iCO ETHNOLOOX or THE UniO-lACmC JSLASDS. 



IraniB. There tnay have been Semitic or Iranian tribes speaking 

 Scytliic dialecta or Scytftic Iribt'S ajteuking Iraniati or Semitic 

 dialects, and each influencing l!ie etljiiolo^y of indid. This peotn- 

 siilar region being open on llie IraniaJi ^\iU\ it is probable lliiit it, 

 •aUo, ill all later eras, has been occupied by more tban one race and 

 rmj;uistic formation. 



So far as know, llw're never was a pei ioti %vlien any one of tlie 

 great formations existed in S. W. Asia in a compleldy isolated 

 pogilion. Each, so fur as we can trace it, has alwuys been surround- 

 ed by other formal ions. In every consiilcrable ethnic revolution 

 and movement of tirchaic times, as in the Bnihminic, ^ledu-Persian, 

 Scytliic and Arabiaji coiiquosts of liisitirEcid limes, tiibes of distinct 

 races must have come in coJi|!icr, one race predoniin;iiing or at leaat 

 maintaining iis position in the land*; of others by itji pnpcrior power. 

 Wherever the nature of the country caused actual contict and in- 

 lermtxiure, ossimilation must have begun. One race might change 

 itd language sooner lhan ii? phvsical character, ovri're ver.-^a. In 

 mountainous eouniries and wide stcpp*^^, tsolutt d or nomadic tribes 

 under favorable circumsldncea would rctuiti their native formation, 

 even when subject to a foreign mce. Hence immeUiaiely lo the 

 north of Irania there have prolmldy always been wandering 

 Scythic tribes in the later eras of hnnian Jii^lory, although their 

 territorieB have been cmhiaced in Semitic or Arrjitt dominions and 

 even been content poriineou^sly occnplfd by an Arian or Semitico- 

 Arian people. Bui in fertile river hn^lm iniiaiiiied by fixed indus- 

 trial communities, an instrusive dominant }K?opie cannot remain 

 pure, mnch less can the nali ve and the introduced linguistic forma- 

 .tions he preserved unmodified. Wherever, in the etltnic revolu- 

 tions of Irnnia and India, two racrs an^l formations have come 

 permanently in contael under such tircumstances, mixed tribes and 

 dialects must have r<^iilt<^d. The conne!'t<'d [trovince formed by 

 the basins of the Indus and Ganties must have been the seat of 

 settled and civilirJeil poputati<tns from the lime wUm agriculture 

 and villages first cxi^«ed in Iranisi and India, and it i^ probable, 

 therefore, from the nMiuntl attracJtvenf iiS of a large portion of tbat 

 province, from \U enervating and demoralising inBueiice on its 

 gucceii&ive occupants, Hud from the permanent existence in the 

 countries to the N. W. of more robust nations, that the formatiow 



