SECT. I.] MENTAL CULTURE. 75 



lived in an isolated state. Originally Hindoos of the Punjab, 

 they are now strikingly distinguished from their nearest allied 

 tribes, somewhat in the same degree as the Hindoos from the 

 Chinese, by extremely regular features and an oval face. 1 They 

 wear long beards, 2 and are said to resemble in face and deport- 

 ment, more than any other Asiatic people, Europeans, with the 

 single exception of the inhabitants of Cashmeer. 3 



The cases of the Osmanli-Turks and the Magyars are more 

 difficult to deal with. The improved shape of the skull and of 

 the features of the former in comparison with their allied tribes 

 in Asia, has been ascribed to the handsome women of the 

 harem ; and the physical improvement of the Magyars, who at 

 their arrival in Europe were of extreme ugliness, to their inter- 

 mixture with Germans and Sclavonians. There are in European 

 Turkey, about 700,000 Turks scattered among 15,000,000 of 

 other tribes (Schafarik) ; and as the influence of the harem 

 cannot have extended to the whole people, it is very probable, 

 as is proved by historical evidence, that intermixture has 

 largely taken place, less among the lower than among the 

 higher classes, the language of the former containing less 

 Arabian, Persian, and European elements than the written 

 language and that used in conversation among the higher 

 -es. 4 That theory has most in its favour which assumes 

 that both intermixture and intellectual progress have contri- 

 buted to improve the physical conformation of the Osmanlis. 

 This, perhaps, is also the case as regards the Magyars. They 

 differ at present very much from Finns, yet their language is 

 Finnish, though some Indo- Germanic elements are found in it 

 (Pott) . Where they have remained less mixed and less culti- 

 vated, in some remote, chiefly mountainous parts, they possess 

 the ungainly primitive type. The flat lands exhibit the transi- 

 tions to a nobler type ; they are conjoined in Szegedin. The 

 peasants in Cumania and Jazygia are specially distinguished 

 by handsome regular features. 5 



1 Prichard, iv, p. 240. 



2 Malcolm, " Asiatic Researches," xi, p. 259. 



8 Pavie in " Mem. de la soc . Ethnol./' i, p. 263. 



Schleicher, " D. Spr. Europas," 1850. 



5 Eey in "Nouv. ann. des voy.," ii, p. 113, 1849. 



