476 NATUKAL HISTORY OF MAN. 



that of Egypt, has been more deeply sunk in obscurity. 

 Fragmentary notices in Scripture and in Greek authors have 

 told us of its greatness and conquests, the magnitude and 

 decorations of its capital. But we have only just begun to 

 disentomb these great cities, and can but partially decipher 

 the cuneiform characters which designate and give date to 

 their wonderful works of art. The vast empires of China 

 and India offer the same striking examples of this imper- 

 fection of history, as bearing on the early condition and 

 diffusion of the human race. Native records, aided here also 

 by astronomy, carry us obscurely back to dates as remote as 

 those of Egypt and Assyria ; but beyond this all is lost in 

 the depths of time, or in the still darker depths of mythology. 

 And to take another instance, from a different source but 

 not less cogent for our object, Where do we find the faintest 

 authentic trace of those maritime migrations, seemingly not 

 single but successive, which peopled the great American 

 continent ; giving birth to numerous nations and languages, 

 and to various monuments of power and partial civilisation ? 

 Here only one or two vague traditions float before us, which 

 poetry may adopt, but which history refuses for its more 

 definite and graver purposes. 



These few examples will show how scantily we can draw 

 from ancient history the information required. We nowhere 

 get high enough. The regions of tradition or mythology are 

 reached ; but it is still the selva oscura, the basso loco of the 

 poet, and we do not obtain access beyond. It may even be 

 affirmed that less certain knowledge of the early races of 

 mankind is derived from direct history than from those re- 

 semblances of custom which often remain infixed for ages, 

 when all other connections are lost. Such are the usages 

 pertaining to birth and death the methods of warfare 

 the regulations of property the punishment of offences 

 the manner of habitation and yet more remarkably the 



