434 LECTURE XV, 



Abyssiniaj we find a Jewisli nation, whicli despises trade, 

 carries on agriculture and other handicrafts, and is seemingly 

 not distinguishable from the other peoples of the country. 

 They themselves derive their descent from the mythical Queen 

 Sheba, who is said to have visited Solomon, when she and her 

 household embraced Judaism. 



The Jews, it was thought, thus afford a proof of the depend- 

 ence of the stock on the climate, in as much as in the North 

 they approached the Sclavonian, in the Mediterranean the 

 Oriental, and in the South the Abyssinian type. The proofs 

 are, however, insufficient. On the Red Sea the Jews had settle- 

 ments from a remote period where, before Mohammed, they 

 ruled in small districts, and, contrary to their usual custom, 

 made many proselytes. The investigations of Jewish scholars, 

 especially those of Dr. Ascher, made in Abyssinia, have shown 

 this conversion, but no affinity of race. All Jewish scholars 

 agree also that both types have existed from the remotest 

 period, eo that some reduce them to the multitude of people 

 which accompanied the Jews on their departure from Egypt, 

 and passed with them through the Red Sea; though it is 

 rather surprising that this rabble too (the Hebrew expression 

 still used among the Jews) should also have been worthy of the 

 particular protection of their own Grod. Thus the differences 

 obtaining between Jews seem to result rather from original tribe 

 peculiarities than from change of localities. Another argu- 

 ment in favour of this view is, that the Jews of the Oriental 

 type expelled from Portugal, who for several centuries have 

 been settled in Holland, have preserved their peculiarities 

 unaltered ; whilst, on the other hand, in the East, the two Jew- 

 ish types lived also for centuries side by side in the same climate 

 and conditions, and preserved their respective characters. 



We must, however, as regards these changes, not lose sight 

 of a point which seems to us of considerable importance. 

 " It required," says Quatrefages, " scai-cely two centuries to 

 transform the Irish Celt into a kind of Australian ; two cen- 

 turies and a half, at most ten or twelve generations, have 

 sufficed to change the Anglo-Saxon into a Yankee. We may 

 thus infer the effects which numbers of centuries, hundreds 



