inflectional type of the race, it is spoken of as “allophyllic.” It
does not stand alone in this respect. Some of the white Caucasian
tribes speak similar agglutinative tongues, and it is supposed by some
that the ancient Pictish, Illyrian, Lycian, Van, and Etruscan were of
similar character. Probably many such languages obtained which are now
extinct.
The South Mediterranean Branch consists of two related stocks, which
have been called the Hamitic and the Semitic. These names are not
objectionable, in so far as they indicate a distant genealogic unity,
still recognizable, between the two branches; but should not in any way
be accepted as acknowledging as historic facts the myth of the Deluge
and their origin in Asia. The reverse is true. The migrations of both
stocks have been from west to east, and the two great branches of the
White Race entering Asia, the one by the Bosphorus and the second by
the Isthmus of Suez, encountered each other after thousands of years of
separation in the region where the venerable myth locates their point
of departure.
A. THE SOUTH MEDITERRANEAN BRANCH.
I shall begin my survey of the race and its distribution with the
South Mediterranean branch, as that which has been the more important
of the two in history, controlling by far the greater territory, and
developing the earlier and more potent civilizations. It has ever been,
and still is, the leader in intellectual acumen, and the monuments of
its achievements, both in the realms of thought and action, remain
unrivalled in the world. With great propriety, therefore, it claims our
first attention.
I. THE HAMITIC STOCK.
The affinity between the Hamitic and Semitic stocks is distinctly shown
by their physical traits and the character of their languages. The
latter statement, which was long in doubt, has now been acknowledged
by the most competent students, such as Friedrich Müller and A. H.
Sayce.[53]
Within their own lines the Hamites are divided into three groups, the
Libyan, the Egyptian and the East African groups, each distinguished by
physical and linguistic differences.
_1. The Libyan Group._
Of these the Libyan group occupies the region furthest to the west,
and presents the purest type of the stock. From time immemorial it has
occupied the land from the Nile Valley to the Atlantic, and from the
Mediterranean to the Soudan. In the classical geographies its tribes
are referred to as Numidians, Libyans, Mauritanians and Getulians, and
at present they are known as Berbers, Rifians, and Shilhas in Morocco,
the Tuariks and Tibbus of the desert, the Kabyles and Zouaves in
Algeria, the Ghadames, Serkus, Mzabites of the south, the Senegas of
Senegal, and many others. The Guanches, who once inhabited Teneriffe,
and are now extinct, belonged to the Rifian tribes of this stock,[54]
and the rulers of the once powerful empire of Ghanata, which for
centuries before the rise of Mohammedanism controlled the valley of the
Upper Niger, were allied to the Moroccan family.[55] Arab historians
of the seventh century tell us that at that time the Berbers were “the
lords of Maghreb (Africa), from the Arabian Gulf to the western ocean,
and from the middle sea to the Soudan.”[56]
The physical appearance of the Libyan peoples distinctly marks them
as members of the White Race, often of uncommonly pure blood. As the
race elsewhere, they present the blonde and brunette type, the latter
predominant, but the former extremely well marked. Among the Kabyles in
Algeria, I have seen many fine specimens of blondes, with yellow hair,
light eyes, auburn beard, and tall stature. An English traveller who
visited last year some remote villages in the mountains of Morocco,
describes their inhabitants as “for the most part fair, with blue
eyes and yellow beards, perfectly built and exceedingly handsome
men.”[57] This has been from the earliest times the characteristic of
the Libyans, and there is abundant evidence that it was more general
in former centuries than it is now. The Guanches of Teneriffe are
described by the first voyagers as unusually tall and fair, their
yellow hair reaching below their waists.[58]
The Greek poet Callimachus, who was librarian of the famous library
at Alexandria two hundred and fifty years before the Christian era,
applies the same adjective ξανθος, blonde or auburn, to the Libyan
women, which Strabo and other Greeks do to the Goths and blonde Celts
of Germany.[59]
Long before this, again, in monuments of the XIXth dynasty of Egypt,
the Libyans are painted as of a pronounced blonde type, with light
eyes and skins, and are mentioned by a term which signifies fair or
blonde.[60] The extended researches of ethnologists on this point have
accumulated a mass of facts proving that the ancient Libyans were in
appearance strikingly similar to the North Germans and Scandinavians,
having a fair skin, yellow or auburn hair, blue or grey eyes, full
blonde beards, the face medium, the skull dolichocephalic, the orbital
ridges prominent, the chin square and firm, forehead vertical or
slightly retreating, the stature tall, and the body powerful.[61]
This identity of type impressed me very much among the Kabyles,
and I note that the German ethnologist, Quedlinfeldt, who was
among the Berbers in Morocco lately, writes of them: “I very often
met individuals with flaxen hair and blue eyes, who in face and
form corresponded perfectly to the ordinary type of our North
German people.”[62] For this reason, I give it the name of the
“Libyo-Teutonic” type.
In the pure-blooded clans who still dwell in the fastnesses of the
Atlas and the Djurdjura, this antique type is that which is general;
but in the valleys, in the desert and in Tunisia the type is darker,
having been corrupted by admixture with negro, Arabic and other
stocks.[63] The fact which I wish especially to impress on you is that
nowhere do we find a purer type of the white race than in northern
Africa, and that this was recognized by the earliest writers and
records as that especially belonging to this stock.
The languages spoken by the various Libyan peoples prove on examination
to be dialects of one tongue, all so much alike that a few days’
practice will enable the speaker of any one of them to express himself
in another. In its grammatical formation, it is inflectional with
agglutinative tendencies. Its radicals are made up of consonants, the
indications of time and place being formed by changes in the vowel
sounds. In this respect it resembles the Semitic tongues, but differs
from them in having radicals of one, two, three, or four consonants,
while they have usually those of three consonants only. In many other
respects it presents analogies to the Semitic dialects, of such a
nature that these latter seem to have developed themselves out of
conditions of speech as represented by the Libyan. Hence some writers
have called it and its allied tongues “proto-Semitic languages.” It
stands in distinct relation to the Coptic or ancient Egyptian, and to
some East African dialects.
The Libyans have possessed from time immemorial the country in which
we find them. They are its indigenous inhabitants--all others, as
Carthaginians, negroes and Arabs, being demonstrably intruders. Can we
obtain any clue to their monuments in prehistoric times by the aid of
archæology and linguistics? Some able students have thought they could,
and have brought forward some singular surmises. There is a series
of structures of huge stones, called dolmens, menhirs and cromlechs,
extending over northern and central France, southern England, northern
Spain, Portugal, Morocco, Algiers, and central Tunisia. They are much
alike, and seem to have been constructed by some one people in very
ancient times. The skulls in them are often long, like those of the
Libyans and Teutons. Hence several French writers have suggested that
the ancestors of the white Libyans moved from central Europe into
Morocco, along the line of these megalithic structures.[64]
In spite of a good deal of severe criticism, there remains much in
favor of the view that these remains mark a route by which some
neolithic people extended their conquests. But it seems to me the trend
of migration was in the other direction, _toward_ the east, and not
from it. The white race began as such during the glacial epoch; it
could scarcely have developed north of the Pyrenees, for the climate
was so cold that the reindeer, which to-day cannot breed in Stockholm,
found a suitable home in the valley of the Garonne. The Iberian
peninsula and the Atlas at that time possessed climatic conditions
about like those of Great Britain to-day.
In that peninsula, at that time connected with Morocco by a land bridge
at the straits of Gibraltar, are the oldest forms of languages spoken
by the race, the Euskaric dialects. There is reason to believe that at
the dawn of history these occupied the centre of the peninsula; north
of them, in the Cantabrian mountains and along the shores of the Bay of
Biscay, were the Celtiberians, the rearguard of the migratory hordes
of Aryans; and along the southern shores and in North Africa extended
the tribes whose direct descendants are the Libyan peoples. The name
_Iberi_, Iberians applied by the ancients to the inhabitants of the
eastern and southern shores of Spain, testifies to this. It means
in the Libyan tongue _freemen_, and in the plural form _berberi_ or
Berbers, is that by which the old Egyptians knew them, and which from
the same root is their own favorite designation to-day.[65]
That the Iberians were Hamites, and not Basques, has long been
suspected, and is plainly the opinion to be derived from the statements
of the ancients and the presence of Libyan proper names in the south of
Spain.[66]
When the Berber chieftain Tarik crossed the straits in the
seventh century, and gave to the great rock his name (Gibraltar,
Djebel-el-Tarik), he was but returning to seize anew the land from
which his ancestors had been driven by Carthaginians and Romans.
From the remotest times the Libyans have had the same form of
government--village communities, united by loose bonds into
federations. The Egyptians referred to them as “the Nine Bows,” or
Bands,[67] the Romans as the “Quinquigentes,” the Five Peoples, the
Arabs as “Qabail” or Kabyles, Confederates. These confederations were
sufficiently powerful, even so far back as 1400 years before Christ,
to put in the field an army of 30,000 or more men for an attack on
Egypt; and that the general culture of their country was quite high is
shown by the character of the spoils obtained by the Egyptians--horses,
chariots, vessels of brass, silver, copper and gold, swords, cuirasses,
razors, etc.[68]
At that date the nations of the North Mediterranean branch were yet
in the stone age, and the sites of Greece and Rome were the homes of
savages.[69]
It is probable that this defeat of the Libyans by the armies of Rhamses
gave a serious shock to their progress, by disintegrating their growing
state. It appears that about this time there were various colonies
which migrated to sites on the northern shores of the Mediterranean.
One of these I have believed to be the Etruscans, who settled on the
west coast of Italy about 1200 years before our era. They were tall
blondes, dolichocephalic, speaking an un-Aryan language, and by their
traditions came by sea from the south.[70]
The Libyans were at times partially under the dominion of the kings of
Egypt, and many of them entered the Egyptian armies as mercenaries.
They allowed the Phenicians peaceably to found the great city of
Carthage on their shores, and from these early colonists they learned
the art of writing. The alphabet which is still preserved among some
of their hordes is derived from the Punic letters.[71] When Carthage
fell, Rome seized the mastery of the coasts and productive valleys, but
her legions never penetrated to the inland fastnesses. When the great
empire tottered to its fall, Goths and Vandals poured across and over
the straits of Gibraltar to found an ephemeral empire in Africa; but
these cavalry soldiers, knowing to fight only on horseback, scarcely
touched the confines of the Libyan mountain homes. Even the Arabs,
sweeping resistlessly across their land in the beginning of the eighth
century, failed to penetrate many of these fastnesses. To this day no
Arab dares venture into the land of the Rifian Berbers, and many a
tribe of the Djurjura keeps its customs and its blood unaltered by the
Koranic laws, or the Semitic intruders, or the Code Napoleon of the
French invaders.
The ancient elements of their culture are still largely retained.
Among the Kabyle and Touareg tribes of to-day, in spite of the liberty
authorized by Islam, monogamy is the almost invariable rule, the women
are not only respected, but generally possess most of the property,
and prostitution is unknown. They are, moreover, usually the learned
class, and most of the “tifinar” manuscripts come from the hands of
these fair scribes.[72] As to the general character of the Berbers of
Morocco, we may take Sir Joseph Hooker’s word when he tells us that
they are “decidedly superior in intelligence, industry and general
activity to their neighbors.”[73]
The wander-loving Libyan tribes pursued other journeys far to the east.
Following the coast of the Mediterranean, they formed settlements on
the Syrian shore, and extended their possessions into the Mesopotamian
valley, and north into the mountain vales of Asia Minor. The Phenicians
and Canaanites, the Amorites, who were blonde Berbers of true Libyan
type, the Hittites, and the old Assyrians, who were the builders
of Babylon and Nineveh, were of Hamitic stock, as is shown by the
accordance of the ancient biblical statement with modern linguistic and
archæological research.[74]
From these culture-centres of the Hamitic stock followed the mighty
stream of human progress back along the southern shores of the
Mediterranean to Cyrene and Carthage, and along its northern shores
to Cyprus, Greece, Italy and beyond; while the Accadian and Summerian
learning, preserved for all time in the cuneiform writing, made its
beneficient influence felt far into India and China, and reacted
beneficially on the older wisdom of Egypt, from which it had at first
largely drawn its inspiration.
_2. The Egyptian Group._
From this all too hasty survey of this most ancient people we must turn
to another, akin to it, which has played an important, yes, the most
important part in the culture-history of our species. I refer to the
ancient Egyptians. They belonged to the Hamitic stock, but wandering
eastward from its primal seats certainly more than ten thousand years
before our era, had possessed themselves of the Nile valley from the
mouth of the stream quite up to and beyond the first cataract.
Their kinship to the Libyans is proved by numerous linguistic
identities between the ancient Coptic and the Libyan dialects, and by
their physical appearance. In color they are yellowish-white, passing
to a reddish-brown though the women who are not exposed to the sun
would pass in Europe as merely dark brunettes. In the bony structure,
the skull, the face, and the proportions, they assimilate entirely
with the white race and the Libyan type. This has been shown by the
researches of Virchow and others.[75]
The ancient Egyptian is represented to-day by the modern Fellah or
field-laborer of the Nile. The type has been very well preserved, for
though the riches of this wonderful valley have attracted myriads of
foreigners in peace and war from the earliest times, all have suffered
greatly in longevity and fertility compared to the native population.
This type is of medium stature, the limbs and body symmetrical and
delicately moulded; the skull is long, the face oval, the hair dark
and straight, or slightly curly; the eyes are brown and small, the
nose straight, the lips rather full, the mouth small, the chin not
prominent, the beard scanty.
In all respects, in the pure Copt we must recognize a delicate,
thorough-bred member of the Eurafrican race, in spite of his
reddish-brown hue. These traits are to be explained by the narrow
limits of the Nile valley, shut in by trackless deserts from the rest
of the world. Here for thousands of years lived this stock, closely
intermarrying, and under climatic conditions of singular uniformity.
Whether they were the first inhabitants of the valley has not been
ascertained. Certain it is that at a period long before the date we
usually assign to Egyptian civilization, a people dwelt on the Nile
ignorant of any implements but those of rough stone. Their relics have
been found in the stratified gravels of the hills, and on the summits
of the arid plateaus.[76] I know no reason, however, to suppose that
the tribes of the Egyptian stone age were other than the ancestors of
those who were brought under the control of the founder of the first
dynasty, the historic king Mena.
This was about 4000 B. C. But previous to him the ancient Egyptian
priests claimed some 25,000 years of occupation under various gods and
demi-gods; and the general accuracy of their claim I am not prepared to
dispute.[77] Certainly the culture of lower Egypt must have been at a
high level for thousands of years before the date of Mena, or he could
never have established the state which we know he did. From all that
archæology has yet taught us, we must place the beginnings of Egyptian
civilization earlier than that in the valley of the Yang tse Kiang,
earlier by far than any other on the globe. Its streams have permeated
all the lands to which the Eurafrican race have extended; fecund as the
waters of its own Nile, its elements have nourished and developed the
best intellectual powers of the race through all subsequent ages; to it
we owe the seeds of our arts, the germs of our sciences, the forms of
our religion, the schemes of our literatures, and the inestimable boon
of our written language. Look where you will among the most ancient
remains of the Old World culture, you find the impress of Egypt’s Land
and mind--in Etruscan tombs, in Guanche mummy caves, in treasure houses
of Mycenæ, in Cypriote vaults, in Assyrian mounds, under Carthagenian
foundations.[78] The species Man owes nowhere else such gratitude as to
these African nations of the Eurafrican race.
The Egyptian presents the best known and complete type of the psychical
traits of the Hamitic stock. Unideal, laborious, utilitarian, he was
devoted to material progress and the gross animal enjoyments of life.
His preferred employment was agriculture, his favorite art the huge
in architecture, his religion was a polytheism with numberless images
and pictures, his pleasures were those of the appetite, his hopes of
immortality were bound up with the preservation of the present body.
_3. The East African Group._
The singular uniformity of the Egyptian type does not allow us to
divide it into several branches, and on account of its segregated
position, it does not seem to have had much intercourse with the east
African group of the Hamitic stock, living to the south of it.
At present this east African group of the Hamites includes the Bedjas
and Bilins between the Nile and the Red Sea, the Afars or Danakils
near the mouth of the Red Sea, Gallas and Somalis between the gulf of
Aden and the Indian ocean, and the adjacent tribes of the Agaouas,
Adals, Khamirs, and others. In appearance these peoples are usually
reddish brown in color, with dark wavy hair, of moderate stature and
symmetrical form, the face oval and the skull moderately long, the nose
aquiline and the chin well shaped, and heavier built than the Egyptians.
Their life is principally nomadic, living in tents of skin, and
governed by chiefs who rule over small communities. The descent is
reckoned and property passes on the female side. Some are Mahommedans,
but hold the faith lightly, and like the Kabyles, attach more
importance to the customs of their clan than to the precepts of the
Prophet. In many parts they betray admixture with the Negro tribes to
whom they are neighbors, and from whom they have always obtained slaves.
Thus the Danakils are described as sooty black, with scanty beards,
thin calves, and thick lips, but with features and hair in other
respects quite European, their faces rarely prognathic, and their
bodies symmetrical.[79] The Somalis are lighter in color, but like the
Danakils, do not cultivate the soil nor establish fixed abodes.
II. THE SEMITIC STOCK.
Owing to the unreasoning acceptance of myths as history, it is
generally believed that the Semites originated in Asia. From what I
have already said you will appreciate that such an opinion is quite
inconsistent with modern research. We may, at the most, concede that
the peculiar form of their language and certain physical traits were
developed during their long residence in the peninsula of Arabia,
where history first finds them. But that they entered Arabia in remote
pre-historic times from Africa, and not from Asia, is now acknowledged
by an increasing number of learned and unprejudiced writers.[80]
There is a difference of opinion whether this immigration was by the
way of the Isthmus of Suez or the Straits of Bab el Mandeb, but the
course of their wanderings in Arabia seems to have been from north to
south, the Ethiopian Semites being distinctly emigrants from the other
side of the Red Sea. Hence the probability is that the ancestors of
the ancient Arabians wandered from the Libyan plateau, or the eastern
Atlas, through the Delta into the region of the Sinaitic mountains,
whence they spread south and east, forming several distinct groups.[81]
_1. The Arabian Group._
The first of these included the Arabians proper. At a very early period
they became divided into a northern and southern portion, the former
represented by the Ishmaelites and Bedawins, the latter by the ancient
Himyarites, Sabeans and Nabotheans, and the modern Ehkili and kindred
clans. The Himyaritic nations had important cities, and possessed a
written literature at least 700 B. C., and probably much earlier.[82]
The Queen of Sheba, who paid a memorable visit to King Solomon, came
from one of these cities, and her journey is strong testimony to the
admiration for learning which prevailed in her land, and which she so
evidently fostered.
At that time, and for centuries afterwards, there were few parts of
the world more favored than the southern portions of the peninsula.
It was known as “Arabia felix,” Araby the Blest, and was famed for its
abundant products, its spices and perfumes, and the wealth and luxury
of its inhabitants. Some change of climate apparently, and the inroads
of the Ishmaelitic hordes, quite destroyed this happy condition about
the fifth century, A. D. The Himyaritic language disappeared, the
cities were laid waste, many of the people migrated to Africa or sank
into despised outcasts, as the present Ehkili of the Hadramaut. In this
manner the whole of the great peninsula fell under the control of the
true Arab.
It is he who preserves in his language the oldest and purest form
of Semitic speech, and in mind and body its most pronounced mental
and physical type. He is rather tall (1.65), his face oval, the nose
straight or aquiline, the features sometimes singularly noble and
prepossessing, the skull long (index 73°-75°), the complexion ruddy
rather than brown, when due allowance is made for the tan, and the hair
slightly wavy or straight. Crisp hair is looked upon with disapproval,
as indicating mixed and ignoble blood.[83] In temperament the Arab is
abstemious, and his powers of physical endurance are phenomenal. His
mental temperament is that of an idealist; he has added nothing to
the grand creations of plastic art, nothing to inventions of utility
in life, nothing to the marvels of architecture or the beauties that
appeal to the senses; he cares neither for history nor the drama. In
his dreams he conquers the world, and it falls at his feet; in fact,
his greatest states have been ephemeral bubbles.
Yet his dreams have been realized. The Semite has conquered the world,
and it is at his feet. Twice have arisen among his people majestic
forms, before whom all civilized nations bow, Jesus and Mahomet.