XIII.] THE CAUCASIC PEOPLES. 499 



characteristics large hooked nose, prominent watery eyes, thick 

 pendulous and almost everted under lip, rough frizzly lustreless 

 hair are sufficiently general to be regarded as racial traits. 



The race is richly endowed with the most varied qualities, as 

 shown by the whole tenour of their history. Originally pure 

 nomads, they became excellent agriculturists after the settlement 

 in Canaan, and since then they have given proof of the highest 

 capacity for science, letters, erudition of all kinds, finance, music, 

 and diplomacy. The reputation of the medieval Arabs as restorers 

 of learning is largely due to their wise tolerance of the enlightened 

 Jewish communities in their midst, and on the other hand Spain 

 and Portugal have never recovered from the national loss sustained 

 by the expulsion of the Jews in the i4th and i5th centuries. In 

 late years the persecutions, especially in Russia, have caused a 

 fresh exodus from the east of Europe, and by the aid of philan- 

 thropic capitalists flourishing agricultural settlements have been 

 founded in Palestine and Argentina. From statistics taken in 

 various places since 1880 the Jewish communities are at present 

 estimated at about 6,500,000, of whom 5,500,000 are in Europe, 

 420,000 in Africa, 250,000 in Asia, the rest in America and 

 Australia. 



Intimately associated with all these Aramaic and Canaanitic 

 Semites were a mysterious people who have been 



. , . r , . . ,-_ . , - ~ The Hittites. 



identified with the H n fifes of Scripture, and to 

 whom this name has been extended by common consent. 

 They are also identified with the Kheta of the Egyptian monu- 

 ments', as well as with the Khatti of the Assyrian cuneiform texts. 

 Indeed all these are, without any clear proof, assumed to be the 

 same people, and to them are ascribed a considerable number 

 of stones, cylinders, and gems from time to time picked up at 

 various points between the Middle Euphrates and the Mediter- 

 ranean, engraved in a kind of hieroglyphic or rather pictorial 



1 First mentioned in Gen. xxv. 9: "Zohar the Hittite." 



2 This identification is based en "the casts of Hittite profiles made by 

 Petrie from the Egyptian monuments. The profiles are peculiar, unlike those of 

 any other people represented by the Egyptian artists, but they are identical 

 with the profiles which occur among the Hittite hieroglyphs" (A. H. Sayce, 

 Acad. Sept. 1894, p. 259). 



32 2 



