+ amalgamations ■which have been going on for several thousand years. These races all
unquestionably, antedate the foundation of the Egyptian Empire — proving how difficult it
is to obliterate a type.
Thus far, in the Comparative Anatomy of Races, I have permitted
myself to cull hut a few of the more salient facts touching the races
of Europe, America, Africa, and Oceanica, and already are my prescribed
limits exhausted. Asia, with a population incomparably the
most numerous of any division of the globe, and presenting an infinitude
of widely different types, must he abandoned; although no terrestrial
sphere affords a richer and more interesting field of research.
However, I can scarcely regret the omission—regarding our side of
the case to be sufficiently well made out.
All the types of mankind known to history or monumental researches
vanish into pre-historical antiquity; and investigation shows
that this remark applies with full force to the Mongolian group of
Asia. Tartar races are distinctly portrayed on the monuments of the
XTXth dynasty of Egypt; and a reference to our chapter on Chronology
will prove that the Chinese Empire, with the same Mongolian
types now seen, together with their peculiar language, institutions,
arts, &c., were contemporary with the Old Egyptian Empire. Such
facts confirm the only rational theory: viz., that races were created
in each zoological^ province, and therefore all primitive types must he
of equal antiquity. j|
P a u t h i e r , whose work is the only veritable key to Chinese history and literature yet
put forth in Europe, admirably remarks: — “ Of all historical phenomena that strike the
human understanding, and which it seeks to comprehend when wishing to embrace the
whole of universal life, as well as the general development of humanity, the most curious
and the most extraordinary is assuredly the indefinite existence of the Chinese Empire.
Like the great river of Egypt, which veils to travellers one-half of its course, the grand
empire of High Asia has only revealed itself to Europe after traversing an unknown region
of more than forty ages of existence. It was during our Middle Ages — epoch of profound
darkness in the West, and of immense movement
in the East r— that the noise of a colossal
empire at the extremity of Asia reached European
ears, simultaneously with the clangor of
those Tartarian armies which (like an avalanche)
then began to fall upon our panic-
stricken Occident.” 539
But the deficiency of Mongolian skulls, complained
of by Morton, may, in part, be counterbalanced
through Chinese iconography. The
following selections are made merely with the
view to illustrate Mongolian permanence of
type.
A portrait (Fig. 329) of the Miao-tkeu,
“ sons of the uncultivated fields” — the unsubdued
and aboriginal savage tribes of
China; whose existence recedes to the antehistorical
times of Fo-hi (b. o. 3400), and descends
to the present day, in various wild and
mountainous regions of the empire, as well
as among the hills near Canton. They have
ever heen reputed, by the Chinese, to be un-
tameable, and, in this respect, resemble the
aborigines of America. Paravey says he
copied this figure from a Chinese work of
2400 plates, now in Holland.
Portrait of Khocng-F ou-T seu (Fig. 330),
Cmfudus; born 551 years B. C.; whom the
Chinese venerate as the “ most saintly, the
most sage, and the most virtuous, of human
Institutors.” His face, while Sinico-Mongol,
possesses the massive lineaments of a great
man.
Another form of Chinaman is beheld in the
historian S s e -m a -T h sian (Fig. 331), who, born
b. c. 145, composed the grand history of the
Empire, in 130 books.
The work of Pauthier is illustrated by an
infinitude of Chinese likenesses of all ages;
and it is so very accessible in form and price,
that we refer our readers to the original for
proofs that, with the exception of thz pig-tail
introduced by the Tartars, the Chinese have
not altered in the 4000 years for which we
possess their records.
The subjoined (Figs. 332-335) are authentic
Chinese portraits543 of the ancient foreign
people at the four extremities, or four cardinal
points, of the Empire: —
Fig. 332 — “ The men of Tai-ping (at the
east) are humane, benevolent.”
Fig. 333 — “ The men of Tan-joung (at the i
Fig. 334— “ The men of Tai-momg (at the
Fig. 330.M1
are sage, prudent.
are faithful, sincere ”—Indian nations.