1889.] '-'^ • [Brinton. 



ainons coast of Southern Sicily' is soon perceived. The distance 

 between the two islands is not quite sixty English miles, an inter- 

 val of space which was not enough to offer any serious barrier to 

 even ver}' earl}- ploughmen of the Mediterranean main. 



I dwell on these geographic details with a purpose, as j^ou will 

 see later ; and I mention the fact of my journey in Africa, as it 

 was the observations I made there whicli first led me to the con- 

 clusions I am about to present in this paper. Part of my time 

 had been passed on the borders of what is called " la Grande 

 Kabylie," that portion of the province of Algiers which is inhab- 

 ited by the Kabvles, the most direct descendants of the ancient 

 Libyans. 



The^' are a strange people, these Kabjdes, both in customs and 

 physical aspect. Natives of Africa time out of mind, many of 

 them present the purest type of the blonde races, blue or gray 

 ej^es, tawny beard, fair complexion, curly light or reddish hair, 

 muscular in build and often tall in stature. When I came to look 

 at the man}^ evidently portrait busts on the tombs of the ancient 

 Etruscans, there was something in the features, in the shape of 

 head and face, which reminded me of these Kabyles. Slight as 

 it was, it induced me to compare the two peoples in other details, 

 and it is the result of this comparison which I now submit to be 

 weighed and judged by those competent in such matters. 



§1. Geographic Position of the Ancient Etruscanf^, historically 



considered. 



Etruscan remains are found in Italy from the Gulf of Salerno 

 to the River Po, and from the Tyrrhenian sea to the Adriatic. 

 One inscription, indeed, has been unearthed at Verona,* per- 

 haps one near Chiavenna, and even at Chur I was shown one, in 

 the RhiTetian Museum, which the curator averred had been dug 

 up near that city. Certain it is, however, that the right bank 

 of the Po was substantially the northern limit of Etruscan 

 culture.f 



They were essentially cit^'-builders and city-dwellers, and at 

 the height of their power, which we mny put about five or six 



*See Slueller, Bie Etrunker, Bd. i, s. 157. References to this important work are always 

 to the second edition (1877), edited by Deecke. 

 tComp. Prof. G. Sergi, in the Archivio per I'Anthropologia, 1883, p. 139. 



