V BRITISH ETHNOLOGY 261 



it is lost in Central Asia. Offshoots of this stock 

 extend into Spain, Italy, and Northern India, and 

 by way of Syria and North Africa, to the Canary 

 Islands. They were known in very early times to 

 the Chinese, and in still earlier to the ancient 

 Egyptians, as frontier tribes. The Thracians were 

 notorious for their fair hair and blue eyes many 

 centuries before our era. 



On the other hand, the dark stock predominates 

 in Southern and Western France, in Spain, along 

 the Ligurian shore, and in Western and Southern 

 Italy ; in Greece, Asia, Syria, and North Africa ; 

 in Arabia, Persia, Afghanistan, and Hindostan, 

 shading gradually, through all stages of darkening, 

 into the type of the modern Egyptian, or of the 

 wild Hill-man of the Dekkan. Nor is there any 

 record of the existence of a different population 

 in all these countries. 



The extreme north of Europe, and the northern 

 part of Western Asia, are at present occupied by 

 a Mongoloid stock, and, in the absence of evidence 

 to the contrary, may be assumed to have been so 

 peopled from a very remote epoch. But, as I 

 have said, I can find no evidence that this stock 

 ever took part in peopling Britain. Of the three 

 great stocks of mankind which extend from the 

 western coast of the great Eurasiatic continent to 

 its southern and eastern shores, the Mongoloids 

 occupy a vast triangle, the base of which is the 

 whole of Eastern Asia, while its apex lies in 



