Indigenous Races of the Earth

XGN23N881857 19

XX PllF.FATORY REMARKS. The Egyptians, eldest historical branch of the IIamitic group of races, now ar pear to science as termJ geniti, or autochthones, of the lower valley of the ""ile,-and thi~;, of f'oursc, from a period incaku­lably beyond all "chronology." Upon them, at a scconuat·y phase of the existcn e of the former, bnt pl'ior even to the erection of the earliest pyramid of the illu Dynasty, Semitic races by degt·ecs became infiltt·atcd and, at a later pcriod-Xllth to XXIId Dynasties -superposed. From about the twenty-second century D. c., uown to the seventh, Hylcsos invasions, Israelitish sojourn, Phmnician com­tnet ·cc, Assyrian and Babylonish relations, greatly Semiticized the people; at the same time that frequent intermarriages of the phara­onic and hicrogrammatic families with princesses and noblesse of the Semitic stock in Palestine, Arabia, yria, and Mesopotamia, mate­rially aftoctcd the original type of the ruli11g class of Egyptiaus. A botlt n. o. 650, PsAMMETICHUS I., by throwing open the al'my and the ports of EO'ypt to the Greeks, intl'oduced a third clement of amalgamation, viz: the Indo-European; which received still stl'ongcr imp tus aft.er CAlliBYSES (B. c. 525) and his successors held Egypt prostrate under Arian subjection. ALI~XANDEit (n. c. 332), and the Ptolemics, then overwhelmed I. .. owcr Egypt with Macedo11ians and other Grecians; lESAlt (n. c. 39-30), and the Roman em})Crors, in­jected streams of Indo-Germanic, Celtic, and some Sarmatian blood, through legionaries drawn even from Britannia et Dacia antiquce, into the alr-eady-altered Egyptian veins. Lastly, B. c. 641, Arabia R nt her wild dromedary-riders along the Nile from its mouths to its Abyssinian sources. Now, at this p riod of Egyptian life, about twelve centuries ago, no population, in the world perhaps, ha.Cl undergone such transfonna­tions (individual1y speaking) of type as bad these IIamites through Semitic a.ll(l Indo-European amalgamation with their fcmales,-ncv ,. famous for continence at any time. Besides, a certain but really infinitesimal a.nd cphcm~ral quantum of Et.ltiopian and Nigritian hlood had, thro11gh importation of concnbin s, all along, from the XILth Dynaf!ly, he n flowing in upon this corrupted mass from the Routh. Pl'cc detl, under the KhalifalcR, by occasional Turanian r.aptives; inct·caRcd dUt·ing the pct·iocl of the" Ghuz" thl'ongh contact with the Mongolian ofr~hootR of JiuLAoou; and timulatcd daily by fresh ace ssions of " Canca ian" Memloolcs,- the Ottomans, about A. D. 1517, commenced deRpoiling the fairest land amidst all thoRe doomed to t1tcit· now-cvancRccnt domiuion. But, -and here is the 11ew point in thnology to which tho read r's attention is solicited­from anrl after the era of tho Saraccnic conquest, a rovnlBion in the ot·dol' of these conOi ·ting amalgamations begun to tnkc cficct. On PR:Ji~FATORY REMARKS. xxi the advent of Islam and its institutions, which were received with rapture by the Egyptian masses, unions between the Mohammedau­izcd Fellah women and any males but Mussulmans became unlawful. It will also be noted, too, that neither the "Cnnrnf!ian" Mcmlooks, not· the Turanian Turks, could or can raise hyurid oflspring (perma­nent, I mean to say), in Egypt: and again, that all these importations of iorcign rulers, since the time of Cambysos, consisted in soldiery,­vory disproportionate in numerical amount to the gross bulk of the indigenous agricultural population. lienee, under Islamism, the people began to pause, as regards any important effects, in this promiscuous intermixture with alien races; except (in cities chiefly) with their congeners the Arabs. But, on the other hand, among the decaying mongrels termed "Cc1pts" (Christian Jacobites)- no Muslim law forbidding their intercourse with any nation-the action of hybridity has never stopped fi·om that day to this: which is tho simple rationale of the discrepant accounts of tourists in respect to the multiform varicti •s beheld in this small section of the Egyptians. Now, from tho com­mencement of that pause, in the 7th century of our era, down to the present time, some thirty-six generations have elapsed; during which the Muslim peasant population-tltat is, between two and thl'cc millions -intermarrying among themselves, have really ab­sorbed, or thrown oft~ those alien elements previously iujccted intc> their ulood,- and thus, the Fellalts of the present day have, to all amazing degree, and after some fifty centuries, actually recovcrc<l the type of the old IVth dynaBty. Indeed, one might almost asset't that, from blanlc centuries before Christ down to the XIXth century after·, the greatest changes which time has wrought upon the bulk of the indigenous Egyptian race reduce thcmsel ves,- in religion, to Mohammed for Osiris; in language, to Semitic for liamitic; in insti­tutions, to the musket for the bow; but, in blood, to little if any. See again MR. PuLSZKY's Cltaptor (I, pp. 107-122), and our platet:! (I and II, infra). One word more, as concerns my indi\7idual contributions in Chapters V and VI. With the exception of Chapter m, which DR. MEIGS has been so good as to revise himself, the entire labor of cditot·ship has fallen upon me; and, as an inevitable consequence, I have not had tho time, even supposing possession of the ability, to bestow upon my own contributions the verbal criticism they miO'ht, otherwise, have received. Furthermore, apart from a few pages of my manuscripts regarding the natural history of monkeys submitted last summer io the obliging perusal of my friends, P1t0F. LEIDY and DR. MEIGs, I