES. 269 beardless tribes ; still the following description is ap- plicable to both, with only so much difference as the conditions of their respective situations admit to be results of circumstances only. The beardless, Hyperborean,* or Mongolia type, differs from the white Caucasian and Melanic stocks, by constant characters, which mark it externally, even where the subordinate stems are greatly adulterated by intermixture, or modified by climate, and other causes. It is a form of Man, distinguished from the other two types by a facial angle, sloping backwards from 70 to 80 degrees — the contents of the cerebral chamber varying, according to Dr. Morton's measure- ment, from 69 to 93 cubic inches: the head is rather small, the face flat, the cheek-bones projecting late- rally, the eyes small, not much opened, appearing to be placed obliquely, with the external angle upwards, chiefly because the lachrymary gland is concealed by the upper lid, which turns directly down over it. This is a provision of nature common to the ruminants of high latitudes, and the most elevated ridges, who are all destitute of tear^pits, probably because the lachry- mary structure cannot be exposed in a rigorous climate without positive detriment to the eyes. The Mongo- lian eye has always a dark iris, the eyebrows are nar- * The denomination of hyperborean is more strictly ap- plicable to the Arctic stock, though by the ancients the same designation is commonly believed to refer to Gothic, or at most to Finnic tribes, who were at that time merely boreal, or northern inhabitants. 270 JNATURAL HISTORY OF row, the hair is coarse, lank, and black, the beard scanty, not curly, partially or wholly wanting at the ears, and it appears to be of the same pile as the hair of the head. The nose is small, somewhat pointed, and the mouth well formed. In the Nogai race the nose is however round, flattened, and dilated, the cheek-bones still more prominent, the lips are tumid, and the eyes almost reduced to linear openings ; while the black Kalmucks have the obliquity of the lids still greater, so that their external angles seem to be almost forty-five degrees above horizontal. All the true beardless nations are olivaceous in colour, the skin varying from a kind of sallow lemon peel, through various shades of greater depth ; but it is never en- tirely fair, nor intensely swarthy; although, in the adulterated races that occupy the Himalaya range, slight appearances of blush may be discerned among young people ; . and the black Kalmucks, from some other unexplained cause, are of an ashy darkness, not far remote from the true Papua colour. The typical nations are all square of body, in stature rather low, the trunk long, the extremities seldom or never lengthened, and the wrists and ankles are weak.* * Where the gland is visible, the eye horizontal, and the beard spreads up to the sides of the ears, there is certainly a mixed descent. It is most common, perhaps solely ob- served, among natives of the northern provinces beyond the wall. No doubt the superior energy and capacity they evince, is the cause why they are every where in office, and that so many portraits, thus characterized, occur in the Chinese Museum now exhibiting in London. THE HUMAN SPECIES. 271 These characteristics of the Hyperborean type re- tain such uniformity, that the American races are in most particulars, as we have already shown, but little aberrant, and the Malay, Indo-Chinese, &c., continue to bear them, in the exact proportion of their commix- ture with other aberrants, and of the influences gene- rated by local circumstances. In the same ratio we also find the physical structure to harmonize with the intellectual qualities. The Hyperborean evinces a feebler innervation than the other typical forms of Man ; he is less under amatory influences, less prolific, less enduring in toil ; hence more disposed to severity where he has power ; to a victim or a captive inflicting needless torture, less from natural ferocity, than from the want of individual self-reliance, which is thus prone to express fear by precaution. More readily reduced to order when subdued, he evades rather than resists oppression by force ; he is more obstinate than brave, but savage to self-destruction when roused by despair ; avoiding personal exertion, such as to walk or to dig unremittingly in the fields, he rides in every region when the horse is accessible : more imitative than inventive, he exerts his ingenuity to apply me- chanical aids in necessary labours. Sitting at work, he is dexterous, but little tasteful : at handicraft pro- fessions, preferring patient elaboration to exertion; lazy, yet gluttonous, omnivorous with scarcely any distinction; filthy, amounting to a dread of water; crafty, dishonest, plausible : in war he trusts to his horse, or to numbers; he finds sudden irruption, 272 NATURAL HISTORY OF cruelty, plunder, and desolation, more congenial than open battle and victory. With the mind more vacant than contemplative, the religious sentiment, that source of all exalted and prac- tical feeling, has never risen above an indistinct idea of a Supreme Being, a heaven, or a solar worship : it is better satisfied with the true northern impostures of Shamanism, and with the borrowed demon worship engrafted on Budhistic doctrines ; for what is of true moral tendency, either in the ethics of Foh or Budh, is of foreign origin, and repugnant to the intellectual puerilities which are his substitutes for reason, philo- sophy, and science. A deified, ancestral, and paternal obedience, stands in lieu of practical religion — his only support of that innate moral feeling belonging to all human beings. It is the key-stone of absolute power in the state ; hence coercion is the civilization of the masses, ceremonious punctiliousness that of their supe- riors, ignorant self-laudation the acquirement of lite- rati, and insolence the portion of all. The discoveries they possess in physics are the results of chance : all the maxims of state are immutable, and repressive of progress. Though early in possession of the mariner's compass, and (particularly the Japanese) long compelled to a familiarity with the sea, none of the beardless tribes ever became true navigators, or reasoning ship- builders. The typical nations have monosyllabic languages, depending greatly upon phonetic expression, and their laUors are pictorial symbols, immensely diversified: THE HUMAN SPECIES. 273 hence their so-called poetical compositions cannot be highly figurative, or reach beyond mediocrity, and their learning is greatly restricted by -the cumbrousness of its elements. Finally, what is known of social ad- vancement, of inductive reasoning, or of mathematical acquirement, is derived from foreign sources, or is the work of interunions with the various Caucasian races, Yuchi, Kin-to-Moey, Hindo-Chinese, and others, scat- tered through every part of the organized nations of the beardless stock. It appears, that the present Mongolic tribes were long ignorant of the real use of the horse ; while, in the arctic regions, the white woolly race of the Jakoutsk was not deemed serviceable, except for food. From the Subaltaic Yuchi, who were the first rulers, they no doubt learnt the art, and became conquerors, by the sole acquisition which changes the relations of every people on earth accessible to the animal.* This was certainly subsequent to the oldest Hyper- borean invasion of China ; for even to this day, that immense region produces very inferior animals, ex- cepting those bred by the Caucasian Miau-tze moun- taineers. Yet, under favourable circumstances, and no doubt with some aid from the Caucasian elements spread through the masses, they have achieved an homoge- neous civilization, as early, perhaps earlier, than any * The Mongolic nations eat horse-flesh. Wild horse meat, butchered for the market, is still sold daily in mar.y parts of China. 274 NATLRAL HISTORY OF people of the south and west ; and though the reflec- tive powers confer but feeble modes of reasoning, and often false conclusions, a sort of erratic common sense has caused them to alight upon moral truths and h mane sentiments, which the most polished nations Europe acknowledge, but scarcely put in practl With the conditions of existence here shown, it is e dent that a people, such as the Chinese in partici according to their own annals, while residing in t' southern flanks of the Khinghan mountains, wouL multiply in time, till want of subsistence compelled the masses to industry, and that unwarlike and sedentary in the plains, they would fall beneath the energy of kindred tribes, coming upon their horses from the bleak north, to commit devastation, grasp the empire, enslave by mandates, and by an enormous police, till vanquished by the enervating process of the system, these too would fall in turn beneath a new horde of invaders. There were unquestionably more than the two well-known conquests of China, since the empire included the more ancient separate sovereignties ; and though the fate of rude conquerors over more civilized nations of homogeneous origin, is ever to become, in civil administration, the pupils of the vanquished, the new dominion debases both. These events are clearly shown in early ages, where tljo conquering hordes on the plateau of Thibet come up, or are first observed stationed on the south-east, as if tV.fty emanated from China ; and they speak of great empires, formed in remote ages, among which that of THE HUMAN SPECIES. 275 Ogus or Oloug Khan the Great, who flourished, it is said, about 657 B. C. should be mentioned, if indeed his exploits belong to a Mongolic or beardless people ; for he resided in winter near the Sir-Deriah, or Jax- artes, centuries before the Greta and Sakia Caucasians came westward by this and the Oxus rivers. Japan, divided into islands, in part possessed by tribes not typical, but of anomalous origin, with a colder stormy climate and soil, often disturbed by the most terrible earthquakes, presents a more energetic population, which being free from foreign wars, is ever ready to break out in sanguinary rebellion, not a little fostered by the jealous timidity of the ruling powers. On the south of the Chinese empire, vast woody mountain ranges, and abundant rivers, constitute wil- dernesses of vegetation, thinly inhabited by nations, forming several kingdoms, with an interior but little known. The Mongolic stock is most numerous on the north-east, the Caucasian type on the west, and in the interior and the Malay peninsula the Papua popula- tion still lingers. Power is in the hands of the first ; the denomination of geographical localities the patri- mony of the second ; and the third has undoubtedly intermixed and adulterated the blood of both. By these facts we detect the successive occupiers ; the Hindoo races invading the aborigines long before they were in turn made subjects of the beardless con- querors. This process, we have already shown, has extended onwards through the Australian and Polyne- 276 NATURAL HISTORY OF sian islands, with an additional element of an Arabian, and later still, of an European amalgamation. On the north of China, whence the civilized and sedentary southern people have originally emanated, we find the nomad nations still tending their herds ; consequently these are the real typical Hyperboreans ; and, accordingly, they possess the distinctive characters belonging to their origin, in the maximum of develop- ment: the Manchures, or Tungusian stem, Mongols, Bashkirs, Kalmucks, Kirguise, Nogai, Usbeks; Tur- comans being more mixed ; and all in general mis- named Tahtars ; for that term designates, originally, a mere tribe of vanquished inhabitants, who were made tributaries by the earlier Mongolian invaders on the south of Lake Baikal, and in process of time it was extended to other nations of dependent states further to the west. The Mongols and Manchures, in gra- duated proportions, are at present the stall-fed masters of China, and nearly form the whole real military force of the empire, consisting entirely of cavalry, pro- bably less than 250,000 strong, covering the inert mass of 300,000,000 subjects, with the aid of 800,000 policemen, denominated infantry, and an enormous crowd of civilians and satellites, all intended for inter- nal rule, and incapable of external vigour. They are, to all appearance, the first who came from the remote north-east, after the Japanese and Chinese. Of the Turkish stems, some have acquired a Caucasian form of head, such as the Osmanlis and the so-called Russian Tahtars, residing in towns ; but the nomadic THE HUMAN SPECIES. 277 tribes, the Nogais, Kirguise, Turkoman, and Jakoutsk, retain the original structure of the Mongolian form ; while the Turks further betray their hybrid character, by the number of Sanscrit words found in the language they speak, which, since they were not among the ancient invaders of India, must have been incorpo- rated on the north side of the great central mountain systems of Asia, and consequently from a Caucasian people, whose tongue was a dialect of this great lan- guage ; proving that it had a national existence much further to the north than is commonly surmised. The name Turks, Toorkees, may designate mountain men ; for it agrees with their earliest history, as given in the Chinese annals, according to Klaproth, Abel Re- musat, and others, who assert, that they descend from the Hiong-nou, a people whose capital was Kantcheou, in Tangut, and that they came down the snowy passes of Tang-nu and the great Altai upon the west, probably by the upper Irtish and the affluents of the Jaxartes. The same annals, however, pretend, that they were seated on the northern flanks of the mountain ranges, which may refer to their remoter habitation on the Irtish, but not near the Shensi and Shansi provinces, unless it was after the Yuchi nations were ejected, for these were still opposed to the Mongols in those very regions ; and the abundance of local names now remaining in Thibet, show, that Caucasians occupied a great portion of the high land plateau to a late period. It must have taken ages to dislodge tribes, which we find in subsequent periods making a prodi- 278 NATURAL HISTORY OF gious resistance ; and therefore the progress from th high declivities of the Mongolian steppes, which they appear to have held at an early time, to their occupa- tion of the Thian-Shan mountains, may be admitted to come within two or three centuries before the Chris- tian era, because Kanishka, a Caucasian (Sakia) prince, came down and conquered Bactria only in 120 B. C. It is therefore probable, that their most ancient name of Hoei-yu was changed to Hiong-nou, a century or two later, when the Caucasian intermixture gave rise to dissension, and their power was broken by civil wars, and Chinese dexterity. Though circumstances and dates in Chinese records should not be held more credible than our own western documents of remote antiquity, they still deserve general belief in the cha- racter of the events they narrate. Here their course is perfectly natural; and from other sources will be shown, in the sequel, that this general character is fully sustained in the later ages here mentioned. The percussions then given to the nations of central High Asia, appear further to be depicted, in the figu- rative, or perhaps physically true legend, that in the fifth century of our era, the Oxus and Jaxartes dried up for seven years, and the populations resident on their banks were forced to emigrate for want of water. The period is coincident with that vast convulsion, wten the Hunnic empire suddenly expanded from the frontiers of China to the mouth of the Rhine; and though not entirely, perhaps not even chiefly, com- posed of Mongolian hordes, as we shall presently show, THE HUMAN SPECIES. 279 it certainly embraced, "beside Toorkees, vast legions of Kalmucks, Kirguise, and Bashkirs, who, in the career of victory under Attila, spread, till in the subsequent dissolution of that power, they could never again re- unite to preserve independence ; for, when at a later date, fresh waves, entirely composed of the Hyperbo- rean stock, swept them again in the career of desola- tion to the west, Nogais, Usbeks, and Kalmucks, still more dislocated, settled further on to the Crimea ; from whence, however, the forgot Kalmucks, by a noble effort to retain their nationality, suddenly departed in the last century, and retracing the steps of their ancestors, moved eastward in a vast column, fighting their way through all opposition, till they reached the Chinese frontier in safety. The western direction of the Hy- perborean conquests were more particularly marked in the reign of Genghiz Khan, in the twelfth and thir- teenth centuries ; of Timur Leng, in the fourteenth ; and Nadir Shah, in the seventeenth: during which period, or rather from the time of Boleslas the Chaste (1227), to that of Stanislaus Augustus, a Polish writer enumerates, with some exaggeration, not less than ninety-one invasions of Poland coming from the east. Strange, however, as it may appear, not one of the foregoing conquerors were themselves pure Mongols ; but by connection they all possessed a portion of Cau- casian blood, through Finnic, Yuchi, or Turkish alliances. On the north side of the great wall of China, tho terms Kuthais and Kara Kuthais are not clearly desig- 280 NATURAL HISTORY OF nated : they may apply generally to the Mongolic resi- dents, though it is evident that the last mentioned refers to a dark race, perhaps the swarthy Kalmucks. It was from this region that Genghiz Khan and his clan first commenced their conquests, which, in Octai's reign, were divided into several dominions.* It is, however, a remarkable circumstance, that, excepting in the ruling families, the unceasing importations of Caucasian female slaves, victims of inroads, which for a succession of ages swept the populations of Southern Asia, and the whole of North-western Europe, indepen- dent of similar devastations perpetrated by Mongolic * These conquerors all sprung, directly or indirectly, from the Niron Cayut, chief family of the Niron tribe of iron miners, smelters, and forging smiths, or Arkenikom, residing in the sacred district of Kobdo, N.E. of Irmingtan Peak, part of Altain Niro, situated on the edge of the Shamoo, or Gobi desert, and not far west from Karakorum, once the capital of Genghiz Khan. From this point the waters flow, by the river Selinga, into Lake Baikal, and thence finally by the Yenisei into the Polar Sea. It was here Pisouka Bahauder, eighth in descent from a child of light (Nourayon), laid the foundation of the empire which Genghiz formed. But it must be remarked, that the an- cestral names of the family do not indicate so much a Mongolic as a Caucasian Finnic origin. Probably the mining mountaineers were still of the Yuchi stock, and, as usual elsewhere, soon became the master tribe over the in- vaders. In these mountains are probably the oldest mines in the world. Here the Pipilicas (gold finding ants) of Hindoo lore, may have been Hyperborean Fins (the Berg- men and dwarfs of every legend), and their dragon guar- dians Caucasian Fins, such as the Niron, who seem at all times to have recognized a dragon for their national standard. THE HUMAN SPECIES. 281 nations at still earlier periods over the Yuchi and other Oriental Asiatics, the Caucasian stock should have left such scanty outward evidence in the masses of the con- querors. The lower innervation, and consequent deadly apathy, in the relations of humanity, alone can account for it. Small as the influence may be in other respects, it has nevertheless tended to produce, on the north of the great wall of China, a Caucasian ratiocination, which the Kara-kuthai, and all Tahtars evince, in the Islam religious expansion. Batu Khan, nephew of Genghiz, formed, about 1223, the celebrated Golden horde in Kiptchack, a state between the Don, Volga, and Yaik, where, with the habits of various races of mixed and true Caucasians, an immense caravan trade was created, and extended to Samarkand and China on the one side, and on the other came to Astrakan, and thence by the Volga to Cazan and the Baltic, or by the Don to Azoff, or lastly, by the Kur and Rion reached the post where the Ge- noese had revived the trade of ancient Colchis — a wise and industrial system, which, while it lasted, conferred such riches on the government and people, that the resplendent name above noted was the consequence. But that the evident advantages of a peaceful policy could not wholly restrain the habits of rapine, is evi- dent ; for it was at this period, 1237, 1241, that Batu, with the Kiptchack or Komans, and Petah Khan, with the Telebog and Nogai swarms, made those great in- roads upon eastern Europe, which nearly depopulated Russia, Poland, Hungary, and adjacent provinces. 282 NATURAL HISTORY OF But the successes of so many ages at length appear to have blunted the restless characters of the Mongolic stock, and their habits became stationary. Pastoral nations, though often conquerors, ever finish by reced- ing before the steady progress of energetic cultivators. It is exemplified in this case by the gradual reaction, which sends the Caucasian eastward to recover the debateable ground. After 1800 years of conflict, he has already regained a great portion of the original seat of the Hyperborean type. Russia has subdued several nations who have little or no history; among others, some of real Mongolic descent, and the Sogha or Yakutsk, of all men the most hardy, together with the lofty Tschutski, of pre- tended American origin, but neither appearing to be true Mongols. An important consideration affects the condition of these arctic nations of Asia ; namely, the fast decrease of the rein deer, both domestic and wild, threatening, at no distant period, to reduce the already miserable existence of the people to starva- tion, where no migration towards the south can offer to improve their lot. The cause of this privation of almost the only source of comfort, in those dreary re- gions, is not yet fully explained, although several tribes are already totally destitute of their domestic flocks. It may be here, as in North America, that some law in nature is operating, in combination with the progress of civilized nations, to change the character of the high north, and leave it a desert, with scarcely a human tribe able to subsist on it ; indeed, the only THE HUMAN SPECIES. 283 people must ultimately be Samoyed, Esquimaux, and Lapland fish-eating Hyperboreans ; the sole remain- ing race of the beardless stock to which we have space to refer. This people, in both continents, being ever greatly restricted in food, either at no time acquired the full stature of the type, or it still retains the original ap- pearance, from which the nations in better circum- stances have passed to more ample structures. Though diminutive, they possess all the characteristics of the Mongolic form, so far as they remain unmixed ; but in several instances, they have formed unions with the nearest ejected Caucasian tribes in Eastern Asia, and also, in extending along the arctic shores, to the west. By means of their snow skates, their rein deer, and their seal skin coracles, they found means to traverse a great space in less time than other migrators — to cross over ice in winter — to pass the Asiatic Mediter- ranean, which at that period may not as yet have been totally absorbed — or to cross Behring's Strait, which, however, they do not seem to have accomplished until ages had elapsed. In this manner, they came early in contact and commixture with Caucasians, such as the western Yeta tribes, on the shores of the sea, or those they may have found to the west of it, about the Oura- lian mountains, and formed the Finnic subtypical stem on one side, and the Tschudic on the other. Both these suppositions are strengthened by the appearance of Finnic words in the Mexican language, and by a similar occurrence in the Basque dialect of the Pyrenees; NATURAL HISTORY OF while, on the plains of the north-west, other facts show how near an intimacy was established between the ancient Swedes and the Huns, and between these and the Magyars, who were kindred of the Turks. While this stem of the Mongolic type is thus shown to have spread at a remote period, and to have been mixed in the more temperate climates of the old conti- nent, it is in a pure state evidently less ancient than the other populations of America, for it has only been permitted to dwell in regions never occupied, or totally forsaken by them, that is, the Polar and north-west coast ; and as they were thus not wanted to assist the necessities of anterior colonists, they have continued to be regarded as enemies, being still unmercifully slaughtered by the stern Indian, on all occasions where he can glut his passion for bloodshed, under the pretext that all the Esquimaux are sorcerers. THE HUMAN SPECIES. 285 THE FINNIC, OURALIAN, OR TSCHUDIC SUBTYPICAL STEM, APPEARS to have arisen from an interunion of the two great typical forms of the north ; for its characteristics become prominent in proportion as the respective alliance with one or the other is predominant : thus, while the Skrict-Finn or Laplander, nearly of pure Hyperborean blood, verges in the same degree to the Mongole stock, the F inlander is in structure entirely a Caucasian, though both speak dialects of the same language — here, as elsewhere, showing the ready pre- dominance of the Caucasian blood. All the nations of this stem have considerable flexibility of voice, and consequently a great facility in acquiring the languages of their neighbours and of strangers ; and hence the Sclavonic and Teutonic dialects have swept away the Finnic in all places where the resident tribes were not isolated by the nature of their country. In Asia the Tschutski are of similar origin as the more western Finns,* and seem to represent the parent stock whence * Tschutski and Finn are convertible terms in northern Russia. Tschudi is the Russian name of Finland, and the true appellation of the ancient Scythians. Joten were the giant families, or Gothic Finns of the Germans. There is still a tribe of Tusci remaining among the inhabitants of Circassia; and if Rauwolf be correct, the Druses of Liba- nus were called Trusci. This indicates a portion of the 286 NATURAL HISTORY OF several nations of America take their source, while they are claimed as the most ancient miners of the Altai; a character which again recurs among their kindred of the west. Industrious from necessity, the scattered, less warlike tribes, with that Mongolic tact for applying artificial aids in their labour, early found walrus teeth sufficient to separate portions of meteoric iron or aerolite, anciently more often found in large masses than at present; with the aid of stones they learnt to hammer it into tools, and subsequently into the celebrated swords of the ancient north. Horns of the elk, and antlers of rein deer, made ready shovels and pick axes; and having already a knowledge of meteoric metal, they soon found, that by digging, ores might be brought up from beneath the surface.* The zone of earth given them as a patrimony being intersected at right angles by many enormous rivers — by the Iceland or German Sea — by the White Sea — by the still remaining portions of the Asiatic Mediter- ranean— by Behring's Straits — and unceasing winters causing many sufferings to migrators on the east and west, they, like all other men, must have desired to wander to more genial and passable regions; and Finnic race to have moved, at a remote age, through Asia Minor towards Syria, and it may thus have formed one of the early constituents of the Imilicon of Palestine. From the Altaic gold mines to the west they were in all places troglodytes and miners. * We find them tenants of Southern Siberia, up to the vicinity of the Jenissei about Krasnoyarsk, where Pallas discovered an iron mine still retaining stone hammers and brass tools, ascribed by the present Tahtars to the Tschutski. THE HUMAN SPECIES. 287 accordingly, nations arising from this branch of the Mongolic stock, gradually more and more mixed with Caucasians,- can be traced southward, down to the great central range of mountains, where they were met by the opposite commixture of swarthy races, while the purest typical form of the bearded type clung to the line of mountain prolongation, or occupied parallels along it to the western extremity of Europe. The commixture of two typical races, as before observed, is often productive of larger growth among individuals, especially if the northern Caucasian predominate. On the edge where they encountered the Hyperborean, they mixed with it, perhaps alternately as subjects or captives, and as masters, until both were pressed by others, again subdued, or driven forward to other re- gions. Several of these, and other nations hereafter noticed, can be traced back to the Colchian sea-ports, to the shores of the Meotic estuary and Tauric Cher- sonesus, where materials for navigating the great rivers of Scythia first improved their experience to dare the more open sea of the Euxine, ascend the Danube, or pass through the Bosphorus into the ^Egean, and ulti- mately to become intrepid seamen. Though they pos- sessed some industrial knowledge ; destitution, famine, or other causes, made them fierce savages, often posi- tive cannibals. Such, it is likely, were the Cyclopeans, Lestrigons, Sicanes, and Siculian swarms, which long terrified the more southern Asiatic emigrants on the shores of the Mediterranean. But before the historical era, they were already followed by others (the mining 288 NATURAL HISTORY OF and forging Idsei Dactyli ?) and blended with the first Gomerian people that came westward, and together with them, finally merged into various Celtic tribes of Italy, Gaul, and Spain, and occupied the north coast of the Adriatic, where, notwithstanding the character they bear with posterity, they were advancing in the arts of civilization. Others of a still greater Scythic innervation, it may be inferred, penetrated by the passes on both shores, along the western Caucasian chain, and crossing the ridges of Armenia Minor, came upon the Upper Euphrates, skirted the eastern flanks of Ammanus, till they reached the Syrian coast ; or, continuing to descend the banks of the great river, formed a portion of that Scythic element which is constantly traced in the Hebrew historical records, and repeatedly noticed in the heroic age of Arabian traditions. In this way they constituted the chief source of that red haired people which is still found in the moun- tains of Palestine, and is known as the Montefict Arab, and probably formed the first or primitive Phoenician pirates and traders. A tribe of this people was extant on the Euphrates, under the name of Rhustumi ; others occupied the Arabian islands ; and if all the earliest Scythian tribes were of the same mixed origin, they were the invaders who ruled in Egypt by the names of Hyksos and shepherds ; the same who were the cause why red haired* men, and * The quality of red hair belongs exclusively to northern Asia and Europe ; beside the Northmen and their descen- THE HUMAN SPECIES. 289 even rufous oxen, were sacrificed, after their expulsion, in detestation of their dominion. They may have been the parent stock of the Beni Koreish, since the Seyads, who in Asia still pride themselves as descendants of the prophet, stain their beards to a red colour; and finally, clans are likewise still found scattered inland of the northern African shores, where they are taken to be remnants of the Vandals, who were indeed a branch of the same stem that came round by the west end of the Mediterranean. Finnic Scythae, Rauwolf 's Trusci, may have passed to Abyssinia with the first Arabian tribes, and influ- enced the building of cities of wolf priests, such as was the capital city Tegulet ; for who but a people of northern origin would have thought of wolf gods and lupine priests, particularly in Africa, where no true wolf is as yet proved to exist ; for the Ounch of Egyptian Sycopolis, Siout of the Prsenestine Mosaic, surely cannot be the insignificant Chakal or Canis Anthus.* dants, it is still almost wholly national among, several mixed tribes of northern Russia. If Assyria once was held by red-haired men, they most assuredly originated from people beyond the Caspian. * This worship was well known in the south of Europe, where northern tribes had penetrated. Finns, Etruscans, or Pelasgians, most likely instituted the Hirpi, wolf priests, at Soracte, the Luperci at Rome, the most ancient sacerdo- tal order in the city. Such, again, were the priests of La- tona at Delphi. They existed at Thebes in Egypt, and were in all cases funereal ministers. They had, it is pro- bable, mysteries which were the origin of the power to 290 NATURAL HISTORY OF We have omitted to notice another characteristic that marks the primaeval Finnic tribes, namely, their dwellings, which once were in Europe similar to those of the present Tschutski of Eastern Asia, and of the North American Indians of the same stock. They are figured in Catlin's Travels, and still more correctly in those of Prince Maximilian of Wied. In the west they were named Dan, Den, Tan, Ton, &c., denomina- tions preserved in Denmark ; Danes Tannieres in Bel- gium ; Tonningen in North Germany. They exist now in Lapland, and among the Samoyeds ; are the origin of the legends of the Bergmen, burrowing men, where the forging Alfen dwelt, who were miners and sword smiths in Asia, Scandinavia, and Germany, includ- ing Carinthia, long the legendary dwelling of Laurin, brother of the Norwegian Alperich, and the Asiatic Sinnel, princes of a dwarfish people. Even the garden of roses, the mysterious retreat, where the dwarf king, with his subterranean powers, was vanquished by Dietrich of Bern, the Gothic hero, might perhaps be pointed out in the wonderful cavern of Adelsberg,* assume any shape, ascribed to the Budas or blacksmiths of Abyssinia, to the Wehrwolf in Europe and Asia, the Escolar of Portugal, and of Bassa Jaon, the mysterious smith of the Basques, the Crewe, Blotmen, sacrificial priests of the northern nations, who slew human victims; the medicine men, exorcisers of North America, the Shamans of Asia, and even the Druid Victimizers, wore wolf-skin dresses, or at least girdles of that material. * This is close by the elevated Schneeberg. The Lay- bach is twice lost in the earth, and again reappears. The Zirknitz Lake, supplied by subterranean torrents, suddenly THE HUMAN SPECIES. 291 with its mysterious river, not far from various mines, and particularly that of quicksilver, about Idria. Having been checked in a western progress, perhaps by the still remaining salt marshes, already inter- spersed with barren sea sands, in North Western Asia, the Scythie Finns accumulated and grew to nations of variously mixed character, not unlike those already noticed in South Western Asia and Egypt; but it was ages later before they developed, and pushed on by Lake Ladoga to the Baltic. Here, propelling the true Hyperboreans, they became Finn-laps, and next, the earlier Scandinavian inhabitants, at the same time that they formed also the Esthonian, Biarmian, Prussian, and other maritime people. On all these coasts, a certain affi- nity with, or pressure by new hordes of colonists possess- ed of Gomerian blood, or at least of Celto-Scythic tradi- tions and practices, is indicated. It forms the Celtic element in their composition; and from this source they acquired, together with a portion of their dialects, those habits of forming circles of stones and cromlechs, which are still abundant in Norway, in some parts of North Western Germany, and Friesland. They pos- sessed traditions originating in the north as well as becomes empty and as rapidly fills again : where also the mysterious Proteus Anguinus comes up from reservoirs of everlasting night. The cavern, twelve miles in length, is adorned with stalactites, forming halls, corridors, recesses, pillars, obelisks, hangings, and even forms of animals, so strangely commixed, and of such enormous proportions, that here the powers of enchantment were naturally be- lieved to have held their court. 292 NATURAL HISTORY OF south of High Asia ; legends that recur again in Celtic Basque provinces, and even in Western . rica. The small clans, ruled by a patriarchal or family system, which the earliest documents of the Celtic colonists in Britain acknowledge to have found on the soil, and whose smoky cavern dwellings may be traced perhaps near Brixham, on the shores of Torbay, must be referred to that sub-type of the human race ; for not being of the Celtic stock, they could not well be of other than of Finnic origin. In the generally scat- tered diffusion of residence, having abundant supplies of food from the sea, the lakes, rivers, and forests, small clans, with affinities in dialects, creeds, and con- sanguinity, could not find many motives for hostility. Those savage wars of extermination, rising out of am- bition or for the possession of favourite localities, most likely did not occur until greater pressure of new colo- nies, vastly augmented populations, increasing cultiva- tion and wealth, roused cupidity and the spirit of dominion; for otherwise, the sudden march of whole nations could not subsequently have taken place un- molested by neighbours; such, for instance, as the Gallic down the Danube, to Greece and Asia Minor ; the Boian, north-eastward to Bohemia; or the Cym- ber, from the coasts of the German Ocean to Italy. In the east of Europe we find a myrmidon people, again no doubt burrowing ants, like the gold finding miners of High Asia, with Thessalian Larissa, subject to the Thraco-Pelasgian Achil^a Moreover, we find THE HUMAN SPECIES. 293 the Helotes, and other indigenous tribes reduced to slavery by conquering Heleni, who themselves acknow- ledged gods of high northern origin, and venerated milk- eating Scythse. What could these tribes be but Finnic or Gomerian Celts, who, in the east of Europe, as in the west, were fused into later and more powerful tribes, with far less resistance than is often shown when kindred nations oppose the pretensions of each other.* Hence races of Finnic origin passed, in antiquity, by conquest or mutual consent, into Celto-Scythae and Pe- lasgians, so that in many cases it is impossible to trace the nations further up than to their second or third amal- gamation. We find this substantiated by words belong- ing in common to the Etruscan, Basque, Ligurian, and ancient languages of western Asia : such, for example, as Tar, in Tarchon, Brig, in Briga, Larch, in Larissa, Gur, in Calagurris, Maitagurra, the Durga of the Py- renees, &c. ; and there are others, in the traditions of tribes that appear to have been connected by Finnic consanguinity, such as the Basque Haitor, the most early British Heytor, the first, if not both, being a denomination of a superior divinity, probably allied to Thor. There is a still more remarkable coincidence in the Navarrese and Cantabrian legend of the blue cow, lowing from the verge of the mountain forest, when * The river Alpheus bears a Finnic name, for Alf Elf, in Lapland and Finland, still denotes a torrent, and, it may not be amiss to observe, that Eric Erk, in Sweo-Finnic, is still a proper name, always considered a synonym of Her- cules. The Heraclidse in fact were Finnic Goths. 294 NEURAL HISTORY OF C ik of national disasters were at hand, corresponding to the same doctrine anciently believed in the western pa of the present Hanoverian dominions ; while both : call to mind the celebrated Indian mountain peak Gho-Karma (the moaning cow), which, if it have a { graphical position at all, must be the same as the i of Mahadeo, at the source of the Ganges, also known 1 the name of Himavahn. These and other Finnic and oriental elements, known to exist in the Basque as it is now spoken, justify the claim we make of that ancient race as originally appertaining to the intermediate stem now under consideration, more particularly as among the present inhabitants of France, there are still extant the wrecks of tribes (the Cagots), which, from the first Celtic invasion to the present time, have never been acknowledged to form a portion of any, though the vulgar is willing to believe they are a residue of Arian Goths : which opinion, even if it were correct, would not much remove them from a Finnic origin. We may associate with these also the human ossu- aries in the caverns of Breigne, in the vicinity of the river Lot in Quercy, described in a former article; for they indicate a mode of disposing of the dead gene- rally more careful than the Celtic ; and from the more common absence of the skulls, and the regular packing of the extremities in layers, an argument may be drawn to show, that they are second and final deposits of the departed of a race, whose first mode of preserving them was to have the bodies sewed up in skins, hung up for a given period in trees, and then buried, often with a THE HUMAN SPECIES. 295 stag's horn by the side : a practice long in use among the Finnic and Gothic nations, and still followed by kindred tribes in both Americas. These deposits, in the south of central France, have still, on the mountain above them, the ruins of rectilinear and curved defensive works, not like those of the Gallic tribes ; and as they are in the vicinity of the Basque territory, it is likely that a kindred race was the owner of the soil before they were subdued or expelled by the progressing Celtae. It is most probable, that although the Finnic people spread over Europe, their movement from the east was in general coastwise, and from north towards the south ; ascending great rivers from the sea, and in some cases only forming considerable communi- ties. Hence, in Europe and the high north, they are, with scarce an exception, fish-eaters, boatmen ; never riders ; and only graziers, not cultivators, in the south, when secure from the nature of their location ; but even then still substituting ozier and willow branches for many purposes of domestic utility ; for such is still the practice among the Basques as well as the Laplanders. They seem, indeed, scarcely to have been capable of successful resistance against Celtic invaders, in their more pure stunted growth ; and that their physical strength was only on a par, and sometimes superior to them, when they were united with the giant forms of Yeta or Gothic origin, who no doubt lorded it over them, but certainly had also protective inclinations. Now tribes of this class, independent of immediate rulers, are constantly found to accompany the smaller 296 N A /URAL HISTORY OF race, as in the Pyrenees, where the Gascons of low stature have the stalwart Cantabrians for neighbours and kindred; and again, where the first mentioned form of man is no longer traceable in history, the second is readily detected by names which always have reference to giant statures, as we have already remarked of the Tyrhenians, &c. So again, in the swampy islands (paludes) of ancient Flanders, a small race seems once to have resided under the early protec- tion of the Frieslanders, Vuriesen and Huinen, both denoting giants in the Theotisk dialect of Belgium, as it was spoken in the time of Charlemagne. * Huin, pronounced somewhat in English with the sound of oi in coin, gives Hoin, which immediately reminds the reader of the name of the Huns, who are now admitted to have been an Ouralian Finnic people, allied to the Goths, and sweeping with it, in the train of temporary conquest, -several hordes of Mongolians from the east, whose strange aspect misled, or suited the vituperative dismay of Anna Comnena, and the Greek and Roman ecclesiastical writers of the time, who had little better than abusive epithets to oppose to the conquerors. The Ostrogoths were associates of Attila, * There is an imperfect vocabulary of this form of the old western Teutonic in Olivarius Vredius, Hist. Comitum Flandrise, together with some fragments of Solomon's Song, &c., in the same. Two centuries after, it was nearly similar to the Anglo-Saxon. The present dialect of Flanders still contains many most ancient Theotisk words disregarded in dictionaries. But the examination of the whole question is well worthy the attention of English Saxon scholars. THE HUMAN SPECIES 297 whose name was held among them in high honour, for we find it repeated in the list of Swedish kings. It is conspicuous in the oldest German Heldenbuch, and the Goths or the Lombards brought it into Italy, where Azzo and Azzolino, mutations of Atzel, the Teutonic form of the name, are prominent, chiefly among the Ghibeline nobles, as is naturally to be expected in civil contests between the northern and Italian races. The early alliance of the Finnic stem with the Gothic nations, besides the community of proper names, is still more evident in the mythical list of their pro- genitors, where the denominations of Geat and Finn are recognized by all the nations of the north-west, including the pagan Saxons of the east coast of Eng- land, who, in the poem of Beowulf, denominate them- selves Geats, not Saxons.* On the north of the Bal- tic, reminiscences of the juxtaposition of the dwarf and giant races are abundant. Their contests and intermarriages are recorded in sagas, in several cases recompositions of more ancient documents, though pass- ing at last into mythi, in a land where Laplanders still exist ; and the conquering race in the southern portion is even now a stalwart people. What they were in rude antiquity is often historically marked; and very recently a letter from Professor Nielson an- nounced to the Royal Academy of Stockholm the dis- covery of enormous human bones, accompanied by flint * See the important preface to Beowulf, in the excellent the original, by the learned John H. Kemble, 298 NATLRAL HISTORY OF arrows, bone spear heads, and the remains of horses, stags, elks, and bears. THE BASQUES. FROM the foregoing- remarks, we believe ourselves justified to claim the Basque, Esquara, or Vascon people, to be the most southern of the Finnic stem in Europe. Coming up the Garonne from the sea, it evidently spread towards the western Pyrenees; for the ancient frontier fastnesses of these tribes are his- torically unknown to the north of that river, excepting Calagurris, now St. Lizier, on the Salat, an affluent at no great distance from the stream where it is but first emerging from the mountains. The nation extended, on the south of the great ridge, to the Ebro, where a similar fortress, likewise denominated Calagurris, now Calahorra, commanded the upper Ebro. The capital was Pompelo, in the district of the Husia tribe. Denominations of places and early superstitions in- dicate a Finnic western Caucasian origin. In Spain the Cantabrians were always celebrated for valour, and for arresting the conquests of the Moors, after the overthrow of the Goths; perhaps evincing, by their support, a community of origin, which they alone pos- sessed beyond the Pyrenees. Aided by these hardy mountaineers, the Goths resisted the southern in- vaders, and in the Asturian mountains formed the little kingdom of Oviedo, which soon again expanded into that of Leon. It was in the defiles of this region THE HUMAN SPECIES. 299 that the Franks, under Charles Martel, or Charle- magne, are related to have lost their rear guard, with Roland, and nearly all the heroes of the French cycle of romance. They fell at the pass of Roncesvalles — more, it is said, by the swords of the Asturian moun- taineers, than by the Arabian cavalry, which are not likely to have been suffered to enter the mountain fastnesses of a small, warlike, and justly distrustful Christian state. On the north of the western Pyre- nees, the Vascones, though early overlaid by Celtic tribes, that the Tarbelli, and it may be the Venom inn i and Aturi, were nevertheless of the same nation.* THE LIGURTANS OR LLOGRIANS.t IN the eastern Pyrenees there was another people equally foreign to the Celtse, with affinities which ap- pear to unite it with the Finnic family ; and it was called the Ligurian and Llogrian (the Llogrwys of the Celtse) ; probably originally the same as the Greek . * Consult Surita. Both Quintilian and Prudentius were natives of Iberian Calagurris ; no doubt sprung from Ro- man colonists. t They were acknowledged to be Hyperboreans by des- cent, since Eschylus makes Prometheus instruct Hercules in the road towards the garden of the Hesperides ; he must pass Caucasus, then encounter the fierce and innumerable Ligurians, and arrive at a high northern latitude. His imagery looks like an extract from Finnic sagas, the Cale- \vala or Scandinavian Edda. Bailley notices this passage, see Strabo Geogr. 300 NATURAL HISTORY OF Locrian, which had three tribes in the mountains of northern Greece, and the colony of Osolean Locri in Italy. All these came from the north-east of the Euxine, where they had been neighbours of the A< They had a legend of their first king's son having rescued from a wolf by a serpent. Naupactis, present Lepanto, was their sea-port; but original they had been savages, clothed in the skins of wild beasts, and having their wives in common, like the Vascones. They had names and terms which were likewise found in the Tyrhenian. Already, before the arrival of the Gauls, properly so called, this people having extended between the Cevennes and the sea- coast, up to the mountains of Spain, was encountered by other marine tribes, when, leaving some clans in Corsica, in the Hieres Islands, and among the Iberian families occupying the water Sycanis* (the lagoons along the coast), they retreated to the Cottian Alps, the centre of its national strength, where the present Piedmont was in its possession. On the side of Italy, the capital, Ticinum, now Pavia, was in the district of the Loavian tribe, with the Libuans, on the banks of * Not unlikely a Teutonic word, SeeJcant, border of the sea. This term would have no meaning, but for the la- goons along the coast, only separated from the sea by a continuous belt of shingle. Sicani, Sitaceni, and Siculi, in this case, must mean maritime, coast men, water or sea men, the same as Cantii, in Britain. Yet these names again came from the Euxine Bosphorus, and according to Pliilistus, cited by Dion. Halic., the Siculi were of the same race as the Ligures, notwithstanding that Tiuicus named them aborigines of Sicily. THE HUMAN SPECIES. 301 Lake Garda, and the nation extended to the vicinity of the present Avignon, where Strabo places the Celto- Ligurians. They long were bold seamen, and a brave and industrious people, defending their liberties against Roman encroachment during forty years, before their last tribe was subdued. They had been early dis- turbed, both in the Alps and on the coast, by Gallic invaders, who absorbed, or forced settlements among them. It was from the Ligurian tribe of Legobriges, about the year B. C. 600, when the Phoenician and Khodian trade had declined, that the Phocian Euxinos obtained the cession of the port of Marseilles, by means of Petta, daughter of the chief Nannus. The transaction is related with particulars, both by Aris- totle and Justin ; but the fact itself, indicates the con- sanguinity of these tribes with the Grecian Locri, who were neighbours of the Phocians. By the eminently marine habits of this people, and their migrating disposition, they were, it seems, scat- tered in various regions ; and nowhere, except at the head of the Adriatic and in the Alps, had national consistency. They were of common origin with the Istrian, Liburnian, and other tribes, who appear like- wise to have claimed a Colchian descent. Their ships, from the humblest raft, and the coracle of three and a half ox hides, sewed and stretched over a frame-work of willow, changing successively to lintres, logs, longs, Lib^rnic-biremes, caracks, caravellas, and finally to ragusas or argosies, were in general the models of 302 NATURAL HISTOfcY OF those adopted by other nations, and Reul was their most ancient guiding star at sea. But, with the excep- tion of the Liburnians, they were no longer mariners than the swarming period of their departure from Asia ; for in subsequent accounts we find them move by land; and if they were the same nation as the Llogrwys, or Logrians, of British legend, they had once, at least, a tribe seated on the Llobregat in Spain, and no doubt were in part the migrators who, on retiring northward, crossed the Cevennes to the head waters of the river Loire (Ligeris), which they decorated with their own national appellation. Here they were joined by another, the Illyrian, Venetic, Henyd, Wend, or Gwyned tribe or asseciation, for it may have originated entirely in the commercial spirit of the more enlightened persons of several tribes, and even whole clans. The Illyrian Alps, placed between Pannonia and the Adriatic, contain a variety of nations, which, like those of Western Caucasus, might claim to be aboriginal, if they also were not known to have been colonies, which, in remote ages, came up the Danube, and were subse- quently driven to the mountains, while others passed through the Bosphorus from the Black Sea, or came from Asia Minor, and skirted the coasts of Greece, Strabo mentions not less than eleven tribes, some of which we find again on the coasts of Colchis, and others are now admitted to be Scythian and Finnic. The Veneti, Carnes, &c., belong to this group. THE HUMAN SPECIES. 803 THE VENET1. ACCORDING to their national tales, plainly the in- vention of later ages, the Italian Veneti pretended to be a colony of Trojan fugitives, under the conduct of Antenor. After they arrived in the west, they warred with Servius Velesus, king of the Euganeans ; and their records hinted at a consanguinity with the Heneti of Paphlagonia, where they were horsemen and hired soldiers, and headed, it is said, by king Pyle- raenus, they served Priam in the Trojan war. But they were thrifty dealers, since to them is assigned the introduction of mules in the markets of Asia Minor. The Greek poets spoke of their country, situ- ated at the mouth of the Eridamus (the Po), per- haps also the Rhine, where the Celtae dwelt; and Virgil was well acquainted with their legends and assumed descent. Industrious, like modern Arme- nians, they had successively demanded the protection of the strongest power near them. At one time the Ligurians, and subsequently the Romans, took upon themselves to defend their interests from Gallic ag- gression, Their capital, Padaviurn, now Padua, probably was one of those neutral marts necessary to barbarous nations ; it was older than Rome, and in the time of Tiberius, the second city of Italy for extent and riches. They were, Herodotus asserts, Ulyrians; and Ser- vius names CEnetus or Wenetus as one of their kings, 304 NATURAL HISTORY OF assigning them to the same stock as the Liburnians ; also the Tauricians, who, like the Ligurian Taurini, had no doubt a Taurine, or Tor god; the Yindelicians, still more allied to the tribes of the Baltic, with the Brennians and Genaunians; all at one time derived from the northern shores of the Euxine. Beyond the Liburni and Veneti, the Sigynnse were the only people known to Herodotus, as far as the Ister (Danube) ; but as this name in the Ligurian tongue merely denotes traders, (Zigeuner,* pedlars, tinkers), we may believe that it was a denomination of the Yenetic merchants, who went overland to that river, and thence traversed Germany to the Baltic, where they had tribes of kin- dred origin. Therefore the whole may be claimed as of Finnic source, collectively originators of the nume- rous markets (nationally Ventae) existing before the extension of the Roman sway to beyond the Rhine and Danube, like a commercial net-work over the west of Europe. In Italy the word Forum was substituted for vent or guent by the Latin nations, while they left Venta to be used beyond the Alps. These were what are now known by the name of Scalae among the more modern Italians ; Markt, Fair, and Kioping, of the Gothic nations. The existence of these emporia * It may be remarked, that both the present Armenians and the gypsies Zincali (Zigeuner of the Germans) have a cranial structure very much resembling the high northern tribes of Finnic Hyperboreans, and are similarly nomads and soothsayers, sharp in dealing, and ever, like the others, averse to war. THE HUMAN SPECIES. 305 explains how the classical ancients caine so early to be acquainted with the amber coast of the north ; for, in the third century, B. C., Pythias, a Grecian traveller, and Divo, a Bithynian, at a later date, visited the pre- sent provinces of Pomerania and Prussia ; and though the work of the first named is lost, quotations remain sufficiently to establish the attention his narrative must have deserved.* THE ETRUSCANS. THERE was, beside the two nations of Upper Italy here noticed, a people more ancient than either, having in the language it spoke roots of Teutonic still more abundant ; which, although it was believed to be derived from two widely separated sources, still bore the same import in the designations of both their names. One, the Rasenic, it was asserted, had posses- sion of the lower Tridentine Alps, when the other (the Tyrhenic), came up by sea, it is said from Tyrra in Lydia, and landing at the mouth of the Po, built Adria * * Pythias, quoted by Pliny, flourished about 330 B.C. He visited the amber coast, and notices the Guttones on the Montonomon estuary (the Frische Na'hrung), at one day's journey from the island Abalus (the present Pal- meniken), where amber was cast up by the sea. Divo is mentioned as having visited the Baltic in the reign of Augustus ; he is quoted by Jaroslaw, domprobst of Ploezk. There is in Spon even an attempt to figure Hyperborean hunters, one riding a stag (rein-deer) being shown gallop- ing towards a net. The work of art is from a bas-relief, found at Etruscan Anxur. 306 NATURAL HISTORY OF or Hadria, on the margin of the river. The present town stands more than twenty feet above the original foundations, and ten above thart which existed in the time of the Romans ; facts which, taking the accumu- lation of the soil, near the mouth of the river, to have advanced at an equal rate, would give about 3600 years for the arrival of the colony which first com- menced the city. Such a period is consistent with the first arrival of the Celtae in Gaul. The Semi-Finnic Tyrheni were certainly allied to the Thraco-Pelasgians, and spoke a dialect not yet clearly ascertained ; had at a very early .period an alphabet, which, although primarily also of sixteen letters, neither coincides with the €admean nor with the Roman.* They were in possession of a growing civilization, such as smelting ores, and casting in brass effigies and bas-reliefs of divinities and men (they could even plate them with silver and gold), and made fictile vases variously coloured ; whereon, either in consequence of captured Greeks being among their early slaves, or from causes not known, there are found depicted Hel- lenic Mythi, often with circumstances not mentioned in the Greek poets, and yet extending over the whole geographical surface of their fables, from Palestine and Asia Minor to Sicily, and even to Gades in Spain. Like the Pelasgians, they built walls of cities with * It appears that the Greek alphabet never contained at one time all the Etruscan forms, and they continued to write from right to left. It is probable the early Celts wrote with the same letters. THE HUMAN SPECIES. 307 stones of enormous dimensions, generally in courses, with more regularity ; but unlike them, they had fre- quent subterranean passages, or galleries of mines beneath their cities, the use of which is not yet under- stood. They constructed their tombs usually in caves, dug with skill and considerable beauty, so well con- cealed and blocked up, that many have been discovered only in latter times ; and these are found to have been adorned with sculptures and paintings of no mean artistical merit. The national mythology was however totally distinct from the Greek or Roman, and approx- imated, or was identical with that of other Finnic tribes. Such were the Falsen of Etruria (Falaces), pillar-gods, usually represented in pairs, once well known to the pagan Scandinavians, the Laplanders, and the Finnic Lithuanians, and still found in the houses of the Tschutski of the north-east of Asia.* Being brave, and skilled in the arts of life and war, although they had contests with, and expelled the Kerkopes (xexpo^* xepxux]; ? by the name evidently a dwarfish race, which fled to Sicily), it is evident * See Ossian, Ca-.lodin, " Like .the pillars' of Lodin at Sliva." — Duan II. Were these perchance also the same as the Finno-Teutonic Alces, Alkes, Alsen, brethren divini- ties, with a priest clothed in woman's garments, and ho- noured, without images, in a wood ? It may nevertheless be suspected, that elk or stags' horns represented them, as rein-deer horns are still used for idols by Laplanders and Samoyeds. Ailsen, on the Weser, may have been a local city for them, and the meaning might be perhaps taken from Elk,e, each or both. Certainly not Castor and Pollux, in the classical view of these meteor gods* 308 NATURAL HISTORY OF that they were not numerous during their occupation of the present Lombardy ; for they withdrew to make room for the Ligurians and Heneti, and were driven off still further by the Gauls, their strong walled cities being all on the Mediterranean side of Upper Italy. Rome itself was partly an Etruscan colony, and owed most of the elements of its greatness to the institutions and example of that people. It is to be regretted, that these tribes, ruled by independent Lucumons,* wanted national unity when they were strong; for what the barbarians had begun on the north-west, the Romans -finished from the south-east, the whole nation being gradually absorbed by the conquering republic. They were manufacturers, merchants, and navigators, till they were worsted by Greek assailants, coming from Sicily, and by the Phocian colony of Massilia. Yet it is to the objects of barter which they themselves, or the friendly Yenetic traders, or subsequent rival Car- thaginians, Greeks, Romans, and Gauls, carried down the Loire, or across the German territory to the Baltic, that we must refer the bronze effigies, heads of stand- ards (?), helmets, shields, arms, and even coins, often containing Greek mythological subjects, but bearing scarcely any tokens of Greek skill ; for all these have been found in Gaul, Britain, the Tyrol, in the waters of the Baltic, and even in the bogs of Ireland, t * Lucumon, Teutonic Lachman, man of law, judge. t Such is the bronze group, eight inches high, represent- ing the Centaur Chiron, with young Achilles on his back, in the act of drawing his bow, and a dog leaping against THE HUMAN SPECIES. 309 The three nations, Etruscans, Ligurians, and Veneti, called the river Eridanus, which each, in turn, had possessed, by the names of Podan, Podines, Podinco (the Po), the terminal particle being still abundantly found in certain localities of Lapland. To these we might join the kindred Illyrian tribes, both on the Danube and the Adriatic, the pirate Liburni, with, their fast rowing galleys, the Garni, and other clans, as before shown, mixed even with the Hellenic race ; and all, like the true Finnic people, with remarkable veneration for the dead, for sorcery, apparitions, and human sacrifices. But for the present these circum- stances may be passed over, as we shall have occasion to revert to them in the sequel. Few vestiges of the Finnic people can now be traced in the hill and mining regions of middle Europe, ex- cepting perhaps in the Alpine, where the name of Tschudi is still preserved in one or more families of some distinction; and to the west, in the Highlands the fore-leg of the horse part, the whole standing on a scroll with a ferule, evidently intended to support a lance. It was found near Sidmouth, much worn by ages of attri- tion in the wash of the sea. Again, a winged figure, sound- ing a trumpet, having one knee bent, the other resting on a globe, supported by a ferule, eight inches high, found in the bog of Allen in Ireland. Also numerous specimens of small brazen two and three horned bulls, ensigns of the Sequani, Taurini, &c., bas-relief figures of champions, in copper, found in Tyrol, and silver elastic spiral weighing scales, with Roman stamp upon them, found in the Baltic ; all, excepting the last, bearing evidence of Etruscan or barbarian workmanship. 310 NATURAL HISTORY OF of Scotland, or in northern Ireland, where the signi- ficant name of the Fion, Fingall, Fingal, represents a marine tribe, avowedly acquainted with Lochlin, Nor- way, Friesland, or more properly, the eastern portion of the Baltic ; by its name clearly assuming the mixed origin of Finn and Gael. It was one marked as miners and sword smiths, personified in the name of Luno, and, moreover, a tribe with Finnic, not Celtic, religious superstitions. These qualities ally the Fion closely with the oldest Cymbers of the north-west, who were themselves Scythian-Celts, which is the same as Finns of mixed origin with northern Celtae.* Further north, from Denmark to the extremities of the Baltic, Teutonic Finns were spread all along the shores of that inland sea, perhaps even in Jutland, the * The Creon dynasty acquired supremacy over the Gael- coch, or Red Haired Celts, in the second century of the Christian era. From the fall of Galgacus, four genera- tions, Trenmor, Trathal, Comhal, and last Fingal, ruled, when the power appears to have passed to the Maeatse, or to the family of Gaul, the more ancient head of the people. During the Creon dynasty, the conquests of the Romans •were first arrested, and then thrown back behind the wall. But whether the name of Fingal be derived from Vindgael (head of the foreigners), may be questioned, though all the Gallic nations then in the north were strangers. There were iron works in Britain before Csesar's invasion, as is proved by the chains and fastenings of the fleet he de- feated on the coast of Gaul. The bardic similes still notice "the hundred hammers of the furnace," "the stream of metal from the furnace," &c. There is even the shieling of Glenturret, called Renna Cardich, or the smith's dwell- ing, with remains of cinders, scoriee, and ruins, all evidence of antique iron works. THE HUMAN SPECIES. 311 best known still existing either entirely Germanized, or only so in their personal appearance. In Scandi- navia, they were miners from remote ages, wherever the topography of the land gave assurance that ores were beneath the surface. On the German side, fisher- men, navigators, pirates, and merchants, collectively known, in a subsequent period, as Venden, Vandals, Vuidini, having every appearance of a consanguinity with the Yeneti on the Adriatic, and exchanging, by their means, amber and peltry with the nations of the south, through the interior of Germany. The city Wineta, on the west of the Isle of Usedom, in the subsequently known kingdom of the Obotritae, but now sunk beneath the sea, was the first and greatest emporium of the north, having paved streets, temples, it is said, with brazen gates, and a vast population of strangers and nations of various origin forming the citizens. Wineta, perhaps the typical Vana-land of mythic sagas, was the parent community, whence Arkona, Jomsberg and Jollin originated. It was the most distant of the Venetic commercial establishments others being at Venta Allobrogum, now Vienne, on the Rhone ; Bienne, at the Vendoni Campi, near Zurich; at Venda, now Augsburg; Vendobona, now Vienna, on the Danube ; Vannes, on the Loire ; Guines, near Calais, probably also at Gwent or Ven- nemare, near Ghent ; at Vingium, now Bingen, on the Rhine ; Venta Belgarum, now Winchester, and Venta Icenorum, Caer Gwent. They extended even to Ireland, where Ptolemy places the Prornontorium 312 NATURAL HISTORY OP Venicinum. They repeated, in this manner, mercial policy of the Phoenicians, whose name may not be unconnected with the Veneti, and anticipated what the Baltic Vandal Lombards again restor in the middle ages, under the form of Lombard i in most commercial cities of mediaeval Europe. They had a commercial intercourse through Rus and with the Greek colony at Olbio, on the Bor thenes. It may even be no chimerical supposition that it was from the Baltic cities that the Hyperborean annual donation came to Delos, which Herodotus and others have noticed. According to Took, the Per- mians had a barter trade with the Indo-Persians, by the Volga and Kama to Tscherdyn, on the Kolva, where they received the goods, and carried them up to Petchora, in exchange for furs. Thus, the presence of Hindoo opinions and idols may be accounted for, in the poems and antique remains among the Finnic nations. The entirely foreign commencement of the above named cities, is proved, among other indica- tions, by their having alone, of all the Baltic nations, temples for national idols, while other Finns had only cacred hedged localities for their divinities and reli- gious ceremonies.* As already stated, there were two distinct races successively inhabitants of Wineta and fhe other neutral trading communities on the south of * Mone gives detailed notices of the nationality, reli- gion, and institutions of the Finnic nations of the Baltic. See " Geschichte des Heidenthums sin nordlichen Europa," col. i. THE HUMAN SPECIES. 313 the Baltic ; the first, composed originally of true Veneti from the Adriatic, strengthened by Celtae from the same quarter — by Roman outlaws and fugitives — by Celto-Scythae, that reached the north by ascending the Sarmatian rivers, and by Yeta or Goths from the Lake of Ladoga, all cemented together by marriages with Finnic wives, a practice that commenced at least three centuries before the reign of Augustus, and which finished by forming the tribes denationalized by all the immediate people around them into that power, which, under the name of Vandals and Venden, pene- trated, about five centuries later, southward to the seat of their relatives or progenitors.* A second commu- nity formed after their departure, and retaining only a part of the former population, was composed of Finnic Sarmatians still more heterogeneous ; for the first, aris- ing out of a congregation of merchants, who had taken wives from the Finn or Sclavonic resident tribes, formed a homogeneous community, without tribal dis^ tinctions, and assenting to the same pagan divinities ; but the second was an assemblage of clans, which re- tained their distinct nationalities, lived in separate quarters, and even distinct castles, until they rebelled against the authority of the magistrates. These people were known to the Huns by the name of Vuinid Fulce, the same as the Celtic, Wenid Vole, and Theo- tisk Wenden Folk, and the acceptation of Wend or Vend, is still retained in the modern Belgic Vent, a * They first appeared in arms, against the Romans, in 4he reign of M. Aurelius, A.D. 173. 314 NATURAL HISTORY OF man of superior importance, a wanderer, a travelling merchant. Vend, in Gaelic, a head or chief; the fusion of the Finnic Yeta with the Celtic race being percep- tible in various recorded names and events. Thus, in A.D. 563, the Winetans elected for their king Samo, a pagan Sennonian Gallic merchant, who continued his reign during thirty-five years. A Finnic Celt, of great ability, has, during the present generation, again found an elective throne in the high north. The Boii, a tribe of Celto-Scythae, wandered from Gaul to Bo- hemia, perhaps a pristine home; others resided, ac- cording to Lelewel, in Gallicia, all before the Chris- tian era ; and therefore Gaul was not unknown to the Vandals when they removed to the south. We trace the Celtic nationality still farther, in the name of Wallinische Werder, the locality where Jomsberg, one of the sister cities, was built; even at Dantzig, the same influence was perceived, in the appellation of the river Rodaun. Historically, it is found in the bond of long enduring neutrality which the Winetans, then called Vandals, maintained among themselves, the Goths, Suevi, and Burgundians, during their offen- sive wars against the Roman empire ; and their power, in the facility which Stilicho, a native Vandal, found towards the attainment of the first honours of the empire, as well as for raising up enemies against it in his own cause. Political considerations may have pre- vented the Vandal inroad from proceeding beyond Pannonia towards Italy. The Illyrian Veneti pro- bably bought off the invaders, and pointed out the THE HUMAN SPECIES. 315 greater facility of conquests in the south of Gaul and Spain; for, being inferior in numbers, and less na- tional than the Goths, as subsequent events in the peninsula of Spain attest, they were well advised to pass on, and, when followed, were even then compelled to retire to Mauritania, where Genseric took Carthage in 439, and subsequently being called over to Italy, he plundered Rome in 455, but only to return to Africa. Although, according to Witichindus, Wineta was then flourishing on the Baltic, the Adriatic Yeneti began at Venice again to form a central commercial emporium, and their numbers were soon so great at Constan- tinople, that the blue faction in the hippodrome,* re- presenting the manufacturing power, wholly in their hands, gave cause for serious alarm to the government ; even to a degree, that ridiculous measures were re- sorted to, such as secretly enclosing the effigy of a blue Veneta in the brazen hoof of the winged group of Bellerophon, in order that by means of this talisman the Venedic superiority might be counteracted. In the Baltic, however, the more recent mixed com- munities of Winetans, now first called Aestii, or Ost- men, began to droop by internal dissension,! and by the revival of trade in the south of Europe, till the * Blue was the sacred and still is the most esteemed colour of the Finnic nations of the north, as well as of the Illyrian Veneti. f Winni or Wenden, Heneti or southern Wynetse, Su- liones, Slavi, Rossi, Cambrivii Circipanni, Rutheni, Greeks, and Jews, began to fortify separate quarters against or for Christianity. 316 NATURAL HISTORY OF great storm of 809, when the city being partially sub- merged, and Jomsberg nearly ruined, broke their power ; and though they made several gallant stands against the piratical rapacity of the northmen, Wineta was sacked by Hemming, king of the Danes, leaving the wreck of former industry to survive only until Henry the Lion, Duke of Saxony, led a crusade against the Sclavonic tribes of the coast, and com- menced their absorption into the German race, leaving the completion of the task to the zeal of two religious orders of knights, which effected their conquest in the thirteenth century. The Finnic races, originally more pacific, industrial, and sedentary, were often broken through by migra- tory hordes from the east ; their colonies, towards the south, were isolated or absorbed, sometimes so changed by intermixture, that the language became pseudo Gothic or Theotisk. Thus, very anciently, it becomes doubtful whether the Suciones (Swedes) were of the last mentioned or of the first race ? most likely they were mixed ; for Suomi, the proper name of the present Finns, resembles the old Scandinavian appellation. Of the Sclavonic Finns, Prussian, Livonian, Estho- nian, Permean, Lithuanian, and Courlanders, we need not give details, which are already generalized in Balbi (Atlas Ethnographique), and reviewed with as much learning as detail in Mone,* who describes, cir- * " Greschichte des Heidenthums in nordlichen Europa." The abundance of records and manuscripts was here, no doubt, as elsewhere, the consequence of national intermix- THE HUMAN SPECIES. 317 cumstantially, the national traditions, gods, and reli- gious worship of the different nations, and among others, of the Prussian. It is remarked, that no people of the north was once so rich in literary mo- numents ; for though a vast quantity of legends and traditions still exist, there were thirty-one national chronicles consulted by Hennenberger, all of which have perished, excepting five, it is supposed by the contempt of the Teutonic order of knights, and by the neglect of the kings of Poland, who shared the ancient archives. From the above, it is clear, that a vein of indigenous civilization had worked on the Baltic, per- haps drawing its remote source from Bactria, by com- mercial Colchis, totally distinct from southern lore, excepting in the degree which Greek and Roman in- tercourse might have afforded, or Jewish wanderers, who early found favour among the Finnic Tahtars of Western Asia, may have introduced. THE FINNS OR SUOMI. CROSSING the Gulf of Finland, we come to the Suomi, Finnelap, or Finn people, still so called, which, how- ever, notwithstanding the rocky hills, innumerable tures. King Vanland, who wedded Drifva (trade), daugh- ter of old King Snb'e, may represent the peaceful mercan- tile intercourse with the Venetic cities. Snoe himself gives an idea of ermines and peltry, or at least of the high latitude where the trade was carried on. 318 NATURAL HISTORY OF laps iter- lakes, and many woods wherein it lies concealed, three sealike gulfs which surround it, and the rigorous winters of that latitude, has still not escaped perhaps more than half hybridism; for the northern porti alone can be considered as typical of the semi-irr mixture of the Hyperborean and Caucasian stocks. It is there alone that the Lapland tongue finds so much affinity as to amount to a decided similarity ; there the great distinguishing mental characteristic of the whole subtype is observed, in the permanence and generality of iron mining propensities, the godlike office of the forging smith, the constant poetical allu- sion to gold, silver, and iron, are prominent ; and all the sorcery and incantations of the Laplanders, short of their magical drums, even now in vogue — practices alike common to the kindred Shamans of Asia and the Angekoks of Arctic America. Although the Finnic race repudiates in national pride all consanguinity with the Laplander, the northern portion almost equally reviles the southern, because it is less conversant with the old nationalities, and is more generally, if not altogether, tall, straight, and fair haired. On exami- nation, we are assured, that there is equa> distinctness in the cranial structure between them; but as yet, no account of a thoroughly scientific inquiry in this question appears to have reached middle Europe. They are, moreover, accused by the Swedes, of being more malevolent, a greater proportion of Finns occurring on the list of malefactors than of natives of Sweden, when both countries were under the same THE HUMAN SPECIES. 319 crown; and though the linguistic affinities were de- scribed, and the religious dogmas were supposed to be sufficiently well known, the recent discovery of a Fin- nic poem, named the Kalewala, shows that the sources of research in the north are far from exhausted, and that their harmonious language was anciently more polished than has been thought.* The ancient Finns were however mixed with Yeta races at a very early period ; since a peaceful union between them is clearly shown, in the names of Finn, Suen or Suin, that is, Sweno and Atzel, or Attila, which occur both in the lists of Swedish kings, Lom- bard chiefs, and in part among the Germanic gods. The physical Jotun (Yeta) appear to have been the giant masters of this people, till they were vanquished by the Gothic Asi, and driven to live in rocks and caverns, affording a foundation of that dualism, after- wards inythologically applied for the national runes, which even do not conceal dislike to the Asi, and feli- citously represent them as destined to be ultimately vanquished; for the basis of Scandinavian mythic lore is Finnic. Fornjoter, the King, progenitor of the Finnic people, bears not a proper name, but an appellative of distinction. His altars, overthrown by Thor, show a * Kalewala, or the adventures of Waina Moina, the god of verse, a Finnic epic poem, in thirty-two runas, pub- lished by Professor Loenroth, a Finn by nation. There is a French version of it by M. Leouzon le Due, 1846; but it is strange we hear of none in German; though the work is regarded as perfectly genuine. 320 NATURAL HISTORY OF system of worship destroyed by the Asi, but nothing to disprove that the whole did not come from the east ; that region whence their mythological kindred, the Jotun, are to arrive from, in the ship Nagelfar, at the last day of the world's existence.* Immediately on the north of the Suomi, are the tribes of Laps, who speak a dialect of the same lan- guage, although they are almost pure Hyperboreans. The somewhat equal intermixture of this race with a Gothic people, constitutes the real basis of the Finnic subtypical stem, since others, more to the eastward with Slavonic, and again with Caucasian Yeta tribes, produce the same result. Thus, it may be assumed, the Hunnic power was likewise generated in Asia from eastern Caucasians, mixed with Hyperboreans; for when interunion occurs, the Caucasian type so readily becomes superior, that it is soon doubtful whether any Mongolic blood can be externally observed to be pre- sent. This is in Asia the case with the fair Ostiaks of Siberia — the Wotiaks and Tscheremisses — the Mord- wines and Wogules ; and, in a less degree, among the Permeans or Syrians of Russia, and even the Ghoor- kas of the Himalayas are accounted Zwergi, or of dwarf race. * The Finns, like the American Savages, have feasts of the bear hunt, mystical notions of his origin, and like them, give him by-names, - believing in his superhuman knowledge. THE HUMAN SPECIES. 32 1 THE HUNS. THE Huns, originally from Yoguria, being kindred ' the Wogules and Ostiaks, held the region between Tomsk and Tobolsk, till they moved westward to the confines of Europe. De Guines and Klaproth differ on their origin more in degree than fundamentally. They are first noticed in the time of Augustus, by t)ion. Periegetes. In the second century they occupied the extensive region between the Caspian Sea and the Borysthenes, having propelled or incorporated the Gepidae and the eastern Goths. They advanced in A.D. 375 to beyond the borders of the Danube, and became the most formidable power of Asia and Eu- rope ; for, in the fifth century, under Attila, they had sway from the borders of China to the Rhine, his capital city being Buda, or Hunnic Ettelvar. They ravaged with their armies all Germany and the north of France, and penetrated to the gates of Rome. At that period, most of the nomad tribes of Asia were in his service ; hence the nation might have been called ferocious and ill favoured ; but here also the Caucasian element had already so greatly influenced the -external form of the Ispans or higher chiefs, that these were not inferior to any other privileged races of Europe.* * The goat face of Attila, with horns and beard, repre- sented on a Latin medal, together with the assertion, that he called himself " Flagellum Dei," is mere monkish quib- 322 NATURAL HISTORY OF The proper names, Balamir, Bleda, Iring, and Atzel, the Loinbardy Atzo, Ailfred, and other words, show the Gothic element pervading usages and objects of social convenience; and the courts of their kings, if the old Burgundian (Prankish) legends may be credit- ed, were as hospitable, as polished, and as splendid, as those of the Greek and Latin sovereigns of that time. The Huns subjected or associated the Haiatili, white Huns, Heph-tal of the Armenians, a partial kindred, with the Yuchi and Sacai, who came from beyond the Oxus, and were seated in Meweram and Kha- warism, with the capital Gogo,. probably Kerkeng. They invaded Afghanistan, Scinde, and Persia, in 428 ; but driven back by Baharam-Ghor, were extended on the north of the Caspian ; but, if the conjecture of Professor Wilson be admitted, they were still power- ful east of the Indus, since they took and destroyed the vast city of Yalhabi, in Gujrat, in the year 524 of our era. bling upon the names Atzel, Attel, Attalus, carried to the Hebrew ^fcns (Atzail), a wandering goat; hence in Ara- bic, Azalin, Satan. Attila's profile on a coin is shown, with lengthened features, a pair of wings at the shoulders, and his private symbol }§( occurs beneath the figure of a horse on the reverse, so much in the manner of Hindoo Bactrian art, that there can be little doubt of its authenticity. He died in 453. A coin, given for one of Attila, or Ath-tila, king of Sweden, circa 548, is more properly applied to the Hunnic sovereign ; for he is figured on horseback, car- rying in his hand the trident or tripula, a real Bactrian weapon ; yet there he is styled Gauta og Suethiot Konpr. See Genswolff runa Kefli ; also profiles of Hyatili princes among coins in Wilson's Aria Antiqua. THE HUMAN SPECIES. 323 When the Hunnic empire had declined, we find a large force of their cavalry under the command of Iliphred and Apsich, in the service of the Byzantine emperor, forming the left wing of the army at the battle of Solacon, in the year 586, where Philippicus defeated the Persians. Other Finnic nations, debris of the Hunnic empire, such as the Avares, became predominant in eastern Europe in the sixth century. In conjunction with the Lombards, they destroyed the power of the Gepidae, a tribe of Yeta, who had again risen to independence, defeated Sigebert, king of the Franks, and rendered the Bulgarians tributary; but, in the next century, revolting under the conduct of Conviat, these in their turn became puissant, and long held sway in Mcesia, on the south of the Danube. THE KHAZARS. THE Khazars, already mentioned by Armenian writers of the second century, were a nation both war- like and agricultural; and being greatly intermixed with Jewish exiles, they changed from Budhism to the Mosaic tenets in the seventh century, and conferred the title of Hake (king priest), to a Hebrew family, while the temporal authority continued in the hands of the Khagan. In 858, they became Christians, but forsook the cross to please the Chorasmians. They traded largely in peltry from the north, and in other wares from the south-east of Asia. Usually the allies 324: NATURAL HISTORY OF of the Greek empire, their dominions extended from the sea of Aral to the river Bogue. Their capital was Baliangar, or Attel, at the mouth of the Volga, and they having formed a portion of the Hunnic em- pire, and probably absorbed the Haiatili, appear to have built cities in Hungary, doubtless by colonists, or by establishing ventas. THE Hungarians, or Magyar Toorkees, seem to have issued from the same Ouralian quarter, and were, with the last mentioned, formidable to the Khalifs of Persia, about the close of the seventh century. By the end of the ninth, they found themselves esta- blished in their present abode, where they incorpo- rated the remnant of ancient Huns, still left in Pan- * The Byzantine writers view the Huns and Turks as the same ; and indeed, the names, Huns, Hungarians, Unni Occidentales, Onoguri, Ugri, Ungri, Ongri, are all the same, or tribes of the same people. The Avari or Abares may have had a greater Caucasian element in their na- tional origin. In the whole of the high region west of the Caspian, to the Euxine and eastern coast of the Mediter- ranean, as far as the Hellespont, it is difficult, if not im- possible, to separate distinctly, the Finnic from the pure Germanic and Celtic nations. Long before the historic age, they absorbed a Melanic nation, which Herodotus called the Colchian in his time. The Pelasgi and Dorians were perhaps Lesghi, and tribes that went into Thynia, from the coast of Thrace, only completed a circle of emigration round the Euxine. THE HUMAN SPECIES; 325 nonia. They long ravaged central Europe, until they became Christians in the eleventh, from which period they have been a repeated spoil of the Osmanlis. The Magyars offer another instance where the Finnic stem produces gigantic men ; for the Hungarian grenadiers and the national heydukes are more generally of great stature than any other nation of Europe. During the time they resided near the Black Sea, they appear to have been in close friendship with the Zychi or Cir- cassian tribes ; for they have not only a great exter- nal correspondence of appearance, but the Circassian language, like the old Armenian and the Hungarian, contains a great number of Finnic words, and the Lesghi-Avares of the same mountains havs many Hunnic proper names still retained among them. It is probably to these tribes of pure Caucasians, or of hybrid Finns, that the Gog and Magog giants of antiquity, or rather the Haigu-re and Magiuge of Curds and Persians, so long the terror of south western Asia, are to be traced ; for the pass of Der- bend, on the Caspian, was already, in remote ages, vainly closed by artificial defences, to keep them from penetrating to the south.* The interunion of Hyperborean with northern Cau- casian races, constituting also in our view the Ouralian * Portse Caspise and Pylsa Albaniae of the classical writers ; Derbend, gate of security, in Persia ; Demir Capi, iron gate of the Turks. The Chinese wall, the Sassanian lines of Chorassan, and the Roman wall of Britain, were all constructed to arrest the progress of the same Hyperboreans of mixed origin. 326 NATURAL HISTORY OP stem of arctic Asia, it follows, that in this place Toorkee tribes, who have the same conformation of i skull as the bearded stock, should be classed with Finn or Tschudic group, although they are known originally to have been Hyperboreans of the most de- formed personal exterior, according to European no- tions. They have already been mentioned in the notice of the Mongolian type, to which they were more strictly allied, so long as they remained unmixed. THE TURKS. THUS, the Atrak Turks, more especially the Osmanlis, differ from the other Toorkees, by their lofty stature, European features, abundant beards, and fair com- plexions, derived from their original extraction, being Cri'ticasUm, of Yuchi race, or from an early intermix- ture with it, and with the numerous captives they were for ages incorporating from Kashmere, Affghan- istan, Persia, Syria, Natolia, Armenia, Greece, and eastern Europe. Both these conjectures may be true, because the Caucasian stock, wherever we find it, con- trives to rise into power, from whatever source it may be drawn, and therefore may in part have been pure before the nation left eastern Asia, while the subor- dinate hordes remained more or less Hyperborean in character ; as, in truth, the normal Toorkees about the lower Oxus still are. All have, however, a peculiar form of the posterior portion of the skull, which is less THE HUMAN SPECIES. 327 in depth than the European, and does not appear to be a result of the tight swathing of the turban. Os- manli Turks are a handsome race, and their children, in particular, are beautiful. The Tschudic Toorkees, moreover, had in ancient times a Sabsean alphabet, written vertically from right to left, not brought, as De Sacy appears to believe, from Syria, by early Christian sects, for in that case it would never have been distorted to a Chinese mode of placing the lines. It is more likely the real ancient Bactrian form, one connected with the literature and science of remote ages, not to be so peremptorily rejected, because no other proofs of this kind of Runic or Ogham, aro now to be found in the region where it flourished; and the Sanscrit, more perfect, and more extensively dominant, supplanted it, even in Thibet. At a re- mote age, they came upon the Taujiks (original Per- sians) ; they subdued or expelled them, and named their conquest Toorkistan. It is to the Finnic tribes, first propelled across the Jaxartes by these conquerors, that the dynasty, or the rulers named Afrasiab, so celebrated in Persian tales, are to be referred, when the names of Iran and Aniran first began to be distinctive of Persia and Bokhara, while the adjacent states, more anciently called Bactria, retained the name of the capital, Bactra, only in the writings of the west; for Finnic Toorkees had called it Zarias, pro- bably Serai, and at one time it bore the name of By- kum. Afrasiab, whose race was fair haired, proves, that the stock was not so much Turkish as Finnic; 328 NATURAL HISTORY OF and the same inference applies to Salser and to '. turn ; consequently, that the ruling clan of Cabulista was for a period of northern race. Of the Torkee branch the Hiong-nu, according te Abel Remusat, is the most ancient recorded in history. It once inhabited Mongolia proper, and possessed a vast empire, which flourished about three centuries before the Christian era ; and the dissolution of this state was the chief cause of that succession of barba- rian invasions, which, like rolling waves, incessantly poured upon the west during several centuries, driving intermediate nations before them, or breaking through discomfited tribes, which, in order to escape, made the most destructive inroads themselves : often at war with each other, the empire passing to a different tribe, or with the Huns, and other more strictly Finns, who in turn held temporary dominion. The Thou Kioei, or Altaic Turks, according to Byzantine historians, formed, in 552, a vast empire, which soon reached from the Caspian to China, and broke up in 703. It was Lteabul, their Kan-Khan, who received the am- bassador Zemarkh, sent by Justin II., in 569, when another embassy from the emperor of the west was already returning. The Tchy-le or Thiele, a numerous nation, resided in the sixth century, to the east of Lake Balkach, under the names of Kaoutche and Hoei-he, and from 788 that of Hoei-hou represent the same people. The Tchy-le, according to Klaproth, mustered above 300,000 horsemen, and the Hoei were formidable in THE HUMAN SPECIES. 329 the eighth century, when they were already advanced in civilization. The Seldjucks, so named after the chief adventurer, who enlisted men of different tribes under his banner, brpke into Southern Asia in the ninth century, during the reign of Malek ; they over- turned the empire of the Khalifs, formed the states of Iran, Kerman, and Roum or Iconium; and from the Seldjucks sprung the Osmanlis, the present sovereigns of Turkey. We might here add those tribes with Circassian chiefs, the Petchenages, probably identical with the Kanjars. The Romans and Uzu, united in the eleventh century, who were known to the Russians by the name of Palowze, and Chuni b}T the Hungarians. From the tenth to the twelfth centuries, they were the terror of Eastern Europe, till in the thirteenth they were exterminated by the Mongols. All these nations, as well as the true Caucasians we are about to describe, moved into Europe from the distant east, by routes, which, it would appear, were entirely the result of chance ; yet, upon examination, it is found, that the great majority of cases, in what- ever geographical locality a primaeval column sought its permanent abode in the west, there also, one wave after another of kindred race, subsequently found its home, notwithstanding ages intervened, and circum- stances had thrown new obstacles in the way. Per- haps intermediate points had continued to be occupied by relatives of both, or records of the success of former colonists had reached back to their points of depar- ture ; or, finally, it was because there are in geography, 330 NATURAL HISTORY OF natural directions of progress from one region to ano- ther, however distant ; and that local conditions impel all migrators, once moving on a given line, to follow it out to the ultimate destination. These observations apply entirely in the human movements, from east to west; mountain chains, deserts, the course of rivers, and even real obstacles, conspire to produce the same results, while the contrary direction is all but imprac- ticable. Intellectual power alone, where arms have ever failed, brings it back to the east by the progress of religious truth, of science, and of the reasoning of common socse : thus amply repaying Asia for the innumerable rudiments of practical and imaginative life we have owed her for so many ages. Having disposed of the Finnic Stem, and shown, in the mixture of the Hyperborean with the Caucasian stocks, the direct consequence of soon obliterating the external appearance of hybridism, and perhaps, with somewhat less procreative fertility, tending to elevate individuals and whole clans to giant forms, we should now proceed with the true Caucasian or bearded type, if it were not, that at the commencement of the division cf the primaeval stocks, we had noticed, on the South of the Caucasian, that there was similarly an intermediate stem formed of the woolly haired or Negro type, in various states of commixture with the bearded, where the tokens of degradation, or of inferiority, passed away with even greater rapidity, but less durable results; and though the stature remained the same, the marked difference of colour proved the descent THE HUMAN SPECIES. 331 from hybrids, who, like the true Negro type, possess the perceptive and imaginative faculties in greater proportion than the more enduring reflective powers ; whence the incapacity to advance beyond a certain limit in reasoning, civilization and empire, seems to follow. Taking therefore this stem, with a view to have in the sequel only the pure Caucasians to examine, we place here THE ETHIOPIAN OR MELANIC STEM, such as it was marked out by the earliest writers of antiquity. Under this denomination, it is desirable to arrange the races, sprung from a real, or an apparent interunion between the woolly haired and the bearded types, distinguished by black, curly, undulating, or lank hair ; a sufficient beard, with the features of a Caucasian form partially and often supereminently displayed, having the same typical structure, and the colour in- tensely black, only when local circumstances indicate those qualities to be so far accidental. It is distinct from the sub-typical Malay, and the intermediate rami- fications derived from it, by well marked characteristics, notwithstanding, excepting where there is reason to be- lieve, that the Malay Stem is itself crossed with Indo- Caucasian tribes in the eastern provinces of India, and in a great part of the southern. Excepting that B32 NATURAL HISTORY OF the ears, especially of the Malabars, and the upper Egyptians, stand somewhat higher, and that the legs are proportionably longer than is the case with either of the types, there are no very distinct characteristics immediately observable, though the mouth, lips, and nose are full, the hands, fingers, and toes, broader and flatter, resembling the Negro form. The African Ethiop has the hair pendant in heavy close ringlets, and the black eyes are still larger, and more soft than the Indian. Equal intermixture constitutes the usual Mulatto condition; but, in the east, a much greater infusion of Caucasian blood does not very evidently clear the skin. Some of the lank haired nations of India, as such bearing signs of more than semi-white descent, are, nevertheless, among the swarthiest of the whole. It has even affected old Portuguese colonists, and the ancient Jewish inhabitants of India ; neither, it must be confessed, having the least claim to purity of origin, but being a mixed progeny with low caste natives, themselves, as we have before stated, descen- dants of aboriginal Paharias, Bheels, Nagas, and with only a small admixture of nobler blood. Nevertheless, among these slave and outcast tribes, the chiefs have high aristocratic features, which are not unfrequent among their subjects. Whether the mucous mem- • brane of the very dark tribes of Ethiopians, with lank hair, assumes the same appearance as that of Negroes, is not, so far as we have been able to learn, remarked, though, if this condition of melanism should not exist in them, it would produce a very valid argument in THE HUMAN SPECIES, favour of the assertion, that the woolly ] of a distinct origin. There cannot be, however, a doubt, that in the Mulatto state, or half-bred Cau- casians, that peculiar structure of the skin must be in part remaining, since, in the character of the hair, we find it in proportion of the bearded parentage^-the frizzled and moplike character passes into spiral curls, then undulates, and, at last, is wholly straight, while in descending the scale, the mop becomes crisp, and returns to that low state of humanity, which, in the warm regions of the east, was branded with the re- proach of being accursed. From this imputation, indeed, the more physically elevated real Ethiopians were not exempted. In the Sacred Scriptures, with perhaps some exceptions, Chna and Egypt were so br^andfed to the promulgation of the Christian dispensation. The hatred incurred by the race of Cham or Ham, was indeed repeated in the north by the same pure Caucasian stock towards the Hyperborean, if we may take the earliest Finnic Tschutski, to have been the first miners, and perhaps the Tubal Cain of the Pentateuch; for obloquy pursued both, although for ages they were mixed races, and long the depositories of the dawnings of civilization, though not the first to organize human progress. Races of mixed Caucasians, afterwards known as Joktanites, Indo-Arabs, and Semitics, descended the west bank of the Indus, and from the remotest period, secured the whole Suleimanie range, and, at this time, already fixed upon the culminating point of Takt-y- Suleiman, or rather Arawati, the mountain dove, or the ship, for their first remove of the Arkite reminiscence from its original centre.* They left the purer Papuas scattered westwards, or drove them on- wards till one of its tribes constituted the Negro races, with a taint of the white stock forming the most western branches, such as the ancient Numidi and present Caffres and Gallas. In consequence of the deep rooted hatred of t' Caucasian races towards the typical Negro, we find those frequent allusions to purity of blood in the Arabian clans of the desert. It is the whole question whereon the poem of Antar hinges ; for colour alone is not the cause, skice Bedoween tribes are in many instances exceedingly dark, from the Euphrates to the west coast of Morocco, and the Tarikh Tebry endea- vours to account for it in the legend, which relates how the ancient Arabians were fair and blue eyed, but so wicked that they would not hearken to the prophet Salah. Miraculous omens had no effect, until at last they were converted, in one day, from white to red, ,and in the next to black. This tale may be the reminiscence of Scythian inroads and conquest, such as were effected by the giants of the Pentateuch, who, inferior in number, were gradually absorbed by the * The Arawati and Aryawart mountains, are perhaps higher up in Asia, and the real locality of the diluvian record. But the Parveti Montes of Ptolemy, so named from the Sanscrit, Parvat, a dove, is Suleiman Koh, 12,831 feet high, still noted for the abundance of different species of doves. THE HUMAN SPECIES. 335 predominant race ; and though, masters (for the master race in Oriental relations is in general the only object of record), became dark in their descent, and were mostly driven across the Red Sea. The northern infusion was repeated more than once; and, besides Egyptian history, we have the Geta and Arabians confounded by classical writers, as we shall notice in the sequel. The Cushites* of antiquity, confounded in many cases with the Joktanites, correspond, with scarce an exception, to the Ethiopians as we here notice them : the regions of Cusha Dwipa within, and Cusha Divipa, without, of Hindoo geography, exactly represent Asiatic and African Ethiopia, and the names of Itiopiaiuan and Itiopia, by which the Abyssinians still designate themselves and their country, not- withstanding all disclaimers to the contrary, denotes, like the Arabian term Hdbesh, for the same state, a mixed people with perfect correctness, for they were the first Semi- Caucasian invaders of Arabia, Cushites, Semitic races from the Suleimanic range of the western border of the Indus. Fair tribes, from more northern high lands of Asia, mixed with Indian Nishadas, or with the local Nimreks of the soil, were already a * Chus, Gush, Cuth, according to Jacob Bryant and Holwell, is derived from cushet a bow, still the chief weapon of all the wild mountain races of India, the instru- ment they used to achieve the death of opposing demigods ; and, till lately, arming them as the guards of rajahs and princes, who took them into their service. Goosch, in India; still denotes a robber. 336 NATURAL HISTORY OF very compounded race in Elam, "before they were driven across the straits of Babelmandeb. They had even then the elements of science and civilization im- parted to them by the giant invaders of western Asia, or by Gomerians, high on the Indus ; for, to this day, traditions, customs, and opinions, prevalent in Abys- sinia, bear evidence to the fact. Later colonists passed, no doubt, the same straits, for a considerable influx from the west of Asia is evident in the languages still spoken along the east coast, even as far as the Cape ; and the higher development of the Galla and Caifre tribes can be traced to a partial Semitic intermixture. The basis of civilization must have been communicated from indigenous progress, already developed in the peninsula of India, or by the more recent knowledge carried along with the conquests of pure Caucasians, in the regions of the Ganges, or in Elam (Persia), by other conquerors, but both appearing to derive their acquirements from some common source in the upper valley of the Oxus. Th& original formation of the Ethiopian stem ap- pears to have been in the burning alluvial deposits, formed by the Indus, and along the southern foot of the Himalayas, on the Helmund, the Kabul, in Cash- meer, and the Punjaub, where Caucasian tribes, seek- ing warmer regions, encountered the black races, and by conquest and slavery, commenced amalgamation, which every new wave of invaders conduced to in- crease. Further immigration to the plains of India naturally followed through the secondary ranges of the THE HUMAN SPECIES. 337 mountain chains, or they crossed over from the high land of Thibet. That the movement was in a great part from north-west to south-east, is proved by the presence of Gangarides, in the valley of the Brama- putra, where, in other respects, the foreign element in the first population was eastern Caucasian or Malay. Who the bearded tribes were, that originally spread over China, was sufficiently shown in the notice of the Mongolic and Finnic nations, not to be again repeated, although we have on the south of Asia nations simi- larly constituted, but further debased by certain Papua intermixtures, and all feel the different influence of a southern, and often a marine climate. The infusion of northern elements is strikingly- proved by the predominating presence of Sanscrit in all the dialects of India, although variously debased by forms of speech of indigenous origin, Parbatyia, Naja, Dravira, Bheel, Nishada, and Yadhu, &c., upon which it was ingrafted. As the invaders came through the gorges of the mountains in successive swarms, and not always from the same point, they subjugated not only the black aborigines, but also the mixed tribes of their former conquerors, leaving only that portion in free- dom which could retreat to inaccessible mountain dis- tricts, to recede from the civilization they might have had before their political ruin; and either pure or already under the rule of masters not of the kindred stock. The older invaders seem to have been denomi- nated Chasas, equivalent to the western term Asi or Asen, highlanders, which is also the meaning of Guras. SB8 NATURAL HISTORY OF They came more particularly from the southern side of Hindu Koh and Paropamissus, in their last debased condition, constituting the Indo Arab races, but here almost universally become true Ethiopians and Cush- ites, by union with nations still more melanic, and who formed the great majority of the population. Other mountain conquerors first came to the south by de- scending the passes of Thibet, leading to the high basin of Cashmeer, where the name of the capital being Nagara before it became Caspatyrus, supposes the po- pulation to have been Naga, and of the same stock with that of the lower Indus, where the name was likewise given to a city, an Heliopolis, as Strabo asserts, where the snake worship was then, as it still is, in existence in Cutch.* This very degrading wor- ship was not inconsistent with the idolatrous sacri- fice to the giant divinity Muhishan, whose statues have a serpent wound about the loins, and whose legend is of so ancient and peculiar a character, that he may be regarded as a solar god among the abori- ginal tribes, he alone riding his war buffalo in battle against Durga, and therefore the supreme type of in- digenous power before the horse was known in the peninsula of India, t That this divinity was by Hindu, * Cutch and Gujrat may both be connected with the Cuthite race, and fit localities for migrators by sea; for from Diu, in Cutch, Gama despatched the open boat that conveyed the intelligence of his arrival in India. It went round the Cape, and arrived safe at Lisbon. Nearchus went from Kurrachee. t We have before mentioned the figure of a Rajah riding THE HUMAN SPECIES. 389 Arab, or Cushite invention, converted to Kali, is evi- dent, by the similarity of Moloch in Syria with both ; and by the retreat of Mahades, another form of the same, to the mountains of Kylas, when in danger fro7,i the assaults of Ravan, is shown that his worship was not then admitted in southern India. Notwithstanding the repeated contradictions and dualisms of all the Indian mythological compositions, there are to be found shadowy pictures of historical events in the great Sanscrit poems still extant; for although even the oldest were written many ages after the transactions to which they refer, probably by men who had no circumstantial traditions and were more imbued with the marvellous and imaginative to form mythological themes, according to poetical formulae, than to draw up historical documents ; still there are casual glimpses of facts, fixing certain geographical data, and a general current of events, which reveals many truths, though the dates, the persons, and cir- cumstances may be nearly all fabulous. Among the Sanscrit poems, beside the Puranas, there are the Ma- habarata and the Ramayana, particularly available .to form approximate notions on the earliest history of his war ox, and the almost Ethiopian Caffres of Africa mounted on them, to a recent period. It is probable, that Hannibal derived from his Ethiop Numidian companions, the celebrated stratagem, when, by means of oxen, with combustibles burning on their horns, he puzzled the Ro- . mans, and extricated himself from a difficult position. It may be remarked, that the Black Muhishan is opposed to Durga, a divinity of the invading mountaineers. 3*0 NATURAL HISTORY OF India, and the composition of nations it still contains. Though the substance of the first is said to be fifteen, and of the second thirteen centuries older than the Christian era, it will be safer to consider both as re- ferring to events at least as ancient, while the poetical views of the compositions, exclusive of episodes, such as the deluge, &c., are evidently centuries later, and in all cases refer to dates subsequent to the first inva- sions of the Caucasian man, though not to the total subjection of the Indian peninsula to his conquests. We take the Ram ay ana to be the later in point of composition, in the form it now appears, as shadowing forth the remotest known conditions which affected the two typical stocks in southern Asia. The subject mat- ter is so grand and exciting, that Valmiki's 24,000 slokas, or distiches, are not the only, though the most complete elaboration of the theme now extant; for there is another ascribed to Yyazudavu, and three or four more, of which that by Bod-hyana is said to be replete with splendid passages. All relate to the ac- tions of Rama, the hero divinity belonging to the first known dynasty of the kings of Oude, at a time when it does not appear that the other sovereignties of the peninsula were as yet in possession of the conquering bearded races. The Nishada Vidantha Naga states, the kingdom of Kapila at Hurdwar on the Ganges, &c., were in the hands of indigenous tribes, and Lanka Dwipa was the abode of demons.* Some, like the Rana of the * We have not had access to Ward's History of the Hin- doos, and therefore cannot judge of the view -which that THE HUMAN SPECIES. Sil Jaitwar tribe, claiming to be descended from the mon- key hero Hanuman, and pretending to have a prolon- gation of the spine in proof of the fact, shows at least that certain families, of whatever origin they may be derived, still wish to pass for descendants of aboriginal tribes. In the north-west of India, and east of Persia, Shombho, Nishombho, Muhishan, Tarika, Durga, and Ravan of Ceylon, are indigenous giants of tradition, in all probability personifications of states, and of repeated wars by Papua tribes against inva- ders from the high mountains. The persevering na- ture of the contest may be gathered from the circum- stance, that although all were for many ages ruled by chiefs of mixed origin, their final subjugation was not accomplished till the Mahommedan conquest. In the usual dualism of mythology and history, we find Rama, the son of Budh, and grandson of Meru, child of the sun, abiding in his holy mountain, west of Kaubul, probably Indo-Koosh.* Bali-Rama, the hero son of Desaratha, or of a tribe so denominated, being learned scholar takes of the primaeval period. It is, how- ever, a subject of regret, that not more Sanscrit documents have been published, and that what is before the public must be sought in many volumes, scattered through the literature of Europe. * Mythologically, the holy mountain may be Dhawala- giri, the highest mountain in the world, and in sight of the northern border of Oude, in which case the Gogra, or more likely the gorge of the Gunduk, in long. 88, may have been the route followed from Thibet by Rama. The pass is still frequented ; btit one was more certainly from the north- and then, with a tribe from Balk, the march was NATURAL HISTORY OF accompanied by Jumont (bears), Hanuman, monkeys and other wild beasts constituting his army, came down the Cabul river, across the Indus and Punjaub, established or found already formed the kingdom of Ayodhya, now Oude. He with his brother Krishna vanquish Jara Sandha, king of Bahar. In these wars, the wild beasts, with the bear, evidently represent tribes from the high cold regions, while Hanuman, with his monkey army, are the aboriginal race of the Vindhaya chain and lower districts, probably Bheels ; for Bhil, the god or native prince of this people, slew Krishna with an arrow ; and in another mythus likewise killed Heri, one of the Pandoo brethren. Defeated or expelled his conquest, Bali-Rama is related to have been an exile from Oude, wandering with his wife Sita, who being carried off by the giant Ravan, king of Lanka, originated the war with the Rakh- shasas, cannibal giants, in Ceylon. After great oppo- sition, the insular defence is surmounted by the bridge which Hanuman makes of mountains to unite the island to the continent; and although Rama himself is at one time captured by the Cauravas, the hero divinity and Sita are both released, Ravan slain, and the powers he ruled destroyed. There is in this my- thus a religious war indicated, as well as a war of races; the victory is evidently indecisive, since the conqueror returns to northern India, and afterwards necessarily by the passes of Kohi-baba. Yet the Hindo- Mongoli dialect shows, that at least a conquering people came down Himalaya, by the pass of the Goomty. THE HUMAN SPECIES. 843 reigns in Oude. In this great and brilliant poem, is the first notice of the people of Balkh, in Transoxiana, under the name of Bahlikas. They are represented as a kind of fairy philosophers, residing in the holy mountain, or sacred centre of religion ; still bearing a certain resemblance to the revered and wise Scythians of the Greek poets. In the second period we have no longer wars of en- tirely distinct human stems, or at most with only the partial adhesions of the Naga races to the invaders ; they became wars of invasion upon predecessors, or intestine conflicts among tribes equally mixed. The Mahabarata mythologises the worldly interests of these nations into religious struggles between the Pandoos and Kurus or Cauravas, the children of the moon and the sun ; which may be interpreted by the Celtic, or followers of a lunar arkite doctrine, opposed to the Semitic or solar worship, which belonged more pro- bably to the people of the south. The Pandoo brethren appear to be Gomerian Celtas, sons of Pandu and of Coonti, a princess of Mathura, sister of Heri and Baldiva, the Indian Hercules. Coonti had, by several gods, Yudistra, Bhima, Arjoon, Nycula, and Sydiva, all clearly historical heroes or tribes, enveloped in mythological and allegorical forms ; but the mytholo- gical circumstances being a parallel of the Egyptian, Greek, and Roman, they are necessarily older than the ages of Bali-Rama, or of the Pandoo brethren.* * It may be observed, that the Pandoos are children cf the watery element. Coonti is a native of the locality RAL HISTORY OP They are all importations from Balkh, modified in i region by local ingredients. The historical Pandoos are first placed geographically beneath Cashmere, in the hill country north of Lahore, or as others relate, the Pandian Raij was on the borders of the Jumna, with a tribe named Bahikas among them ; after their migra- tion and wars in the south, they are established in the Gomerian Celtic state, the present Carnatic, with Ma- dura for its capital. It is in this vicinity that frequent cromlechs, locally denominated Pandoo Coolies, are to be found ; and they exist likewise near Bombay, where the caverns of Salsette, like those of Elora (Yeroola), confirm that the Pandya tribes, like Rama, originally came from beyond the Indus, and carried on a reli- gious war of conquest against nations who had a solar worship. That they penetrated to Ceylon, may be surmised from several striking coincidences in the oldest legends of the island, when compared with the ancient western tales ascribed by Welsh poets to the druids. The significant prefix, Tre or Ter, joined to towns and places, is even now as frequent on the main land, and in the islands, as it is in the Celtic provinces of Britain or France.* If Krishna, the blackener, a where the Indian deluge took place; Heri and Baldiva are solar personages, and the land of their birth is still marked by numerous cromlechs. * Compare the Ceylonese legends in Upham, with the Celtic tale of Iseult and Tristrem, where the dog with three different coloured spots, red, blue, and green, repre- sents the candidate for orders in bardic druidism ; and the five colours of the Hibernian are similarly typified by dogs THE HUMAN SPECIES. 345 designaton of the sun, likewise connected with the Pandoo mythus, have an historical basis, approximat- ing, though probably still earlier than 1350 years be- fore our era, it marks the period of the Helio-Arkite superaddition to the most ancient northern Caucasian system of a trinal supreme godhead, the Indian Tri- murthi,* one not unknown to the Celtae of western Europe, but where it succeeded the Helio-Arkite doc- trines, or combined with them, as was also the case in India, where Vishnou is the Arkite saviour, and belongs to a mythus more appropriately ascribed to Gomerian Pandoos, than to any other race east of the Indus. To them also may belong the Gomerian practice of wives becoming common to a whole family of males, such as still obtains in the mountain parts of the peninsula, in the Suleimanie range, west of the Indus, in Hindu Koh. It was, in a more refined form, a dogma of the Hebrews, was not unknown to the Britons, and put in practice by the Pandoos. In this view, the Pandoo invasion of the lower pen- insula appears certainly to be more remote than four in the mystical language of the initiated. We name here a few localities, bearing the prefix ter, tre, tir; Travan-, core State, Terepuney, Teruwalla, Trivandrum, on the west coast ; Trichindoor, Tirun, Tiripauramun, Teroomun- galum, Teruchooly, Terumboor, Tripatoor, Teruvunpette, Trinchinopoly, Tiruvalur, Tranquebar, Trmchingode, Tir- coiloor, Triomalle, Tirovady, Tripasson, Trivelore, to Tri- valore, on the north of Madras, all in the Carnatic, and Trincomallee, Tricoville, Tirrach, &c., in Ceylon. * The same as Triemathur, on the north, Pendoran of the British, and even Taregatanga of the Peruvians. centuries B. C., and precedes even the ten i it by the great authority of Professor Wilson ; for, in that case, the Gomerian Celtae of the west would have reached their destination long before the arrival their kindred in the south ; a region so much ne; to the common point of departure. Were either of the above admitted, it would subvert the natural con- nection, evidently existing between the east and west, and leave the source of a variety of ideas, opinions, and usages, common to them, totally inexplicable. They extend even to Abyssinia, where the death wail, and many other usages, are similar to the Irish, and both are unquestionably derived from the far east. If the westward migration of these Hindoo Ethiop tribes were traced to its origin, we might refer one of them, as a likely consequence of the severe civil war, wherein a part of the Pandoos were worsted. Colonel Todd, in his Rajahstan, points out the plains of Caggar and Surawati, where the decisive conflicts took place, when the fifty-six Yadhu tribes were at length broken, and departed with Ardjoon and Bhima to unknown regions. We find, in other mythical tales, the Asuras or Ashurs* eminently religious and virtuous, according to the doctrines of the Yedas, and therefore invincible, * Here the Asi are admitted to be wise and virtuous. They came from the same region as the Bahlika priest- hood; were terrible in war, typified by their monster heads, and were, perhaps, the Arai or Mahratta colonists. The Asuras were sons of Diti, wife of Kasyapa; which again gives a mountain origin to these Titans. THE HUMAN SPECIES. 347 even by their gods, till the jealousy of Vishnou sug- gests the expedient of preaching, in the form of Budha, tenets still more humane ; which, being adopted by the Asuras, causes them to fall from the true religion ; thence become liable to defeat, and accordingly they are vanquished ; that is, the Brahman interest caused a religious war against the Budh doctrines, admitted to be more humane than the Vedanta; a fact well known to be historical, though here clothed in a mythic garb. Although the Asuras cannot be mis- taken for Assyrians, they may, nevertheless, have been original Hasaures, Asii or Arii, the Indo- Ger- mans of history; for these have figured in northern India for many ages, sometimes being taken for Indo- Scythians, at others for Hyatili ; and it was probably this last swarm of invaders which destroyed the city of Valhabi in Gujrat, about the year 524 of our era. The ravages of conquest, ended in this latter case, were of temporary influence. The Rajpoots and Cat- ties (Cuthaei), who were themselves only predecessors of the Indo-Scythae, in the north-west of India, re- covered their power on the east side of the Indus, and still show the blood of High Asia in their stature and colour, even to the extent of grey eyes and light coloured hair, observable in some families ; though, in general, they have high Arab or rather Hebrew fea- tures. Perhaps the Sixth Avatar, where it is related that Vishnou, in the form of Parasha Rama, de* stroyed the Chetrie, Xeterie, or warrior caste, may signify, that the Arkite Pandoo States were able to NATURAL HISTORY OF defeat the Rajpoots in their endeavours to penet: into Southern India. Soon after the period of Alexander's invasion, further dislocations took place : a portion of the Cuthai (Cathai), however, remained, but the Malli, it seems, were already driven to the southern Ghauts, probably by Arachosian or Affghan conquerors, who, for many ages, held sway from the sources of the Cophis or Cabul River, across the Indus, to the Hyphasis or Sutleje, and caused the Indian empire to be regarded as extending westward to the confines of Persia. Most of the tribes, whose names occur in the histories of Alexander, and that can now be deciphered in Indian geography, are no longer in the plains, but form clans in the mountains. The variously mixed races from the north west, and north east, with the aboriginal Papua tribes, can be traced by the deepening colour of their skins towards the south, and by the greater remains of true Papua features, taking into account anomalies of circum- stances. It is so, likewise, with the influx of Sanscrit ; becoming less prominent in the south, where Pali pre- vails, and it is also marked by the Brahmanic system of religion, the Vedanta creed becoming more and more modified by other idolatries, and by the Budha doctrines taking refuge in Ceylon, where it appears to have incorporated a whole native demonolatry. This last religious institution was, with its Naga worship, no doubt, established during the period when the peninsula of India was still in the power of the Papua tribes, and was sufficiently exciting to have THE HUMAN SPECIES. 340 been carried westward, not only by migrating Negroes, but also by the Ethiopic Stem, by Mongols, and even Gomerians, in their progress to Europe. India being at that early period a scene of conflict, the invaders found sovereignties either already established, or formed them by degrees, as their irruptions became permanent. In the north-east, the Euro-Caucasians, established on the left of the Ganges the state of Tirhut ; Canya Cubja occupied the upper parts of the river. Seres- wati, the present Punjaub and Utkala contained the greater part of Bengal. On the south and west there arose Gujara, Rushtra or Gujrat, Patala on the Lower Indus, with other kingdoms already named. Khandeish, further to the south, Mura, or kingdom of Mahrustra, now Mahratta State, subdued, perhaps, by Arii or Arai, in the centre, with the Dekhan and Kanara, on the extreme point of the peninsula. But sanguinary and protracted wars alone permitted the white races to become dominant and to effect a gradual intermixture. Wars, producing total subjugation, by one race over another, bear the character of extermination; t&ey necessitate the weaker party to seek safety in flight and migration : nor is the result very different where the races are already partially intermixed, for then a ruling caste, descended from the last victors, is driven to the same course, or to total loss of all supremacy, unless the chances of the conflict are sufficiently chequered, to cause the earlier and later invaders to coalesce by compromise. Now, if the Pandoo heroes, L* the 350 NATJRAL HISTORY OF with Ardjoon and Bhima at their head, departed after the defeat of the Yadhu tribes, there is little doubt that the direction of their retreat was westward, constituted one of those migrations of the Asiatic Ethi< race, which was afterwards conspicuous in south Persia, as a portion of the so called Indo- Arabs, who were ultimately driven from Yemen, and passed Abyssinia, or formed the Cushite people of Afrii Ethiopia.* Tribes of this class were most assuredly th< element which formed the Aurite population of Upper Egypt, for they still retain peculiarities of structure observed in the present Malabars.f Others less swar- thy, were colonists of Lower Egypt, constituting the Misr population, of whose progress we have already adduced proofs, by the plants and animals which they could not have possessed, but by departing originally * If Nimrod, as is asserted, was a Cuthite king, ruling from the first in Assyria, the Babel which preceded Ba- bylon was a city of Ethiopians, with' Caucasian or Finnic rulers, probably the Gaurs, who seem to be identical with the Gordei, who may still be represented by the Coords of the present day. Nineveh, &c., were capitals of northern districts, but the resident population, between the Tigris and Euphrates, was Ethiopian; since Mesopotamia, now Djezirat, was encompassed by the river. This circumstance, and the swarthy Colchians of Herodotus, gives the northern limit of the Ethiopian extension, that is, as far as the bound- aries of the date tree and the habitation of the ostrich. t Among others the large eyes and long legs, which may be the origin of the legend of the Macroceli, Tala-gangha, a tribe of ancient India ; but we think the present Catties of Kutch are descended from conquering Cathai of High Asia, giving the name, and forming the master tribe of the original Papua Aurites along the coast. THE HUMAN SPECIES. 351 from High Asia, and, subsequently, from the vicinity of the upper Indus; and the further progress they made, is likewise to be traced, by the symbolical lions in their sculptures being invariably mainless ; a cha- racter which marks the variety of that formidable animal existing only in the southern portions of an- cient Sindh, Persia and Arabia; while the typical species, if the symbol had been adopted from the African, would most assuredly have been figured with a huge mane. Some hordes had preceded them across the Nile, to form a portion of the Mauritanian and Nubian popu- lations, which we have already shown, were in part driven by the Arabs, at a later period, across the Sahara, to commix with the Negroes on the Gambia, and are now Poulas, JaloiFs, and Mandingos. Others departing by sea, probably from Ceylon, reached as far as Madagascar, where they found already the Ompizee cannibals, while they formed themselves the tribes -of black Malgush Voalzis, Ondeva of the pre- sent time. These were followed by Semitic clans of Indo-Arabs, whose kindred we have seen in the Aus- tralian Islands, and who, on the shores of eastern Africa, commenced, under the names of Joasmees and Jacalvas, the same profession of pirates. These, in common with the Habesh, influenced the whole of the south with opinions and parts of speech; and they modified the characteristic distinctions of the Negro people within contact, as is evident in the CafFre and Galla nations. 352 NATURAL HISTORY OF There remain now only a few more remarks to make on the Ethiopic tribes in primaeval Arachosia, Aria, and Syria, similarly originating in commixture between Arab or Melanic Caucasians and Papua races. They are traceable by the denominations of Nimreks, Doin- buks, and Kakasiah — the black brethren of ancient legends : and the antiquity of occupation in Western Asia is attested by the same documents ; for these races are stated in Arabian lore to be pre-Adamite, and the localities they held at one time, are perhaps marked by the residence of the black giant, Sukrage, one of the seventy-two Sultauns who reigned in Kaf before Argenk, another giant of tradition. Kaf,* an * Neither Kondemir nor Mirkhond are the inventors of these traditions ; for Kaf was, in Arabian lore, a mountain, " enclosed like a ring surrounding a finger," and " the sun rose and set from Kaf to Kaf:" It denotes the high land of Asia. The SaJcrat hinge of the world is Himalaya, and was the region wherein the deeve bird Simurg or Simor- ganka tells Temurah he had served forty Sultauns, his predecessors, and had seen the creation renewed seven times. Kaf, when particularized in the Shah Nameh, is evidently Kohibaba, which, with its two passes, was best known among the elevated peaks on the western front of the great plateau ; and there it appears Zohauk is likewise fabled to have had his fastness, though another of the name is placed in the middle of Lake Zurrah.; The number of seventy-two Sultauns, compared with the forty Solimans, indicate the priority of residence in easternmost Persia to have been on the side of the sable races. According to Arabian notions of geography, Kohi- Kaf is situated between the habitations of Iran and Gin- nistan. " Taric Tebri." See also " d'Herbelot, in voce Soliman ben Daoud." THE HUMAN SPECIES. 353 Arabian name for the great central table land of Asi a is here referred to a particular locality, perhaps the chain of Demavend, or one of the several peaks bear- ing the name of Alburs, or rather, Kohi-Baba, where Argenk's palace is described to have been adorned with statues of monsters, endowed with reason, " such as existed in former creations." There were pictures upon the walls relating to those times, poetical em- bellishments in the legend, which, since the late discoveries in the ruins of Nineveh, show that the narrations are drawn from buildings adorned with Andro-Sphinxes, Sirens, and Taurine monsters, similar to those of Persepolis. The locality may even be much more towards the north and east, since a sculptured sphinx has been discovered about the Altaic gold mines, and similar objects are frequent in the ruins of ancient cities about the river Amour, in Chinese Tartary. The name of Temendoun, a giant with one hundred arms, defeated by Kayomurs, first king of Persia, but who escaped and fled to Oman, in Arabia ; one more, named Anthalous (Antaeus), with a thousand arms, who was captured and sentenced to death by Soliman Ben Hakki, who could never accomplish his decree, indicate that they are reminiscences of ancient legends, notwithstanding the evident plagiarisms from Greek fables and Hindoo relations, and that the colour, the direction of the flight, and the indestruc- tible character of these enemies, whose many arms im- ply the strength of their forces, and the region and antiquity of their occurrence. They are, moreover, z 35 NATUKAL HISTORY OF countenanced by others, such as the antediluvian so- vereigns Mahabad, " Father of mankind ;" Biurasp, " King before the flood ;" and Gilshah, " The first man ;" all mythical records of the first Caucasian in- vasions from the high lands, and the wars they waged upon the black populations in possession of the land. If the relation of Herodotus can be admitted, they were in his time not quite extinct in Colchis. The evidence of their blood remains marked in the present Bedoueen Arabs ; it was unquestionable in the race of Ham in Chaldea and Syria ; in the Ethiopia of southern Persia, Persis, Chusistan, and Susiana; in Arabia Deserta, from the southern coasts of the Indus to the Straits of ^Vfcbel-Mandeb, and in Upper Egypt to Nubia and Cordofan. Tfee Shah Nameh furnishes traces of their wars with the Iranians, and Asiatic Ethiopians are histo- rically noticed in the time of Xerxes. The whole region, from Hindostan to Lybia, was anciently, and even is now by Orientals, frequently denominated India. Like their ancestors, the population still forms a mixed race, having in general ruling families of a white origin; sometimes named Getae (Goths), Ger- manii of Kermanshah. Strabo (lib. vii.) makes Pyre- bestas (Abu Rebbia) rule the Getse. Ammianus calls Arabia the desert of the Getae ; and the Beni-Ghour (children of the swamp) are still regarded as a fair race, descended from that stock. It is in this territory, and adjoining Egypt, that in the earliest antiquity a very considerable civilization THE HUMAN SPECIES. 355 is detected, because the confluence of nations moving westward, obliged concentration at the isthmus, in order to reach the lower Nile, and in this manner they became conversant with each other's discoveries in the arts of life, and saw the dawn of commerce opening by the mariners of Sidon. Whether the Imilikon, or Amalekites, were of the same mixed stem, does not clearly appear ; but that the Phoenicians, Punes, Fynes, so far as the master tribes are concerned, were Finns, is exceedingly pro- bable, since a red-haired race necessarily must have come from the northern parts of Asia ; and if the lan- guage they spoke was in the historical era almost a pure Hebrew, the cause is easily discovered, since a white community, of no great strength, had gradually increased to a series of cities, whereof the vast supe- riority of inhabitants were Semitics and southern strangers, who from the period of the first conquest of Phoenicia, acquired political power ; whereas, until then, they had perhaps only possessed a certain pre- eminence in the refinements of civilization. The Phoe- nician power was long settled before the arrival of the Hebrews in Palestine, and it was not regarded by them in the same light as the upland tribes of Canaan, since political and commercial alliance, and permanent peace, existed between the two states; conditions which could not have been maintained if the Punic race had not been of a very distinct origin from the Canaanite. 356 NATURAL HISTORY OF EGYPT. IF the isthmus of the Red Sea was already closed on the Mediterranean side, when the first human popu- lation came to the western shores of Asia, it may be assumed, that the delta of the Nile was not yet so consolidated as to offer any firm footing beyond the sands on the beach ; while the marshy fens within them were, as yet, only beginning to form the present lower province. Gradually the valley was occupied from the head of the first bifurcation of the river, up to the cataracts, by a population of very distinct origin, cemented together by causes not now acces- sible to investigation ; for here three nations, at least, adopted the same system of civilization, and amal- gamated together from different sources of migration, elaborating a state religion, and peculiar social institu- tions, whatever difference there might be else in tribal speech and local doctrines. The oldest of these nations had been pushed up the river by succeeding immigra- tions, and was of true Ethiopic character, Indo-Arab, deb or black, and since known by the names of Aurites or Abarites. It was apparently composed of tribes expelled the coast of Malabar, and distinguished by the more elevated position of the ears, by large dark eyes, strong curly hair, long legs, thick lips, and very swarthy colour : the second, a brown race, with lank hair, were the Misr or Mestrai (Misraim of antiquity), said to have been led by Masr ; but all these names indicate THE HUMAN SPECIES. 357 a mixed race, which both were ; and the third, governed by a fairer high featured tribe of real Caucasians, were most likely the last comers, and in part a pri- vileged body of conquerors ; they were, collectively, the Gouptas, Koptos, said to have followed the mytho- logical Menes,* who first nestled in the marshes of the delta, and most likely came by sea from Asia Minor. They obtained and kept the ruling power, the Phara- onic crown and priesthood for ages, in their hands, although they were neither the authors of the civiliza- tion, nor of the religious doctrines of the land. The enormous army, with excessive privileges, maintained by the state, and forces often called in from abroad, warrant this opinion. The conjecture is strengthened by the prohibition the government gave to all marine enterprise on the Red Sea, and the early and long continuance of supremacy it exercised over Syria; and finally, by the reminiscence of hostilities in High Asia, which prompted the greatest of the Egyptian kings to make repeated inroads as far as Bactria, though ever with ephemeral results. At length the sceptre passed from them to the Cushites, who, in time, were again subdued by new hordes of High Asia; while the Cushite nation secured the coast of Abys- sinia, Nubia, and Egypt, up to the Port of Aphrodite : this was the Ethiopia of Africa, Thosh or Etaush, and * Menes, the same as Manu, who binds the ark to the peak of Himavahn ; and Meru whose holy mountain was west of Cabul, near Bamean, and ancestor of Rama ; but it may be a name for Joktan. 358 NATURAL HISTORY OF Kush, still called Kish in the country. Both the Cushite and Aurite people had Caucasian or white chiefs, since, even at this day, Dongola women are prized, because they are comparatively fair. Leaders, like the expelled Pandoos, led them, by coasting, till they crossed over from the Arabian side to the Egyp- tian. Coming from the Indus, the Aurites ascended still higher, to the head of the Red Sea, as we are expressly told by Syncellus. They passed by the Wadi Sendeli, still named Derb-Tuarikh, and thence spread from Memphis to Thebes ; for, had they been mere wanderers through deserts, their gods, in after ages, would not have been invariably placed in boats, nor would there have been, annually, a festival, when these idols were sent from below to visit others up the river, in splendid barges.* The origin of such a cere- mony could only be derived from a commemoration of their first landing, or their original departure from the east, confounded with a diluvian tradition; not- withstanding, that record is so deep rooted, that even to this day, in Arabia, the Arabs do not call out an * Diluvian records abound with all the Caucasian and cognate races. There are, probably, more than one hundred fabulous legends, religious and mythical, where the patri- arch and his family are designated under different names, circumstances, and localities. Even in Palestine, there \rere four or five, all greatly distorted from the true narra- tive in the Pentateuch. One or other of these Indian mi- grators revived the Neel of India in the Nile of Africa ; for, unless the notion had begun in Egypt, all antiquity, to the time of Alexander, would not have been led to believe, that the African stream had its source in India. THE HUMAN SPECIES. 359 army, where many tribes are collected, without "bearing at the head of it a reminiscence of the ark, in the shape of a wooden frame, placed on the back of a strong camel, and adorned with ostrich feathers, which they call Merkeb (the ship). The styles of sculpture, architecture, and excavation, notwithstanding the remote period of their origin, have more affinity to the Bactrian Hindoo, than to any other colossal, ponderous, detail ; such as a compound of what remains of Nineveh, and the earliest cavern temples would produce, showing traces of the natural development of art, when working upon the same kind of materials with similar means. The statues retain the normal pillar form in all ; but the parts of archi- tectural combination advanced beyond mere excava- tion, as it still was in the most ancient cavern temples of India; not so complete and less appropriate than the Egyptian, indicating an older date, though it was wielded in both regions by sacerdotal supremacies over great populations. The system of worship in Egypt was likewise allied to the Indian, though both no doubt had their revolutions, innovations, and suc- cessive incorporations of foreign elements. British sepoys, forming part of the expedition that was to co-operate with General Sir Ralph Abercrombie in the re-conquest of Egypt, no sooner entered the ancient temples in the valley of the Nile, than they asserted their own divinities were discovered on the walls, and worshipped them accordingly. They even pointed out 360 NATURAL HISTORY OF the Cresvaminam, or Brahmin distinguishing cord, as likewise a decoration of the painted divinities. Few traces of Aramean, or Japetian languages, are perceptible in the constituents of the ancient Egyptian and modern Copthic. The Hebrew and Arabic are comparatively of recent introduction. Originally the Egyptian form was monosyllabic, essentially different from both, though the Canaanite nations of the same stock spoke a dialect of Chaldee, which in itself ap- pears to be an evanescent tongue, and might have been preceded in Syria by a different form, as it was subsequently succeeded by others, since geographical localities of ancient Palestine were constantly indi- cated by two very different denominations. The Egyptian, no doubt, consisted of a sacred dialect; one which was used in all written documents, sacred and legal, while very diverging forms of speech be- longed to different parts of the kingdom. There was particularly, one in the Delta, another in Upper Egypt, and most likely the Cuthic above the cataracts. Uch and Pharaoth, the most ancient words for king, may nevertheless be both epithets, the first denoting high, eminent ;* and the second, a mutation of Phre or Phra, recurs in the Pelhevic proper names of ancient * Uch. See Manetho. It may be remarked, that there was a tribe of Uchii east of Persis proper, and that it was, according to Volateranus, from among this people the gipsey tribes first came forth. Uchii were therefore High- landers. THE HUMAN SPECIES. 361 Persia, where it designates command or leadership; while in Egypt the same word seems to have been ap- propriated to the sun, to exaltation and beauty, in which sense it is equivalent to the Theotisk Frai, Norsk Fager, handsome. Goshen or Goshan, in Egypt, and Gauzaii in Mesopotamia, does not denote a temple of the sun, but literally, the cow land, the cattle country. The Delta, itsXexo; of Scylax, was most probably de- signated in Egyptian by the name of Rab, since in Hebrew it was called Rahab. For ages it gave shel- ter to pirates and roving clans, which, when they had remained fixed during a certain period, had no means of resuming their marine course of life, because wood for rafts and vessels was always scarce or wanting, the tall reeds and rushes suffering none except the palm tree to flourish. This was the cause, it may be be- lieved, why the Kapthorim, after leaving Kapthor or Cappadocia, wandering onwards by Rhodes, Crete, and Cyprus, till they rested for a period in the Ta- nitic arm of the Nile, were obliged to migrate by land to Palestine. There were also the Sinim and Phoeni- cians in the western arm, and Greek adventurers on the bank near Damietta; others, most likely, were absorbed in the Egyptian people, or passed onwards to the west. Several of these tribes are, by classical authorities, placed in connection with the Hyperbo- reans, or rather the Finnic races, a branch of which may have been the Hyksos (or Shepherds), with the more probability, as the earliest Armenian language L; 362 NATURAL HISTORY OF known to have contained a great proportion of words belonging to that stem of nations, and the Armenian people were styled Haikos or Haik wearers, which is the same as Hyksos. They are even made to be the same as the Cathai, Beni Kous, who may have been the Kufa of High Asia opposed to Sesostris, the fair- haired nation of the ancient Arabian records, and the present Nesearies of the hills ; so early were the in- vasions from the north-east towards Egypt, and so confused become nations when the ruling tribe and the masses are of different typical forms. Above the Egyptian races, the Nubian. Nuba, or swarthy Cushite people, were fixed at a remote age, though Syncellus and their own traditions represent them to be colonists from the banks of the Indus ; and the claim is countenanced by the local names of Kutch, Gujerat, Catty war, provinces on the east side of the present delta of the river ; and the circumstance, that the Abyssinian kings were, and still are, styled Nagus, while in the most ancient kingdoms of the delta of the Indus or Neel, denominated Patala, the Naga or Ser- pent was venerated in the capital Nagara, and the people were Nagas. Tribes of Cushites had fought their way by sea or by land, and formed a great power in Arabia Felix, till the present Arabians compelled them to cross the straits of Bab-el-Mandeb. They returned, however, more than once, to hold dominion in Yemen, carrying the first coffee plant with them from Africa, and continuing to hold up the commercial prosperity of the country to the time of the Hegira. THE HUMAN SPECIES. 363 Since the decline of the Abyssinian empire subordinate kings still retain the ancient title ; such, for instance, as that of Bahar Negash, or king of the plain, &c.* The Nubian people are of the same origin, mixed with Arabs of the Rebiah tribe about Ibrim, and more pure from thence to Tinareh in the hills. It was from this region (Etaush) that queens, denominated Candace, became historical personages ;t and the case of the eunuch baptized by the apostle Philip, shows that the Hebrew Scriptures were studied before the advent, even as far up as Abyssinia, and that persons of the progeny of Ham came up to Jerusalem to worship. To trust solely in the linguistic character of nations, where slavery, polygamy, and where barter and vio- lence alike daily interchange crowds of captives, is at best unsafe ; all unwritten dialects, and even per- manent nationality, becomes dubious ; consequently, manners are greatly varied with the circumstances of existence. * Apophis, supposed to be the Pharaoh visited by Abra- ham, may have been a Naga king in Lower Egypt, as his name is synonymous with Python. If he were the Apo- phis slain by Horus, we would have an approximate date for the known system of Egyptian religion. f Candace does not appear to have been a proper name, but a title, perhaps a mutation of Khan or Kong. In that case, Thosh or Taush would denote tusk. Etaush, the land of ivory, which would again indicate the ruling power to have originated in a northern or high mountain race of conquerors. 364 NATURAL HISTORY OF THE ATLANTICS OR BERBERS. ON the north of Africa many wanderers landed from the sea, and migrators from the. valley of the Nile were pushed onwards over the Nubian high land. THE NUMIDIANS. ONE of these seems to have reached that region rather late, if they already possessed horses at the time of their arrival, and were the Numidians of Ro- man history, celebrated for the small and active horses which the warriors rode without saddle or bridle, guid- ing them with a rod, or at best with a rope passed round the lower jaw. But we take them to have been a distinct and later invasion, and sufficiently evanes- cent, to have passed away into Negro tribes, since the supremacy of the Arabians became established. THE AMAZIGH Or Berbers, properly so called, extending from the Nile to the Atlantic, are now under the name of Shelluhs, most numerous in the glens of Atlas, where they oc- cupy villages in the south and east of Morocco, with habits not totally lawless nor inhospitable. But several of the tribes differ greatly from them, such as the Errifi of the province of Rif, who are among the most ferocious of human beings, and the Kabyles, Koubals, THE HUMAN SPECIES. 365 tribes speaking the Showiah language, which is believed to contain a considerable quantity of Numidian roots. There are other Berber tribes, that are miners, and ma- nufacturers of gun powder, gun barrels, knives, black soap, &c. These are again referred to the Numidian people, passing gradually into the Poulah and Jaloffs, who, alone among the Negroes, have horses and camels. THE SUAKIM. EAST and south of the Nile, this great stem seems to pass into Suakim troglodytes, who are referred to the ancient Kahtan Arabs, black by blood, which, if it be correctly viewed, the filiation of this branch of the Ethiopian stem is marked out from beyond the Indus to the west coast of Morocco. To the troglodyte race belong the Ababde, mistaken for Arabs, though they have the Negro mouth and colour, occupying a great space between the Red Sea and the Nile. They are conductors of caravans from Sennaar, and spoken of with approbation. The Gomera, a relict of an almost extinct and un- known people, still occupy a portion of the district of Rif in Morocco, living in harmony with the Shelluhs, and possibly descended from those marine Celts, who, in early ages, came down the coasts of Africa, where they left the cairns, peulvans, and cromlechs, which the Romans at more than one place called Philcenian altars, particularly those found near Cyrene, and on 366 NATURAL HISTORY OF the salt lake ; and there is another, distinguished by the name of El-Uted (the Peg), still existing on the Aguache river, in Barbary. It is perhaps also this tribe of Gomera who speak a Celtic dialect, said to be still intelligible to Welsh seamen, and asserted to be likewise understood on the south-west coast of Spain and Portugal. They are graziers; and it may be observed, that in Sanscrit, Gomed denotes an ox ; Gomera in this case, like Gwalla in Asia, and Galla in Africa, being denominations for oxman, neatherd. THE TUARIKHS. THOUGH both the Tibboos and Tuarikhs are nearly pure Caucasians, we notice them here on account of the remote antiquity they claim, and the thrifty cha- racter they bear; the last mentioned, in particular, are habitually engaged in marauding to make slaves for sale, or in commercial transactions at annual fairs, and conducting caravans to the nations of Soudan, Bornou, and Timbuctoo. The language they speak is not Arabic, is as yet little known, the natives asserting it to be the most ancient in the world. If the Roman Numidians still retain a national existence, it is perhaps among these tribes that they should be sought. The Tibboos, residing in the middle of Negro tribes, between Fez and Bornou, are partly nomads, hospitable and moderate beyond all other tenants of the desert. We may place here the gipsey tribes, the Zingari, THE HUMAN SPECIES. 367 Zigeuner of Germany, Bohemians of the French, Karashu of Kurdistan, who, notwithstanding they speak a dialect of Hindoostan, and betray by their colour a positive intermixture with Papua blood, have never- theless the crania of Asiatic Finns, and are known to have dwelt among the southernmost tribes of that stem before they came towards the west. As they may have detected Finnic words in the Cophtic, since Klaproth discovered several in the ancient language of Egypt, there is some reason for the claim set up by these roving families for affinity with a Nilotic popu- lation, since they have a similar right to that of Persia and Bokhara, and kindred tribes are among the wan- derers of Northern Africa. They are, indeed, first ob- served to have traversed portions of Southern Tahtary. Some visited Armenia, Syria, and Egypt ; and others, about the year 1400, passed onwards through Poland to Bohemia, and finally extended to England and Spain. We have hitherto shown how typical and aberrant races of man have evidently proceeded eccentrically from the vicinity of the table land of High Asia, so far as the proceeding can be traced by geographical necessities, which in most cases have operated like positive laws, and are corroborated by history when human scripta have recorded the facts. Let us now see how the same conditions of Man's primaeval swarm- ing can be traced in the great Caucasian type, of which the eventful career is so much better known than that of the preceding races. 368 NATURAL HISTORY OF THE BEARDED, INTERMEDIATE, OR CAUCASIAN TYPE, Is so named, because neither of the two other typical forms is distinguished by a well grown beard. Inter- mediate form is applicable with reference to the boreal and tropical position of the other types. The appella- tion of Caucasian remains likewise appropriate, when understood to apply to the Indian or true Caucasus, or Imaus of the ancients, for by these names the region of Hindu-Koosh and the vicinity must be understood ; and it is to that locality careful examination ulti- mately traces the first habitation of at least the white races of the bearded stock;* for the term white, though it is in general sufficiently correct, is still not quite admissible for the whole, since the colour varies from pure white down to melanism, nearly as deep as a genuine Negro. Albinism is frequent; and both the phenomena of an entire horny skin and of total hirsute- ness seem to belong exclusively to the bearded type. It being to the form under consideration, that the * Caucasus of Western Asia is a name transferred with many others from the central region of the old continent. It seems to be derived from Koh-Cas, or Hindu-Koh, and includes, besides that region also, Paropamissus, Emodus Imaus, or Western Himalaya, with numerous and elevated peaks, and the high lands of the Arii or Asii. Kohi-Baba, the apparently highest point of the whole, appears to be the local Kaf of Arabian tradition. THE HUMAN SPECIES. 3G9 tribes class that have peopled Europe and Western Asia almost exclusively, its typical characters are easily ascertained. The beard is neither villous nor woolly, but spreading over the lips, chin, and the whole of the nether jaw ; it fringes the sides of the face up to the temples, and is crisp, curly, or undulating, but never quite straight or lank, as in the Mongolian. The skull is larger than in the other forms ; it is oblong, rounded, with the cerebral portion more developed, containing from 75 to 109 cubic inches; the facial angle is more vertical, rising from 75 degrees to nearly 90. The face is oval, the eyes large, open, horizontal, the pupils passing from hazel or brown on one hand to dark, nearly black, and on the other to deep blue, grey, light blue, and even greenish (pink- coloured pupils occur only in extreme cases of al- binism) ; the hair is abundant on the head, curly, wav- ing or lank, varying in shades of colours from very deep brown to auburn, xanthous and fiery red, usually corresponding, but not always, to the beard and eye- brows, and sometimes from infancy marked with grey, which in advancing life, in both sexes, is sure to come on till the whole is turned white. In general the hair harmonizes with the complexion, which varies in the white races from sallow to ruddy and fair. Health has its influence on the colour of the skin in all races ; but in the fair the cheeks are frequently coloured ; the typical races have the mouth small, the teeth set ver- tically, the lips not tumid, and more delicately graceful in outline ; the nose is more prominent, and the wings 2 A 370 NATURAL HISTORY OF less spread than in the other forms of man ; nor is the nether jaw so angular. The forehead is broad, often high, the occipital part less developed, and the arch of the cranium less solid. Man of the bearded type attains the highest standard, is in general above the middle size, and in symmetry excels all the others : the arms are in better proportion, the hands more beautifully shaped, and the feet and toes more delicate, and more obliquely arranged. His movements are more decisive of purpose, more grace- ful ; the poise of his head places the countenance verti- cally to the horizon.* The shoulders are ample, the chest broad, the ribs firm, and the loins well turned ; the thighs, and in particular the calves of the legs, symmetrical ; the whole frame constructed for the en- durance of every kind of toil, being protected in some measure with a partial growth of hair, which is scarce- ly traceable in the other types excepting on the chest. * A weight being placed on the head, such as when a Dutch milk-maid skates to market, the heavy pail is so poised upon a kind of pad, that it bears equally on the dome of the cranium ; so also is water carried by the ab- normal Egyptian peasantry. In both, the weight rests on the perpendicular axis of the body, through the centre of the skull; whereas in the Negro, weight on the head is always poised nearer the forehead, and consequently the chin is elevated. With the Mongolian and American, the strain appears to be downward, the muscles of the neck being rigid. Weight is carried, not on the shoulders, like a Caucasian, nor on the head, like the woolly haired races, but by a strap, pressing against the forehead and passing to the back. True Caucasians trust to the shoulders and loins. THE HUMAN SPECIES. 371 Thus he is constructed with physical powers equal to his intellectual organization, fitted to sustain pro- tracted thought ; continuous attention alike excited by an activity of disposition stimulating his brain, which is larger and more fully developed in the anterior por- tion than in any other form of Man. In the mere ani- mal senses of sight, hearing, feeling, smell, and tast- ing, the social position of civilized nations may render them in part less quick, because they are less called into activity ; but the Kaufir mountaineer of Hindu- Koosh, and the Arab wanderer, are no doubt equal, if not superior to the acutest perception of Negro, Ame- rican, or any other wild race in the world. Again, the Caucasian form of Man combines, above the rest, strength of limb, with activity of motion, enabling it to endure the greatest vicissitudes of temperature in all climates; to emigrate, colonise, and multiply in them, with the sole exception of the positive extremes. His longevity is more generally protracted, even in the midst of the enervating habits of high civiliza- tion ; his solid fibre gives a reasoned self-possession, and daring in vicissitudes, arising from the passions, from accident or from the elements ; and his reflective powers find expedients to brave danger, with self-pos- session and impunity. The moral and intellectual character we find to be in unison with his structure : the reasoning powers outstripping the mere process of comparing sensations, and showing, in volition, more elevated thought, more reasoning, justice, and humanity : he alone of the races 372 NATURAL HISTORY OP of mankind has produced examples of free and po- pular institutions, and his physical characteristics have maintained them in social life. By means of his logical intellect, he has arrived at ideas requisite for the acquisition of abstract truths ; resorting to actual ex- periment, he fixed bases whereon to build demon- strable inferences, when the positive facts are not other- wise shown : he invented simple arbitrary characters to represent words and musical sounds ; and a few signs, which, nevertheless, denote in their relative positions, all the possible combinations of numbers and quantity : he has measured time and distance, making the sideral bodies unerring guides to mark locality and give nauti- cal direction : he has ascended to the skies, descended into the deep, and mastered the powers of lightning. By mechanical researches, the bearded man has as- suaged human toil, multiplied the results of industry, and created a velocity of locomotion superior to the flight of birds : by his chemical discoveries, he has modified bodily pain, and produced numberless dis- coveries useful in medicine, in arts and manufactures. He has found a sound and connected system of the sciences in general, and acquired a critical literature ; while, for more than three thousand years, he has been the principal possessor of all human knowledge and the assertor of fixed laws. He has instituted all the great religious systems in the world, and to his stock has been vouchsafed the glory and the conditions of reve- lation. The Caucasian type alone continues in rapid devel- THE HUMAN SPECIES. 373 opment, covering with nations every congenial lati- tude, and portending at no distant era to bear rule in every region, if not by physical superiority, at least by that dominion, which religion, science, and enterprise confer. Constituting, as we here show, the most im- portant, the most elevated, and highly organized type of Man, it becomes interesting to search out the original seat where geographical as well as historical and legendary evidence attest it was cradled, and whence, under the conditions of existence which now surround it, fair induction shows the great races of this stock commenced to radiate in all directions. Egyptian antiquity, when not claiming priority of social existence for itself, often pointed to the regions of Habesh, or high African Ethiopia, and sometimes to the north, for the seat of gods and demigods, be- cause both were the intermediate stations of the pro- genitor tribes. The Hellenic nations, when they searched for their own aboriginal source, a part of their ignorant vanity, sought them in the farthest north, beyond the dominions of Thrace, and knew of moral Lactophagi, of gods and sages, among the Hyperboreans, which could be no nearer than the Borysthenes or Dnieper. Ionia and Western Asia claimed those sources of nationality for the high lands beyond the Euphrates, or for Armenia, where the lan- guage was partly Finnic, and further north-east on the Oxus, where the forms of speech were still more Hyperborean. Even Delos had three priestesses, natives of the distant north, and Olen, a high priest, 374 iL HISTORY OP whose name is so thoroughly Finnic, as to be still < mon in Scandinavia. But modern research, withou rejecting these facts, has shown, that they lead always to regions still further east, Hindu-Koosh, Cabul, and the Suleimanic range, high lands, probably de- signated in a general form by the Sanscrit name of Ariavartha ; the high, the holy land of the Hindoos, whence all the conquering races of the type first brought their heroes, demigods, and legislators ; the whole, both of the south and the east, ultimately point- ing to Thibet as the cradle of the Caucasian Man. At the western extremity of the Himalaya chain, beneath the plateau of Thibet, is situated the basin of Cashmere, surrounded on all sides by lofty mountains, and peaks covered with lasting snow. From this region flow four or five considerable affluents, which give its principal importance to the Indus. Where this great stream, by the natives called the Sind and Neelab, breaks from the north through the mountain gorge, commences Hindu-Koh, the real Caucasus and Imaus of the ancients; Kaf or Kauf of Arabian writers ; a region so elevated, that the greater portion is covered with permanent snow. The central moun- tain system is overlooked by the peak of Hindu-Koh, the culminating point, though others, like Kooner, to the east, and Kohi-Baba, at the western extremity, rise, one more than 15,000, and the other to 18,000 feet above the sea. From the vicinity of the last, the region is bounded on the north by the first feeders of the Oxus, forming another Punjaub, and on the south THE HUMAN SPECIES. 375 "by the river Cabul, which, passing the foot of the Kohi- Baba (the special Kaf of oriental fiction), flows eastward to the Indus, forming one of the richest valleys in the world for every species of cultivation. Further south, beyond the peaks of Suffeed Koh, commence spurs or prolongations, passing nearly at right angles from the main chain ; one, the most western, lower than the other, is the Ghiljee, and the other more elevated, form- ing the occidental side of the valley of the Indus, soon rises to a chain, which contains further south the peak of the Dove, where, at a remote period, it was already fabled that the ark rested, according to the legends of Northern India. It is not less than 12,000 feet in elevation, and now known by the appellation of Takt- y-Soleimaun. From Hindu-Koosh, a lofty chain, now known by the name of Ghoor, continues westward, and is said to have been more particularly the Parvati Montes, or ancient Paropamissus of Ptolemy. Further on we find another Takt-y-Soleimaun, as well as a third at Och, on the Syr-Deriah, or Jaxartes. All Arabic names in central Asia are, however, of recent impo- sition. Then we have the Caspian range, leading on to the second, or interpontine Caucasus of western writers. Towards the east, Hindu-Koosh abuts on the Belor ridges, which turn northward, and first pre- sent the high table land of Pamere, termed the back- bone of the world. Pooshtu Kur, the most prominent peak in the new direction of the chain, sends forth, from its broad glacier, the grand source of the Oxus, 376 NATURAL HISTORY OF Jeyhoon or Amou, which flows to the west and north ; and further on, where the Gakchal mountains curve from north to east, joining the Moussour and Thian- chan Chains, continued fronts of elevated glaciers pass on, in a north-eastern direction, till they subside in the Gobi Desert. From the glacier of Moustach issues the Jaxartes, flowing on to the sea of Aral. From longitude 70 to 80 east, there are only three practicable passes to the west ; all further eastward, as well as the river, are turned to the north. From the nucleus of Irin Khabirgan, above the sources of the lie river, east of the city Hi, passes a subordinate chain of high lands, leaving Lake Balkach to the west, and soon after (about lat. 49), turning likewise to the north and east, joins the little Altai, and constitutes a second table land, till it is united with the clustering ranges about Lake Baikal. We need not pursue this description further eastward, but confine our observations, by stating, that from the east to the south-west, a cross range, under various names, separates the Gobi Desert from the plains of Thibet, a great part of which is still geographically unknown, though here also, as on the west of the great table land, rivers of considerable size, among which another Jle and the Kachgar Yar- kiang terminate in lakes, or are absorbed in the sands, having frequently, in their upper courses, fertile vales and habitable glens. It is on and around the regions here slightly traced out, that it becomes evident the filiations of the bearded stock should not be viewed solely through the THE HUMAN SPECIES. 377 medium of disjointed texts of ancient writers, far re- moved from the localities, but where they first began ; for, in order to form a fair estimate of realities, it is important to study the local geography, and to become thoroughly conversant with the science of what is technically denominated reading the ground ; that is, of grasping the conditions of every topogra- phical and geographical fact ; of appreciating the con- sequences attendant on residing or migrating across, up or down, the current of streams ; of toiling through snow-clad regions, turning a long range, or finding an approach to mountain passes, through marshes and forests, straits by sea, and straits on land ; of migra- tions to be accomplished, not by hunters, but by tribes, who have their families and property to carry with them, and must be able to find food in their pro- gress. In opening thus the book of nature, and learn- ing how realities should be dealt with, there remain many other considerations to be kept in view, such as climate and seasons, periods of frost, of ice, or of drought and monsoon winds. Still more, in order to trace the march of ancient nations, it is requisite to search for marks attesting man's handywork, in evi- dence of his passage ; for troglodyte habitations, sepul- chral ruins, and piles of stones, tell also, and more forcibly, of bygone ages, than texts of mere individual authority ; nay, they often disprove them, and invali- date remote chronology. In proportion as we may interpret rightly these documents of nature and time, we shall understand human doings in the infancy of 378 NATURAL HISTORY OF society ; and when we also call to our aid the religious doctrines, the ancient poetical records, and the laws and legends of a people, we shall find, in general, suffi- cient data to arrive at epochs in time, often more trust- worthy than the precise years affixed to events, ob- tained "by reckoning backwards certain astronomical facts, or reigns of kings, which chronologists them- selves find means to advance or retard, in order to make them applicable to a favourite theory. Our con- clusions we shall rarely find at variance with linguistic relations, when these are fairly tested by circum- stances. Here we endeavour to trace Man back from known conditions to others anterior to them, but which must of necessity have been in his career, though it may be that they occurred some centuries sooner or later. It is in this manner we find the reasons for assuming, that the Caucasian stock, traced up to the earliest period, was nestling in or above the glens of Hindu-Koosh and the neighbouring mountain ranges ; for there we find it already distinguished in two or three well marked varieties of colour, the swarthy and the fair, and subdivided in several secondary shades, each having homogeneous features, limbs, and intellec- tual capacities. We can even point out the particular geographical localities which several must have occu- pied ; and from what has been stated already in the remarks on the Hindu-Papua tribes, and again on the Caucaso-Mongole or Finnic races, the gradual passage of one typical form to the intermediate. We have, in the remarks upon these subtypical tribes, had occasion THE HUMAN SPECIES. 379 to point out the evident possession of Thibet, of parts of China and Mongolia, by the bearded race ; and that they are noticed in early Chinese authorities by the names of Kinto-Moey and Yuchi ; and still in part are occupiers of the more inaccessible mountains of the interior, bearing the contemptuous appellations of Miau-tze and Mou-laou. Even western geographers were not entirely ignorant of this fact, since by them Gangarides are placed on the Brahmaputra ; and the antique presence of Sanscrit, that most extensive of all languages, is attested, by innumerable denomina- tions, far beyond these regions, since we find them pervading the greater part of Thibet and Indo-China. As the predominant external character, and the cor- responding intellectual tendencies of the Caucasian Man, are found to assimilate with the other two typi- cal stocks in proportion as they approach geographi- cally to, and mix with them, the intermediate Ethio- pic on the south, and Finnic on the north, have, next to their points of contact, shades of dark-skinned or fair races, partaking of these characters in degree only according to that vicinity; and thence, we must look for the normal point of the type where the influence of the other two is, or at least primaevally was, least accessible. This geographical point belongs emphati- cally to Hindu-Koosh, extending eastward up to the Pamere, and westward through Armenia, and the occi- dental Caucasus to Greece and Italy, notwithstanding the progress which, since the historical ages, the Mon- golic diffusion has made in Northern Asia, following a NATTURAL HISTORY OF similar extension of the true Caucasians towards tho west, after an interval of some ages. Of the three varieties of colour and temperament most distinctly marked in the Caucasian type, the first is characterized by brown complexions and dark eyes and hair, very symmetrical proportions, a round domed skull, and an intelligence most vividly imaginative. The temperament sensual, the vindictive passions ac- tive, the perceptive faculties quick, and the physical energies demanding mental excitement more than rea- son for exertion. Such are the ardent nations of the south. Opposed to them in form and disposition are the tribes of the north : with a loftier stature, a fair, often a ruddy skin, xanthous hair, rather ponderous limbs, a squarer skull, and coarser features ; they have little comparative vivacity, but are endowed with the faculty of thought and reason less under the control of petulant desires ; more reflective, and therefore more continuously attached to conclusions once formed; slow, but patient in perseverance ; and brave, without requiring the stimulus of enthusiasm. They are sin- cere and single minded ; but addicted to gluttony and drunkenness. Between these two we find the typical root still more essentially mountaineer in habit, with clear complexions, light brown, auburn, light or dark hair. It has the skull formed almost like the southern stem, but broader in the forehead. By nature and locality possessed of the highest endowments of the other two, excepting perhaps the quality of reasoned patience ; it is imaginative, poetical, inventive, artful, THE HUMAN SPECIES. 381 eloquent, valiant, and indefatigable. It has been the master stem from all antiquity ; and, in particular, that ambitious race, which is distinguished by high fea- tures, has ever been the conquering, the imperious form, that commands in battle and rules in peace, wherever it is found mixed in the social life of na- tions. Although beauty, valour, and logical capacity, may not by any means be denied the more vertical profiles ; yet mathematical, linguistic, and experimen- tal science, belong more permanently to the less ad- mired lines of features. It is by the exercise of these faculties, tempered with forbearance, that the resolute tenacity of the last mentioned maintains its ground, and the public will obtain modifications of the arbi- trary canons which the others have imposed. . It is the Caucasian Man, who, in all regions and times, has been the sole depositor of religion. The Papua and Negro races of antiquity do not appear to have possessed creeds at any period deserving to be classed with reasoned allegorical dogmas; they were merely absurd injunctions to commit revolting bloodshed. Even when palliated, remodelled, and systematized by the influence of Caucasian rulers, they continued more to degrade the masters than to elevate the vanquished. Of the Mongolians, we know that the mythological Foh, the Budhas, Fologes, Soloktais, and Siakas, or Sakias, of China and Japan, were appropriated Hindu- Caucasians, Yuchi, or Asiatic Finns. The bearded races alone had possession of a true reminiscence of the diluvian cataclysis, and transmitted it by their 382 NATURAL HISTORY OF colonies to every part of the earth, mutilated, altered, and debased, but still always discernible, notwith- standing that in time the high plains of Asia had first instituted a Sabaean worship, and subsequently im- planted it upon the Arkite creed, confounding the patriarch navigator with the sun, typifying the deluge in the form of a dragon or vast sea serpent, and converting the ship or ark into a living organ of preservation and reproduction: thus was substance afforded for interminable legends, names, and dogmas, which, in one or more forms, spread all around, reached the furthest west, originated the repetition of ancient names for new localities, new sites of Paradise, new rivers of Eden, new mountains of the Descent, in the succession of migrations, and when time had fixed fresh centres of national existence.* In this manner, while the Semitic nations recalled the memory of * The root, Ar, in Arach, Araxes, Arachosia, Arbela, Arch, Ararat, Arawati, Aarhorn, Aar, and Ra, rivers, ever implies rushing, soaring, as in the Circassian a peak, in Pelhevic a roaring stream, and in Sanscrit denomina- tions abounding in High Asia, always connected with mountain and high land : hence we find it often in connec- tion with the physical localities, where Eden and the four rivers of Paradise, as well as the diluvian event are placed by the traditions of nations. Indian pundits have pointed out Lake Manama, 17,000 feet above the sea, as the sacred centre whence the four rivers of Paradise, the Brama- putra, Ganges, Indus, and Sita, are erroneously asserted to proceed. But each nation long located in a region has found a sacred centre, and the required rivers, at no great distance from home. There are at least twenty of them between Thibet and Snowdon. THE HUMAN SPECIES. 383 their primaeval social abode, in the Babel of Babylon, the Egyptians saw their Arkite city at Thebes, or Theba ; the Persian Arii found the city of the gods in Pasargadse, where the huge palace was again an ark ; the Hindoos pointed to Kasi, now Benares ; and the western Teutonic nations to Asgard, near the mouth of the Don ; while, by the very radiation of these lo- calities, there is reason to believe what tradition con- firms, that the original locality was high up the course of the Oxus, if indeed it was not actually within the mountains of Hindu-Koosh, or Bokhara, significantly denominated the High Land of God. The great mental activity stimulating all the races of this type to physical exertion, has caused the ear- liest ages to be replete with their wars and conquests. First, probably, they were directed against the less pugnacious black nations, and then against each other, striving not only for the choice of regions to inhabit for the possession of pasturage and rivers, but to dic- tate opinions on all questions of human interest ; and as the conquerors of one moment were the vanquished of the next, all the tribes, particularly of the west, are exceedingly intermixed ; in physical and mental ap- pearance bearing evidence to the fact. It is still more a result of the long continued practice, common to all, of buying, selling, and capturing human beings for slaves — the Britons, the Gauls, the Saxons, Ger- mans, Russians, and Hebrews ; all the nations of Wes- tern Asia, the ancient Greeks, the Romans, the Car- thaginians, pagans and Christians, all shared for ages 384 NATURAL HISTORY OF the abominable traffic. The dark haired nations of the south were choice in searching for fair slaves from the north ; the fair preferred more swarthy, and gave great prices for blacks from Africa. Constantinople abounded in Sclavonic captives and children, pur- chased by Jews ; the debtor and the prisoner of war were sold, and Verdun was long celebrated for its traffic in emasculated victims. Hence the fair, the xanthous, the brown and black complexioned, are mixed in every nation. With regard to the facilities of proceeding by land from the Indus and from central Asia to the west, there is in every direction the difficulty to be encoun- tered, of a deficiency of water, and consequently of verdure to subsist cattle. There are extensive deserts of absolute sand, and the coast line along the Persian Gulf seems never to have been practicable. Begin- ning from the mouth of the Indus, the first route pass- ing to the west, by Kurrachee, crossed the Luchee Hills to Bambacia, Faura, now Puhra, traversed the Gedrosian mountain chain, and leads to ancient Pa- sargada (Persagarda) and Persepolis. It was by this line Alexander the Great returned with his forces to Persia. The second was by the Gundara Pass, through the desert to Lake Aria, whence again it bent southward to Persepolis; this was the route of Craterus with a Macedonian corps. A third avenue still leads through the Bolan Pass to the Etymander or Helmund, and Lake Aria, now Zurrah, whence there is a caravan route by Yezd, through the Great THE HUMAN SPECIES. 885 Arian Desert, of above fifty days' journey, for loaded camels, to Ispahan. Another passes to the north from Dooshak, near the above lake, by Furrah, to Herat, Meshed, to the Atrack River, and Asterabad. But the fourth of these lines is the great and most ancient route of migration, not so much to the Indus, as from the high table land of Thibet to the Oxus, in remote periods apparently much more available than at pre- sent, for the inland sea of Western Asia had not yet entirely shrunk into the Caspian and Aral, and the rivers now lost in sand, or wholly dried up, were still flowing to that Mediterranean. It became the high road from Kachgar by Ota, across the Bolor range, through Karatighin to Bactra, or Balkh, was the great outlet from Hindu-Koosh down the Oxus, or along the flanks of Paropamisus to the west, and by the troglodyte city of Bamean, entered the two passes of Kohi-Baba, by Cabul, and Jalalabad (Nagara), to the Indus. Of the other great line through the Kiptchak and Gakchal chains, by the Kaksou and Terek passes, leading north-west to Och or Takti Soliman, on the Jaxartes ; it is a caravan route, still in use to Oren- burg, in Russia. THE SEMITIC RACES. IT was along these avenues that the moving colonists descended, both from the plateau of Thibet, and from Hindu-Koosh. We have seen how they penetrated 2 B S86 NATURAL HISTORY OF to India; how among other nations the Arab and Indoo Arab formed the principal basis of the Ethio- pian stem, till the whole of the original nations, as Egyptians, Cushites, and Habesh, notwithstanding that more northern, and even fair haired tribes were merged in them, were finally driven across the Red Sea into Africa. Thus we have noticed how Caucasian characteristics deepen into Papua Negroes in proportion to their intermixture towards the tropics, or brighten as they pass on to the border of this first distribution ; for on the line of contact, the conquering race has nearly retained its whole integrity, whilst on the north of that line, a melanic shade in the skin, with very dark eyes, and black curly hair, leaves in the first, and per- haps oldest civilized nations, an evidence of some pol- lution with their vanquished slaves, and makes the question of local hybridism incontestible ; for not- withstanding the distinction drawn by the nations themselves, the facts remain unaltered. And we shall now proceed to notice a second wave of more pure Caucasian Arabians, who left but slender record of their predecessors, and became united with the re- jected descendants of the family of Heber. They appear to have been herdsmen of the southern desert, wandering with their goats and sheep, perhaps with camels, onwards towards the west, beneath the Gedro- «ian high lands, till they crossed the Shat-ul-Arab. THE HUMAN SPECIES. 387 THE ARABS THE original tribes of Arabia, already in possession of the land at the time of the departure of Israel, were of the same race as some of the first invaders of India. They mixed with the Papuas, and formed the Ethio- pian stem, which possessed the peninsula of Arabia, as far eastward as the lower Euphrates, expanding more and more over the desert of Syria, where the true Bedoween, the swarthy JEnese clans, chiefly resided ; but here they were encountered by the giant race from the north-east, who reached Syria or Shams, and soon appear to have established themselves as masters among them, in like manner as they effected the same revolution in Egypt, and Palestine or Canaan ; con- tinuing to press southward, they mixed with the pos- sessors of Yemen, retaining in some cases only, a sepa- rate nationality; such, for example, as the Rustumi, the Phoanicians, and the GetaB. International wars, and the usual decrease of the fair skinned master race in climates of tropical heat, caused several tribes to be lost, such as those of Ad, Thamud, Jades, and Tasm, which being of the more northern portion, were chiefly aifected by these causes, and subsequently were van- quished by the Cuthites of Yemen, or were absorbed ; and their fate is the subject of sundry marvellous legends in the Tarikh Tebri. 388 NATURAL HISTORY OP At present there remain the Arab-el- Arabah, form- ing two stems, claiming Kahtan for common parent. They are perhaps the Hadoram and Tarah of Moses ; but it is not to them that Arabia is indebted for cele- brity. Affiliated races produced it. The Mostarabi, or Ishmaelites of the Hejas, claim the honour, and assume a superior nobility of blood, as descendants from Abraham. They are the fabricators of the Kaba, and the distorted legends concerning the pa- triarchs. In that vocation it seems the Koreish have been chiefly engaged, although the affinity they have with the descendants of Ishmael is doubtful ; it being believed, that they were originally Edomites, that is, a red haired people. In this vicinity, among the Edomite cities, there was Erech, Raphia, or Rekem, near Mons Casius and Larissa, Larsh near Gaza, both bearing evidently names connected with a Scythic dialect, and repeated wherever Pelasgian nations were spread, from Asia Minor to the Danube; equally common to Celto-Scythic possessions, as the names of Lorch, Lorach, Lorca, Lara, and Larch, abound in Spain and Southern Germany.* Towards the mouth of the Euphrates, however, in the vicinity of Scrip- tural Bosra, the Arabian Zobeir was inhabited by the Orchseni, a colony, it appears, of Indo-Ethiopians, who, Pliny says, promulgated " a tertia Chaldaeorum doctrina." They had acquirements in astronomy and * Even Nineveh is termed Larissa by Xenophon, and as the easternmost of the thirteen places so named by the ancients. Most of these were of Pelasgian origin. THE HUMAN SPECIES. 389 science which were regarded as magical. The inha- bitants still breed white asses, as of old, and appear themselves like low caste Hindoos. Of this ancient capital there are still visible fragments of pillars, &c. ; and it may be remarked, that Zobeir is more likely derived from a Sanscrit or Scythic root, denoting sor- cery, than from an Arab chief of that name, who is said to have fallen near this place, when Ayesha, widow of Mahommed, was defeated by Ali, in the year 656 of our era. Another source of the Arabian people was derived from the Jewish clans, which, after the massacre in Persia, had retired to the desert, and become formi- dable by their numbers and warlike propensities. They had apostatized, and united with the followers of Mahommed, and greatly strengthened his forces, not- withstanding that other clans of Hebrews, who re- tained the faith of their fathers, were expelled by him. Long before that period they had been forced to dis- perse, in consequence of the successful inroad of a Roman army under GBlius Gallus, who is said to have burst the colossal stone embankment, raised to sustain the waters of the Mareb, a very extensive reservoir, serving to irrigate a great district of land. The event is known by the name of the deluge of El Maureb ; for when the waters escaped, the whole cultivated surface was swept away, and the wretchedness it produced was among the original causes of the subse- quent expansion of the Arabian power, because forced emigrations led colonies beyond the Shat-ul-Arab, 390 NATURAL HISTORY OF perhaps, even then, so far to the east as the bank of the Indus, producing constant hostilities against the Parthian s, while other tribes, pressed to the borders of Kourdistan, equally embroiled them with the Byzan- tine Romans, at a period when the Arabian horse first began to acquire its superior qualities. Ages before that time, the Phoenician traders, who were masters in the Persian Gulf and the islands of Bahrein, had no doubt stimulated the Arabs' love of adventure, and from pirates turned their attention to legitimate trade, ultimately becoming the successors of the parents of commercial industry. They traded as they had roved to Madagascar, and in the monsoons reached not only the marts of India, but it appears, penetrated by their own efforts, or in connection with a remote navigating system in the South Seas, to the ports of China. For ages the southern portion of Arabia was possessed by Phoenicians and Cuthites: the last mentioned, after they had been driven across the Red Sea to Africa, returned, and again swayed the commercial provinces by their authority; they opposed the progress of Islam, but were at length vanquished, not by the power of the true Arabians, but by the affiliated tribes of Mostarabi, who, with the Koran in hand, rallied all parties in a career of unexampled victory, extinguish- ing in their progress languages, nations, traditions, and history, to the Wall of China, and to the Pyre- nees. Notwithstanding the vicissitudes and intermixture of races, the aspect of the present typical Arabs is a THE HUMAN SPECIES. 391 light sinewy structure, with great capacity of endur- ance, a swarthy complexion, with high lengthened features, black curly locks, and a brilliant dark eye, full of malignant fire. Though not exempt from sub- jugation, they have survived conquests, because no victorious nation has ever thought the desert a posses- sion worth acquiring. With the national convulsions the language of Arabia has likewise changed. Ancient Arabic is not only a dead language, but the character and alphabet are equally lost, though it is supposed to have had two dialects, the Hamjar and Koreish, and that certain words and forms of speech in the Axumite tongue of Abyssinia are remains of it. THE HEBREWS. THOUGH of all the nations of antiquity this people is best known, and clearly depicted in the most authentic records, the conclusions of the comment on the text are by no means free from objection, respecting the as- sumed geographical position of the original stem, nor the inference that this people, so far as regards its subsequent alliances and interunions, had the right to call itself pure or unmixed. All the tribes descended from Abraham and Lot were of high land descent, migrating through Armenia, clearly in part of a fair rufous stem, grey eyed, and auburn hair. Evidence of the fact is repeatedly traced in history and in tradition. The manifestation is still positively marked in many 392 NATURAL HISTORY OF Oriental Israelites ; and in Morocco, a region least liable to that kind of adulteration, the women in particular being to this day generally grey eyed. The family of Heber was, therefore, not Chaldean nor Assyrian. It came from the East, and might be of the same stem as that which subsequently invaded the Suleimanic range, west of the Indus, for here was an early national centre, whence colonies penetrated to India, where Hebrew congeners may now be believed to exist ; as tribes of Rajpoots, and others, passing on to the borders of Indo-China, may be the present Mugs, for all of these have the peculiar Hebrew aspect and conforma- tion; have even rites and customs similar to that people, as well as traditions and reminiscences, which now assume the aspect of actual descent from the lost tribes of Israel.* These facts establish an affinity too positive for utter rejection. Although we will not carry the conditions of Hebrew consanguinity farther than to hint, that perhaps the promised high destiny of the race embraced alliances which should include the three great typical forms ; first by connection with the rufous stem, through the Asiatic Finn tribes, who were the Scythian conquerors, at one time in Armenia, and * The assertion that these Affghans expelled a nation of Kaafirs or idolaters since the Hegira, is more unlikely than that they themselves are converted idolaters; for mountain tribes are not expelled by passing conquerors who have themselves Jewish rites. It is more likely, that ori- ginal consanguinity carried Jewish fugitives among them, whose books and wondrous history caused the whole clan to adopt them as their own flg :, THE HUMAN SPECIES. 393 again for ages resident in northern Egypt and Palestine; id in the second, by the long unrestrained alliances with :e real Egyptian people, as well as with Canaanites during the administration of the Judges ; and at a later period with Babylonians, Greeks, and Romans. A most ancient assimilation of the Hebrew people, if not an actual origin among tribes located near the Gomerian source, is indicated by the exiled tribes having shown a greater tendency to mix and assimi- late with the Finnic Scythians on the north, than with the Arabs on the south ; notwithstanding that their language was more positively allied to it than to the Celtic or any Finnic dialect. In the north alone, the ancient Israelite race found honour and power, as was proved by the military energy they displayed against the Persians, noticed in an earlier part of this volume, and again in their connection with, and titular dignity among the Khazars : it is even now shown in the respect bestowed upon the Karaite Jews of the Crimea. These views are strengthened by the beautiful spherical cranium of the Jews, as fine as the Arabian or Circas- sian ; by their profiles still predominantly aquiline ; by the frequent recurrence of grey eyes, xanthous hair; and by a sturdy structure, less Arabian than Celtic, yet on the whole retaining an Asiatic and peculiar aspect seldom adorned with beauty. All the foregoing conditions taken together, tend to show, that the Hebrew race and language were not paternally of a Semitic origin, but that both resulted from the region where the first family came to settle 394 NATURAL HISTORY OF among strangers ; and the mixed alliances in the earlier period of the tribal history, contracted with Egyptians, Canaanites, Arabs, Babylonians, and even Phoenicians, affected it, till in the end they adopted Greek and Roman names. The males of a race cannot alone maintain its purity, and where polygamy exists, the other sex must necessarily change it almost entirely. In China, Cochin-China, and Malabar, Jews now exist in families, according to the most trustworthy account, ever since they were expelled Persia, in the year of Christ 508. There are in the last named region black Jews, probably a mixed race of proselytes of low caste. Though an older people, the Suleimanic Affghans pretend to be descendants of the first cap- tivity ; there is still a clan of them known as the Beni Khaibe in Arabia ; and the Falishas of Abyssinia, according to Bruce, are a tribe of Jews ; finally, the white race of Zafi-Ibrim, in Madagascar, claim Abra- ham for their progenitor. The handsomest of the whole nation are asserted to be the Babylonians of Mesopotamia ; and it used to be from among them that the prince of the captivity, now the wretched repre- sentative of the ancient kings, was and still is selected by the Turkish government. In all lands they are, as of old, a stiff-necked race, most resolutely attached to their institutions, ever since the Christian dispensation was promulgated. It is difficult to decide whether their own obstinacy of character, or the unceasing injustice of mankind, have been other than agents mutually acting upon each THE HUMAN SPECIES. 395 other, to produce that permanent manifestation in their forms and opinions which separates them from human society, as it were, by a lasting miracle ; still the per- secuted Jew bears on his front the tokens of mental power, in his make the attributes of physical strength, and in his heart the feelings of mercy and charity, which all the vices acquired by degradation, or natural to his temperament, cannot efface ; for since a more humane treatment is afforded to the race, constant examples of good, benevolent, and liberal actions, embellish their conduct, even more than in the feudal ages their learning and research illustrated their mental capacities. THE BABYLONIANS, CHALDEES, AND ASSYRIANS. THE nations now to be considered, though differing among themselves, were evidently all of one family, obscurely traceable to eastern Armenia and Atropa- tene, whence, as they spoke dialects of Semitic lan- guages, it is evident, that like the Arabs, they had come originally from the high lands in the east. They were, moreover, advanced in civilization, had solar and astronomical religions, with legends of Fish-men legislators, whose persons and doctrines revealed a diluvian reminiscence, distorted into Indian forms. In their record, the first dispersion of mankind was transposed from the high table land of Asia to the new NATURAL HISTORY OF centre of their own locality, in the plains of Shinar. Shinar may be a repetition of the name of Djeen; and the Bab, that is, Ghaut, Gate, or Pass, was perhaps transferred to the collateral signification of a tower.* For the pyramidal temple of Belus, still visible among the ruins of historical Babylon, has more than one counterpart in Persia, little inferior in magni- tude: that particularly of Baradan, situated on the mountain-chain, near the upper Diala, almost south of Lake Van, is remarkable. The remains are of disin- tegrated brick ; and the summit 170 feet high, or only 28 feet less ; but it is 600 feet in base, or 100 more than Birs Nimrood,t near the Euphrates. The Baby- lonian unquestionably had four towers at the angles of the summit, and a broad terrace on one of its faces, * Bab, Baby, in the most ancient sense, a giant. Baby in Egyptian, Typhon, Taifune. It might be conjectured that the pass, or at least one of the principal gorges for descend- ing from the plateau of Thibet, across the Bolor range, upon the sources of the Oxus, was originally meant ; for at the foot of this commence the glens which lead to Bamian and to Balkh ; and the summit is close to Kashgar, near Behesh-Kend ; in Oriental legend a city of paradise, seated in a verdant region, on the Chinese side of the summit. f Birs Nimrood, the temple of Belus, and the temple of Nebuchadnezzar, are the same ruins. The name of " Tower of Babel" is originally a rabbinical inference. There are many other applications of Scriptural localities and names in the south-west of Asia, made at random by the Arabs, who, like most other Semitic nations, having lost their own traditions and history, frame new legends out of the Scriptures; and what the Rabbins only mis- placed, they distorted to suit tbeir particular national vanities. THE HUMAN SPECIES. 397 with probably a central space between the towers for fire worship. It had walled enclosures, perhaps colos- sal lions, at the entrances; all which seem to have been common with other structures of the same kind, and notably in the Budh temples of Suka in Java, where every one of the foregoing particularities exist. If the Chaldeans had been established in a great kingdom when Abraham entered Canaan, it is unlikely that the Elamite Arabs would be sufficiently strong to make alliances with other princes, and undertake in- vasions to so great a distance as the vicinity of Jeru- salem ; and in the Egyptian historical paintings of the conquests of Sesostris, and of Thothmes II. and III., all of which appear to have been directed to the valley of the Oxus, that in these transactions, there should be no acknowledged representations of Babylonians or Chaldeans, either as allies or enemies. They first appear as prisoners captured by Tirhaka; whence it seems, that either the Egyptian conquerors never proceeded so far east as the Euphrates, or that the Babylonian empire did not, at so early a date (that is, in or about the reign of Cushan-rishathaim), em- brace the upper course of that river or of the Tigris.* * These coloured delineations contain, however, a series of nations, most assuredly representing tribes of high- featured Caucasians, and the more vertical profiles of the midland colonies, which can be traced from Indo-Koosh to Asia Minor and Greece. There are fair-haired people, with a blue round spot upon the forehead, like a tribal, or caste mark. They are the Rebo, with ox-hide mantles and tattooed skins, Cyclopians of High Armenia ; and some 398 NATURAL HISTORY OF Regarded as a race, they were unquestionably pure Caucasians of the black haired tribes ; and so closely allied to the subsequent Persians, that no distinction can be made between them, as they are represented in the bas reliefs of Persepolis and those of Nineveh, lately brought to light. They have the same ample beards, and abundant curly locks, similarly trimmed. The sculptures represent the same symbolical mon- sters, the same cuneiform letters, the same costume, the same system of architecture, and the same school of design in sculpture — as if little or no alteration or progress had taken place in the national civilizations, between the periods of splendour in Nineveh and the downfall of Persepolis.* wear crosses, perhaps Budh amulets ; and the Rot-n-no, a giant race, with red beards, chariots, horses, elephants, bears, and manufactures in metals ; or people of the giant races, Scythse or Finns. * The sculptures of Nimrood, now in the British Mu- seum, indicate a more ancient, though not an essentially different period. Of Bactra we have no minute know- ledge, though, from the still existing practice in Cabul, palaces under ground were no doubt likewise constructed there, where the climate is still more severe ; and the simi- larity of condition with Nineveh is proved from the fact, that it was at the siege of Bactra Ninus himself died. His ambitious wife Semiramis succeeded him, and was the conqueror of the Omool Belaut, or " mother of cities," once the capital of Kai Kaus, when it was named Sarias or Sariaspa ? Future research at Ecbatana, that is, about the present Ramadan, and on the sites of other primaeval cities of Upper Asia, will no doubt reproduce subterranean habi- tations like those of Nimrood, and reveal conditions of art more perfect in the older than in the subsequent periods. THE HUMAN SPECIES. 399 THE GAURS AND PERSIANS. WHETHER the Chaldeans, or Chasdim of the Hebrews, were only hordes of robbers at the time they are placed by geographers in Arabia Petrsea, or whether they were a distinct people from the learned caste of Chaldees at Babylon, is not quite clear, though in either case they must still be regarded as mountaineers before they were established in Babylonia. The phy- sical characters of the Assyrians, and their locality alike attest that they, the same, or a kindred race were also mountaineers, who had migrated, by marching along the flank of the Caspian chain, till they establish- ed themselves in eastern Armenia ; but whether they were allied to the Karduchi, Kurds of the present time, does not appear, although, in Persian tradition, the Gaurs were the first conquerors of Aria or Iran. The name, again, indicates mountaineers or giants ; and the region whence they departed, was no doubt Paropami- sus, or the Gordii Montes. In that case, they passed most likely by the Helmund to Lake Zurra, and spread- ing over Aria, they were ultimately driven forward to the present Kurdistan, probably by the Persians, who in their turn had been tenants of Bactria ; for all the traditionary events of the first dynasty are referred to the time when they were expelled by the Ou-sun, fair- haired tribes from Thibet, or by Massage tae from the 400 NATURAL HISTORY OP north.* They, too, had traversed the Paropamisus, and following the Helmund, had crossed the Arian Desert to the hills of Susiana, where they absorbed the Elamite bowmen ; located their sacred centre at Persagarda, and further west, built Persepolis,f where the great empire of Persia properly commenced. The city and palace was constructed according to a system of archi- tecture already long established at Zariaspa or Bactra, or in conformity with one common to the whole vast region of Nineveh, Babylon, and High Asia. The ancient Parsi language shows, however, a certain affinity with the Assyrian through the Pelhevi, intro- duced by the Medes, and an adopted civilization, in the use of a cuneiform alphabet. This character con- tinued to be used for inscriptions after the overthrow of Darius, and was revived during the Parthian sway, although another dialect, namely the Zend, was spoken — a fact which attests the presence of a further Sanscrit element, approaching still nearer to the early Gothic of the west, and a tongue even now in part mixed up with the Poushtoo, used by the AiFghans. The Be- r * The Ou-Sun, and Kian-Kuen, or Kakas of Chinese writers, were, according to Klaproth, fair-haired races •within the western borders of the high land chains. The Massagetse, first known on the outside of the same table land, gradually moved down to the north-west, and were for a period stationary on the south and east of Lake Aral. They were all Geta tribes or clans, with Finnic intermix- ture. t If indeed Persepolis, Pasargadse, and Pe*sagarda; are not the same. THE HUMAN SPECIES. 401 looches and Poushtoo Affghans, the Kurds of Kurdis- tan, the Loures, the modern Persians, and the Ossetes of Circassia, are all branches of this great stem, which in ancient, and in more recent ages, has held dominion over Egypt, and produced some men of great military celebrity (such as Saladin the Great) ; geometricians ; and in particular, poets of lasting reputation. THE TYPICAL CAUCASIANS. WE now come to the typical Caucasian family, which embraces the greatest cerebral development in width and depth, combined with the highest form of beauty, strength, and power of endurance, coupled with a ner- vous system less swayed by impulse. In this group is found the most perfect notions of the ideal beautiful, of relative proportion in art and in literature, of logic and of the mathematical sciences in general. The skull, though somewhat lower in the dome, is broader in proportion than the Arab and the Hebrew, more developed at the forehead, making that line more con- tinuously vertical down the nose, which, in the finer specimens, is not aquiline, but straight. The com- plexion is clear brown, with mostly dark-brown hair, passing to auburn, generally straight, the beard full, the chest ample and deep, the loins small, the gait- erect, and the tread martial. It is here that female beauty is possessed of the highest human loveliness, 2c 402 NATURAL HISTORY OF grace, and delicacy ; and the manly character attains the most majestic and venerable aspect. The primaeval focus of the family is traced up to the highest glens of Hindu-Koosh, the real Imaus and Caucasus of antiquity. In that region, or possibly still higher, in the most elevated portion of ancient Turan, the Cassio-regio of Thibet, Cassar, or Cashgar of Marco Polo, it is that we must place the primaeval point of departure; for there, in a verdant fruitful region, a Behesh or Paradise, according to Iranian nations, is placed Ardukend, Ordukend, still more anciently Arthur-keind, and now known as Behetseh Keng or Keind. It has still ruins of arched avenues, the work of ancient kings, and the locality is on the cara- van road, on the north side of the plateau of Pamere, eastward, going by Cashgar to China ; and westward, down the Bolor range to Hindu-Koosh and Balkh. In these mountain ridges the Kaufir of the present time retains the full vigour, independence, and beauty of his earliest progenitors, notwithstanding that he is hunted like a wild beast by Moslem half bred tribes, and debarred all access to more civilized nations. His similarity to the ancient Greek nations is so strik- ing, that it was believed the hardy mountaineers were a relict of a Macedonian army left in the country ; nor was the supposition a wild fancy, since dynasties of Greek princes have ruled in Bactria and in Candahar for several centuries after the memorable invasion of Alexander the Great. THE HUMAN SPECIES. 403 THE KAUFIRS OR MAMOGES.* IT is in the fertile glens of lofty ridges of pine forest, forming a portion of Hindu-Koosh and Beloot Tauch, that this people resides, though as yet little known. The true national denomination of it is not even cer- tain, and instead we are obliged to rest contented with the Mahommedan vituperative term of Kaufirs or in- fidels, which the Affghans use to designate idolaters. They divide them into Speen or white, and Seeapush or Tor Kaufirs, merely because one is habitually clothed in white cotton, and the other in black goat skins. The people is divided into a multitude of inde- pendent clans, living peaceably together, but in un- ceasing war with the Moslem, much like the Montene- grins in Europe, who carry on an exterminating contest -vith the Turks. The Speen Kaufirs, having Little Thibet on the north, Ladauk east, the Punjaub south, and Poushtoo west, have to guard themselves only on the side of the four passes leading from the Punjaub, one from the Affghan side on the west, and two from the north, there being none on the east. By the direction of these, migration had easy communication from Thibet, and towards Cabul, or down the Oxus as well as the Indus. The Seeapush appear to be still * Of the four original tribes, the Mamoges alone retained the primitive manners ; the Camoze, Hilar, and Silar, be- coming Mahommedans, and mixing with other Islamized nations. 404 NATURAL HISTORY OF more remote, and may extend to Cashmere. These tribes are remains of a considerable people, among whom were the original Cashmerians, and a great part of the inhabitants of Badakshaun and Cabul, as far south as the Deggaun tribes, and on the southern face of the higher ridges of Himalaya, extending eastward to an unknown distance; for at the sources of the Jumna and Bunderpoosh, clans of Bisharees are blue eyed, and often have red hair ; but nearly the whole of these being subjected by Moslem conquerors, have lost their pristine individuality of national character, though among the Aifghan tribes of Cabul, in parti- cular, it is still not unfrequent to observe heads and figures, that might serve for models to sculptors who would pourtray a Jupiter or a Mars, according to the refined idealism of the ancient Greeks. The Kaufirs have the face oval, the brows well arched, and the nose and mouth even more refined than the Greek. They are, moreover, still fairer, ge- nerally with lighter hair and grey eyes. They defend their fastnesses, whither they have retired since the Mahommedan conquest in 742 of the Hegira, with obstinate valour, attaching certain privileges to him who slays an Affghan. They still retain a rude idol stone, denominated Irmtan, representing Imra, Dagun or God, the Supreme Being, having besides inferior divinities, evidently borrowed from other nations, chiefly from India. They shave the hair, excepting a tuft in the middle, which, when it is plaited, is exactly similar to the older statues of Horus, when he is hold- THE HUMAN SPECIES. 405 ing the Egyptian hoe, and recurs again on a coin of Comana, where Perseus is so figured, and again on one of ancient Tauris. It is the glib of the ancient Irish. The Kaufirs sit on stools, and do not squat like other Asiatics. They are vehement dancers, and a kind people. Blending with the nearest black haired tribes, the Ma- moges may be considered to have formed the ancient Persians, and with the fair haired on the north, pro- duced the handsome tribes of the earliest Goths ; for immediately towards the west, the line of migration through Cabul is found interrupted by invaders from both sides ; and history is full of the contests which very different nations have maintained in that region. There are even now found upon this line remaining tribes of Persians, Usbeks, Toorkees, Mokrees, Reekas, Kalmucks, Arabs, Kirguise, Hindoos, Punjaubees, Cash- merians, and Lesghis, which last are among those most nearly allied to the primaeval stock ; for after travers- ing the space disturbed by migrating collisions, chiefly Turkoman, we find these and the Circassians, Abas- sians, Georgians, Albanians, &c., likewise refugees, in the highest glens of the Caspian Caucasus ; and in remote ages, there is no doubt that some of them once extended along the southern coast of the Caspian and Georgia, onwards to the Borysthenes, and through Asia Minor to the mountains of Thessaly and Greece, 406 NATURAL HISTORY OF THE CIRCASSIAN AND GEORGIAN TRIBES OF THE CASPIAN CAUCASUS. WHILE others, coming more from the north, with, as it appears, a portion of Finnic blood in their veins, held possession of the plains on the Kouban and the Don,* these extended westward in the Crimea, and along the shores of the Euxine, until they were in part swept onwards, and partly driven back to take shelter in the fastnesses they now hold. The Don Cossacks are of the same stem, for although all the tribes are in various proportions of mixed origin, the typical form is always evident. The women of Circassia are beautiful, probably the most beautiful in features and complexion of the whole earth. They have often light hair and blue eyes, tall, graceful, and erect forms, with straight or slightly aquiline noses, well formed lips, and beautiful teeth; while the men justly pride themselves on their broad shoulders, slender waists, expressive features, stal- wart height, and martial gait. Indeed, this inherent superiority of form is so dominant, that the unceasing practice which the Osmanli Turks have of purchasing female slaves of this race, has caused them to have * Although the banks of the Borysthenes are known to have been successively inhabited by Alans, Goths, Geti, Cumans, Polowtses, and Roxolani, the antiquities known to have been the work of Circassians are still found scat- tered through the country. THE HUMAN SPECIES. 407 become, from the most ill shaped and wretched looking of barbarian Mongoles, a people that can now dispute the palm of beauty with the handsomest of Europe. For, and with these nations, commencing in Central Asia, Kaufirs, Affghans, Georgians, Circassians, Cos- sacks, tribes of Asia Minor, Greece, Rome, and the Gothic people of the north, on to the west of Europe, there are ever sympathetic feelings, an enduring inte- rest independent of religious motives, political consi- derations, or commercial purposes. In England, espe- cially, we feel for them more than curiosity, travel among them, overlook or palliate their barbarism; nay, so strong and deep is the inclination, that among British captives made during the disastrous winter months in Cabul, most spoke highly of the urbanity they had experienced ; several of the softer sex felt unwilling to be released ; and some, it is said, actually escaped from those who were to restore them to their homes. Nothing but original consanguinity could re- produce such effects. To that cause alone we must ascribe the long duration of a Macedonian monarchy subsisting for so many generations among the most warlike people in existence; and in more modern times, that the fierce bigotry of Islamism has not obli- terated that tendency ; for beyond this line of consan- guinity, the Tahtar race, now in possession of Thibet and Bokhara, or the Arab on the south, never excite similar affections, nor feel themselves yearning for approximation. 408 NATURAL HISTORY OP THE PELASGIAN, DORIAN, AND HELLENIC TRIBES. ALTHOUGH Ionia or Asia Minor was visited from the most early period by nations coming from the east, some by a northern and others by a southern route, we may regard the population in general as emanating from the foregoing, and in particular the Pelasgian and the Dorian tribes, which, however, may have been mixed with a proportion of Getic clans, such as the Phrygian undoubtedly were. It is likely that the Carians were similarly of a mixed origin of the same source, as they were remark- able for the hoarse guttural language they spoke, and the resolute determination they evinced in the defence of their country. As colonists they had brought with them elements of civilization more advanced than the Grecian of the same era, and science in the art of war that made them more than respected by the Egyptian power, which, indeed, had warred with them, but ap- pears to have preferred to have them as allies. They seem to have possessed the whole valley of the Meander long after the adjoining tribes had been driven on- wards, probably because the volcanic territory at the sources of the river aiforded sites for strongholds which guarded the passes. They and the Lycians had con- nections with the Leuco Syri, as well as with the Greek Pelasgians ; and some such remote affinity may have been the basis of the claim to consanguinity, which, THE HUMAN SPECIES. 409 ages after, appears to have been allowed between the Hebrews and the Spartans, as is attested by Josephus. Among the expelled nations, the Hellenii may have been the foremost who crossed the Bosphorus, and made conquests of the possessions then held by a Fin- nic or Illyrian race, which, as myrmidons and helots, we have already noticed ; for that these were in ante- rior possession of the soil is attested by their subjuga- tion, and by the name of the river Alpheus, evidently derived from the Finnic Alf, a mountain torrent. The Hellenic tribes could not have been long in the land before the great swarming commenced on the seas and coasts of Eastern Europe. Besides the Cyclo- peans, who left walls of their work from Van in Persia westward to Sicily, and the Punes or Phoeni- cians already mentioned, others, like the Cadmseans, Etruscans, and Colchians, wandered along the shores, from beneath the high lands of the present Abassia, or came under Ionian Taurus to the Mediterranean, all similarly bent upon forcing a landed possession for themselves, and subsisting meantime as sea roving pirates. The names of the Centaurs and Lapithae indicate confusion in the Greek reminiscences; for although they explained the first to have been horse- men, it is more likely that they were ox-riders, such as have been already mentioned in Africa and India, and that their name has passed to a second invasion of real cavalry. But the Thraco-Pelasgians, the Heraclida?, and Achsei, seem to have been Celto Scythe, that is, like- 410 NATURAL HISTORY OF wise of Hlyrian or Geto Finnic affinity, belonging to the giant races, who, as far as regards the two first mentioned, came round from the Kouban and Don, along the shores of the Euxine, and then sought con- quests towards the south, as all the more northern nations were impelled to undertake. On their own national origin, the accounts by Greek writers are confused and contradictory regarding the sources and movements of the different tribes of the nation ; and vanity claims aboriginal possession where they were only early conquerors. They commemorate Pelasgian and Dorian invasions coming from the north, while they do not seem to acknowledge that the anterior Hellenic colonists were, like the myrmidons and other tribes, a vanquished people, who may have had Finnic consanguinities. The presence of tribes from the Asia Minor region is shown in the Cretan colonies settled in Greece, and in the Cretan people them- selves, who could not have reached that island more conveniently than by crossing from Caria, by Rhodes and Carpathos ; for even the maritime shore of Caria was called Doria. Notwithstanding that polished Greece claimed to be in the centre of the world, and assumed for itself the discovery of almost every element of knowledge and civilization, it had a secret pride in the pretence that the Cadmseans and Thebans were colonies from Egypt ; and it may be conceded, that in the wander- ings of the parent clans of those denominations, they had been to the south so far, as to remain for a period THE HUMAN SPECIES. 411 in the then unclaimed marshes of the Delta, or had resided some time on the coast of Palestine or Syria, which was on many occasions considered as a portion of Egypt. But on the banks of the Nile no civil war, historically known, brought vanquished fugitives to the north ; they fled to Abyssinia, or westward towards Cyreue. No true Egyptian was ever known to travel northward, though Greek students and philosophers con- stantly went in search of knowledge to the regions of the Nile, or eastward even to the Indus. The slight resemblance of the Greek Theban rites with those of Egyptian Thebes, was more likely a consequence of Hellenic importation ; and the Cadmean Python wor- ship was derived from the same source as the Colchian and the Celtic, that is, came direct from the east. The alphabet was totally distinct, and the language of Cadmus, if not Semitic, was allied to Sanscrit. The Pelasgi, more properly so called, had resided on the coast of Asia Minor. If we take a Celto Scythic dialect to have been in use among them, the tribal names of Cranai in Hellas, as well as that of Cieropidae, might have reference to their migratory life in boats, while the general appellation may have indicated the character they assumed of heroes or champions, it being alike traceable in the Pelhevi, Pel wan, and the Celtic Pulvan, although, if the denomination had a more Gothic root, the Pelasgi would merely denote skin clad Asi, nearly the same signification as that of Seeapush Kaufir, and peltry wearing heroes — a term in later ages applied to the Goths themselves. The 412 NATURAL HISTORY OF Achsei, though they claimed to be of the Pelasgian family, and the oldest of Greek colonists in Europe, came from the Maeotic estuary near Colchis. They were, as the name indicates, serpent worshippers, or builders of Dracontia, like the Cadmeans, the Col- chians, and other nations of Asia Minor. THE TIRYNTHIANS. THE Tirynthians, referred to the Cyclopean race, seem to have been a still more early clan of the Pelasgian family; and it may be remarked, that a fair -haired nation, with a blue round tribal spot painted between the eyebrows, is represented on Egyptian monuments, wearing mantles of peltry, apparently cow hides — a costume which corroborates the meaning of Pelas- gians ; but as they wear ostrich feathers in the hair, it is evident that these figures refer to clans who had forced their way to the south of the mountain chains ; and if they do not represent giant tribes of Palestine, that they possessed territory in Mesopotamia, and be- longed to that Teutonic race which mixed early with the Arabs before noticed. These observations are not opposed by the actions of the legendary Hercules at Tyrins. The Heraclidae were of the same Pelasgian stem ; and if the name be a mutation of Erck, Erk, they may be fairly referred to the Giant Finns, whose tribes constituted the Tyrhenians, the Raseni, and the subsequent conquerors of the north-west of Europe. THE HUMAN SPECIES. 413 The Ionian name is of later introduction in Greece ; it was probably before known in Asia Minor, although, if we trust Greek pretensions, they carried it from Europe to Asia. The European Greeks had, however, anteriorly been known by the name of ^Egialeans or coasters, which is an evident proof that at first they only occupied the sea coast, and consequently, that they had come by water, and not across the Danube through Thessaly. Among these, the Cretan colony led by Rhadamanthus, whose name indicates a Getic origin, had settled in Boeotia. Tiryus itself was the abode of fishermen, and Argos was built by Cyclo- peans, notwithstanding that Euripides calls it Pelas- gian. This last name appears to be more generical than the other, and to have superseded it, though it is not improbable that the Cyclopeans were likewise a distinct tribe of the family which was soon driven forward to Sicily, where we have already pointed out, that they appear to have been connected with the Finns of High Asia, in their quality of miners and metallurgists. In connection with the kindred Siculi, they had settlements on the coast of Italy, and with the Sicani, another clan of the same stock, had pene- trated to Liguria and Spain. In Greece, the Pelas- gians appear to have constituted the chief portion of the historical dominant population. They were most numerous in Thessaly. The Perhaebians, Caucones, Dolopians, Athamanes, the Helli, and Graii, on the west coast of Epirus, were Pelasgi. The Paeonian and the Cecropian Athenians were of the same stock. 414 NATURAL HISTORY OF In the peninsula they were known by the names of Argives, Achaians, and Arcadians. They built more than one Argos ; and if the name of Larissa is to be taken as a sure indication of their presence, they would be found extended from Nineveh to the confines of Egypt, Spain, and Southern Germany. There were Pelasgians in Crete, and the western tribes of the race had Finnic affinities in Upper Italy, not less than at least a partial community of opinions and speech with the Celtic and Scytho Celtic nations. In Syria they may have constructed the enormous ramparts of Tor- tosa with stones, some of which are not less than thirty feet in length, by ten or twelve in thickness, and at so remote a date, that the place is named in Genesis, by the designation of Arpad, or Arvedi, (chap, x.) Thrace, Macedonia, and Thessaly, being all to the north of Greece properly so called, and west of the Bosphorus, nations moving to the south came across the Danube, from Dacia, as well as from Asia Minor, without the route of their movement being known in Greece. Many came westward in fleets of canoes, from the Euxine and the coasts of Asia Minor, by Rhodes, Carpathos, Casos, and Crete, and therefore they became greatly mixed by the captives they made in piratical wars, as well as by peaceful alliances. The noble typical races that had come direct from the east, had been broken in upon during the march by northern and by southern wanderers, and forced to deviate from the line of progress by deserts, inland THE HUMAN SPECIES. 415 seas, and chains of mountains. Still the characteristic superiority of aspect remained, even to the furthest marine colonies they carried to eastern Italy, and to Massilia in Gaul ; and their intermixture was a fur- ther cause of the high civilization they soon attained, for national prejudices broke down by communion with other tribes, and the bigotry of conflicting super- stitions, unable to establish particular supremacy for one, adopted a general amalgamation of the whole. Hyperborean gods and Egyptian gods were blended. The recondite symbols, pregnant with meaning in the east, became west of the Hellespont mere fables and physical personifications, attractive to a people petu- lant with a luxuriant fancy, and so elegant in poetical worship, that it passed to other and more gross condi- tions of society, such as the northern Africans and the Romans ; it spread among Celtae, Iberians, and Getas ; all striving to recognise their own divinities in the dis- guised physicalities that came thus recommended from a polished people. THE ROMANS. THE western Pelasgians, sometimes considered as the descendants of two great colonies coming from Thes- saly and Arcadia, penetrated very early to Italy, a land which looms on the horizon from the heights of Acroceraunus. In both countries we detect the same names of tribes and places, such as Chaones, Elysi- nians, Siceles, Acheron, Dodona, Pandoria, &c. ; and 416 NATURAL HISTORY OF if we judge the affinity of nations by their mode of building with huge stones, even the Etruscans were in part of this stock, the rest being Illyrian or Finnic, as we have already noticed. The Pelasgian element, no doubt, furnished the basis of all the arts and legends, which we find they possessed in an eminent degree ; and the huge stone built ramparts of many cities in Italy, as well as Epirus, Greece, Crete, and Asia Minor, attest the work of kindred civilization. Among these, Rome itself was a frontier fortress in the Cam- pania, not improbably known by a name equivalent to Valentia, before it received the present denomination, which, it may be observed, means the same thing in one of the dialects spoken among the Latin tribes. Valentia was probably derived from the same root as Vallum and the Teutonic Walle. The Pelasgians left also colonies at Norba, and among the Volsci, Hernici, Marsi, and Sabini, tribes having all names and cha- racteristics of a Getic infusion in their dialects, and indications which show, like the first named in parti- cular, affinity with the Belgic Gauls, chiefly with the Volsci, Tectosages, and Arecomici. The word Volsci, Velkoa, Wilci, Teutonic Volke, is generical for people ; and the different tribes had each a particular designa- tion. That of Italy was known by the appellation of Aurunci, from Awe, the Vale, or open country ; and the two others, as above, had names equally resolvable into Teutonic meanings. Nor is this singular, since Teutames is the oldest known hero of the Pelasgian race who ruled on the coast of Caria ; and Hera, a THE HUMAN SPECIES. 417 goddess revered at Samos, may denote simply thc> Lady, and be the same as Hertha, Ertha, or Orsiloche in Tauris. There are the names of Circe (Kirke), anc Falaces, the double divinity and pillar gods of a grea number of nations ; with many others, all derived froir, Getic or Teutonic dialects. The Romans, properh speaking, did not compose an homogeneous race. They were, still more than the Greek people, a com- pound of many tribes, it is true, more or less remotely allied, but still concentrated on the Tiber from dis- tant quarters, the result of distinct colonies and suc- cessive arrivals. Among these, the so-called Trojan basis of the Roman population is not more authentic than that of Antenor on the coast of the Adriatic, though popular legends are seldom without some basis of truth; and that Asia Minor contributed several tribes of migrators to different parts of Italy, can scarcely be disputed. Of all the Roman nobility, the Julian family alone was considered to be of indigenous origin; the rest were Pelasgi, Etruscans, Sabines, Siculi, and others from the hills, whose parentage is unknown. Although they were mixed with fair-haired tribes, the aspect, profile, and structure of the Roman, has greater resemblance to the Persic aquiline featured race than to a Celto Scythic type, notwithstanding that the Arabian name for the people, probably derived from the appearance of the majority of the foreign garrisons in the eastern empire, in general composed of nor- thern levies, was Beni Asfar, that is, fair-haired. " as 2D 4 IS NATURAL HISTORY OF of Esau." If any relics of the Roman physiognomy be now traceable within the boundaries of the once mighty state, they must be sought among the mob population of the city beyond the Tiber, known as the Transteverini ; for they still bear the animal square built form, observable in the statues of ancient Ro- mans, with the aquiline features and deep set eyes, bespeaking power and daring. Elsewhere they have vanished, and they never can have been numerically prominent where there was more of a class population than a real nationality. Rome, during the degrada- tion of the empire, becoming a city of foreigners, and the older civic inhabitants scattered over every part of the empire, in search of lucrative office, or possessing all excepting the military, which was exclusively in the hands of strangers. The true Romans had therefore disappeared before the state itself was extinguished, and even in Constantinople, scarcely a family of Ro- man descent appears prominent during the eastern empire. THE CELTIC NATIONS, OFTEN designated by the appellation of Gomerians, may be regarded as amongst the very earliest migra- tors that left the high lands of central Asia, and moved not only in tribes towards the west, but like- wise, as we have before shown, penetrated to the extremity of India ; and if we accept as theirs the THE HUMAN SPECIES. 419 monumental structures, composed of very large stones, placed in a particular form, such as are exemplified by what are known in Europe by the term Druidical, they certainly visited the South Seas and the coasts of China, and penetrated to North America. By what induce- ment they became a nautical people in the east, and under what denominations they were known in Austral Asia, are questions probably beyond the attainment of research. It is, however, rather singular, that the tribal appellation of Gal is common to many clans of Australian savages; and Galla is still more exten- sively spread in the east of tropical Africa. In the peninsula of India we have pointed out the Pandoos of remotest antiquity, with their cromlechs, and an Ar- kite worship evinced in their genealogy ; and towards the west, we have them often greatly mixed with other races, in Armenia, Circassia, Asia Minor, An- cient Greece, the Bosphorus of Thrace, Sarmatia, on the Baltic, in Scandinavia, on the Danube, in Fries- land, in Britain, Gaul, Italy, Spain, and Northern Africa. They are thus known by distinctive names, Celto Scythae, Celto Cimmerians, Cymbers, Belga?, Vulci, or Volsci, Centomanni, Celtiberii, Gallaici, Gal- lati, Galli, Galli Comati, Galli Cisalpini, Britanni, Caledonii, Iberii, Hiberni, with an infinite variety of tribal distinctions, and names of subordinate clans. Collectively, they have been named Gomerians, per- haps without sufficient reason, though we retain the distinction, so far as relates to tribes of this family, anciently resident in the south and west of Asia ; but 420 NATURAL HISTORY OF as there are numerous indications, that among the first migratory tribes, portions, such as the Cimmerii and Cymri, directed their course to the north-west, and mixed, to a great extent, with Finnic and Gaetic nations ; we are desirous of distinguishing them from all others, collectively, as Celto Scythae, or Celto Fin- nic, and more distinctly, by substituting one or the other of the above names. Their probable movement down the Oxus, and passage to the Oural mountains, and thence by Russia, Poland, the Baltic, Scandinavia, and Denmark, into Friesland and Belgium, has already been partially noticed ; and taking the so-called Celtic mode of erecting monuments, altars, and tombs, with huge stones, on the surface of the earth, or hidden in cairns and barrows, as proof of their presence ; we have in more than one place pointed out that they must have been seamen on more than one occasion, have traversed great portions of the South Seas, and left the evidence of their toils on the coasts of China as well as America.* That these massive structures are not the chance work of races of unallied nations, is plain, from the fact, that among nearly one hundred and fifty cromlechs, logging stones, masses of unwrought rock, cleared away to constitute them into colossal idols, circles of stones, parallellitha of linear or curve- linear ranges of upright stones, single maen stones, mysterious caves for worship or initiation, shealings, * In the atlas of Messrs. Quoy and Gaimard, there are some delineations of these seeming Celtic structures in the South Seas not before noticed. THE HUMAN SPECIES. 421 &c., the greater part whereof we possess drawings, we find that they are placed more or less in certain ter- ritorial regions, where they form groups or lines, lead- ing from one to another. Thus, in particular, those bearing the character of cromlechs, pass down the west side of the Indus to the sea ; then divide one line east- ward, following the coast to the Coimbatoor as before noticed, and farther on to China and the islands of the Pacific, while the other, forming two branches, one follows the mountain chain to the Caspian, the other by the Helmund, through the desert of Iran to Perse- polis, and up the Tigris, till it meets the first on the high land of Armenia, where they become directly referable to Cyclopean and other Celto-Finnic tribes, and pass from both coasts of Asia Minor along the two shores of the Mediterranean, up the west coast of Spain, and by the Alps and Cevennes down the Loire to the sea, where both unite again, and then skirt the ocean towards the north, cross over into Britain, the final extension ending in Norway.* With the excep- tion of a few observed in the United States, no monu- ments of this class are detected in any other direction. If we now inquire from whence the constructors of these peculiar monuments originated, it is clear, that tracing them back to the points whence they branch off, and then further up to the ultimate limit where they are found, though even then there may be traces * We have thought it right to repeat a part of what had already been stated on this head, because here, in particu- lar, it connects the various tribes of this common family. NATURAL HISTORY OF fU99 « .ra of them not as yet discovered, we have a proximo solution that they commence either beyond the crest o" the central high land of Asia, or at least that they to be found about the Indus, before that stream escape; to the open plain ; that is again, about Hindu-Koosh, and in the vicinity of certain significant local names, such as Penghir (Pen-y-ghir), Carura, &c., bearing Celtic meanings. It is the region west of high Kash- gar, north-west of Cashmere, the vicinity of the first known station of the Pandoos or Pandei. It is near the first great central sacred troglodyte city, Bamean ( Adrepsa), and not far to the north from the first commencement and divergences of the characteristic cromlechs; for it is along the southern flank of the Paropamisus that they pass on northward to Armenia, while another descends the Indus to the sea, and thence branches both eastward and to the interior of Southern Persia. From this vicinity we find also that the oldest pagan diluvian legends have radiated ;* for those of America, of the South Seas, of Tahtary, and of the north and west of the old continent, are all cognisant of the Dragon formula, the Dragon fish, the serpent devouring the sun, the moon, and the woman, type of reproductive animal nature, by which the mys- terious doctrine is conveyed. We find the legends of an Eden, a city of the gods, * Compare the third Avatar, where Prithivi complains to Vishnou, with Davies' " Celtic Researches." Appendix, " Preiddeu," " Anmon." Still more, No. 12 of ditto, page 563, where some lines appear to be Etruscan. THE HUMAN SPECIES. 423 an oasis of bliss, with its four rivers, equally mystified and distorted, from the Brahmaputra to Ireland, and a succession of Ararats, from the Himalaya chain to Snowdon.* From India to the German Ocean, there are at least eleven, with a series of subordinate locali- ties, more or less complete, assimilated to the narra- tive of the Pentateuch, in proportion as the Hebrew Scriptures had been accessible, and in particular among the Arab nations, rekindled by the spreading of the Koran. In point of date, it is known, that both in Italy and Britain, the Celts were possessed of the soil before their husbandry was acquainted with either barley or wheat corn ; acorns were the sole farinaceous food then known. Greek and Latin classics relate the travels of Ceres, and lessons of Triptolemus, as well as Welsh poets the first introduction of cerealia in Britain. * Pagan tradition scarcely separates the creation from the diluvian legends; paradise from their cities of the gods and primseval abode of man; their umbilicus, or navel of the world, from the mountains of God, of the de- scent, of the deluge and the ship ; a locality usually made the centre of the world, according to the position of each nation asserting that doctrine, and accordingly by each surrounded with sacred rivers and hallowed localities, without therefore being in the least scrupulous about geo- graphical truth or much coincidence of opinion. Scriptu- ral commentators on the geographical relations of Assyria and Persia, with the high lands of Asia, have generally sought the easternmost in Armenia, instead of Bactria, though profane history and research agree in the fact, that these two regions have been in constant relations of \var, trade, migration, and conquest. NATURAL HISTORY OF Enough has been said in former pages the movements of the most eastern branch of the colonists ; their wars, probably of several ages du tion in the peninsula of India and of others still mo remote in date, who appear to have reached the south- east coast of China, and traversed a great portion of the Pacific. There were others whose early presence in Africa is detected by a variety of customs among the Abyssinian and even CaiFre nations, which we have likewise no farther occasion to mention. Of the tribes of Shelluhs in Morocco, whose Showiah dialect is asserted to retain many Celtic words, it is not re- quisite to say more than what has already been stated, excepting that the existence of cromlechs and maen stones along the coast, such as the Romans noticed by the names of Philaenian altars, and the ancients like- wise attest to have existed on the island of Cadiz, or Gades, in Spain, are of themselves sufficient proof of a primaeval coasting progress along the African shore, which leaving colonies in Mauritania, now it may be, mixed with Shelluh tribes, turned northward, marking its progress in Portugal by the usual monuments, and by the name of Portugal itself, as well as that of Gal- licia (land of the Gallaici), where they came in contact with the Finns or Finno Celts, from the north, whose progress we have already mentioned. We now come to the march of the main body of the Celtae, from their first departure, divided into two great columns, one directing its course to the northward of west, and the other appearing to have THE HUMAN SPECIES. 425 followed the southern flanks of the great mountain chain, through Armenia and Asia Minor, to Europe. It is this movement westward, of successive tribes of the family, which has commonly been designated as the Gomerian. Josephus first made this application to the race in question from the tenth chapter of Genesis. We may retain the name, without entering into the truth of the Jewish historian's derivation ; particularly when restricting the meaning to the portion of this great stem which passed through Middle Asia; be- cause the word may be construed to imply moun- taineers in one set of cognate languages, and in ano- ther it may be derived, with little mutation, from Guomo, Homo, which was doubtless in use among the Pelasgians, a somewhat kindred nation, that passed and dwelt along the same line of migration.* It sig- nifies merely man or men, the common appellation of a multitude of ancient tribes in the Scythic dialects, or those which we take to be offspring of that common tongue of High Asia, the Sanscrit, before it became a polished vehicle of knowledge in the centre of the ancient world. If the tribes which followed the most southern route, •* There are other derivations, or the same, reversing the meaning, as is constantly the case in cognate languages, such as the Celtic Combe, a valley, and Teutonic Kam, a crest; for in both we may have the radical meaning of Cumraeg, Cymri, Cumbers, Cumbrians, Cambrians, Cam- brivii, Cambresians, Kumbers, Kempers, Kempenners, Kennermers, Cimmerians, &c. See also Cuma in many localities.— Steph. Byzant. 426 NATURAL HISTORY OF such, for example, as that by the Helmund, towards the region where Persepolis and Susa were afterwards built, had black eyes and curly hair, like every race that came in contact with the Ethiopian stem ; tnose which followed the course more directly west, along the flank of the mountains, where their monuments are still visible, were more probably a blue eyed people, with brown hair, and full muscular structure ; nationally graziers (gwallah), and possessing that basis of traditions which they afterwards carried with them to Gaul and Britain. In a pure state, or already in commixture with tribes of Finnic origin, we find them in Armenia ; tribes reckoned among the giant con- querors, penetrating into Syria and Arabia, and the main columns possessing Colchis and Asia Minor, where the rivers Sangarius and Gallus (Halys), with other remote Celtic denominations, attest that they once resided. If the Milesians have a true claim to Celtic consanguinity, they penetrated to the Borys- thenes, and built Olbio, where the sturgeon fishery, corn husbandry, and weaving fine cloths from hemp, had formed a flourishing community in the time of Herodotus, or B. C. 460. But this date is several ages posterior to the first Celtic irruption across the Tau- rine Alps in Italy ; since that event preceded the con- quests of the Gauls, B. C. about 600, when they esta- blished themselves in the Cisalpine territory, an event which was said to be the consequence of over popu- lation already accumulated in Transalpine Gaul, and therefore at least many generations after their first THE HUMAN SPECIES. 427 arrival. Over population certainly could not well have been the true cause of expatriation ; for several whole tribes of Belgae, and the Allobrogi, had not yet relin- quished the north of the Khine and Danube. Now these denominations in Theotisk had only two mean- ings ; Volke, as before said, denoting a people, in con- tradistinction to Geschlecht and Stam, which were ap- plied to homogeneous clans or tribes ; and Gela, Gaul, Gael, by the Celtic nations always understood to desig- nate strangers, foreigners, because most probably they also were partly mixed tribes ; the same originally as those who were known by the collective appellations of Belgae, Centomanni, Celtomanni, &c., and only bore the general epithet of Gauls among the Celtae properly so called. This appellation was pronounced by them- selves and the Teutonic race, Wael, Welsh, Yelsche, only a dialectical variation from Wilci (wolves). If the Gelas of the Caspian coast were of the same stem, we have a geographical indication that the Celto Scythic, or perhaps Celto Finnic tribes, extended so far towards the north-east as the Araxes ; and though the Phrygian, Gallse, the emasculated priesthood of the Syrian God- dess, renowned for circular dances and choral songs, may not have been Gallic by race ; the presumption is, that they, or the institutions they observed, came from the banks of the above named Phrygian rivers, where the whole region was at one time Celtic. To that quarter a Gallic army from the west, having ravaged Greece, was, ages after, again invited, and there the forces, so far from wearing out in a short period, aa 428 NATURAL HISTORY OF armies invariably do on all other occasions, they multi- plied to a nation, which was still flourishing at the com- mencement of the Christian era, under the name of Galatians. Though mutilation was not practised by the Western Celtae who followed Druidical institutions, the vociferation of the many epithets of Hu. and the spinning dance " in graceful extra vagance," according to Taliesin, was well known to them : they had even the ecstatic visions of the Syrian Galli, perhaps the very same as the Howling Dervishes, who repeat the ninety-nine perfections of Allah, and their brethren, the twirling fanatics of the mosque of Ayoub, who perform the like dances, and fall into similar fits of frenzy and exhaustion. A multitude of other coincidences can be traced re- lating to the highest developed religious system of the Celtse in Western Europe, the more perfect, probably, because, through Phoenician agency, the dogmas of Pa- lestine and Syria had been carried westward rapidly, and more unbroken, by nautical colonists. No doubt an intercourse of consanguinity continued to exist be- tween both, since the Galatians had returned eastward, and established themselves a second time in a focus oi their ancient possessions, where there were around them interminable denominations of places bestowed by their ancestors; and it is likely a proportion of the population still recognised them as relatives. The southern clans having, in their most early communion with Indo-Arab neighbours, acquired that dialect which might be termed Celto Semitic, probably possessed the THE HUMAN SPECIES. 429 most recondite lore of Western Asia, reduced to an homogeneous system. It was that which abounded in Hebrew or Syriac terms : proceeding by sea, it carried the traditions and philosophy of the east to the coasts of Great Britain, destined to be set up first as indige- nous ; later, to accept numerous grafts from the same quarter, brought by Punic traders ; and, finally, to pre- pare the west to accept the tidings of the Gospel with- out that resolute opposition which Greek and Roman civilization so long opposed to Christianity. The Celto Semitic race is still distinctly marked in Spain, Corn- wall, and Wales, by a more spare make, black curly hair, very dark eyes, and brown complexions, frequent- ly set off with bright red lips. It is a spirited race, gifted with the highest imaginative power, serious, thoughtful, religious, obstinate, attached to its own nationalities, and though in many cases proved to have been a marine people, nowhere really fond of a sea life. Such are the true Cymraeg, the Siluri of Tacitus, abounding in Wales : in Cornwall they are ofttimes named Cadisians, from a legend that their ancestors came from the coast of Spain ; and local names indi- cate the antique presence of Punic and Hebrew colo- nists and mining speculators, who understood the value of the Cornish ores so well, that to the age of King Henry III., Jews still were the parties that farmed the right of stream working and mining from the crown. It is probable, that the Hibernian Coomary, sea-dogs, or seals, likewise connected with legends of Gallican origin, and the so-called Milesians, belong to the same 430 NATURAL HISTORY CF stock, notwithstanding that their remote ancestors rnsy have resided on the northern shore of the Euxine, as before stated. The name may even be traced as far as Bactria, among the present Rajpoots, celebrated in the Rhamayana for their horses ; and Khomen still reside at the Bay of Cambogia in Siam. In Gaul the brown haired tribes prevail, though dark eyed families are exceedingly abundant, and the whole are intermixed with Finns, Alans, Goths, Bur- gundians, and Franks, who nevertheless, though they were mostly nations of real horsemen, have never been enabled to make the Celtic people either in Italy, Gaul, or Catalonia, more than transitorily addicted to a cavalry life, or formidable for their squadrons, not- withstanding that the antique institution of the trimar- chesia,* and the Gallic Alae in the Roman service, seem to prove the contrary ; at all times this species of re- nown was due only through the Belgic, Allemannic, and Frankish influence in the national manners. The characteristic temperament was ever stimulated by momentary objects, unsteady, factious, often frivolous, always brave, witty, and improvident. This great stem of nations could never permanently arrest the steady progress of the Teutonic and Getic tribes, which gra- dually forced them westward, then mixed with them, * Or three horsemen combined ; Tri-march-cesec, a mas- ter and two attendants, according to Pausanius; but if there was but one horse and two foot soldiers, the institu- tion was bad. We must allow that the Polish lancers and the £/*his were once formed upon this principle. THE HUMAN SPECIES. 431 became a privileged class of rulers, or adulterated the Celtic "blood and language ; such were the Gallic, the first and second Belgic tribes, the Centomannii, the Boii, the Allobroges, and lastly the Cymber or Friesonic, which were nearly pure Germans. The intermixture, in proportion as it increased, gave firmness, and those enduring qualities which finally arrested the pressure of the Getic races, and they resembled them in person and in language, as is proved by the Franks, the Si- Cambers and Frankonians, or east Franks on the Ger- man side of the Rhine, and by the Saxons and North- men in the British Islands. After they had been sub- jugated by the Romans, the Danube and the Rhine were both wrested from them by these amalgamated tribes ; they sank before the Vandals, the Goths, the Burgundians, the Franks, the Saxons, and the North- men, in every quarter except the Highlands of Scot- land and a portion of Ireland. These, with Wales, a small part of French Bretagne, and the Alpine Vau- dois, are now the sole portions of the race which still retain the pride of their nationality, their ancient lan- guage, and their traditions. That they all came from the east is perhaps suffi- ciently shown. We have pointed out the routes fol- lowed by the migratory columns, and their stations in Armenia and Western Asia ; their early blending with Finnic or Ural-Altaic tribes, probably on the Caspian coast, constituting a portion of the Ulyrian branch of Eastern Europe. They seem still to retain possession of a portion of territory on the Danube, under the name 432 NATURAL HISTORY OF of Wallachians (for the claim, of that peopie to an Italian or Roman origin, is no other than that tne Italians are denominated Velches by the Soutnern Allemannic and Sclavonic nations), though by that name they acknowledge themselves actually to belong to the Celtic family. They may be the Celtae which Alexander found on the Ister, according to Arrian, and be the Triballi of Roman history. Farther on we ob- served that wandering tribe, the Boii, in the present Bavaria, the same which once occupied Bohemia, and left two colonies in Gaul, whereof one, seated at the Teste de Buch, near the mouth of the Garonne, had for hereditary Vergobret, romanized into Captal de Buch, Jean de Grailly, the last of the family, who was, in the reign of Edward III., the fifth Knight of the Garter, at the foundation of the order. This very title of Buch, their tribal name of Bougers, and their silent woodland manners, attest that they were not pure Celts, but, like other fair-haired Boii of the north, Belgae or Semi Germans.* Besides the possession of Bohemia, Celtic tribes long held Galicia in Spain ; others, from the Tauric Chersonesus, passed up the rivers and swamps of Sarmatian Galicia and the Baltic, where they came in contact with Illyrian or Finnic Veneti. Passing over to Sweden and Norway, they built up the * In the letters of St. Paulinus, addressed to the poet Ausonius, there are some details of the manners of these Boii. At present they are collectors of rosin in the pine forests of that sandy region, and characteristically possess a breed of vigorous feral horses. THE HUMAN SPECIES. 433 usual monuments of their presence, and left some por- tion of their dogmas to the first conquering Getas ; thence they edged down by the Cymbric Chersonesus, along the west coast of Germany, and began to force their way into Northern Gaul at least one century before the Roman conquest. They dislodged the first Belgae, who not finding space for habitation on the Continent, formed the two well known irruptions into Britain. They extended themselves along the southern coast, reached the British Channel, and passed over to Ireland, where they formed the Firbolg tribes, who, at a later period, encountered the Finnic Celts in the northern portion of the island. Taking the Irish Fir- bolg to be descended from the first Belgic branch (that which was expelled by the second BelgaB, who secured for themselves the sea coast and the valley of the Rhine), we may regard them as the purest CeltaB now remaining. They still much resemble the Vaudois, the Illyrian Lombards, and the Walloon population, even more than that of Lower Brittany. The Irish are in form athletic, rather spare and wiry ; the forehead is narrow, and the head itself is elongated; the nose and mouth large, and the cheek bones high. The features are rather harsh ; and in character they are fiery, brave, generous in their impulses, and very patient of fatigue. Intellectually considered, they are acute, witty, inge- nious, but beset with the sense of drollery more than of the true and useful ; they are deficient in sobriety of thought, and breadth of understanding; they conse- quently want more excitement for action, and enduring 2E 434 NATURAL HISTORY OF reflecting power, than the Getic family of nations seems to require. The Finnic Celtae were the first northern marine wanderers, who having attained the Scottish and Irish coasts, constituted the Gael Coch, or red haired strangers of Scandinavian origin, and first taught the pursuing Getse — in part their kindred — to follow them to the south, under the name of North- men and Ostmen. The Cymbers were perhaps the last colony from the north that had consanguinity with the Celtae : they "broke into Gaul B, C. 108, penetrated to Spain, and, in alliance with Teutonic tribes, they were at length van- quished in the plains of Italy, after they had destroyed several consular armies.* In Britain, as already stated, there were a greater diversity of races than is commonly admitted, besides a nameless population of savages, probably Finnic, in possession of the coast when the Celtae first landed. There were among these, and protected by the Hedui, the Yeneti (Henyd) and Ligurians (Llogrwys), who, we have shown, had, through their Illyrian origin, likewise Finnic affinities ; the purer Celtae, such as the Morini and the nautical clans coming from the coast of Spain, and the Belgae of Semi-Teutonic origin, such as the Cantii and others occupying the east coast of Britain. The intercom- munication of knowledge and civilization among tribes, * They routed, between B.C. 302 and 307, the armies of Papyrius, of Silanus, of Cassius Longinus, and of Csepfo and Mallras, who were loaded with the Celtic treasures of Tolosa, once plundered by the Gauls at Grecian Delphos. C 4/"> NI1 THE HUMAN SPECIES. -4S5 ^ who in different parts of Asia, Africa, and Europe, had been in contact with nations far more advanced in the arts of life, some perhaps with little delay, passing west in their coracles the whole distance from the regions ol Phoenicia and Carthage to Britain, brought dogmas, such as the religious and moral dicta of the Druids attest. They had no doubt possession of rudiments of literature and reminiscences of science, and reaching a home, rich in mines, not only became miners and metallurgists — as more than one line of their proge- nitors had been in the east and in Spain — but stimu- lated by the example of the Etruscans in the arts of smelting ores, they must have accelerated the progress of development, which inroads of new hordes, the ten- dency to intestine factions and open war, too often, and* in the end, too fatally arrested. This imprudent irritability of temperament caused the Celtic races, notwithstanding their military prowess, to be ever subdued and ruled by strangers, both in Asia and Eastern Europe, in Gaul and Britain. With- out reference to the universally known facts in history, we may add one or two more not so commonly noticed. It was the Veneto-British fleet, defeated by Caesar's navy, off the mouth of the Seine, which produced the Roman invasion.* The struggles between the Chris- tian municipal towns of foreign colonists left by the * It was more likely a fleet of Gallic and British Veneti united, who fought D. Brutus in Quiberon Bay, in order to recover Vannes, Blavet, and Hennebon, all Henyd, or Venetic towns. 436 NATURAL HISTORY OF Romans, and the Pagan Reguli of native race, "brought in the Caledonians and then the Saxons. So again, the force of 12,000 Britons under Prothamus (Pritham?), which crossed over to Gaul in 457 to support the Em- peror (Marjoriam ?), stripped the island of its trained defenders, at the time the great Saxon invasion was in progress ;* and lastly, we find the name of Sawel ben Uchel, with his supporters, probably Belgae, taking part with the Saxons in the overthrow of their own race. Language and religious doctrines were likewise different in the three great national divisions of the Celtae. In the north, the name of Druids, or rather Drotne, was a title of civil authority, perhaps even more than religious : the BelgaB had no Druids, but Seghers, speakers (sacerdotes of Tacitus) ; nor was the order known in Cisalpine Gaul, nor in the Iberian possessions of the race. Druidism seems to have been evolved on the banks of the Loire, and acquired the higher doctrines in the mining districts of Britain, by intercourse with the Phoenician traders, until it was ready to accept a modified Christianity, like that Aurelius Ambrosius entertained, when he assumed the civil and military authority, with the office of chief Druid and that of Christian Bishop ! Though the French nation of the present time is in its vast majority of Celtic origin, there remain only the * This expedition may have given rise to the fabulous wars of Arthur on the continent. Prothamus is mentioned by Jornandes, Freculphus, and Sigebert of Gembloux. THE HUMAN SPECIES. 437 Bas Bretons who claim something of a pure descent. The Waldenses of the Alps are less distinct. The south-eastern Irish have a just claim to a Belgic ori- gin, and the Cymraeg of Wales to a true southern Celtic parentage ; while the Gael of the Scottish High- lands are probably Finnic Celts, who resided in Erin, till they were obliged to retire before the superior numbers of the Fir-bolg.* THE GET^E OR GOTHIC NATIONS. AT length we attain the concluding family of nations. It is that stem, which, though later in reaching the Western Ocean, and like the rest of the tribes that peopled Europe, though compelled to forsake High Asia, and quit the east, was destined nevertheless to hold dominion in Chinese Tahtary, ages after the other Caucasian nations had been expelled or exter- minated by the Mongoles. They likewise were early invaders of India, and are no doubt of the number of those which the Egyptian kings Remses and Thoth- rnes, and the Assyrian Ninus, vainly endeavoured per- manently to subjugate, notwithstanding that they had * It may be remarked here, that several Celtic terms are referred to Theotisk sources, because they belong to the Celto-Cymber and Belgic tribes, who, as Csesar asserts, spoke a distinct language; and the romanized names of divinities prove to have been invariably of Teutonic, not Gallic origin, from the Rhine to beyond the Scheldt. 438 NATURAL HISTORY OF the organized masses of great empires at their com- mand, and the invaded mountaineers could not retreat towards the east. This stem of nations was, as it still is, the tall, fair, light, or red haired portion of the Caucasian type, including the giant races of historical tradition. It ventured, in the remotest ages, in small clans, or by mere families, to penetrate far among the dark haired nations, unsupported by numbers, and trusting solely to their fortitude and valour. The Mongolia, the Ural Altaic Finns, and the Indo Arab nations, have at all times acted by the weight of over- whelming numbers, therein differing from the fair haired tribes of mixed and of pure Caucasians, whose cool energy and self reliance, not only takes little ac- count of numbers, but actually is the cause of small sove- reignties, and even permanent republics, remaining in- dependent to this day. We have in more than one place pointed out families, and clans of this great stem, assum- ing the absolute ma&itery of swarthy and of dark haired nations, or becoming in a collective form the nobility, the privileged class, wherever they resided. An ele- ment of this kind, either in part Finnic, or purely Getic, blended in the earliest population of Greece, probably before the formation of the kingdom of Argos, eighteen centuries before the Christian era. The Heraclidae were of the fair haired stock, and so was Theseus, and indeed most of the demigod heroes of Greece ; at least that opinion in tradition is equiva- lent to an admission of the fact, that the northern race THE HUMAN SPECIES. 439 prevailed among the Hellenes before their historical era. They came from Thrace, from Asia Minor ; and in the quality of marine swarmers down the Euxine, occupied portions of the coast, or passed on to the Mediterranean, to the Adriatic, Gaul, and Spain, where the fabulous Gerion is again represented to have been a fair haired giant.* All these legends have a singular alliance in consistent uniformity, reaching to Egypt, and going round and beyond the Mediterranean Sea. Under the names of Scythians and Tauranians, we find, in Asiatic history, that they were dreaded by all southern nations, even to a single individual coming amongst them. Kindred nations of this stem reached Europe without distinct accounts of their origin and progress ; but the movements of others, at later periods, substantiated by Chinese writers, by Indian documents, and by Greek and Latin authors, who record their arrival in the west, attest that they all came from the same region, in Mongolia, Thibet, and the lakes of Central Asia. Being coerced by the pressure of the beardless stock behind, they forced a passage towards Europe through innumerable * In Asia Minor they appear to have constituted the Lydian, Pelasgian, and Carian nations ; and Tyrhenian or Torubian, and Phoenician, farther on, were probably more Finnic, but all allied, as is shown by Hesiod and Herodo- tus, in Lydian records ; and Ovid, quoting a Naxian legend, where tribes are personified, the Tyrhenian theft of the god Bacchus, indicates that these pirate rovers carried the vine to Italy. 440 NATURAL HISTORY OF fields of slaughter, and swarmed during a period com- mencing probably twelve centuries B. C., perhaps when the great inland sea was already much contracted, and the rivers in their way were not yet so greatly ab- sorbed in sand as they are now. We observe, in fact, that already at the time of the first Celtic expansion in Gaul, when tribes of that race recrossed the Rhine, 600 years B. C., that Semi- Teutones or Getic tribes, such as the Boii, were among them, and that the movement was occasioned by fresh pressure of similar tribes coming down the north-west coast of Germany — tribes that could not be expatriated by any other than enemies of purer Getic race, who were themselves pressed by more of the same, further in the north-east. We have prominent, on the scene of action, the same names of nations, from the high lands of Mongolia to the German Ocean. They con- tinue to roll onwards in waves, retaining their first appellations, till four centuries A. C. In Tahtar, and Chinese and European Chinese annals, they are distin- guished by the names of Kinto Moey, Yuchi, and Yetae, Getae, Scythae, Guti, Guttones, Jotun, Goths, Massa- getas, &c., until they become known by more tribal denominations, such as Gothi, Germanii, Teutones, Xacas, Sacas, Sakya, Sacae : at later periods we find Sueiones, Suevi, Burgundi; and at length they are followed by Sclavonic tribes, which always bear some impression of Ural Altaic consanguinity, notwithstand- ing that in part they are descended from Sacas, who, THE HUMAN SPECIES. 441 repulsed by Indian forces, fell back upon Persia, and brought with them Hindoo mythological notions, that extended among kindred nations, and reached Scan- dinavia. According to Chinese annalists, when Fob appeared, B.C. 1027, Yuchi were already established in Bactria, along the Sihoon or Jaxartes river, and they had possessed, or still were masters of the great basin around Lake Balkach ; the first station west of the cen- tral mountain chain, provided that the Siberian region, in remote times called Geta or Yeta, be not still more ancient, and reveal the original meaning of Get, bright, corruscating, the same as Sibir, and our silver, which seems to be the Russian or Sclavonic translation of Yet. The Chinese Yuchi, and more proper names of Yeta and Getoe, collectively taken, denoted the whole family of fair haired tribes, including those which were fore- most in the movement towards the west, and were partially intermixed with the Celtic tribes of the north, forming the Cymber or Cimmerian people be- fore mentioned. Similar interunions affected the Gallic or fair haired Gaul tribes ; the Boii, the Yolsci, the Britons of the east coast, the Vuinidi ; the Wilci, nor- thern or second Belgse,* &c. ; but it may be doubted * The Esauites, or Italian Edomites of Gorio, who built Norba, Alba, and other Cyclopean cities in Lower Etruria and Latium, were a fair haired race, most likely Etruscans, speaking an Oscan dialect. 442 NATURAL HISTORY OF whether the Allemanni, Allobrogi, Centomanni, Gere- manni, Teutones, and Frisones, were of the same races, pure Getse, or with perhaps some Finnic inter- mixture. That they were nearly allied, is evident from their tribal names, notwithstanding that the Re- mans confounded them with the Gauls, because, in the time of Marius, it was thought to be the greater honour to vanquish them, arid they were encountered on the west side of the Rhine. In Britain, the former were the Gwyddel Coch, or Ywerdon, the red Gael of Ire- land, probably the Dalriads noticed in the third cen- tury again, of the same nation as the yellow haired Britons, taller than the Italian race, seen at Rome by Strabo, and still distinguished by the bard of Malcolm III. in 1057. These no doubt were the Celto Scythae of earlier antiquity, little if at all to be divided from the Finnic Celts, but more distinct from the Getic tribes, who are often noticed in antiquity, as milk eat- ing and western Scythee, residing between the Danube and the Tanais or Don, at the time the eastern Getse, or Massagetse, the Sakas and Sarmatae, were on tbe plains northward of the Caspian, and along the Oxus and Jaxartes, up to High Asia, and the Yuchi (Yuei- chi), were still in the present Mongolia. This appears to have been that period when the great conflict of the typical races was at its height, in Northern Central Asia; for the Chinese were then building the Great Wall (B. C. 223) to exclude these valiant tribes from their southern states, and the Persian monarchs were THE HUMAN SPECIES. 443 equally anxious to prevent them penetrating to the south, since they also had raised a great wall, or conti- nuous lines of defence, from Bactria to the Caspian, a rampart like the Kizil Alan, most likely older than the accession of the Sassanian dynasty ; since further west, the wall between the two seas, passing from Derbend (Porta portarum, Portse Caspiae) to the Euxine, appears also to be more ancient than his- torical record. The Yuei-chi, the last Caucasian race that left the north central high land of Asia, being pressed by the Mongolians, or by Huns from the north-east (about 200 B. C.), were compelled to quit Chensi, and fell upon the Sai, or Sakas, who, retreating, divided into two great masses, whereof the first directed its course towards the west, and the other, not quite so nume- rous, fell back upon Southern Thibet, and thence came down upon the Greek Bactrian state (B. C. 90), then ruled by Mithridates. They had, at the same time, similar conflicts with the Parthians, whose king, Ar- taban, they slew. They gave an asylum to Sanotrokes, and restored him to power (B. C. 76), From Bactria they crossed the Paropamissus, and subdued another Greek sovereignty in Affghanistan, on the south side of the chain. Passing onwards, they formed a pro- vince of Scinde ; but, in an attempt to penetrate further eastward, they were routed by Vikra-maditya, king of Avanti (B. C. 56). If not from an earlier invasion, it was, at the latest, in consequence of this defeat, that 444 NATURAL HISTORY OF the recoiling ScythaB were supplied with the Hindoo religious elements, which some of the tribes, migrating westward, have evidently mixed up with Celtic and Finnic legends in the north of Europe. We do not, for example, find the Asii, here called Lazi, to have possessed the doctrines recorded in the Edda. When, according to the Chinese annals, they were opposing the Tatzin or the Romans, in their endeavours to open a trade with China, for which purpose, "being hindered on land, they sent an ambassador by sea to the Celes- tial Empire, in the reign of a sovereign, denominated " Anton," i. e. Marcus Aurelius Antoninus. While they were still residing on the Caspian, and when they began to form a strong community on the banks of the Borysthenes, Thorgitaus, their chief divinity, is not represented with characters suited to the high nor- thern latitude, where Thor and Woden are afterwards made to operate in a manner congenial with the cli- mate. If the city Asgard, once existing near Azof, at the mouth of the Don, was the representative of the first abode commemorated in the north, then the Asii possessed at that point an intermediate resting place, so that from their first known station within the high table land of Asia, above the southern sources of the Jaxartes, they moved gradually to the south through Sogdiana, across the Paropamissus, and then westward, to the three stations already indicated, before they or a clan of this people again returned to the north, pro- bably by ascending the Borysthenes, and halting some THE HUMAN SPECIES. 445 time about the lake of Ladoga, made that water a sacred centre, until they migrated to Scandinavia. The Getae, found by Ovid occupying the west coast of the Euxine, were then already a century in moving onwards towards the north-west of Europe, taking again the great rivers of the present Poland to reach the Baltic. With the Thuringians and Saxons, or Sacasunen, among them, they forced their way to the German Ocean, dislodging the Cymbers, excepting remnants that clung to the swamps, and the then sub- merging islands of the deltas formed by the great rivers which discharge their waters into the German Ocean. They were most likely the subsequent Friesen and Si-Cambers, or Water Cymbers, who, with other tribes of so called Germanii, formed the posterior offensive confederacy of the Franks (Freye-Anke) ; among these the clan of Merovingians (Meervingen), notwithstanding that the site they inhabited is pointed out to have been on the Merwe in Holland, seems nevertheless to indicate a clan of sea rovers, whose first intelligible historical chief, Pharamund (Vaare- mund), or commander of the navigation, had performed some great exploit in the then fresh career of distant marine expeditions, such as that of plundering and ravaging the coasts of Africa and Spain. They and "tfieir chief may perhaps refer to the remarkable escape of the Frankish exiled prisoners, who, in A.D. 280, seized upon shipping on the coasts of the Euxine, and forced their way homeward, plundering Syracuse and 446 NATURAL niSTOKY OF the coasts of Gaul and Spain, until they reached the mouth of the Rhine in safety, and loaded with "booty. This event may be the basis of the mystical legend of the Bristly Bull monster, which rose out of the sea, and became the parent of the Borstigen, Meringauen, or Meeringen ; for it explains how a daring, rich, and victorious body of Celto Scythae and Finni of the west, being moulded into one united companionship by mis- fortune and by success, replete with the experience of their adventurous achievement, and possessed of cap- tive wives and slaves from highly civilized nations, should have grasped power at home, and given that settled purpose of conquest to these restless tribes, which, until then, had been only known as the mere maraudings of pirates. By the departure of the Franks eastward and across the Rhine, and of the Saxons and Angles to Britain, room was made for other tribes, who either wanted space on the spot, or were daily pressing onwards through the swamps and forests of Poland and Russia. We shall not relate the great influx of them before and with the Huns, and of numerous Finnic and Getic nations from the east, among which the eastern and western Goths were the most conspicuous. Like se- veral others, they had struck upon the shores of the southern Baltic, and then found they must turn to the soutn. They or similar migratory bands compelled Alans, Vandals, Burgundians, &c., to precede or to follow them, and to produce that remarkable cross THE HUMAN 8l-*JJIfiS. 44J migration from north to south, which caused the intimate mixture of the fair and dark haired races in middle and southern Europe, and in the end effected that thorough civilization of the whole, on principles of progression, continuing to develope science with daily increasing rapidity, and tending shortly to em- brace the whole earth. Though many of the parent races of nations now remaining were without letters, or were possessed of valuable elements of knowledge in a very circum- scribed degree, there existed among them all, at a period much earlier than is often allowed, a method of embodying (it is true commonly under symbolical ex- pressions) records of national belief, manners, and events, which give occasional light, sufficient to rectify the scanty data of the later classical writers, and the documents contained in the acts of the earlier ages of Christianity. These most ancient national legends are poems, in various forms, and often in some part religious. They are reports, such as Yirgil knew, and interwove in his .ZEneid, concerning the tribes of Latium, and Strabo asserts were possessed by the Iberians. They were recitals committed to memory, like the Homeric poems, preserved from one genera- tion to another by repetition, with an exactness, all things considered, wonderfully permanent. Thus the Gael of the Scottish Highlands, and northern Irish, have recorded the poems of Ossian, now thoroughly proved to be genuine. Such are the thirty cantos of 448 NATURAL HISTORY OF the Finnic Kalewalla, lately brought to light, the nu- merous Scandinavian Sagas, and the two Eddas. Even the British Celtic legends of Arthur, the Mabinogion, and the poems of Taliesin and Aneurim, have now likewise established their degree of authenticity, as well as the first part of the Arabic Antar. Among the Teutonic tribes, the staves of the Gehugende, according to Jahn, marked on wood, in Runic letters, contained the tribal reminiscences, whence the earliest monkish annalists have drawn a great part of their first historical materials. The Heldenbuch, and Nie- belungen-noth, were most likely preserved by their help. The last mentioned may, however, be of Franco- Theotisk origin, since four or six pages, in the Flemish language, of the twelfth century, have been lately dis- covered at Ghent. It is to be regretted, that many stores of early in- formation have been neglected. The list of classical (Greek and Latin) writers which have perished since the thirteenth century, is sufficiently extensive. That of indigenous chronicles, annals, and legends, espe- cially in the north of Europe, since the same period, is even more considerable. Some few may yet remain unknown ; and though the general history of events may not be greatly impaired, we still have to deplore the loss of much that concerns the nationality, the manners, opinions, and traditions of our remoter an- cestors, which, after all, are quite as valuable, nay, even more so, than the commemoration of crime and THE HUMAN SPECIES. 449 barbarity which has been preserved. Of the class we mean, there are still a few remaining, which, although they be distorted by ill directed zeal, by imposture, and by ignorance, furnish curious hints in their way. Such, for example, is the song of the Lombards, also known as that of the Ost and West Friesen or Prisons, found by Mr. Bonstetten, at Copenhagen. In the Land-urbar, or Costumier of the Bernese Swiss, there is likewise a legendary record of the fair haired tribes of Ober-Hasli, Schwytz, Gessenay, and Bellegarde, printed as early as 1507, by Etterlin, in the chronicles of Lucerne. The Song of Hasli, of about 180 stanzas, relates the migration of these clans, their battles, and tneir arrival near the Brochenberg, where they built 8ohwytz ; and it appears, they fought in the cause of Arcadius and Honorius, about the year 387. Here we terminate this inquiry into the origin and filiation of the races of Man — a subject, zoologically viewed, we thought more novel, than to repeat what has already been said by other writers, and especially by Dr. Prichard, with his accustomed industry and learning. As for us, compelled, for want of space, to abstain from entering into many important particulars, which would be more necessary for the elucidation of the ge- neral theory now advanced, if readers were not now very commonly well informed on most of the points brought here under consideration. Want of space 450 THE NATURAL HISTORY OF, &c. compelled us, from the beginningi to mass our super- abundant materials into groups, which, on many occa- sions, may appear too much generalized, and on others marked with repetitions, which sometimes we thought requisite, to refresh the memory of the reader. The basis of the questions chiefly investigated, was laid in a series of lectures on the same subject, read to the Plymouth Institution, between the years 1832 and 1837. The materials were exclusively sought for in scientific researches and profane history ; and the suc- cessive discoveries and conclusions of other writers since that period, have, in general, strongly supported the main points of our own convictions, to which we attach no further personal importance, than what con- tinued research will disprove, or in due time assent to, when the basis of several conclusions offered in these pages will have acquired more ample notoriety and consequent solidity. APPENDIX. IT was intended, when the foregoing work was first in progress, to have thrown into an Appendix such additional observations as might be thought important, or that had escaped notice in their proper places, and to add to them the discoveries which might have become known during the progress of publication; but finding the text already greatly to exceed the usual limits of the single volume allowed for the discussion of the questions we have had to consider, the objects to have come under notice were reluctantly abandoned, or confined to the smallest space, s Thus, on the article Indus, p. 29-32, recent discoveries of more than one ancient bed of the river have been made considerably further to the eastward than what were known, and the conjectures respecting the original course of the river to the sea, in the Gulf of Cutch, are strength- ened. Respecting the abrasion of the west coast of India, p. 32-33, might be mentioned Calicut, the capital city at the time of the Portuguese conquest, but now sunk beneath the sea. With regard to the various levels between the Caspian Sea, the uplands of Russia, and Poland, p. 46-51, we may 452 APPENDIX. remark, that the fall of the rivers opening in the Volga is 110 feet, those that are affluents to the Neva fall 445 feet, making a total of 555 ; now, adding this total to the surface of the Caspian, there appears to be only 200 feet remaining for the culminating ground at the sources of the Volga; but if these are estimated on measurement based in error, and we make the elevation to be about 700 feet at the high- lands of Vologda ; still taking the lowest level between the Euxine and the Baltic to be in a line of latitude 58, the waters of the two were of no dissimilar height, while the Gulf of Bothnia was still an open strait, and the northern portion of the Old Continent had not as yet commenced rising. It appears that Norwegian Lapland has risen 1800 feet in the last 1200 years. At page 58, note, we should have added, that even the byssus of the pinna was not destroyed. Page 76-78, the volcanic disturbances of the Red Sea were again in operation in the last or in the present year (1847) when a new island rose above the surface in the southern portion. The French survey, for a canal between Suez and Lake Mensaleh, recently published, likewise countenances the opinion, that the isthmus was originally open. Page 90. Among others, is the tale of Moshup, the giant spirit, who resided at Nop, now Martha's Vineyard, at a time when the currents ran differently, and ice used to pack about Nantucket shoals. But better evidence is found in the researches of Mr. Lyell, who considers the south-eastern portion of the United States, about Savannah, to be sub- siding, while Canada, and latterly Nova Scotia, are shown APPENDIX. 453 to be rising, probably in the same ratio as the Arctic regions on the Old Continent. Page 96, the human bones first discovered in England were in fissures of lime rock : they went to mend the high- way, and no investigation by competent persons took place until long after. A similar fate attended the discovery of a completely fossilized human body at Gibraltar, in 1743. The fact is related in a manuscript note, inserted in a copy of the dissertation on the antiquity of the earth, by the Rev. James Douglass, read at the Royal Society, May 12, 1785. The volume belonged to the late Rev. Vyvyan Arundel, while he was still at Exeter College, Oxford, and the note, signed J. W., is written on paper, by the water mark indicating about the year 1 790. In substance it re- lates, that while the writer was himself at Gibraltar, some miners employed to blow up rocks, for the purpose of rais- ing batteries, about 50 feet above the level of the sea, on the higher ground, near the Old Mole, they discovered an appearance of a human body, which—impatient because the officer to whom notice was sent of the object, did not come to witness it— they blew up. It was reported to have been eight feet and a half long. Several of the pieces were taken up, and among them part of a thigh bone, " with flesh, and I thought an appearance of veins, all in a state of perfect petrifaction, as hard as marble itself ; and in the solid part of the same stone a sea shell." It is evident, that if this body was fossilized by the infusion of stalactite matter, it must still have been of most remote antiquity. Page 97-103.— We refer to Mr. LyelPs account of the human remains brought from South America, where, among others, he notices a skull, taken from among a great number of other remains, out of a sandstone rock, now overgrown 454 APPENDIX. with very large trees, in the vicinity of Santas, in Brazil. He avows an opinion, that the locality may have been an Indian burying-ground, which subsequently sank beneath the level of the sea, and then was hove up again. Now, if this theory be admitted, and it is coupled with the growth of large trees above the deposit, to what period can it be assigned, when we reflect, that the bones of pachyderms, and of a species of extinct horse, both confessedly found in alluvial, must be of a more recent period. Page 450. — With regard to the Slavi, which might have been noticed as the last migrating nation that came from the East to Europe, they were omitted, because no detail could be given even of the little that is known of them. In structure and intellectual capacity they are so like their immediate predecessors, the Goths, that no other sensible difference is observable between them, than that they have even a still greater predominance of Sanscrit roots in their language, and that there are other evidences which lead to a presumption of their route westward having been in part to the south of the Caspian. An instance of the highest intellectual development, in the frontal form of the head, is given in the Plates. EXPLANATION OF THE PLATES. PLATE I. Beginning with the most aberrant forms, we have the American, whereof the Aturian Palta or Titicaca Flat- heads form the type. It is so distinct, that its having a common origin with the forms of the Old Continent is not satisfactorily established, since the oblique headed Peru- vian, and the depressed headed Chinook are mere artificial imitations of the typical head. That this is not itself the result of contrivance, is exemplified in the figure of a Titi- caca child's head of perhaps the fifth year, which is greatly prolonged, yet less so than another in positive infancy. Both have the orbits more solid than heads of the same age on the eastern continent, and the older of the two pre- sents the additional bone (os incse) at the back of the head. The oblique headed Peruvian shows its resemblance to Asiatic figures to be noticed in the sequel. PLATE II. Offers specimens of the woolly haired type, the ver- tical view of a Negro's skull, pointing out the small com- parative breadth to the depth, and the projection of the face approaching the Titicaca form. Both have the frontal bone carried high up the dome, though not in the same 456 EXPLANATION OF THE PLATES. degree. There is no very striking difference between the skulls of the west and east coast of Africa. Those of Oriental Negroes, and even of Horafouros, who are not an unmixed race, have the same typical structure, though more debased ; the Tasmanian being the lowest, with perhaps the exception of the Bushman. PLATE III. Of the beardless type, may be observed the shorter and more quadrangular cranial form, with still some facial protrusion ; and, in the most northern partially mixed races, the very contracted occiput is remarkable. PLATE IV. Shows the regular oval form of the most intellectual type : more breadth of forehead ; prolonged expansion back- wards, and nearly vertical facial angle. The regular dome, as seen in the finest races of mankind — ancient Egyptians, Hebrews, Greeks, Circassians, and Arabs. In most Euro- pean, a slight modification from a Finnic source may be traced. PLATE V. Represents two heads of princes, taken from Bactrian coins, one evidently a portrait of true Mongolic sovereigns, whose forms do not occur in Western High Asia till after the Christian era, and the other of Hunnic or Finnic Kings, likewise of Bactria, who have the occiput flattened like No. 3, taken from a Mexican bas-relief, and features of the same class as those of occasional high-nosed American Indians of the present day, like No. 4. EXPLANATION OF THE PLATES. 457 PLATE VI. Two profiles of Asiatic Acephali, one of the woolly haired type, remarkable for the receding forehead, is taken from Egyptian paintings at Kalaptche ; the other from a modern Kurd. [This Plate is united with No. 8.] PLATE VII. Proves the typical identity of the Oriental Negro with those of Mozambique and Guinea. PLATE VIII. The elevating process, which intermixture with Cauca- sians effects, is here exemplified, for the mulatto offspring of a first interunion has the features very nearly European. The mestizo daughter of a mulatto woman has the profile quite vertical, the hair, from nearly woolly, only crisped ; and, in the third degree, the quartroon, the features are refined and the hair simply curling. All these were copied from silhouettes, taken by means of shadow from the liv- ing subjects. PLATE IX. Exhibits profiles of Indo-Chinese, or the sub-type of what we take to be the Malay races, where, in the vertical profile of one, we have a Caucasian predominance, in the other two, more Papua blood— all in some degree partaking of the Negro colouring, but with the hard black straight hair of a Mongolic intermixture. In the Australasian Islands, many customs remain, which attest that a portion 458 EXPLANATION OF THE PLATES. of the American people derives its origin from them: for among their paintings and carved work, representing gods and heroes, we see personages dancing with human heads slung to the waist, like modern Dyaks ; we observe ensigns of feathers, stuck in sheaths at the back, like the Malays of Java; and masks, tomahawks, shields, sword handles, and spears adorned, in a similar manner, with human hair and tufts of feathers. We refer to the figures in Captain Keppel's voyage, and in the late Dutch pub- lications on their Indian possessions. PLATE X. The character of lank hair is universal in the beard- less races, and the presence of Caucasian blood scarcely marked by a somewhat more ruddy complexion, and slight beard in the Niuchi, Mongol, and Eleuth. PLATE XI. Yet the eyes of Kinto Moey and Yuchi clans, remain- ing in the north-east of China and Tahtary, as well as their occasional ample beards, prove that they are Caucasians, with but little adulteration of Mongolic blood ; for those from Canton, northward and westward, have the gland of the eye covered by the lid and eyelash turning over it, which increases to its maximum among the black Kalmucks, whose eyes are turned obliquely downwards more than any other race, and whose skin is not yellow but ashy. PLATE XII. Reverting to the Caucasian type, we here give three antique profiles of the high nosed or conquering variety of EXPLANATION OF THE PLATES. 459 the bearded stock: — 1. Taken from an Egyptian mummy, evidently not of the Memphian people, for that is clearly exhibited in the head of another mummy, figured by Mr. Pettigrew. 2. Is an Assyrian, taken from the bas-reliefs of Nineveh; and 3, From a relief at Nakshi Rustum, re- presenting an ancient Persian. The same characteristic aspect is likewise predominant in Thraco-Pelasgian, espe- cially Etrusco-Roman heads. PLATE XIII. Exemplifies an abnormal family of tribes. We figure a Bushman, once a private soldier in the Cape Rifles, and a young woman servant, of the same race ; both, like all the Hottentot nations, are known by their pale yellow colour. They are from drawings of Captain Nelson, R. E. PLATE XIV. Cutthroak, a, man and a woman of Fernando Po, ap- parently of Guanche race, both from drawings of the late Captain Filmore, R. N. PLATE XV. A Nubian young woman, from a drawing by a British Officer ; and an Ababdi Arab or rather Nubian. Both re- present the ancient Nubian race, but further deteriorated by Negro interunion. PLATE XVI. Cafuse Brazilian; hybrid between Negro and Cayopa tribe of Indian blood, compared with a Jamaule Negro of 460 EXPLANATION OF THE PLATES. Cape Gardafui, in Eastern Africa, where an Arab inter- mixture produces the same external aspect. It occurs again among the Mekran Ethiops, and among the Malay Papuas of the Indian Ocean. PLATE XVII. Papua of New Holland, as an example of mere brutal development; and Grant, a Jamaica Maroon chief, who, notwithstanding the low sensual aspect of the mouth, was a man of excellent qualities. Taken from life. PLATE XVIII. Man and woman of the Garrow nation, east of the Brahmaputra— Indo-China. PLATE XIX. A native of Malicolo, and Elau, Papua Malay girl of Tikiene, an island of cannibals. She was rescued by Mr. George Bennet, and brought to Plymouth, where she died. They are both remarkable for height of forehead, a feature which recurs again among natives of the north- west coast of America. PLATE XX. Te-Kewiti, a New Zealand chief, showing in conduct, reasoning, and person, high Caucasian development; and another, as clearly having Papua features. Yet this last mentioned person, worked his passage to England, for the purpose of obtaining corn seed and vegetable produce, be- fore any British settlers had begun to reside on the island. EXPLANATION OF THE PLATES. 461 His profile was drawn by the late M. Agasse. The two figures confirm, that two distinct races existed there anterior to the European discovery. PLATE XXI. If the natives of Gilolo are Horafouras, the figure here given most assuredly indicates, that among them there is a great intermixture of Malay, if not of more positively Caucasian blood in the population, which is tattooed like the other superior races of the South Seas. The second is an Edjow Galla, bearing the impress of Arabian, with but scanty Negro intermixture ; that is, a melanic Ethiop., PLATE XXII. Portrait of a Fuegian, drawn at Plymouth, in his sailor's dress. He might have been taken for a Malay. The other, a Patagonian of Cape Gregory, shows the same cast of features in excess. PLATE XXIII. North American Indians, from the Travels of Prince Maximilian of Wied. The Oto chief, in particular, resem- bles the high nosed bas-relief figures of Mexico and of PLATE AA.it. Other North Americans of the interior tribes, near the Ilocky Mountains. 462 EXPLANATION OF THE PLATES. PLATE XXV. Tribes bordering on the Rocky Mountains : the Cluche in particular, is strongly marked with Mongolic characters. He was sketched at New York. PLATE XXVI. Portrait of Montezuma and of Cu-sick, a Tuscarora Baptist preacher, produced as evidence of the fact, that civilized costume and mental development, efface much of the distinctive characters of nations. PLATE XXVII. Portraits of Mongolic races : the Nogai Tahtar bearing the characteristics of his type much more strongly than the Chinese. PLATE XXVIII. The Black Kalmuck most strongly marked with t&e Mongolic character; and a Japanese prize-fighter, with broad but receding forehead. PLATE XXIX. More northern Mongols, showing a commencing Tschutski or Finnic intermixture. EXPLANATION OF THE PLATES. 463 PLATE XXX. The diminutive Laplander of Norway, similarly marked with Finnic interunion. PLATE XXXI. Esquimaux of Arctic America, with the same charac- teristics. PLATE XXXII. Portrait of Mohammed II., showing the Turkish Ouralian character, before the race was as yet much intermixed with Circassian and Greek blood. That of Nadir Shah, equally betrays the presence of Caucasian intermixture. PLATE XXXIII. Both the Yuchi-Mantchou Mandarin, copied from a Chinese picture, and the Miao-tze Mountaineer of southern China, sketched from one slain in the late war against the British, sufficiently prove, by their eyes and beards, that thev were nearly pure Caucasians. PLATE XXXIV. The forehead of the Sarmatian noble is the maximum instance of external mental development. It is the same character that distinguishes the portraits of Wallenstein and other Bohemian and Polish heads. The Seapush 464 EXPLANATION OF TUB PLATES. Kaufir, is evidence, that the original locality, in High Asia, of the most intellectual or typical race of Caucasians, was in the vicinity of the summits of Bolor Tagh, in Badak- shan, and spread thence, with little interruption, in a wes- tern direction, to the east coast of France, and is greatly intermixed in all the highly civilized nations of mankind. VIGNETTE. Blackfoot Indian, taken from Prince Maximilian of Wied's magnificent Atlas of Plates, illustrative of the North American Indian Tribes and Scenery. i. OQUEJJ ASD CO., I>BI2fIEBS, 172, SI. JOHlf SIBILET, E.G. AMERICAN TYPE. MONGOLE . VHRTICAJ. JSPJ-:< •/: FEGEE ISLANDS MONGOL ANI> FLATHEAP PRINCES OF BACTRIA I'LATHEAD AND HIGH NOSED RACES OF MEXICO. /m 6*8 FROM KALABSHE. A MODERN KOORDE. ^NIVEESI;TYJ- Jf~ CHINESE OF l\\ MTOX. N.E .CAUCASIAN. BLACK KALMUCK. 1 ,£•' -.'i &" -V.;- ••--, \ ''" 51 ABNORMAL RACE. WSHMAX (VIKL. GUANCHE RACE. WOMAN OF D9 (TTTHKf \ I Renuetdo ETHIOh-iAN MIXED ABABDE NUBIAN ARAB. ((..UKIVERS11 •lAMAl'LE NKGUO OF CAPE GARDAKt' I , AFRICA. or XC MARE OF THE GWEA-GAL TRIBE, CALLED BULLDOG AT SYDNEY. OR AST, CTtAHI.KSTO'S MAKOO.XS. /'///• nt* tfiiw /('///< .ili>n- 'Hurt- ivt INDO-CHINA. GARROWS. 18 1 POLYNESIANS WITH ELEVATED FOREHEADS. 19 NATIVE OF MAUCOLO. NEW ZEALAND. TE KEWITI. SON OF TE KAUWAIN. Young Chief of the-Nffoie. Watuaj. AUSTRAL MIXED RACE. I NDO-MALAY. x.vnvK OF GILO UNIVERSITY .) 26 MONCOLIC RACES MONCOLES 28 IA.PANKSK I'KIXK FIGHTER MONGOLIC RACE. 29 30 HYPERBOREANS OR FINNS. UNIVE HYPERBOREANS OR FINNS. .ESQl'IMAKX OF PRINCE KEGEST'S BAY. KSoriMAlX WOMAN, JACOB'S -BIGHT. CAUCASIAN TAHTARS. 32 MOHAMMED 11. :NADIE-S:HAHORTHAMAS KOULI KHAN. UNI C4LIFC CAUCASO-MONGOLES. 33 YITH I - MAKTCHOU MAN DAK I X . CAUCASIAN RACE. 54 GREATEST DEVELOPEMENT _ SLAVONIC XOBI.E. TYI'ir \l. STOCK SJAIVTII KArFJI! OFH1<",]1 ASIA. 26679 QL J-t