348 NATURAL HISTORY OF 



was anciently, and even is now by Orientals, frequently denomi- 

 nated India. Like their ancestors, the population still forms 

 a mixed race, having in general ruling families of a white 

 origin; sometimes named Getae (Goth) , Gern anii oi Kerman- 



shah. Strabo (lib. vii.) makes Pyrebestas (Abu Rebbia) rule 

 the Getae. Ammianus calls Arabia the desert of the G 

 and the Beni-Ghour (children of the swamp) are still regarded 

 as a fair race, descended from that stock. 



It is in tb is territory, and adjoining E^ypt, that in the ear- 

 liest antiquity a very considerable civilization is detected, 

 because the confluence of nations moving westward obliged 

 concentration at the isthmus, in order to reach the lower Nile, 

 and in this manner they became conversant with each other's 

 discoveries in the arts of life, and saw the dawn of commerce 

 opening by the mariners of Sidon. 



Whether the Imilikon, or Amalekites, were of the same 

 mixed stem, does not clearly appear; but that the Phoenicians, 

 Punes, Fynes, so far as the master tribes are concerned, were 

 Finns, is exceedingly probable, since a red-haired race neces- 

 sarily must have come from the northern parts of Asia ; and 

 if the language they spoke was in the historical era almost a 

 pure Hebrew, the cause is easily discovered, since a white com- 

 munity, of no great strength, had gradually increased to a 

 series of cities, whereof the vast superiority of inhabitants were 

 Semitics and southern strangers, who, from the period of the 

 first conquest of Phoenicia, acquired political power; whereas, 

 until then, they had perhaps only possessed a certain preemi- 

 nence in the refinements of civilization. The Phoenician power 

 was long settled before the arrival of the Hebrews in Pales- 

 tine, and it was not regarded by them in the same light as the 

 upland tribes of Canaan, since political and commercial alli- 

 ance, and permanent peace, existed between the two states ; 

 conditions which could not have been maintained if the Punic 

 race had not been of a very distinct origin from the Canaan- 

 ite. 



