Now, the beautiful Osmanlis are the lineal descendants of the
warlike Seldjuks, who, in the ninth century, suddenly made thek
appearance in Southern Asia, overthrew the empire of the Ehalifs,
and founded the states of Iran, Kerman, and Koum, or Iconium.
History informs us that these Seldjuks were, by no means, careful
about preserving the purity of their genealogy ; for it is not difficult
to adduce instances of their chiefs intermarrying with Arabian and
Christian women. In short, when we consider that, as a body, they
were constantly engaged in extensive predatory excursions, during
which they enjoyed almost unlimited opportunities for capturing
slaves and amalgamating with them ; that in compliance with the
invitation of Osman, the son of Ortogrhul, great numbers of the
adventurous, the discontented, and the desperate, from all the surrounding
nations, fled to his standard, and gradually swelled the ranks
of the Osmanlis ; that at a later period, the thinning of their numbers
in war was avowedly provided for by the capture of slaves ;
that in the ranks of the Janissaries, a military order instituted in the
early part of the fourteenth century by Orkhan, one-fifth of all the
European captives were enrolled ; that for two centuries and a half
this body was entirely dependent for its renewal upon the Christian
slaves captured in Poland, Germany, Italy, &c. ; that in the course
of four centuries, at least half a million of European males derived
from the above-mentioned sources, and by piracy along the Mediterranean,
had been incorporated into the Turkish population ;—when
we consider all these, and many other facts of a like nature, we are
forced to conclude with the erudite Gobineau, that the history of so
amalgamated a nation furnishes no arguments, either for or against
the doctrine of permanency of type.
Further on, and confirmatory of the above remarks, the reader
will find some allusion to the special character of the Turkish
cranium, and the marks which distinguish it from the Mongolian,
Finnic, and other forms of the skull.
The Magyars are also produced as an example of the mutability
of cranial form.
“ Bien qu’ils ne le cèdent à ancnn peuple ni en beauté physique ni en développement
intellectuel, ils descendent, d’après les indications de l’histoire et de la linguistique comparée,
de la grande race qui occupe l’Asie septentrionale. Ils sont du mâmé sang que les
Samoïèdes indolents, lès Ostiacs stupides et débiles, les Lapons indomptables. Il y a environ
mille ans, les codescendants de ces peuplades méprisées, les Magyars modernes, furent
chassés par une invasion de Turcs hors de la Grande-Hongrie, pays avoisinant l’Oural,
qu’ils habitaient à cette époque. A leur tour ils expulsèrent les races slaves des plaines
fertiles de la Hongrie actuelle. Par cette migration, les Magyars échangèrent un des plus
rudes climats de l’ancien continent, une contrée sauvage dans laquelle l’Ostiac et le Samoïède
ne peuvent s’adonner à la chasse que pendant quelques mois, contre un pays plus méridional,
d’une luxuriante fertilité. Ils furent entraînés à se dépouiller peu à peu de leurs
moeurs grossières e t à se rapprocher de leurs voisins plus civilisés. Après un millier d’an
nées, la forme pyramidale de leur crâne est devenue ellintioue l ’hvLthx T
ment général de races n’est pas admissible quand il s’agit des Magyares! fiers vivanTZ s
!Xpatriation - - f i i t pas non plus
d, 2 S : r r Iui aus8i ehangé crâne avec sa vie de nomade sauvage.” ? ervé e type pyramidal de son
^This asserted transformation of the Samoiede or Northern Asiatic
type into the Hungarian, in the short space of eight hundred or at
most, one thousand years, stands unparalleled in history. But’we
m a y ask if the Magyar has thus changed the form of htehead w L
have not his habite and mode of life changed accordingly? Why
after a residence of nearly one thousand years in Hungly, Q * S
still withhold his hand from agricultural pursuits, and, depending
for his support upon his herds, leave to the aboriginal M S «
lation the task of cultivating the soil ? Why does he jealously pre
serve his own language, and, though professing the same r e lfgL
refuse to intermingle with his Slavonian neighbors ? Can it be thai
he language manners, and customs of a people are mo rf duraMe
than the hardest parts of their organism-the bony skeleton 1 If
of the H r • I S Î Z 6, aWe essay °f Gerardo, upon the origin
of the Hungarians,» he will find a simple explanation of these a rfZ
lent difficulties. It is there shown by powerful philological arguments,
and upon the authority of Greek and Arabian historians and
unganan annalists, that the Magyars are a remnant of the warlike
N o w \ h V n C6ntUry Spread 8uel1 terror through Europe
Now, the Huns were by no means a pure Mongolie race, but on the
WhT^n an eX' ee? ngly mboed pe°ple- In the veins of the so-called
White Hu-ns who formed a portion of Attila’s heterogeneous horde
eimanic blood flowed freely. “ In the whole of the high region
es o the Caspian,” says H amilton Smith, “ to the Euxine and
d S t T \ 0f as far aa the Hellespont^ it is
n “ impossible, to separate distinctly the Finnic from the
pure Germ^ic and Celtic nations.”- H umbolbt, in the a 1
569 7 ' ° l Nhirghiz-Kasakes as a mixed race, and tells us that in
69, Zemarch, the ambassador of Justinian H., received from the
W»“ lr » hi« a ‘ PreM“ “f * EMrgh“ “ ”CDK" ” 1>»
■ B M M j j g g p l « « d b„„;
93 Essai Historique sur l’Origine des Hongrois Par A n» ‘—*----
also Hamilton Smith’s Nat Hist o f « • Gérando. P a n s ,1 8 4 4 . See
M On „it oo„ Human Species, pp. 323, 326.
«P. cit., p. 325. Op. cit., p. 223.