THE HUMAN SPECIES. 383 



their primaeval social abode, in the Babel of Babylon, 

 the Egyptians saw their Arkite city at Thebes, or 

 Theba ; the Persian Arii found the city of the gods in 

 Pasargadse, where the huge palace was again an ark ; 

 the Hindoos pointed to Kasi, now Benares ; and the 

 western Teutonic nations to Asgard, near the mouth 

 of the Don ; while, by the very radiation of these lo- 

 calities, there is reason to believe what tradition con- 

 firms, that the original locality was high up the course 

 of the Oxus, if indeed it was not actually within the 

 mountains of Hindu-Koosh, or Bokhara, significantly 

 denominated the High Land of God. 



The great mental activity stimulating all the races 

 of this type to physical exertion, has caused the ear- 

 liest ages to be replete with their wars and conquests. 

 First, probably, they were directed against the less 

 pugnacious black nations, and then against each other, 

 striving not only for the choice of regions to inhabit 

 for the possession of pasturage and rivers, but to dic- 

 tate opinions on all questions of human interest ; and 

 as the conquerors of one moment were the vanquished 

 of the next, all the tribes, particularly of the west, are 

 exceedingly intermixed ; in physical and mental ap- 

 pearance bearing evidence to the fact. It is still 

 more a result of the long continued practice, common 

 to all, of buying, selling, and capturing human beings 

 for slaves the Britons, the Gauls, the Saxons, Ger- 

 mans, Russians, and Hebrews ; all the nations of Wes- 

 tern Asia, the ancient Greeks, the Romans, the Car- 

 thaginians, pagans and Christians, all shared for ages 



