THE HUMAN SPECIES. 219 



they might thence continue still further west than they had 

 been east, and delay peopling only that portion of the globe 

 which is unquestionably the most important of the whole ; or 

 for the sole purpose of fetching the physical elements of social 

 life already mentioned, which western Caucasus never spon- 

 taneously produced, and to learn, at a distance, forms of 

 speech, fundamentally belonging to the oldest Scythic, or a 

 parent Sanscrit — a language found to influence, with very 

 few exceptions, every known grammatical tongue in the world, 

 though, in its present shape, it may be a mixture of various 

 dialects. Asiatic early lore proves this primaeval tongue to 

 have originated in the southern and western Highlands already 

 noticed, and to exist still in many idioms, spreading from their 

 oorder through India, Indo-China, and, with less evidence, to 

 Australasia, far more than to the west, in Europe, Persia, and 

 Syria ; and none of its dialects positively belonging to western 

 Caucasus. The present Imeritians, Circassians, &c, though 

 they may have a just claim to be of the purest bearded typical 

 stock, like the Coords, or Gaurs, were originally riding con- 

 querors, and were driven into their present fastnesses at a com- 

 paratively recent period. 



If we turn to India, although the woolly-haired stock may 

 have retained, from priority of diffusion, a typical nucleus with- 

 in the tropics, expanding even westward, there is a master race, 

 of a distinct origin, domineering over the oldest discoverable 

 tribes, gradually more and more intermixed, till, from pure 

 white, it becomes positively black, without, therefore, being 

 deprived of a superior aspect, which the Caucasian blood alone 

 confers. It extends, with few exceptions, down to very near 

 the equatorial line, where, indeed, contamination is still observ- 

 able ; but the mastery of a foreign race evidently disappears. 

 These conditions recur, in a south-western direction, along the 

 Persian and Arabian maritime provinces, and eastern Africa; 

 the Caucasian, whether brownish or black, preponderating 

 numerically towards the shores of the Mediterranean, exactly 



