ANIMAL3. 389 



I her ; and there may be said to be as many different kinds (if 

 men as there are countries inhabited. One polished nation 

 does not differ more from another, than the merest savages 

 (Jo from those savages that lie even contiguous to them ; and 



tlieir more fortunate bretliren. The Scythians, who at so remote a peri od i>t 

 antiquity, made irruptions into upper Asia ; the Parthiaus, who there destr oy. 

 ed the dominion of the Greeks and Romans ; the Turks, who overturn "^ 

 the Saracen empire in Asia, and subdued in Europe the unhappy remnant 

 jif the Grecian people, — all sprang from this mighty branch of the Caucasian 

 race. 



The Finlanders and the Hungarians are hordes of the same division, seem, 

 ingly strayed as it were into the midst of the Sclavonian and Teuto.'iic nations. 

 The north and the east of the Caspian Sea are still inhabited by people of the 

 earae origin, and who speak similar languages, but intermixed with a variety 

 of petty nations of diftercnt descent, and discordant tongues. The Tartar 

 people have remai-ned unmixed longer than the rest, in the region extending 

 from the mouth of the Danube to the further branch of the Irtisch, where 

 they 80 long proved formidable to the Russian empire, though at length sub. 

 jected to its sway. The Mongoles, however, in their conquests have mingled 

 their blood with these nations, and we discover many traces of this intermix, 

 ture more especially among the natives of lesser Tartary. 



To the east of this Tartar branch of the Caucasian race, the Mongolian 

 variety begins to be discovered, from which boundary it extends to the eas- 

 tern ocean. Its branches the Calmucks, &c., are still wandering shepherds 

 perpetually traversing the great desert. Thrice did these nations, under 

 Attila, under Gengis, and under Tamerlane, spread far and wide the terror 

 of their name. The Chinese belong to this variety, and are thought to have 

 been the most early civilized, not only of this race, but of all the nations of 

 the world. The Japanese and the Coreans, and almost all the hordes which 

 extend to the north-east of Siberia, under the dominion of Russia, are in a 

 great measure to be ranked under this division of mankind. With the ex. 

 eeptioii of a few Chinese literati, the Mongolian nations are universally 

 addicted to the different sects of the superstition of Fo. The origin of this 

 mighty race seems to have been in the mountains of Altai, as that of ours 

 was in the Caucasian. We cannot however trace the course and propagation 

 of the branches of the one so well as those of the other. The history of these 

 fhepherd nations is as fugitive as their establishments. The records of the 

 thinese, confined to their own empire, throw but little light (m the traditicms 

 of their neighbours ; nor ran the affinities of languages so little known lend 

 much assistance to our researches, or d-irect our steps in this labyrinth Oi 

 obscurity. 



The languages of the north of the peninsula beyond the Ganges, and also 

 that of Thibet, bear some resemblance to the Chinese, at least in their mono, 

 tyllabic structure, and the people who speak them are not without traits of 

 personal snnilarity to the other Mongole nations. But the south of this pen. 

 insula is inhabited by the Malays, a much handsomer people, whose race and 

 language are spread over the sea-coast of all the islands of the Indian Arrhi- 

 pelago, and through almost all the islands of the southern ocean. In the 

 largeet ot the former, especially in the wild and uurultivatcd tracts, we find 



2k3 



