Ruins of Persepolis. 

 (Copied from Fergusson's Palaces of Nineveh and Persepolis Restored.) 



HISTORY OF ANCIENT NATIONS. 



AS the memory of a man extends back only to 

 some point in his early boyhood, so the 

 memory of our race extends back only to from 

 3000 to 4000 years from the present date, leaving 

 an indefinite space before that, during which 

 the infancy of the species must have been trans- 

 acted. The researches of the geologist, indeed, 

 lead to the conclusion that the appearance of man 

 upon our earth is comparatively a recent event in 

 its history ; but cannot assign even an approxi- 

 mate date in years or other measurable periods. 

 Nor does the Scriptural account of the creation 

 settle this point. As many as two hundred differ- 

 ent calculations as to the age of our species have 

 been founded, by different divines, on the state- 

 ments of the sacred records the discrepancy 

 arising from the uncertainty of those texts of the 

 Old Testament in which numbers occur. The 

 longest of these calculations dates the creation of 

 man at about 8800 years from the present time, or 

 about 7000 years before the birth of Christ ; the 

 shortest at about 5300 years from the present time, 

 or 3500 years before the birth of Christ : the 

 system usually adopted by historians is that of 

 Archbishop Usher, which fixes the event at 4004 

 B.C. or 5874 years from the present date. 



At the earliest period to which authentic history 

 reaches back, the greater part of the known world 

 was more or less densely peopled by human beings, 

 who were divided into races or varieties differing 

 in physical conformation and in language pretty 

 much as at the present day. Nevertheless, it is 

 the prevalent opinion among ethnologists, who 

 make these physical peculiarities and varieties of 

 language a special study, that, altogether inde- 

 pendently of Scripture, the great probability is 

 that the race sprung from a single pair, and that 

 from one primitive centre the most distant parts 

 of the earth have been colonised. In the classi- 

 fication adopted in the article ANTHROPOLOGY 

 the human race is divided into three primary 

 groups, viz. (i) The Mongolidae, including 

 Chinese, Japanese, Tibetans, Oceanic races, &c. ; 

 57 



(2) The Atlantidae, including the African races 

 and Semitic races ; and (3) The Japetidae, includ- 

 ing the Indo-European and Celtic races. Whilst 

 we have said that there is no proof that any race 

 is cursed with an inherent incapacity for improve- 

 ment, we must also admit that it is only the 

 Indo-European variety of the Japetidae, and the 

 Semitic variety of the Atlantidae, who have had 

 planted in them the germ of mighty progress, 

 or made history on a large and lofty scale. From 

 this and other causes they were long grouped 

 together ethnologically as the Caucasian race, 

 and this grouping is still convenient for historical 

 purposes. The Mongolidas have had at best but a 

 material influence on the history of the world, and 

 their highest civilisation is almost fixed and 

 stationary. The Negro and Mongolian nations 

 have been for the most part the hewers of wood 

 and drawers of water to the pioneers of civilisa- 

 tion, which has been carried on chiefly by the 

 Semitic and Indo-European races. Let us there- 

 fore glance first at the history of these humbler 

 varieties of the human race. 



ETHIOPIAN OR NEGRO HISTORY. 



A German historian thus sums up all that is 

 cnown of Ethiopian history that is, of the part 

 which the great Negro race, inhabiting all Africa 

 with the exception of the north-eastern coasts, per- 

 formed in the general affairs of mankind in the 

 early ages of the world : ' On the history of this 

 division of the species, two remarks may be made : 

 the one, that a now entirely extinct knowledge of 

 :he extension and power of this branch of the 

 luman family must have been forced upon even 

 the Greeks by their early poets and historians ; 

 the other, that the Ethiopian history is interwoven 

 :hroughout with that of Egypt As regards the 

 first remark, it is clear that in the earliest ages 

 this branch of the race must have played an im- 

 portant part, since Meroe in the present Nubia 

 is mentioned both by Herodotus (408 B.C.) and 



