THE HUMAN SPECIES. 263 IT Y 



out as first traceable in the north-eastern flanks of the 

 great central table land of Asia. But more attentive 

 search seems to establish the fact, that even there, dur- 

 ing many ages, it cannot have been the dominant stock ; 

 for, as on most other occasions, we find the older races 

 of Man, that possessed a given country, and were 

 obliged to yield to the power of later invaders, hold to 

 ie last in the fastnesses of mountain ranges, so we 

 observe here, from the Chinese annals, whole nations 

 of Caucasians, Kinto-Moey, Yuchi, &c., possessed of 

 vast portions of Thibet and Eastern Tahtary, and 

 maintaining their ground to the times immediately 

 preceding and succeeding the Christian era, when they 

 were first driven westward, whilst others are now 

 found subdued and incorporated with the Celestial Em- 

 pire, though still retaining their distinctive characters 

 of ample beard, horizontal eyes, and lofty stature. 

 They are spread in population about the river Amour 

 and the hill countries, while others, such as the Miao-tze 

 (cat-people), and the Mou-lao (wood-rats), occupy in 

 the south the wildest mountains in Se-tchuen, Koei- 

 tcheou, Houkang, and Quangsi, to the frontiers of 

 Quang-tong. None of these nations and tribes can 

 have penetrated eastward, from Thibet, after the Mon- 

 golian races were fully established in the plains. They 

 must therefore be of anterior date; and, as we see 

 above, in the case of the Yuchi, the residue of a people 

 driven from the more fertile plains, by the force of 

 invaders. All the way to the Malayan peninsula, 

 every known event tends to prove here, as in America, 



