296 THE ARYAN QUESTION VI 



Helbig 1 with the primitive Umbrians) become 

 fully known. 



I cannot learn that the ancient literatures of 

 India and of Persia give any definite information 

 about the complexion of the Indo- Iranians, beyond 

 conveying the impression that they were what we 

 vaguely call white men. But it is important to 

 note that tall blond people make their appearance 

 sporadically among the Tadjiks of Persia and of 

 Turkestan; that the Siah-posh and Galtchas of 

 the mountainous barrier between Turkestan and 

 India are such ; and that the same characters 

 obtain largely among the Kurds on the western 

 frontier of Persia, at the present day. The Kurds 

 and the Galtchas are generally broad -headed, the 

 others are long-headed. These people and the 

 ancient Alans thus form a series of stepping-stones 

 between the blond Aryans of Europe and those of 

 Asia, standing up amidst the flood of Firmo- 

 tataric people which has inundated the rest of the 

 interval between the sources of the Dnieper and 

 those of the Oxus. If only more was known 

 about the Sarmatians and the Scythians of the 

 oldest historians, it is not improbable, I think, 

 that we should discover that, even in historical 

 times, the area occupied by the blond long-heads 



1 Die Italiker in der Poebene, 1879. See for much valuable 

 information respecting the races of the Balkan and Italic penin- 

 sula?, Zampa's essay, '' Vergleichende Anthropologische Ethno- 

 graphic von Apulien," Zeitschrift fur Ethnologic, xviii., 1886. 



