DIVISIONS OF THE ANIMAL KINGDOM. xliii 



influence of external agents. Through the Berebers, that 

 is, the ancient inhabitants of Northern Africa, the Nubians, 

 the Abyssinians, and others, there is a chain of connexion, 

 indicated by physiological characters and ancient dialects, 

 between the great African Family, and the Arabians, now 

 termed Asiatic. But the Arabians are included, by almost 

 all geographers and naturalists, in the Caucasian division 

 of mankind, although grave doubts may exist with respect 

 to the justness of this classification. The Arabians, in- 

 deed, were early mixed in blood, and connected in speech, 

 with the Western Asiatics ; but if we regard locality, ancient 

 dialects, habits, and physical characters, the Arabians are 

 more connected with the Berebers, the Nubians, and other 

 Africans, than with the people of Asia or Europe. What 

 contrast of form, temperament, and character, can be more 

 striking than that between the pale Hollander, beside the 

 dikes of mud which his labours have raised up, and the 

 light and dusky Arab in his tent of skin, amid the burn- 

 ing sands of his wild and desolate country. Yet, if we 

 assign a common lineage to the Caucasian and Arabian 

 groups, we must believe that the squat and clumsy peasant 

 of the marshes of the Zuyder Zee, with his brawny limbs, 

 is not only of* the same species, but of the same variety 

 or race, as the wild wanderer of the southern deserts, with 

 his swarthy skin, his coal-black hair, his keen dark eye, his 

 well-braced muscles and sinewy form, properties of the body 

 which, reacting, as it were, on the mind, have rendered him 

 active, enthusiastic, bold, and free, enabling him to roll back 

 the tide of conquest on the Northern Family, and become 

 for a time the master of the fairest portions of the globe, 

 nay, to found a religious faith which has enslaved, for more 

 than a thousand years, a third part of the human race. 



Turning to the great American Continent, termed New, 

 with relation to our knowledge of it, but which we have no 

 reason to believe posterior in the order of existence to 

 those parts of the world which we term Old, we find innu- 



