68o THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



islands, belonged apparently to that branch which is variously- 

 styled Hamitic, Proto-Semitic, Libyan, and North African. Issu- 

 ing probably from Asia in the earliest ages, it peopled Egypt and 

 Barbary, and made its way even to the Canary Islands. That it 

 spread northward at various points across the Mediterranean there 

 can hardly be a doubt. Its purest modern representatives are 

 the Berbers, the hardy mountaineers of the Atlas range, of feat- 

 ures and complexion almost European, and in character possess- 

 ing precisely the traits which the Aryans lacked. This character 

 can not be better shown than by copying the concise description 

 given by Dr. Topinard in his "Anthropology." Of the Berber, 

 regarded as the type of this race, he says : " A lively sentiment of 

 equality, of charity, of his own dignity and of his personal lib- 

 erty, a great desire for activity, love of labor, economy, attach- 

 ment to his home, are his moral characteristics." All these traits 

 appear in those most famous members of the Proto-Semitic stock, 

 the ancient Egyptians, and with them a love of science and art 

 and a strong inclination for literary production. Such, appar- 

 ently, were the people in Greece and the adjacent islands and 

 coast-lands of the Mediterranean, on whom the Aryans imposed 

 their government and language and certain traits of their charac- 

 ter How large an element of the Hellenic people this aboriginal 

 population contributed is shown by the language. In that, as in 

 all mixed tongues, the grammar is mainly from one source ; it is 

 almost purely Aryan. But the vocabulary shows a large infusion 

 of words which can not possibly have come from any other 

 source than from a subject race thus conquered and absorbed. 

 Prof. Sayce, in the address already referred to, informs us that 

 " Mr. Wharton has found, by a careful analysis of the Greek lexi- 

 con, that out of twenty-seven hundred and forty primary words 

 only fifteen hundred can be referred with any probability to 

 an Indo-European origin." To what linguistic stock this non- 

 Aryan element in the Greek language belonged is a question 

 which remains for philologists to determine ; but every indication 

 of locality and of physical type, of moral and mental traits, and 

 of early Hellenic tradition embodied in the legends of ^gyptus, 

 Danaus, and Cadmus, points to a Proto-Semitic origin. To this 

 primitive race, whatever it may have been, were evidently due all 

 the finer and nobler qualities of the Greek character and intellect. 

 To their Aryan conquerors they owed, along with an increased 

 comeliness and grace of shape and feature, their martial energy, 

 their amenability to discipline, and doubtless certain barbarous 

 usages, such as their custom of putting to death in cold blood 

 their enemies taken in battle. 



The Iberian race resembles the North African so closely in 

 physical, mental, and moral traits that, but for the total difference 



