152 NATURAL HISTORY OF 



of Kasan, Sembirsk, and Orenburg, in Russia, are a 

 still more obscure race of men. They seem to be the 

 remnant of a semi-brute population, which was scat- 

 tered on the arrival of the more intellectual Caucasians. 

 In mental capacity, the Chuvashes are reported to be 

 inferior even to the Ostiaks and Samoyedes. They live 

 without taking the slightest notice of the world around 

 them, in a condition little elevated above the Orang 

 Outang. While increase and activity is every where 

 witnessed in their vicinity, they alone remain stationary ; 

 industry and civilization excites in them no desires, no 

 wish to be partakers of prosperity ; none ever show 

 inclinations to barter, or to be stimulated by gain to 

 increase the means of comfort or of personal happiness, 

 still less to learn any trade. Their countenances are 

 stupid, their habits incurably lazy, and their religion, 

 for they have a worship, the most degrading idolatry. 

 Their language is barbarously imperfect, and their 

 manners and customs are stiD more revolting. The 

 Assassins, Ansarie, Batenians, Dozzim, Laks, and 

 Yezeedis of South Western Asia, still persecuted, but 

 not wholly exterminated, are tribes of primeval origin 

 variously mixed. 



The Gypsies, Zingari, Sinde, may be of the same 

 stock as the Tschinganes at the mouth of the Indus, 

 who are themselves a tribe of mixed oriental Negroes 

 and Caucasians, and are likewise connected with the 

 Gungas or Indian Gypsies, and Laubes of Africa, who 

 may all be instanced as examples of the development of 

 human beauty, whenever the typical races are crossed ; 



