1044 OF THE HUMAN FAMILY, AND THEIR MUTUAL RELATIONS. 



tion of the Old World ; and it seems indubitably destined to acquire a similar 

 influence in those newly-found lands which have been discovered by its enter- 

 prise. With scarcely an exception, as Dr. Latham has justly remarked, the 

 nations belonging to it present an encroaching frontier : there being no instance 

 of its permanent displacement by any other race, save in the case of the Arab 

 dominion in Spain, which has long since ceased : in that of the Turkish domin- 

 ion in Turkey and Asia Minor, which is evidently destined to expire at no 

 distant period, being upheld for merely political purposes by extraneous influ- 

 ence ; and in that of the Magyars in Hungary, who only maintain their ground 

 through their complete assimilation to the Indo-Germanic character. It is a 

 remarkable fact that in most cases in which this race extends itself into coun- 

 tries previously tenanted by people of an entirely different type, the latter pro- 

 gressively decline and at last disappear before it, provided the climate be such 

 as enables it to maintain a vigorous existence ; this is pre-eminently the case in 

 North and South America, in Australia, in New Zealand, and in many of the 

 smaller Polynesian islands. And where the climate is less favorable to the 

 perpetuation of the race in its purity, an intermixture with the native blood 

 frequently gives rise to a mixed race, which possesses the developed intellect of 

 the one, and the climatic adaptiveness of the other, and which appears likely 

 ultimately to take the place of both. 



1052. The Syro-Aralian or Semitic nations, agree with the preceding in 

 general physical characters, but differ entirely in the structure of their language, 

 and for the most part in vocabulary also, though recent researches seem to indi- 

 cate that certain roots of the Semitic and Indo-Germanic languages have a decided 

 affinity. It seems quite certain, however, that the linguistic affinities of the 

 Semitic nations are rather with the African than with the Indo-European races ; 

 and so strong is the link of connection thus established, that by Dr. Latham 

 they are ranked with the former under the general designation Atlantidsef 

 whilst Mr. Norris, whose authority upon all such subjects is deservedly great, 

 is strongly disposed (as he has himself informed the Author) to consider them 

 an essentially African people. The original centre of this race, however, is 

 commonly reputed to have been that region of Asia which is intermediate be- 

 tween the countries of the Indo-European and of the Egyptian races ; having 

 as its centre the region watered by the great rivers of Mesopotamia. Several 

 of the nations originally constituting this group have become extinct, or nearly 

 so ; and the Arabs, which originally formed but one subdivision of it, have now 

 become the dominant race, not only throughout the ancient domain of the Syro- 

 Arabian nations, but also in Northern Africa. In the opinion of Baron Larrey, 

 who had ample opportunities for observation, the skulls of the Arabian race 

 furnish, at present, the most complete type of the human head ; and he con- 

 sidered the remainder of the physical frame as equally distinguished by its 

 superiority to that of other races of men. The different tribes of Arabs present 

 very great diversities of color, which are generally found to coincide with varia- 

 tions in climate. Thus the Shegya Arabs, and others living on the low countries 

 bordering on the Nile, are of a dark-brown or even black hue ; but even when 

 quite jetty, they are distinguished from the Negro races by the brightness of 

 their complexions, by the length and straightness of their hair, and by the 

 regularity of their features. The same may be said of the wandering Arabs of 

 Northern Africa ; but the influence of climate and circumstances is still more 

 strongly marked in some of the tribes long settled in that region, whose descent 

 may be traced to a distinct branch of the Syro- Arabian stock, namely, the 

 Berber, to which belong the Kabyles of Algiers and Tunis, the Tuaryks of 

 Sahara, and the Guanches or ancient population of the Canary Isles. Amongst 



' See his "Varieties of Man," 1850, p. 469. 



