116 HORMUZD RASSAM; ESQ., 
the change of Government and localities must have been so 
frequent by emigration, wholesale arbitrary deportation, and 
such like, that at one time a certain people who were 
occupying one part of the globe would be found some years 
afterwards in quite a different spot. I have not to go tar to 
prove my argument, as I can point out a few cases by way of 
illustration to show you how easily the names of nationalities 
and countries are changed in Asia through either conquests, 
or mere accident, like the present Coords and Arabs. The 
mountains of the former were, before the Christian era, part 
of Media, Assyria, and Armenia; but now that tract of land 
is called Coordistan, and its Moslem inhabitants, who are 
mostly of Assyrian and Median origin, are now known merely 
by the name of Coords. Then the Mohammedan population 
of Assyria, Mesopotamia, Syria, Palestine, the three Arabias, 
Kgypt, Tunis, Algiers, and Morocco, all style themselves 
Arabs, though in reality they are a mongrel race, composed 
of all kinds of Biblical and other nationalities, not excepting 
even part of the twelve tribes of Israel. We may enter 
further into ancient history and find that there were Chaldeans 
in Southern and North-western Mesopotamia, and in the 
mountains of Assyria and Media; the Sabeans used to inhabit 
Padan-Aram ; now their name is not even known there, but a 
small remnant of them are to be found at present in Southern 
Babylonia; the Arabs, the Midianites, and Aramean races 
used to be found sometimes near the Persian Gulf, then in 
Northern Mesopotamia, and in the country which is known 
in Europe as “Syria.” As for the Assyrians their name 
extended wherever their political influence reached. 
A great deal has been written about the philology of the 
Book of Job, and different opinions expressed not quite sound 
in principle. Unfortunately a great number of men of 
learning have only learnt the Semitic dialects through 
study, without the natural tuition of a native-born Hebrew, 
Arab, or Chaldean. All languages have their own peculiari- 
ties, and a word may mean one thing in the dictionary and 
express quite a different sense when it is used colloquially. 
For instance the word “ affection ” in English is applicable to 
an unpleasant as well as pleasant state of the mind, and 
supposing in an old record two or three thousand years old 
we read that such a king had died from affection of the 
heart, I fear it would be difficult for any modern scholar to 
say exactly whether his majesty died from heart disease or 
from a disappointed love; and in the using of the word 
“let” it would not be easy for a foreigner to understand 
