DISPLACEMENT AND EXTINCTION OE EACES. 7 



Palestine ; and jNThnrod, the son of Cush, moving to the eastward, 

 settled his descendants on the banks of the Euphrates ; so that of 

 the distinctly recognisable generations of Ham, it is in Asia, and not 

 in Africa, that we must look for them, for centuries after the dispersion 

 of the human race. 



But the Semitic races were also to share the Eastern Continent 

 before they enlarged their area, and asserted their right to the inheri- 

 tance of the descendants of Ham. By jNTimrod, the grandson of Ham, 

 the settlements along the valley of the Euphrates were originated, 

 " and the beginning of his kingdom was Babel, and Erech, and Accad, 

 and Calneh, in the land of Shinar," all sites of ancient cities which 

 recent exploration and discovery seem to indicate as still traceable 

 amid the graves of the East's mighty empires. But the eponymous 

 of the rival kingdom on the banks of the Tigris was Asshur, the son 

 of Shem, and in that region also it would appear that we must look 

 for the locality of Elam, (Elymais), as well as others of the generations 

 of the more favoured Shem ; while nearly the whole habitable regions 

 between their western borders and the Red Sea, appear to have been 

 occupied from this very dawn of human history, by the numerous 

 Semitic descendant of Joktan, the protoplast of a branch of the 

 human family to whose pedigree a special and curious attention is 

 devoted in the Sacred Genealogies. By an expressive figure of speech 

 Shem is spoken of as the father of all the children of Eber, of whom 

 came Joktan and his sons, whose " dwelling w r as from Mesha, as thou 

 goest unto Sephar, a mount of the East," and of whom as surely 

 descended Mohammed and the Semitic propogators of the monotheistic 

 creed of the Koran ; as came the Hebrews, according to Jewish belief, 

 and through them, the great prophet of our faith, from Eber, the 

 assumed eponymous of those whom we must look upon, on many 

 accounts, as important above all other Semitic races. 



Deriving our authority still from the Sacred Records, we ascertain 

 as the result of the multiplication and dispersion of one minutely 

 detailed generation of the sons of Ham, through Canaan, that for 

 eight hundred years thereafter they increased and multiplied in the 

 favoured lands watered by the Jordan, and stretching to the shores 

 of the Levant ; they founded mighty cities, accumulated great wealth, 

 subdivided their goodly inheritance among distinct nations and 

 kingdoms of a common descent ; and upwards of eleven hundred years 

 thereafter, when the intruded tribe of Dan raised up the promised 

 judge of his people, the descendants of Ham still triumphed in the 

 destined heritage of the seed of Eber. At length, however, the 

 Semitic Hebrew accomplished his destiny. The promised land became 



