226 



PHYSICAL HISTORY OF MAN. 



quite beardless. In short, the White race is here protean or polymor- 

 phous, and exhibits a diversity in feature and complexion that I have 

 not found in the other races. The prominence of profile is, how- 

 ever, for the most part permanent; and I further remarked, that the 

 various series of expressions of countenance, which pertain respec- 

 tively to the other races, appeared to be absent. It should be ob- 

 served, however, that actual mixtures of race, have been more fre- 

 quent and more complicated in the southern Arab countries, and iiave 

 been taking place there for a longer period, than in the other parts of 

 the globe. 



While acknowledging that we are only beginning to be acquainted 

 with the countries and people of the East, I have been impressed with 

 one view of the circumstances, in correspondence apparently with an 

 ancient condition of the human family. In the course of my recent 

 tour, I was continually hearing from the lips of Orientals the words of 

 different ancient and modern European languages; until at last, the 

 whole class of these languages, seemed as if merely recomposed from 

 fragments of Arabic and Sanscrit. Of fragments indeed, which have 

 been disguised more or less by interchanges during some thousands 

 of years; and if any European words can be traced to a different 

 source, they at least remain to be pointed out. 



The same state of things appears to exist in the Malay class of 

 lancjuao-es ; and instances have been discovered, of English words 

 which can be traced through the Sanscrit to the remotest islands of 

 the Pacific. The rule may perhaps be further extended to the lan- 

 guages of the African continent; but whether applicable in any de- 

 gree to the Chinese, or to the aboriginal American languages, I am 

 uninformed. 



At the present day, the White race may be conveniently disposed 

 in two divisions, as well geographical, as differing in institutions and 

 habits of life; the Frank or European, and the Oriental. The ex- 

 traordinary intensity of heat, in some of the countries inhabited by 

 the White race, may help to explain a portion of these differences. 



One of the above divisions, may in some measure be said to rule 

 the land, as the other rules the sea; for the extent of the caravan 

 routes, is almost an equivalent to the universal maritime intercourse 

 now attained by Europeans. 



