THE ARYANS IN SCIENCE AND HISTORY. 675 



for breakfast. As wild fruits and edible roots also abound along 

 this coast, affording abundant nutriment at all seasons, it is not 

 surprising tliat several peculiar linguistic stocks among the 

 American languages appear to have originated in that genial re- 

 gion — just as others are found under similar conditions along the 

 coast of California. There is, therefore, nothing improbable in 

 the supposition that the first Aryan family — the orphan children, 

 perhaps, of Semitic or Accadian fugitives from Arabia or Meso- 

 potamia — grew up and framed their new language on the south- 

 ern seaboard of Persia. As the number of their descendants in- 

 creased, they would naturally spread northward over the province 

 of Fars, and thence into the wide regions bounded by the Tigris, 

 the Indus, and the Oxus, which we have recognized as the primi- 

 tive seat of the Aryan power. 



In pursuing our inquiry into the distinctive characteristics of 

 this race it will not be necessary to resort to many authorities. 

 All the important evidence has been carefully brought together 

 by Prof. Rawlinson in his well-known work, " The Seven Great 

 Monarchies of the Ancient Eastern World." His lucid summa- 

 ries are fortified by numerous references, and his conclusions are 

 confirmed in the main by every writer who has treated on the 

 subject. As regards the physical traits of the race, he presents us 

 (in the third chapter of his history of the "Median Empire") 

 with a picture which, according to our ideas, is highly prepossess- 

 ing. • " The general physical character of the ancient Aryan race," 

 he observes, "is best gathered from the sculptures of the Achse- 

 menian kings, which exhibit to us a very noble variety of the 

 human species — a form tall, graceful, and stately ; a physiognomy 

 handsome and pleasing, often somewhat resembling the Greek; 

 the forehead high and straight ; the nose nearly in the same line, 

 long and well formed, sometimes markedly aquiline; the upper 

 lip short, commonly shaded by a mustache ; the chin rounded and 

 generally covered with a curly beard. The hair evidently grew 

 in great plenty, and the race was proud of it." The color of the 

 skin can not be determined from this source ; but from other au- 

 thorities and from the descriptions of ancient travelers we learn 

 that it varied, and still varies, much as in central and southern 

 Europe, from a fair and almost blond hue, with blue or gray 

 eyes, in the northern highlands, to a clear brunette in central Per- 

 sia, and an almost negro swarthiness along the torrid shores of 

 the Persian Gulf. The Aryan complexion yields readily to cli- 

 matic influences, and those who think they find the primitive type 

 of the race solely in that small fraction of it which offers us fair 

 skins, blue eyes, and flaxen hair, assuredly fail to observe in an- 

 thropology the rules of evidence which govern inquiries in every 

 other branch of science. 



