186 NATURAL HISTORY OF 



round the Cape, to Lisbon, in safety. In this manner 

 opinions, languages, and records, were transmitted 

 unadulterated, from the Euxine and Asia Minor, as 

 far as Britain, in a single generation ; while the tribes 

 whose fate it was to travel by land, were compelled 

 to fight their way onwards for ages, gradually losing 

 all memory of the pristine fatherland ; and unable to 

 recognise their ancient kindred, when they met again 

 in the west, but by broken accents of a once common 

 language, as is sufficiently evident in the meeting of 

 the devious tribes of Gomerian Celtae. 



In the view here taken, mankind might be primi- 

 tively arranged somewhat in the form of the diagram 

 opposite, supposing the apex of an equilateral triangle 

 to point to the north : 



Thus, we have the southern line representing the 

 Himalaya chain, with its great streams ending at the 

 Indian Ocean ; the eastern similarly leading to the 

 Pacific ; and the western to a sea gradually contracted 

 into the Caspian ; and the intermediate, conducted by 

 geographical necessities, reaching the South Seas, the 

 Northern Pacific, and from thence to America, the 

 Polar and Western Regions, and the Erythrean Seas 

 to Northern Africa. Of these, however, the Caucasian 

 alone bears evidence of commencing development upon 

 the table land, and under the shadows of the western 

 chains ; the Mongolic being at first no nearer than the 



