INFLUENCE OF THE MACEDONIAN CAMPAIGNS. 531 



Alexander's campaigns first gave occasion to a comparison, 

 on a grand scale, between the African races which predomi- 

 nated so much in Egypt with the Arian races beyond the 

 Tigris and the ancient Indian Aborigines, who were very 

 dark-coloured, but not woolly-haired. The classification of 

 mankind into varieties, and their distribution over the surface 

 of the earth, which is to be regarded rather as a consequence 

 of historical events than as the result of protracted climatic 

 relations, (when the types have been once firmly fixed,) together 

 with the apparent contradiction between colour and places of 

 abode, were subjects that could not fail to produce the most 

 vivid impression on the mind of thoughtful observers. We 

 still find, in the interior of the great Indian continent, an exten- 

 sive territory, which is inhabited by a population of dark, 

 almost black Aborigines, totally different from the lightcr- 

 coloured Arian races, who immigrated at a subsequent period. 

 Amongst these we may reckon as belonging to the Vindhya 

 races, the Gonda, the Bhilla in the forest districts of Malava 

 and Guzerat, and the Kola of Orissa. The acute observer 

 Lassen regards it as probable, that at the time of Herodotus, 

 the black Asiatic races, kk the Ethiopians of the sun-rising," 

 which resembled the Lybians in the colour of their skin but 

 not in the character of their hair, were diffused much further 

 towards the north-west than at present.* In like manner, in 

 the ancient Egyptian empire, the actual woolly-haired negro 

 races, Avhich were so frequently conquered by other nations, 

 moved their settlements far to the north of Nubia.f 



the inhabitants, and of precious products, contributed to the extension 

 of these meteorological hypotheses; for Western Arabia, the countries 

 between Ceylon and the mouth of the Indus, Troglodytic Ethiopia, and 

 the African myrrh and cinnamon lands south of Cape Aroma, were all 

 termed India. (Humboldt, Examen crit., t. ii. p. 35.) 



* Lassen, Ind. Altertkumskunde, bd. L a. 369, 372-375, 379, und 

 389; Bitter, Asien, bd. iv. 1, s. 446. 



t The geographical distribution of mankind can no more be deter- 

 mined in entire continents by degrees of latitude, than that of plants 

 and animals. The axiom advanced by Ptolemy (Geogr., lib. i. .cap. 

 9), that north of the parallel of Agisymba, there are no elephants, 

 rhinoceroses, or negroes, is entirely unfounded (Examen antique, t. i. 

 p. 39). The doctrine of the universal influence of the soil and climate 

 on the intellectual capacities and on the civilisation of mankind, was 

 peculiar to the Alexandrian school of Ammonius Sakkas, and more espe- 

 cially to Lonafinus. See Proclus, Comment, in Tim., p. 5.0. 

 2M2 



