276 THE CANADIAN NATURALIST. [Vol. ix. 



says : '^Kitaya too, or Indo-China may be only another form of 

 Khita." There seems to be good evidence for believing that 

 many of the Khita or Hittites of Mesopotamia and Syria, not 

 being maritime peoples and unable therefore to maintain their 

 independence by setting the sea between them and their Assyrian 

 enemies, took refuge among the mountains of Armenia and the 

 Caucasus. Thence, moving along the southern shore of the Cas- 

 pian, they became the enemies of the Aryans, at first Persian, 

 afterwards Indian, until, passing into the region of the Himalayas^ 

 they found a brief respite in Thibet. There they became the 

 neighbors of the Chin or Chinese, with whom they are constantly 

 associated in Persian legendary history. From this point the 

 Khita divided and spread in two directions, the one southward 

 to Khitaya or Indo-China, the other north-east towards the 

 waters of the Araoor or Saghalien, in the Kathai of Mediaeval 

 times. 



With these Khita Dr. Hyde Clarke has connected the Peru- 

 vians, making the Indo-Chinese peoples, the Burmese, Siamese^ 

 Peguans, Cambodians, Annamese and Kariens, the connecting 

 link. He supposes, therefore, a passage of the Khita from the 

 Indo-Chinese area by the Malay Archipelago and the Polynesian 

 Islands to Peru, where he thinks settlement may have taken 

 place so far back as from three to five thousand years ago. It 

 may naturally be asked, however : "' What do we know of the 

 language, appearance, arts, etc., of the Khita ? " and the answer 

 is : *' Very little." Of their language we have only a few proper 

 names, like Khita-sar, Mara-sar, Kirep-sar, from which, as has 

 been shown by the Rev. Professor Sayce, we may learn that the 

 Khita were Turanian, inasmuch as the word si/r, an Accadian 

 term denotino; kins: or chief in the nominative case, follows its 

 genitive according to Turanian order. In regard to religion or 

 mythology, we know also that their great divinity was Sheth or 

 Ashtar. It is supposed that the Hamathite inscriptions are 

 Hittite, with those in Carchemish and in Asia Minor ; but, in- 

 asmuch as these are not yet deciphered, nothing is added to our 

 knowledge from that source. In regard to the appearance of 

 the Khita, authorities difi"er so widely that we are left in doubt 

 as to whether they were bearded men, dressed in the Assyrian 

 fashion, Tartars with pig-tails and mustaches, as they are de- 

 picted at Abusimbel, or beardless savages with breech clouts and 

 scalp-locks. The solution of the problem may be that the Hit- 



