THE HUMAN SPECIES. 389 



The Hellenic tribes could not have been long in the land 

 before the great swarming commenced on the seas and coasts 

 of Eastern Europe. Besides the Cyclopeans, who left walls 

 of their work from Van in Persia westward to Sicily, and the 

 Punes, or Phoenicians already mentioned, others, like the Cad- 

 means, Etruscans, and Colchians, wandered along the shores, 

 from beneath the high lands of the present Abassia, or came 

 under Ionian Taurus to the Mediterranean, all similarly bent 

 upon forcing a landed possession for themselves, and su!>n>t- 

 ing meantime as sea-roving pirates. The names of the Cen- 

 taurs and Lapithce indicate confusion in the Greek reminis- 

 cences ; for, although they explained the first to have been 

 horsemen, it is more likely that they were ox-riders, such as 

 have been already mentioned in Africa and India, and that their 

 name has passed to a second invasion of real cavalry. 



But the Thraco-Pelasgians, the ITeraclidae, and Acbaei, 

 seem to have been Celto Scylha?, that is, likewise of Illyiian 

 or Geto Finnic affinity, belonging to the giant races, who, as 

 far as regards the two first mentioned, came round from the 

 Kouban and Don, along the shores of the Euxine, and then 

 sought conquests towards the south, as all the more northern 

 nations were impelled to undertake. On their own national 

 origin, the accounts by Greek writers are confused and contra- 

 dictory regarding the sources and movements of the different 

 tribes of the nation ; and vanity claims aboriginal possession 

 they were only early conquerors. They commemorate 

 Pelasgian and Dorian invasions coming from the north, while 

 they do not seem to acknowledge that the anterior Hellenic col- 

 onists were, like the myrmidons and other tribes, a vanquished 

 people, who may have had Finnic consanguinities. The pres- 

 ence of tribes from the Asia Minor region is shown in the 

 Cretan colonies settled in Greece, and in the Cretan people 

 themselves, who could not have reached that island more 

 conveniently thin by crossing from Caria, by Rhodes and 

 33* 



