3 42 
I will therefore, without further preface, examine the origin 
of the Egyptians. 
The 10th chapter of the Book of Genesis is a document of 
inestimable importance to all who would study the origin of 
nations. It is called by Kuobel, who has written an admirable 
treatise on the subject, the Volkertafel, for which word I do not 
remember an equally succinct English equivalent. For want 
of the guidance of this precious record, the Greek and Roman 
historians went much astray as to the origin of the Egyptians, 
and Herodotus relates a curious story of the attempt made by 
one of their own monarchs to ascertain which of the nations 
could boast of the greatest antiquity ; showing that they were 
themselves much in ignorance of their own extraction. 
In this Toldoth heni Noach we learn the common descent of 
Cush and Mizraim and Phut and Canaan from Ham ; and thus 
the close affiliation of large and important populations, spreading 
from Mesopotamia round the southern portion of Arabia into 
Eastern Africa, and again from the same central position into 
Syria and Egypt. 
The researches of modern science equally show us that the 
Egyptians do not belong to any one of the races which inhabit 
Africa properly so called* The formation of the skulls and 
the proportion of different parts of the body, studied in a 
great number of mummies,! demonstrate that they must have 
belonged to what has been (absurdly enough) called “ the 
Caucasian race.” See especially Dr. Granville’s “ Essay on 
Egyptian Mummies,” Philosophical Transactions, vol. 115, from 
which it will be seen that the mummy which he so carefully 
examined might have served, even better than Blumenbach’s 
Georgian slave, as a type of the most perfect race of mankind. 
There never was a Caucasian race, but fragments of very many 
races in that mountainous country. The Egyptians form a 
third branch, differing by certain specialities from the Pelasgic 
and Semitic branches. It is certain (we are now told) that the 
study of the language leads to a similar conclusion. As indelibly 
portrayed in the hieroglyphics, and as preserved in the religious 
books of the Christian Copts, it offers no analogy with the 
tongues of the people of Africa. On the contrary, the roots 
of the words and the elements which constitute its grammar 
present striking affinities with the Indo-Germanic and Semitic 
tongues. 
The cradle, or rather the centre, of the early civilization of 
Egypt was at Memphis, and dates from the era ofMenes, when 
* Brugsch Bey, lfistoire d’Egypte , chap, i, f Appendix A, 
