VARIETIES OF MANKIND. 



1365 



other decipherers of the most ancient inscrip- 

 tions in the south-west of Asia, tends towards 

 the conclusion, that the languages of the Afri- 

 can nations are derived from the same funda- 

 mental stock with those of the Arian and 

 Turanian, the separation having taken place 

 when they were as yet in that early stage of 

 development, which has remained stereotyped 

 (so to speak) in the Chinese and oth^r Seri- 

 form tongues. Looking at the African popu- 

 lation under this aspect, we may fairly imagine 

 it to have been first derived from immigrants 

 by no means remote from the Turanian stock j 

 these gradually spreading themselves over the 

 entire continent, became gradually modified 

 in their physical characters by the new cir- 

 cumstances in which they found themselves ; 

 and whilst the dwellers in the Nile valley ad- 

 vanced in civilization and in intellectual de- 

 velopment, and became assimilated in cranial 

 characters to the other races surrounding the 

 Mediterranean sea, those of Central, Western, 

 and Southern Africa underwent a degradation 

 into the prognathous type, similar to that 

 which has affected the earlier settlers in Oce- 

 ania, and to which some approach is seen in 

 Southern India. Viewed under this aspect, 

 the re-appearance of the Mongolian type of 

 conformation among the Hottentots of South- 

 ern Africa is extremely significant ; for, al- 

 though they are Africans by immediate de- 

 scent, yet the characters of their remoter 

 ancestry reappear, so soon as a correspondence 

 in physical conditions favours their repro- 

 duction. 



In certain spots of the globe thus peopled 

 with races derived from a common centre, 

 varieties in physical conformation appear to 

 have sprung up, which, in a scanty and scat- 

 tered population, would have a far greater 

 tendency to perpetuation than is now any- 

 where exhibited (see p. 1312); new and more 

 refined languages were originated ; local de- 

 velopments of higher forms of civilization oc- 

 curred ; and subordinate centres were thus 

 formed, from which more limited radiations 

 have subsequently taken pbce^ impressing 

 their own features of civilization upon the 

 countries through which they have spread. 

 Thus we have, at a very early period, indi- 

 cations of the Egyptian, the Syro-Arabian, 

 the Arian, the Indo-Chinese, the Mexican, 

 and the Peruvian races, preserved to us in 

 their architectural remains, or in their written 

 records ; and although some of these may 

 possibly have been mutually connected at 

 their origin, yet they seem to have been very 

 early separated, and to have attained their 

 fullest development independently of each 

 other. The subsequent migrations of certain 

 of these races, or of offsets from them, have en- 

 tirely changed their original distribution. The 

 Arab race has extended itself through North- 

 ern and even Central Africa, over Southern 

 Asia, and even into the Indian Archipelago. 

 But the Arian has displaced the aboriginal 

 population from almost every part of Europe, 

 and has there formed a secondary centre of 



radiation, whilst its original stock has been 

 almost obliterated. It is obviously a stock 

 which attains its fullest development under 

 the influence of a moderate temperature ; and 

 only, therefore, when it exchanged its original 

 seat for the more favourable influences of 

 European climate, did it manifest its remark- 

 able capabilities. It can scarcely be doubted 

 that from this race, or from a mixed race de- 

 veloped between it and their aboriginal popu- 

 lations, America and Oceania are destined to 

 be re-peopled ; the destiny of Asia and Africa, 

 however, seems more obscure. In the former 

 country, the primitive races possess a con- 

 siderable amount of self-sustaining vigour ; and 

 in the latter, they exhibit an adaptiveness to 

 its peculiarities of climate, which will perhaps 

 never be acquired by Europeans. Moreover, 

 whilst the American and Oceanic races appear 

 doomed to extinction as pure races, wherever 

 they come into contact with Europeans, there 

 is no evidence that such is the case with those 

 of Mongolian or of African descent ; the latter, 

 indeed, hold their ground with remarkable 

 tenacity, and we may not improbably regard 

 them as destined, under the influence of Chris- 

 tian civilization, to bear an important part in 

 the future history of Mankind. (See p. 1344.) 



ADDENDUM. [Since the former part of this 

 article has been in print, the statements of 

 Count Strzelecki, cited in p. 1341, have been 

 pointedly contradicted, as regards the abo- 

 riginal females of Australia, by Dr. T. R. H. 

 Thompson (surgeon, R.N.), who states as the 

 result of personal inquiries among several 

 different tribes, that for a native female to bear 

 children to a native male, after having borne 

 half-caste children to an European father, is 

 by no means an uncommon occurrence. He 

 admits that wherever European settlers are 

 commingled with the aborigines in Australia, 

 the native race disappears. This however, he 

 maintains, does not arise from "any deviation 

 of nature's laws ;" but because the European, 

 wherever he takes with him his civilization, 

 takes with him his vices also; so that drunken- 

 ness and syphilitic diseases, which soon be- 

 come rife among the neighbouring population, 

 speedily cause their decline. Dr. Brown 

 allows that the diminution is partly caused by 

 the comparative infecundity of the females who 

 have cohabited with Europeans ; but he ac- 

 counts for this by attributing it to the change 

 of life to which she is subjected. 



" From living in a state of nature, with irre- 

 gular and uncertain diet, exposed to every 

 vicissitude of climate, with no other protection 

 than a few kangaroo skins, or a roll of bark, 

 or of the 'tulka,' she enters on a more regular 

 life, partakes of regular meals, and sleeps no 

 longer exposed. But even with this alteration 

 for the better, she does not bear to the white 

 man more prolifically than to her native hus- 

 band ; on the contrary, her fecundity appears 

 to decrease, for, on partaking of the white 

 man's comforts, she is a recipient of his vices; 

 she passes much of her time in a half inebriated 



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