92 MUTUAL RELATIONS OF THE HUMAN FAMILY. 



94. The Syro-Arabian nations, distinguished from all others by their very 

 peculiar idiom, originally inhabited the region of Asia intermediate between 

 the countries of the Indo-European and of the Egyptian races ; having as its 

 centre the region watered by the great rivers of Mesopotamia. Several of the 

 nations originally constituting this group have become extinct, or nearly so ; 

 and the Arabs, which originally formed but one subdivision of it, have now 

 become the dominant race, not only throughout the ancient domain of the 

 Syro-Arabian nations, but also in Northern Africa. In the opinion of Baron 

 Larrey, who had ample opportunities for observation, the skulls of the Arabian 

 race furnish, at present, the most complete type of the human head ; and he 

 considered the remainder of the physical frame as equally distinguished by 

 its superiority to that of other races of men. The different tribes of Arabs 

 present very great diversities of colour, which are generally found to coincide 

 with variations in climate. Thus the Shegya Arabs, and others living on the 

 low countries bordering on the Nile, are of a dark-brown or even black hue ; 

 but even when quite jetty, they are distinguished from the Negro races by 

 the brightness of their complexions, by the length and straightness of their 

 hair, and by the regularity of their features. The same may be said of the 

 wandering Arabs of Northern Africa ; but the influence of climate and cir- 

 cumstances is still more strongly marked in some of the tribes long settled in 

 that region, whose descent may be traced to a distinct branch of the Syro- 

 Arabian stock, namely, the Berber, to which belong the Kabyles of Algiers 

 and Tunis, the Tuaryks of Sahara, antl the Guanches or ancient population 

 of the Canary Isles. Amongst these tribes, whose affinity is indisputably 

 traceable through their very remarkable language, every gradation may be 

 seen, from the intense blackness of the Negro skin, to the more swarthy hue 

 of the inhabitants of the South of Europe. It is remarkable that some of the 

 Tuaryk inhabitants of particular Oases in the great desert, who are almost as 

 insulated from communication with other races as are the inhabitants of 

 islands in a wide ocean, have hair and features that approach those of the 

 Negroes ; although they speak the Berber language with such purity, as to 

 forbid the idea of the introduction of these characters by an intermixture of 

 races. The Jews, who are the only remnants now existing of the once pow- 

 erful Phoenician tribe, and who are now dispersed through nearly every coun- 

 try on the face of the earth, present a similar diversity; having gradually 

 assimilated in physical characters to the nations among which they have so 

 long resided ( 80). 



95. The affinity of the Indo-European nations, now spread from the 

 mouth of the Ganges to the British Islands and the Northern extremity of 

 Scandinavia, is in like manner proved by the cognate character of their lan- 

 guages ; in spite of the differences in colour and other traits, which present 

 themselves among the inhabitants of that vast tract. The type of physical 

 configuration, however, is the same ; and the differences of colour are such, 

 as may readily be traced to external agencies. Thus among the Hindoo 

 races we find that the distinction of castes (perpetuating the same mode of life 

 in particular families from generation to generation), the marked differences 

 of climate (as between the mountainous regions of Kashmir and Kafiristan, 

 and the plains bordering the great rivers of India), and other circumstances, 

 are accompanied, as in the case of the Arabian race, with diversities in phy- 

 sical conformation, which are now established as belonging to different sections 

 of the people. In many instances, the origin of these varieties can be clearly 

 traced by historical evidence, as well as by affinities of language and con- 

 formation ; and it cannot be questioned, that Hindoos as black as Negroes, 

 others of a copper-colour, others little darker than the inhabitants of Southern 

 Europe, and others of fair complexion with blue eyes and auburn or even red 



