350 NATURAL HISTORY OF 



with Ardjoon and Bhima at their head, departed after 

 the defeat of the Yadhu tribes, there is little doubt 

 that the direction of their retreat was westward, and 

 constituted one of those migrations of the Asiatic Ethiop 

 race, which was afterwards conspicuous in southern 

 Persia, as a portion of the so called Indo- Arabs, who 

 were ultimately driven from Yemen, and passed to 

 Abyssinia, or formed the Cushite people of African 

 Ethiopia.* Tribes of this class were most assuredly the 

 element which formed the Aurite population of Upper 

 Egypt, for they still retain peculiarities of structure 

 observed in the present Malabars.t Others less swar- 

 thy, were colonists of Lower Egypt, constituting the 

 Misr population, of whose progress we have already 

 adduced proofs, by the plants and animals which they 

 could not have possessed, but by departing originally 



* If Nimrod, as is asserted, was a Cuthite king, ruling 

 from the first in Assyria, the Babel which preceded Ba- 

 bylon was a city of Ethiopians, with Caucasian or Finnic 

 rulers, probably the Gaurs, who seem to be identical with 

 the Gordei, who may still be represented by the Coords 

 of the present day. Nineveh, &c., were capitals of northern 

 districts, but the resident population, between the Tigris 

 and Euphrates, was Ethiopian ; since Mesopotamia, now 

 Djezirat, was encompassed by the river. This circumstance, 

 and the swarthy Colchians of Herodotus, gives the northern 

 limit of the Ethiopian extension, that is, as far as the bound- 

 aries of the date tree and the habitation of the ostrich. 



t Among others the large eyes and long legs, which may 

 be the origin of the legend of the Macroceli, Tala-gangha, 

 a tribe of ancient India ; but we think the present Catties 

 of Kutch are descended from conquering Cathai of High 

 Asia, giving the name, and forming the master tribe of the 

 original Papua Aurites along the coast. 



