IMMIGRANT BLOOD 197 



with the beginning of written history. They may, 

 indeed, be almost comparable in antiquity with 

 the annual flight of the swallows. They have 

 flowed in various directions, but the main current 

 has trended from north to south, since until recent 

 centuries the temptations of wealth and luxury 

 have lain southwards, where conditions of life have 

 been easier and more productive. India owes its 

 intellectual glories to tribes of northmen, gen- 

 erally styled the " Aryans," who some 3,500 

 years ago broke through its mountain barriers and 

 settled in the Indo-Gangetic plain. They intro- 

 duced into India the Sanskrit language. The 

 modern tongue which is most nearly akin to it 

 is the Lettish, which is spoken on the shores of the 

 Baltic ; and, from this fact and from references to 

 scenery which occur in ancient Sanskrit hymns, 

 we may assume without rashness that the 

 Aryans had their original home in Northern 

 Europe. It appears from their early literature 

 that their women were free, and were actually 

 permitted to choose their own husbands. But 

 most of the Aryan tribes took wives from amongst 

 the daughters of the Indian soil : the Indian 

 climate cannot have been congenial to them, and 

 by the beginning of our era they appear to have 

 lost their northern characteristics. They have 

 bequeathed to India a literature which may be 

 compared with that of classical Greece. But 

 within historical times their blood has not been 

 able to stir the habitual placidity of Oriental 

 thought. 



The ancient civilizations of Egypt and Assyria 

 appear to have had much in common with the 

 conditions of modern China. The people were 

 fast bound by ties of family and religion : their 

 lives were directed by vivid conceptions of 

 existence after death. Their houses were small, 



