Indigenous Races of the Earth

XGN23N881857 302

Tll1~ l\fONOGENIS'l'S AND "Tablcnu" may be, it is the r sult of years of labot· and comi arison; and th ingcnnous cr·iti ·,in vi w of tho mo ·hanical diiTi ·nltics of it:; cxo<'ntion, tog·cther with thos of condeusiug so many <.liil'urcnL sub­jc ·ts into lillliL c1 spaces, may peradventure look upon it favorably, under th so ircumsLancos. We r sumo. It seems reconcilable with the theory,-now univer­sally accepted by naturalists as demonstrated through botany, hCl'J!C­tology, entomology, zoology, &c., of the orio·inal distribution of animate creatur s in contr s, zones, or proviuccs of Or atiou-tlrat a hone of the various primitiv forms oflmman speech aros witLin that (I' OCI't·aphical c 11 tro wh rc the particular group of men inheriting its time-developed, or now-corrupt d dialects, wn,s Cl'Cat d. One can fn rth rmore perceive that the law of gradation-in physical ·hamctcl'is­ti s from one gronp ofmanl-i11d to another, wh n restored to their oar­li •st hif:!todcal sites-to some extent bolUs good upon snrvcying thcit· languag s: that is to say, abstraction made of known migTaLionl:l and intermixtures among races, each grand type of humanity with its typical idioms of pooch, can bo carried back, more or less allproxi­mately, to tho cradle of its traditionary origin. Thus, for instance, wh011, in America, we behold au Ism lito, it r quires no cfiort of irnn"'i nation to trace his ethnic I cdigrce backwards across the At­lantic to Europe, and tltonco to Palestine; whence history, combined with the analogies of his race-character, and formol'ly special tongue, ac 'Olnpanics him to ..~.1?pha-lcasd, Ohaldroan Ol'fa, 100 in the n iO'llllOl'­}, oorl of which lay the birth-place of the A brahamidro. Beyond that ultimatum, positives icnco hns<~ards no opinion. Tho tltoologor alone knows how or why Abraham's anccstl'y got among those hills instead of heginning amid the Himalayan, Cordilleran, Pyrenean, or other mountain ranO'es. In this connection, however differing from many uncritical sur­mis s of their learned author, I must do OnRSNI!:Y tho justice to say, tltat his inquiries into the geographical site of tho fabled" garden of d li,rrh t, "-Eden of tho Ohaldees, IIadeneche of Zoroaster, and P arad£se of' the 1 crsians-havc cleared up, beyond any oth r writer, the difli-nlties of identifying what, in king James's vcrsion,~o1 is a river wltich, after "it was parted, (and) became into four heads." TLc eminent chief of tho "Euphrates Expedition" possessed, more than nny preceding traveller over the same localities, tho scientific r quircmonts for their study; and his careful observations have re­stored to rational g ography,-not indeed a mythos, which oven 4110 'f1ypll4 of Afankind, pp. 68G-7; nnd "Oononlogienl Tnbloo.u of Xth Genesis " 401 Gene8i8, II, 10;-compare llJ:JNAN, Op. cit., VP· 44!)._6(), ' THE POLYGENISTS. 57:1 OriO'cn ·'!Yl consicl r c1 it" idiotic" to take in other than an allegorical sons , but a tract of country satis(yin(l' all Llte topogr·apltical exigenda of tho lJI·i f poetic l gcnd. "At the head of the fertile valleys of' the II~Llys, Aras, 'l'i""i~, and Euphrates," as Chesney demonstrates throngh a beautiful map,403 "wo find, as might be expected, the highest moun­tains which w t·e known for a great many centuries after tho :v'Joocl; nnd in this lofty r (rion arc tho sources of the four nTcat stt·cams above mentioned, which flow through Eden in dil'ections t nclirw towards tho four cMdinal points." li nee all mystery vaniKhes through tho identification of a lovely province in AL'menia, wltcnce the adjacent sources of four rivers stt'cam forth- viz.: the Halys (Phison) northwards to the Black oa; the Araxes (Gihon) ca twards to tho Caspian; the Tigris (IIiddelcel, as our translators foolishly spell IIa-DiKL6, tl~e-]}igle; ed-])id;U, of the present Mesopotamians) ilow­inO' southwards, and tho Eupltrates (PlmH) westwards, until, bending towards each other, these two rivers unite and fall into the Pcrsiau Gu 1 f' through tho hut-cl-£i,mb. Bci ng almost tho only people whoso geographical origin can now he d t rmined within a few leagues of space, it may be well to strcn ()'then thiH assertion from other quarters; aftot· remarking that the starti110'-place of tho Abrahamidre (or ldglt-landers), before they became Ticbrowf:! ( Yonderers, subsequently to journ ying westward beyond the Euphmtcs), falls naturally within the zoological province allotted by A(l'assiz"01 to the Syro-It·anian fauna of tbo European realm. Mackay 405 has thrown tog tl1er some of the best German authorities on the "mythical geography of Paradiso," which substantiate these anrl my former remarks on Arpha-lmsd. "Amon()' the places locally distingni.shod by the name of Eden was a hilt' district of nol'thcrn Assyria or Media, call d Eden in Thclasal' (2 Kings xix, 12; Ezelc. xxvii, 23- GBSEN. Lex. p. GO, 1117; WINER, R. w. B., I, 380; n, 704). This Thclasar 01' Ellasar (Gen. xiv) is conterminous with Ptolemy's 'Arrapachitis (meaning either 'Ohal<lroan fortress,' EwALD, Geschicltte, I, 333; or, 'Aryapal - chata' bordol'in()' upon A!'ya or Iran, Von BoiTLEN, Genesis, 137), and with ~ho plain of the ancient city Rages or Rag~n (J~ditl~, I, G, 15), where tho Assyr·ian monarch overcame the Mcclmn. kwg Arphaxacl. Hai, in several Asiatic ton O'ucs, was a name for Paradise (Von BouLJm, m Peri-Archon, lib. IV, o. 2; HU}JT, Origoniana, p. 107. ~03 The Expulition for tlte survey of tlte Rivers flJupltratea and Tigris (18ll6-7); London, 1850, I, pp. 200-80; II, 1-60; nncl "Mnp of the countries situate between tho rivers Nile and (udus." .. · 1 ... d m "Provinces of tho Animo.! World"-Types of Afanlcincl, pp. lxvn-1ii, x~vm, nn map; nlso, pp. 112- 16, 110-1.7. •o~ J>1·ogress of tlte flltcllect, T,ondon, 8vo, 1860; I, pp. RU-44.