Egypt where this vast population of bondsmen is supposed to have
dwelt. Mow, simultaneously witli the Israelitish bondage, their
Egyptian masters embraced at least 5,000,000 of population ;455 the
latter were the oppressors ; the former oppressed,—to such an abject
and inconceivable degree, that they allowed even their first-born to
be butchered without armed revolt. Nevertheless, they “ multiplied
exceedingly;” in consequence, as Eather Elroher states,456 of the
fecundative properties of the Mile. A simple rule of three will test
the relative ratio of increase.
If 75 Jews, in a given number of years, notwithstanding the most
atrocious and attenuating despotism, multiply so as to leave Egypt
in number (say the lowest figure) 1,800,000 souls; what, during the
same period, in the same climate, and favored by their comfortable
position as slaveholders, instead of being slaves, was the statistical
augmentation of 5,000,000 of Egyptians ?
There is no reason, therefore, to be appalled at the Rabbinical estimate
of the number of Adam’s children by the “ universal mother.”
Whatever the numerical amount may have been, their antediluvián
descendants were drowned in the Elood. Noah, Shem, Ham, and
Japhet, with their wives, in all but eight individuals, being the only
persons who landed—B.C. 2348—from the Ark upon Mount Ararat,
to become the second progenitors of Mankind.
Erom these four couples, after a considerable lapse of time down
to the middle of this ,XIXth century, have proceeded, according to
(p o p u l a t i o n o f t h e w o u l d .)
Balbi ......................................................... 739 millions.
Malte-Brun.................................................. 800 “
D’Halloy 750 “
^ Reynolds’s Chart.................................... .4 852 “
Ravenstein’s Chart.................... .— ........ 1,216 “
Inasmuch, however, as we are yet ignorant of the interior topography
of at least one-third of the earth’s surface, whilst we absolutely
know little or nothing about myriads of human beings inhabiting
such portions, it is probable that Dr. Gustaf Kombst’a
beautiful sheets457 contain all attainable information, and to these I
455 G lid d o n , Oiia ¿Egyptiaca, p. 78.
456 u Unde foeminoe non uno, duobus, aut tribus contents©, sed sex, septem aut octó foetus
único partu: quod et Hebrai in Exodum commentatores memorant, subinde effundebant.
Nemini igetur mirum esse debet, filiorum Israel spatio ducentorum prope annorum, quo
JEgyptum incolebant, immensam fuisse propagationem— (Edipus JEgyptiacus, Rome, fol.,
?652; Tom. I, p. 62.
<57 “ Ethnology, or the different nations and tribes of Man, traced according to Race,
Language, Religion, and Form of Government”—revised and extended to 1854;—J ohnston,
Physical Allas, new ed., Edinburgh, 1855: PI. 31, with six pages of description.
beg leave to refer the reader for collateral statistics bearing upon our
“Ethnographic Tableau.” .
The difficulties experienced for many years, both in the capacities
of lecturer and author, to popularize some branches of archaeological
and ethnographic discoveries, had convinced me of the inadequacy
of oral or written explanations compared with the rapid and convincing
manner in which audiences, or readers, appreciate knowledge
when accompanied by pictorial illustrations. It was my intention
therefore, upon undertaking, in 1854, to collect in Europe materials
for my contribution to the present volume, to furnish an Ethnological
Map, through which the differences and similarities, the divergencies
and gradations, of the best-known races of men could be seized by the
eye at a glance. ’ Taught also by travel, comparison, and study, that
systems and classifications, hitherto advanced under the sanction of
eminent names, are open to the grave objection of being premature in
the present stage of knowledge, most of them having been conceived
by anticipation of the facts, my purpose was to avoid them all: and
neither to take the word “ Caucasian”458 as comprehending numberless
distinct types of man, stretched out geographically from Scandinavia
to the Dekhan; nor the still more misapplicable term “ Tou-
ranian, 459 through which a modern linguistic school agglomerates,
into one unaccountable mass, the 1001 different languages that happen
to be neither Semitic nor Indo-G-ermanic. It is through the misuse
of well-defined specific appellatives, and their transposition into
generic senses, coupled with a sort of philological “ thimble-rig,”
which strives to conceal individual ignorance,—when, in reality, this
ignorance is universal—that the “public mind,” uncritical and spellbound
by authority, as it necessarily must be, consoles itself with the
notion -that the “ unity of the human species” is demonstrated, partly
because Cuvier arbitrarily grouped all humanity into three grand
classes, Caucasian, Mongolian, and Ethiopian;*® and partly because
the excellent Sanscrit scholar, Prof. Max-Müller, chooses to divide
488 First used by Bluraenbach. for convenience’ sake, in cranioscopic subdivisions.
459 Invented first and applied to ethnology by Prichard, I believe (Researches) ; it is time
that this unlucky term should be brought back to its primitive historical meaning.
460 C a u c a s i a n , from K a u k -A so s , means only the “ mountain of the A s i,” or “ A H of the
mountain;” referring to a special nation (As, Os, Ossetes) on the Caucasian range. M o n g o l
meant “ brave, haughty,” and was the peculiar honorific title of the golden horde of Ginghis-
khän. E t h i o p i a n , from Aithiops, signified only a “ sun-burnt faoe,” and, in Homeric times,
indicated merely all nations darker than Greeks; to the exclusion of negro races, at that
period unknown to the fair-skinned Hellenes. To classify Egyptians, Dravidians, and
Basques, as if they had ever been one family, instead of three distinct types, under the narao
“ Caucasian,” which in no respect suits any of t h e m t o include Lapps and Siamese within
the designation “ Mongolian,” foreign and remote alike from both; A or to embrace under
tiie appellation ef “ sun-burnt faces” (that is, only tanned or swarthy) African Negroes,