230 BIMANA. 



TEUTONIC BRANCH. The northern regions of Europe were anciently 

 occupied by various sub-divisions of the Teutonic race, which differed 

 from the Celtic, and was destined to overwhelm the fairest provinces of the 

 Roman empire. The physical traits of the Teutonic race are, blue eyes, 

 light hair, a fair complexion, lofty stature, and an athletic form. The 

 strength and courage of the men rendered them formidable in battle, 

 and often gave them the advantage over troops far better armed and 

 instructed in military evolutions. The native tribes of Germany and 

 Scandinavia were anciently termed Goths (Visigoths, Ostrogoths, Teu- 

 tones), Vandals (Heruli, Longobardi), Suevi, Allemanni, Marcomanni, 

 Franks, Germans, Saxons, Angles, &c. To particularize the eruptions 

 of these tribes from their northern fastnesses, and trace their southern 

 progress, is the work of the historian, rather than the naturalist. Suffice 

 it to say, that they have gained for their descendants the richest terri- 

 tories in Europe. Their language, in Germany, Holland, Denmark, 

 Sweden, Norway, and England, preserves more or less of its original 

 character ; but, in the more southern nations of Europe, it became 

 blended with the Latin, giving birth to the French, Italian, Spanish, and 

 Portuguese. 



SCLAVONIC BRANCH. Another distinct race, or nation, is the Scla- 

 vonic. From the earliest times the race of Sclavonians have inhabited 

 the regions of Russia, Lithuania, Poland, Moldavia, Wallachia, Bulgaria, 

 and Sclavonia, or ancient Pannonia and Noricum ; namely, the wide ex- 

 tent of territory between the Inn, the Danube, and the Save. The tribes 

 into which the Sclavonic race was anciently divided, were very numer- 

 ous ; but their language and physical characters bespoke an origin in 

 common : with regard to the former, it was harsh and irregular. As re- 

 spects form and appearance, the Sclavonians approached, in some degree, 

 to the Tartar family ; from which, however, as Gibbon states, they 

 deviated toward the German, but without attaining the lofty stature and 

 fair complexion of the latter. According to the same authority, 4,600 

 villages were scattered over the provinces of Russia and Poland ; 

 and the huts of which they consisted were hastily built, of rough tim- 

 ber, in a country deficient both in stone and iron. Flocks and herds 

 constituted their chief possessions ; but they also cultivated the ground, 

 and sowed millet and panic (panicum milium). As a supreme God, 

 they adored an invisible master of the thunder ; the rivers and the 

 nymphs obtained their subordinate honours ; and the popular wor- 



festivals. These, and some other practices, the Greeks received from the Egyptians ; but some, also, 

 from the Pelasgians, who first taught them to the Athenians, and they to the rest of the Greeks. 

 For the Pelasgians and Athenians, who were then first numbered among the Greeks, occupied, toge- 

 ther, the same region ; whence it happened that the former were also reckoned to be Greeks. . . . 

 They designated the gods only as Theoi (founders), because by them all things were established, and 

 distributed throughout the world ; but, after a long course of time, they learned the names of the 

 gods from Egypt, and, last of all, that of Bacchus." Herodotus. 



