632 BEPORT— 1880. 



eyes to see that they are a doomed people, a people that will vanish from the earth, 

 and at no very distant day be classed among the things that have teen. Their 

 physiognomy is decidedly Mongolian ; and their physical constitution is very 

 peculiar, as they unite great power of enduring fatigue and privation with extreme 

 nervous sensibility. The Lapps of Norway are no longer heathens ; they attend 

 church, many can read, and all undergo some examination in the principles of reli- 

 gion before they are confirmed. They are fully alive to the importance of this, for 

 no one can be married in Norway without producing a certificate of confirmation, 

 and in spite of their roving habits, the Lapps are quite as much addicted to matri- 

 mony as we are ourselves. 



The Lapps have now generally adopted the maimers and customs, as well as 

 the religion of their Norwegian or Russian neighbours ; but on the banks of the 

 Pasvig river there are some Greek-Catholic Lapps, who still go through the form 

 of carrying ofl' their brides from a hostile tribe. 



5. The mttites. Bu W, St. C. Boscawen. 



In this paper Mr. Boscawen gave an account of the discoveries which had been 

 made by himself and others during the last year in the researches relating to the 

 Hittites or North Syrian tribes. 



The paper commences by pointing out the fact that the discovery and decipher- 

 ment of the Egyptian and Assyrian inscriptions had resulted not only in restoring 

 to us the history and geography, the literature and civilisation of their own country, 

 but they had also shed great and important light on the condition of the surround- 

 ing nations. From the hieroglyphics and cuneiform inscriptions now accessible to 

 us, it was possible to restore, ynXh. a great degree of accuracy, the political and 

 ethnographical duration of that great and fertile middle state of Syria which 

 divided the leading Asiatic and African powers. The details furnished by the in- 

 scriptions were also largely supplemented and illustrated by the panelled walls and 

 ficulptured slabs with which the Assyrians and Egyptians had decorated their 

 palaces. The paper then proceeded to deal with the above authorities, from which 

 it was shown that the whole of the district of North Syria was occupied by a 

 powerful confederation of tribes, who were known to the Egyptians as the Kheta, 

 and to the Assyrians as the Khattai. These were the Khittim or Hittites of the 

 Hebrew writers. From the inscriptions information was deduced which showed 

 that, although not to be regarded as a nation, this confederation of tribes formed an 

 important factor in the political world of thirty years ago. Each alone was inde- 

 pendent in its own district and capital city, but all were one and united when the 

 invader threatened the land. 



The author then sketched briefly the geographical position of the various tribes, 

 showing their relationship to one another. The discovery of the site of the capital 

 of the Khittai on the banks of the Euphrates had afforded a definite point and 

 centre from which to commence the study of these tribes. The principal tribe of 

 the Khittai proper was situated round about the city of Carchemish on the Euphrates. 

 To the west of these were the Patanaians or the Padanaians, the tribe who occupied 

 the plains to the north of Aleppo watered by the Koweik. The principal cities of 

 these tribes were Khilbunu, the modern Aleppo, Arpad and Khazaz or Azaz. 

 To the west of these tribes, in the plains of El Amk, were a number of small tribes 

 who had come do-RTi from the slopes of the Taurus and Ammanus ranges, chief 

 among whom were the Katai or Katu, a highly civilised tribe who occupied the. 

 shores of the (iidf of Antioch, and who were related to the Kitti or Kittim of 

 Cyprus. South of these tribes, in the fertile valley of the Orontes and Litany rivers, 

 ■were the tribes of the Routennu or Lutennu, who were almost independent of the 

 Hittite league. Their chief cities were Kadesh on the Orontes, the capital and 

 sacred city, and Hamath and Magiddo further south. 



From an inscription of an early Babylonian king, Sargon I., King of Agane, 

 the author showed that the Babylonians had, in the 17th century before the Chris- 

 tian era, come in contact with the Khittai or Hittites. Sargon I. carried at least 



