5<32 MAN : PAST AND PRESENT. [CHAP. 



modern Bedouin skulls, so that we must consider the modern 

 Bedouins as pure descendants of the old Semitic race. They 

 have long narrow heads, dark complexion, and a short, small and 

 straight nose, which is in every respect the direct counterpart of 

 what we are accustomed to call a 'typical Jewish race 1 '. 



Elsewhere Iberia, Sicily, Malta 2 , Irania, Central Asia, Ma- 

 laysia the Arab invaders have failed to preserve either their 

 speech or their racial individuality. In some places (Spain, 

 Portugal, Sicily) they have disappeared altogether, leaving no- 

 thing behind them beyond some slight linguistic traces, and the 

 monuments of their wonderful architecture, crumbling Alhambras 

 or stupendous mosques re-consecrated as Christian temples. But 

 in the eastern lands their influence is still felt by multitudes, who 

 profess Islam and use the Arabic script in writing their Persian, 

 Turki, or Malay languages, because some centuries ago those 

 regions were swept by a tornado of rude Bedouin fanatics, or 

 else visited by peaceful traders and missionaries from the Arabian 

 peninsula. 



The monotheism proclaimed by these zealous preachers is 



often spoken of as a special inheritance of the 

 Monotheism. Semitic peoples, or at least already possessed by 



them at such an early period in their life-history 

 as to seem inseparable from their very being. But it was not so. 

 Before the time of Allah or of Yahveh every hill-top had its 

 tutelar deity ; the caves and rocks and the very atmosphere 

 swarmed with " jins " ; Assyrian and Phoenician pantheons, 

 with their Baals, and Molochs, and Astartes and Adonais, were 

 as thickly peopled as those of the Hellenes and Hindus, and 

 in this, as in all other natural systems of belief, the mono- 

 theistic concept was gradually evolved by a slow process of 

 elimination. Nor was the process perfected by all the Semitic 

 peoples Canaanites, Assyrians, Amorites, Phoenicians, and others 

 having always remained at the polytheistic stage but only by the 

 Hebrews and the Arabs, the two more richly endowed members 



1 Science, Jan. 12, 1894. 



2 The rude Semitic dialect still current in this island appears to be 

 fundamentally Phoenician (Carthaginian), later affected by Arabic and Italian 

 influences. (M. Mizzi, A Voice from Malta, 1896, passim.} 



