422 



THE LIVING RACES OF MANKIND 



Robbery is riot regarded as a 

 crime among the Circassians, but 

 as an honourable calling for a 

 free man. The Bulgarians and 

 others among whom they settled 

 soon found it necessary to take 

 strong measures to protect their 

 crops and flocks. 



The Circassians are incap- 

 able of intellectual exertion. It 

 follows that science, literature, 

 and art were, and still are, un- 

 known to them. The wisdom of 

 their sages preserved from genera- 

 tion to generation in proverbs, 

 maxims, and stories, the legends 

 preserved in verse, and the 

 practical knowledge each man 

 could acquire during his lifetime, 

 constituted all the knowledge the 

 race possessed. The boys and 

 youths were taught to ride, shoot, 

 fence, and hunt, but not to 

 respect truth. Audacious lying 

 was regarded as a useful accom- 

 plishment. The sole end of 



education was to train the young 



for the perils and hardships of 



a mountaineer's life. 



Turning to marriage customs, 



we find that the bride was gener- 

 ally bought and carried off by 



force from her parents. Many of 



the girls were sold into the harems 



of Eastern pashas and princes. It 



is said that the Circassian maidens 



welcomed this practice as a means 



of escaping from the life of toil 



and hardship which would otherwise have been in store for them. 



religion of the race. 



FINLAND. 



From the Ethnographical Museum at Stockholm. 

 A FINLANDER. 



Mohammedanism was the- 



THE once prevalent idea that nearly all the European peoples belonged to the various branche 

 Teutonic, Celtic, Slav, Hellenic, Italic of the Aryan family has long been exploded. We 

 now know that account must also be taken of several non-Aryan groups, notably the Finns, 

 who form the bulk of the inhabitants of Finland, and were formerly widely diffused over the 

 greater part of Northern and Eastern Europe. 



Finland, a grand duchy of the Russian Empire, has a population of 2,000,000 full-blood 

 Finns, besides nearly 500,000 Russians, Swedes, and Lapps. The Finns are accounted 

 stalwart people, blond in general and with blue eyes. The Teutons, through the Scandinavians 

 have influenced them for centuries, and it is to the Scandinavians that they owe their first 

 knowledge of the metals bronze and iron. There is a great deal of Swedish blood in the 



