fatigue, same love of independence, same inflexion of voice, same expression of feelings.
Listen to a Cabyle speaking bis native tongue, and you will think you hear a Briton talking
Celtic.”
The Bretons to this day form a striking contrast with the people
around them, who are —
“ Celt#, of tall stature, with blue eyes, white skins and blond hair— they are communicative,
impetuous, versatile; they pass rapidly from courage to timidity, and from
audacity to despair. This is the distinctive character of the Celtic race, now, as in the
ancient Gauls.
“ The Bretons are entirely different: they are taciturn; hold strongly to their ideas and
usages; are persevering and melancholic; in a word, both in morale and physique, they
present the type of a southern race—of the Atlanteans [Atalantidse, Berbers?'].
The early history of the world is so enshrouded in darkness, that
science leaves us to probabilities in all attempts to explain the manner
of the wandering of nations from primitive seats.
“ Formerly,” says Bodichon, “ northern Africa was joined to Europe by a tongue of
land, afterwards divided by the Straits of Gibraltar. The ensemble of the Atlantic countries
formed the [imaginary] island of Atlantis. Is it not probable that the Atlanteans, following
the coast, penetrated Spain, Gaul, and reached Armorica? In contact with the
Celts, may they not have adopted some of their usages ? These African tribes, too, might
have reached Europe by sea. The Atlanteans, among the ancients, passed for the favorite
children of Neptune; they made known the worship of this god to other nations—-to the
Egyptians, for example. In other words, the Atlanteans were the first known navigators.
Like all navigators, they must have planted colonies at a distance — the Brdtons frace Bre-
tonne) in our opinion sprang from one of them.” 62 A •
Our historical proofs of the early diversity of Caucasian types-jn
Europe might he greatly enlarged; but the fact will he admitted by
every candid student of ancient history, who, to the propositions that
we have already supported by cumulative testimony^ will add those
more recently established in Scotland, through the inestimable researches
of Dr. D a n ie l W il so n and his erudite fellow-laborers:
“ The Celt®, we have seen reason to believe, are by no means to be regarded as the
primal heirs of the land, but are, on the contrary, comparatively recent intruders. Ages
before their migration into Europe, an unknown Allophylian race had wandered to this
remote island of the sea, and in its turn gave place to later Allophylian nomades, also destined
to occupy it only for a time. Of these antehistorical nations, Archteology alone
reveals any traces.” H . -
For our immediate objects, however, the acknowledgment that
Europe and Asia Minor were covered, at epochas antecedent to, all
record, by dark as well as by fair-skinned races, suffices. The farther
back we journey chronologically, the more conflicting become the
tribes, and the more salient their organic diversities; and no reflecting
man can, at the present day, cast his eye upon the infinitude of types
now extant over this vast area, and disbelieve that their originals
were already located in Europe in ages parallel with the earliest pyramids
of Egypt, nor that some of them were indigenous to the European
soil. The reader will hardly controvert this conclusion, after he has
followed us through the types of mankind depicted upon ancient
monuments.
C H A P T E R IV.
P H Y S IC A L H IS T O R Y OF TH E J E W S .
T h is historical people furnishes so striking an example of the permanence
of a Caucasian type, throughout ages of time, and in spite of
all the climates of the globe, that we assign it a chapter apart; and
if indelibility of type be a test of specific character, the Jews must be
regarded as a primitive stock. _
If the opinion of M. Agassiz, which coincides with what we have
long maintained, viz., that mankind were created in nations, be,correct,
it follows that, in reality, there is no such thing as a pure Abra-
hamic race; but that this so-called “ race” is made up of the descendants
of many proximate races, which had their origin around “Dr of
the Chaldees.” . . . .
We have already, set forth that the various zoological provinces
possess their-groups of proximate : species of animals, plants, and
races of men;, which differ entirely from those of other provinces.
In like manner, around the waters of the Tigris and Euphrates, for
an indefinite distance, and extending westward to the land of Canaan
on the Mediterranean, were grouped certain races hearing a general
resemblance to each other, although of distinct origins. This is not
simply a conjecture; because we see these races painted and sculptured
on the monuments of Assyria and Egypt. The | striking
resemblance of physical characters among the whole of them is unmis-
takeable, and wherever the portrait of another foreigner to their stock
is introduced, the contrast is at once evident.
Let us, in the first place, take a glance at the history of the Jews,
as given by their own chroniclers. In G-enesis, chap. xi., we are told
that A br ah am , their great progenitor, is descended in a direct line
from Shem, the son of Hoah. Only ten generations intervene between
Shem and Abraham; and the names, ages, and time of birth of each,
being given by the Hebrew writers themselves, we are enabled to
ascertain, with much precision, the length of time they estimated
between the Jewish date of the flood and the birth of Abraham.
According to the Hebrew text, which must he regarded' as the most
authentic, it was 292 years. $
It is certainly reasonable to infer that Abraham inherited, through
these few generations, the type of Shem and Hoah (supposing the