8. The Mongol-Tartar Family.
9. The Turkish Family.
10. The Chinese Family.
11. The Indo-Chinese Family.
12. The Polar Family.
III. THE MALAY RACE.
The Malay Race is characterised by a dark complexion, varying from a
tawny hue to a very dark brown. Their hair is black, coarse and lank, and their
eye-lids drawn obliquely upwards at the outer angles. The mouth and lips are
large, and the nose is short and broad, and apparently broken at its root. The
face is flat and expanded, the upper jaw projecting, and the teeth salient. The
skull is high and squared or rounded, and the forehead low and broad. This race
is active and ingenious, and possesses all the habits of a migratory, predaceous and
maritime people.
13. The Malay Family.
14. The Polynesian Family.
IV. THE AMERICAN RACE.
The American Race is marked by a brown complexion, long, black, lank
hair, and deficient heard. The eyes are black and deep set, the brow low, the
cheek-bones high, the nose large and aquiline, the mouth large, and the lips
tumid and compressed. The skull is small, wide between the parietal protuberances,
prominent at the vertex, and flat on the occiput. In their mental
character the Americans are averse to cultivation, and slow in acquiring knowledge;
restless, revengeful, and fond of war, and wholly destitute of maritime
adventure.
15. The American Family.
16. The Toltecan Family.
V. THE ETHIOPIAN RACE.
Characterised by a black complexion, and black, woolly hair; the eyes are
large and prominent, the nose broad and flat, the lips thick, and the mouth wide:
the head is long and narrow, the forehead low, the cheek-bones prominent, the
jaws projecting, and the chin small. In disposition the negro is joyous, flexible,
and indolent; while the many nations which compose this race present a singular
diversity of intellectual character, of which the far extreme is the lowest grade of
humanity.
17. The Negro Family.
18. The Caffrarian Family.
19. The Hottentot Family.
20. The Oceanic-Negro Family.
21. The Australian Family.
22. The Alforian Family.
1. TH E CAUCASIAN FAMILY.
This family, the type of the Caucasian Race, derives its name from the
mountainous region of Caucasus, between the Black Sea and the Caspian, a spot to
which history and tradition refer the primeval family of man. The spontaneous
fertility of this tract has rendered it the hive of many nations, which extending
their migrations in every direction, have peopled the finest portions of the earth,
and given birth to its fairest inhabitants. On the present occasion we propose to
notice the Caucasian family as consisting of three branches, the Caucasian proper,
the Persian, and the Pelasgic.
1. The Caucasians proper are confined to the valleys and mountains of
Caucasus. They are extremely numerous, and embrace many primitive tribes
which differ in language, yet possess, in common, certain prominent physical
characters. Independent of these aboriginal nations, it is said that five great
immigrations of foreigners form as many epochs in the history of this country.
These nations are the Lesghi, the Ghasazes, the Mongols, the Arabs, and the
Tartars. The languages spoken are scarcely inferior in number to the remnants
of nations. “ There are villages perfectly insulated, each of which is a complete
nation, whose language is not in the least comprehended by the people in the next
village to them, and is spoken nowhere else.”* Hence the observation of Major
Rennel, that this remarkable tract, which forms an isthmus between the nations
of the north and south, seems to have retained a specimen of each passing tribe
from the date of the earliest migration.j-
A few only of the most prominent of these nations will be noticed on the
present occasion.
Tooke’s Russia, II, p. 107. t Freygan, Caucasus, p. 51.