Louis Figuier

This race was called by Cuvier the Caucasian, since that writer assigned to the mountains of the Caucasus the first origin of man. It is now frequently known as the Aryan race, from the name formerly bestowed upon the inhabitants of Persia. The Caucasian or Aryan race is admittedly the original stock of our species, and it would seem that from the region of the Caucasus, or the Persian shores of the Caspian Sea, this race has spread into different parts of the earth, peopling progressively the entire globe.

The beautiful oval form of the head is a mark which distinguishes the Caucasian or Aryan race of men from all others. The nose is large and straight: the aperture of the mouth moderate in size, enclosed by delicate lips; the teeth are arranged vertically: the eyes are large, wide open, and surmounted by curved brows. The forehead is advanced, and the face well proportioned: the hair is glossy, long, and abundant. This race it is from which have proceeded the most civilized nations, those who have most usually become rulers of others.

We shall divide the White Race into three branches, corresponding to peoples who at the first successively developed themselves in the north-west, the south-east, and north-east of the Caucasus. These branches are the European, Aramean, and Persian. This classification is based upon geographical and linguistic considerations. M. d’Omalius d’Halloy admits a fourth branch, the Scythian, which we reject, since the people which it comprises belong more properly to the Yellow Race or to the Aramean branch of the White Race.

Members of the White Race

P. Sellier, p.t

Imp. Dupuy, 22, R. des Petits HÔtels

G. Regamey, lith.

SCANDINAVIAN	GREEK
WHITE OR CAUCASIAN RACE

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CHAPTER I.
EUROPEAN BRANCH.

What we have just said with regard to the civilization and power of the white race applies with most force to the peoples who form the European branch.

Proceeding upon considerations grounded chiefly upon language, we distinguish among the peoples forming the European branch, three great families: the Teutonic, Latin and Slavonic, to which must be added a smaller family, the Greek.

Although great differences exist between the languages spoken by the peoples composing these four families, these languages are all in some manner connected with Sanskrit, that is the language used in the ancient sacred books of the Hindus. The analogy of European languages with Sanskrit, added to the antiquity evidenced by the historical records of many Asiatic nations, and notably of the Hindus, brings us to the admission that Europeans first came from Asia.

Teutonic Family.

The people comprised in the Teutonic family are those who possess in the highest degree the attributes of the white race. Their complexion, which is clearer than that of any other people, does not appear susceptible of becoming brown, even after a long residence in warm climates. Their eyes are generally blue, their hair is blond; they are of a good height and possess well proportioned limbs.

From the very earliest times recorded in history, these people have occupied Scandinavia, Denmark, Germany and a portion of France. They have also developed themselves in the British Isles, in Italy, Spain, and the north of Africa: but in these last named countries they have eventually become mixed with people belonging to other families. What is more, these same people form at the present day the most important part of the white population of America and Oceanica, and have reduced into subjection a large portion of Southern Asia.

We shall divide the Teutonic family into three leading groups: the Scandinavians, Germans, and English.

Icelanders

3.—WAKE OF ICELANDIC PEASANTS IN A BARN.

Scandinavians.—The Scandinavians have preserved almost unaltered the typical characteristics of the Teutonic family. Their intelligence is far advanced, and instruction has been spread among them to such an extent, that they have given a strong impulse to scientific progress. The ancient poems of the Scandinavians, which go back as far as the eighth century, are celebrated in the history of European literature.

The Scandinavians comprise three very distinct populations: the Swedes, Norwegians, and Danes. To this group must be added the small population of Iceland, since the language spoken by them is most similar of all to the ancient Scandinavian.

The FeroË Isles are also inhabited by Scandinavians, and many Swedes are also met with on the coasts of Finland. But in other countries, to which in former times the Scandinavians extended their conquests, they have, in general, mingled with the peoples they subjected.

Norwegians

4.—WOMEN OF STAVANGER, NORWAY.

The Icelanders are of middle height and only of moderate physical power. They are honest, faithful, and hospitable, and extremely fond of their native country. Their productions are small in extent, as they understand little more than the manufacture of coarse stuff and the preparation of leather.

We give here some types of these people.

Fig. 3 is a wake of the peasants.

The Norwegians are robust, active, of great endurance, simple, hospitable, and benevolent.

In Norway few differences are found in the manners and customs of the different classes of society. Customs here are truly democratic, the peasant plays the chief part in the affairs of the country. The popular diet dictates its will to the government.

Norwegian

5.—CITIZEN OF STAVANGER.

M. de Saint Blaise in his work, Voyage dans les Etats Scandinaves, describes the Norwegian as a rough and moody but reliable character. One thing which struck him was the absence of sociability between the two sexes. They marry usually before attaining twenty-five years of age, when the woman devotes herself entirely to her husband and household affairs.

When the two sexes meet at meals, they separate immediately the repast is at an end. The result of this is a too familiar manner, an absence of constraint among the men, and a neglect in the dress of the women which contrasts strongly with their natural grace.

Norwegians

6.—COSTUMES OF THE TELEMARK (NORWAY).

In figures 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8, we give types of the inhabitants of Norway.

The Danes (the old Jutes or Goths) are a people proud of their race, and full of valour and stubbornness. The men are tall and strong; the women slender and active. Their hair is blond, their eyes are blue, and their complexion ruddy. The children are fresh and rosy, the old men lithesome and erect in their walk. Their voices are good and vigorous, they speak in an energetic manner. We encounter in Denmark a strange mixture of democratic and feudal customs: perpetual entails are contrasted with laws whose object is equality. The working classes have an ardent desire to possess land in their own right.

Norwegians

7.—WOMEN OF CHRISTIANSUND (NORWAY).

There are in Denmark three classes of peasantry: those who possess both house and garden, those who possess merely a house, and those who only rent apartments. The first of these furnish their board with rich plate and utensils; their wives and children go to work in the fields decorated with rings and bracelets.

The people therefore enjoy a considerable amount of comfort. Add to this a general degree of instruction, which extends even to the peasant’s cottage, and which embraces notions of agriculture, geography, history and arithmetic. The civilization of Denmark is, therefore, very considerable, and certainly greater than that of France, England, Spain, and Italy.

Drunkenness is rarely met with in Denmark, and marriage is considered sacred.

The marriages of the Fionian peasants last seven days. They dance and make merry three days before and three days after that on which the marriage takes place. The ceremony is performed amid a flourish of trumpets. The bridegroom is elegantly dressed, the bride still more so; she wears, moreover, a kind of diadem in which flowers are seen mingling with gold.

Norwegians

8.—BOY AND GIRL OF THE LAWERGRAND (NORWAY).

Germans.—When wandering as nomadic tribes in the woods, that is, at the time of the Roman Empire, the ancient inhabitants of Germany much resembled their neighbours, the Gauls. They were men of large stature and vigorous frame, with white skins. Their hair, however, was usually red, while among the Gauls the ruling colour was blond. Their head was large, with a broad forehead and blue eyes. But the modern descendants of the old inhabitants of Germany have undergone many modifications, which would render it difficult at the present day, to find, in the greater portion of that country, general characteristics based upon the structure of the head, and the colour of the eyes or hair.

The modern inhabitants of Germany, the Germans, occupy a very large portion of Germany proper and of Eastern Prussia, as well as a broad band of country to the right of the Rhine. They are found also in different parts of Hungary, Poland, Russia, and North America. The Germans of the East and South having mixed much with the peoples of Southern Europe, do not represent exclusively the Teutonic type; some of them are met with who have brown hair and black eyes.

Germans

9, 10.—SUABIANS (STUTTGARD).

We give in the accompanying illustrations (figs. 9 to 14) some types and costumes of the inhabitants of Germany proper (Baden, WÜrtemberg, Suabia and Bavaria). The national costumes of Alsace are also shown.

We shall borrow from a work, published in 1860 under the title “Les Races Humaines et leur Part dans la Civilisation,” by Dr. Clavel, an interesting description of the customs of modern Germany:—

“Impinging, at its south-western frontier, upon the Latin world, at its south-eastern frontier, upon the Slavonian world, and at its northern frontier, upon Scandinavia, Germany,” says Dr. Clavel, “does not admit of any very distinct definition. Throughout the whole periphery of this country there exists no identity either of customs, language, or religion. Its provinces on the frontiers of Denmark are half Scandinavian; those bordering on Russia or Turkey are half Slavonic; those which are neighbours of Italy or France are half Latin: the provinces which together represent the frontiers of Germany, form a zone more mixed and various than is possessed by the frontiers of any other nationality.

“It is only toward the centre of the country that we find in all its purity the blond Germanic type, the feudal organization and the numerous principalities which are its consequences. It is here that we find the conditions of climate which appear to produce this race with blue eyes, red and white complexion, tall figures, and full, powerful frames.

“Whilst the Latin, glorying in the light of heaven, enlarges his windows, builds open terraces, and clears his forests that he may plant vineyards in their stead; the German loves above all things shade and mystic retreats. He hides his house in the midst of trees, limits his windows in size, and lines his streets with leafy elms; he reveres, nay, almost worships his old oak trees, endows them with soul and language, and makes of them the abode of a Divinity.

“In order thoroughly to enter into the German genius, we must wander among the paths of their old forests, observe and analyze carefully the effects of light and shade, springing up in ubiquitous confusion, intersecting confined and narrow perspectives, lending isolated objects a brightness vividly contrasting with the neighbouring obscurity, changing even the appearance of the face in their alternations, and forming dark backgrounds, illuminated by prismatic tints and glowing sunbeams. Pausing beneath the venerable trees, we must listen to sounds, re-echoed a thousand times, then dying away among the thickets, to give place to the rustling of aspen leaves, to the sighing of the firs, or to the harmonious murmurs of rivulets which force their way amid the flags and water-lilies. We must inhale the air scented with the pungent odour of fallen leaves, or the exhilarating scent of the wild cherry blossom. It is only then that we come to appreciate the love of nature and the druidical tone which pervade German literature; we understand Goethe’s passion for natural history; the poem of Faust becomes full of meaning; a feeling of melancholy creeps over the mind and leads us to the contemplation of things that are soft, sad, mysterious, fantastic, irregular, and original.

Germans

11, 12.—SUABIANS (STUTTGARD).

“Being brought thus in contact with nature, the German is natural and primitive; he sympathizes with the world’s infancy. He easily goes back to the past and the consideration of olden times; but it is not in him to anticipate the future, and he regards progress with distaste. If he advances towards equality and unity, it is the ideal of the Latins which impels him. There is in him a resistance which forms part of his patient and cold nature. His movements are sluggish. His language is hardly formed. His literature, overflowing with imagination, is wanting in elegance and purity, it is not ripe enough for prose and unfit to form a book.

“The plastic arts of Germany also possess the simplicity and variety which are produced by imagination; but they are wanting in proportion, in purity of style and elegance; they are capable of arranging neither lines nor colours; their productions often verge on the grotesque, or are marked by heaviness or pedantry, and they clearly are not the work of children of the sun.

“The Germans possess an ear which appreciates sound in a wonderful manner, and reduces with ease to melody the fleeting impressions of the Soul.

“.... He who possesses a strong and enduring constitution brings to his means of action energy of will. His projects are neither frivolously conceived, nor abandoned without good reason, and they are often followed out in spite of a thousand obstacles. This patient and continuous activity on the part of the Germans enables them to succeed in all forms of industry, in spite of their subdivision and other hindrances resulting from their political constitution.

“When men are laborious, patient, and frugal, we may expect to see family life become strongly organized, and exercise a decisive influence upon national customs.

“Love, whose duty it is to bring together the sexes into a united existence, is in Germany, neither very positive, nor very romantic; it is dreamy in its character. It seeks its object in youth and speedily finds it; faithfulness is then observed until the time for marriage arrives.

“Early engagements being admitted by custom, betrothed couples are seen together, arm in arm, among the crowd at public or private festivals, or in lonely woods, or in twilight seclusion. Pleasure and pain they share with one another, happy in the conviction that their hearts beat in unison, and in the repetition, over and over again, of tender assurances. The calmness of their temperament and the certainty of belonging to one another some day, diminish the danger of these long interviews. The young man respects the girl who is to bear his name and rule his home with her virtuous example; she, on her part, shrinks from a seduction which would dishonour her and compromise her future life.

“Such customs cannot but meet with approbation. They assure the future of a woman, and save her from coquetry. They form a man for the performance of his duties as head of a family, make him thoughtful for the future, save him from licentiousness, which wears out the heart as well as the constitution, and lastly, render his love permanent by reducing it to habit.

“When the wedding-day, looked forward to for so many years, arrives, the characters of man and woman have taken their respective stamp. The young people know each other; they have no ground for suspecting deceit, for the singleness of their heart admits of only one affection.

Germans

13.—BAVARIANS.

“Everything here contributes to heighten the dignity of woman. From her girlhood, and during the years in which her beauty is blossoming, she feels herself an object of devotion—she is mistress. Whatever she grants, however slight the favour may be, acquires a high value. The offering sanctified by her kiss is far more costly than gold; the riband she has worn becomes equal to a decoration.”

This picture of German customs has special reference to the inhabitants of Central Germany, the Austrians.

Germans

14.—BADENERS.

It is in the central portion of Germany that we meet with this patient activity, and the gentle manners described by Dr. Clavel. But these qualities are far from being the attributes of the inhabitants of the North and West. The Germans of the North and West appeared in their true character during the war of 1870, when a series of deplorable fatalities and mournful inconsistencies had delivered up unhappy France to the mercy of the invader. We then learnt how to appreciate this reputation for good-nature, simplicity, and gentleness, which was commonly attached to the inhabitants of the Ultra-Rhenic countries. The good-nature developed itself into an undisguised ferocity, the simplicity into dark duplicity, and the gentleness into haughty and brutal violence. The hated and jealous fury of the Prussians, who rushed upon France with the avowed intention of reducing her to impotence, and erasing her, if possible, from the rÔle of nations; their cold-blooded cruelties and shameless rapine, are so impressed upon the minds of all Frenchmen, that we need not recall them. Prussian barbarity attained the level of that practised by the Vandals in the second century.

Our scholars have found some difficulty in explaining the anomaly which existed between the ferocious conduct of the German armies, and the very opposite reputation enjoyed by our neighbours beyond the Rhine. Accustomed to regard the Germans as peaceful and gentle, sentimental and dreamy, we, in France, were painfully surprised to find facts contrast so cruelly with an opinion so generally entertained. An ethnological work, published in 1871 by M. de Quatrefages in the “Revue des Deux Mondes,”[4] has afforded a scientific explanation of this anomaly.

[4] Issue of Feb. 15th.

M. de Quatrefages has shown, by considerations at once linguistic, geological, ethnological, and historical, that the Prussians, properly so called, that is, the inhabitants of Pomerania, Mecklenburg, Brandenburg, and Silesia, have but little in common with the German race—that they are not, in fact, Germans, but result from a mixture of Slavonians and Finns with the primitive inhabitants of those countries. The Finns overran, at a very early period, Pomerania and Eastern-Prussia; later on, the Slavonians conquered the same territory, as well as Brandenburg and Silesia. Certain Germanic tribes—to which add the results of a French immigration into Prussia, which took place under Louis XIV., after the revocation of the edict of Nantes—must be joined to the stock of Slavonians and Finns, in order to make up the Prussian race as it at present exists. The northern Slavonians possessed a well-known coarseness of manner, and were of large stature and powerful constitution. The Finns, or primitive inhabitants of the shores of the Baltic, were characterized by cunning and violence, united to an extraordinary tenacity. The modern Prussians revive all these ancestral defects.

M. Godron, a naturalist of Nancy, who has very successfully studied the German race, says, “The Prussians are neither Germans nor Slavonians: they are Prussians!” This fact is now clearly shown by the investigations of M. de Quatrefages. From an ethnological point of view, the Prussians are very different from the German populations, who are now subjected to the rule of the Emperor William under the pretext of German unity.

Two different written languages exist among the German people; that of the Netherlands and German.

The Netherland language has given birth to three dialects—Dutch, Flemish, and Frieslandic.

The Dutch, in the seventeenth century, were the greatest maritime commercial people in the world, and founded at that period a certain number of colonies.

The Dutchman is by nature reserved and silent. Simplicity is the marked feature of his character. He possesses patriotic feeling in a high degree, and is capable of enthusiasm and devotion in the defence of his strange and curious territory, preserved from the sea by dykes and formidable constructions, and irrigated by innumerable canals, which form the ordinary means of communication, and which link together the seas and the rivers, as well as the towns.

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English.—The English may be considered as resulting from a mixture of the Saxons and Angles with the people who inhabited the British Isles before the Saxon invasion.

Whence came and who were the Angles and Saxons?

According to Tacitus, the Angles were a small nation inhabiting the regions next the ocean. The Saxons, according to Ptolemy, dwelt between the mouths of the Elbe and Schleswig. About the fifth century after Christ, the Angles and Saxons invaded the British Isles, and mingled with the inhabitants, who then comprised Celts, Latins, and Arameans. During the ninth, tenth, and eleventh centuries, fresh invasions of Great Britain, by the Normans and Danes, added to this blood, already so mixed, another foreign infusion.

From this medley of different peoples has sprung the English nation, in whom are found at the same time, the patient and persevering character, the serious disposition, and the love of family life, introduced by the Saxons, and which is the peculiarity of the German nature, combined with the lightness and impressionability of the Celt.

The physical type which is the result of this mixture, that is, the English type, corresponds with the combination of races we have specified. The head is in shape long and high, and is in this respect to be distinguished from the square heads of the Germans, particularly those of Suabia and Thuringia. The English generally possess a clear and transparent skin, chestnut hair, tall and slender figures, a stiff gait, and a cold physiognomy. Their women do not offer the noble appearance and luxurious figure of the Greek and Roman women; but their skins surpass in transparency and brilliancy those of the female inhabitants of all other European countries.

We borrow a few pages from the work of Dr. Clavel upon “Les Races Humaines et leur Part dans la Civilisation,” in order to convey an exact knowledge of the nature and customs of our neighbours across the Channel:—

“When he examines,” says Dr. Clavel, “the geographical position of England, a land possessing a humid rather than a cold climate, the observer pictures to himself beforehand that he is about to meet a people of imperious appetite, of a vigorous circulation, of a powerfully organized locomotive system, and a sanguineo-lymphatic temperament. The power of the digestive functions shows that the nervous system is unable to obtain dominion, and that there is a lack of sensibility: the frequent fogs, which destroy the perfumes of the earth, the stormy winds of the ocean, and the absence of wine, announce a poverty of sentiment and inspiration, and of the arts founded upon them.

“The level plains, which are as a rule met with in England, are not favourable to the development of the lower extremities, and it is a fact that the power of the English lies, not so much in the legs, as in the arms, shoulders, and loins. The fist is an Englishman’s natural weapon, either for attack or defence; his popular form of duel is boxing, while the foot plays an important part in the form of duel which, in France, bears the characteristic name of Savate.

“This power in the upper regions of the body gives to an Englishman a peculiar appearance. In view of his brawny shoulders, his thick and muscular neck, and broad chest, we rightly divine the ready workman, the daring seaman, the indefatigable mechanic, the soldier who is ready to die at his post but who bears up with difficulty against forced marches and hunger. His blond or reddish hair, his white skin and grey eyes, bespeak the mists of his country; the barely marked nape of his neck, and the oval form of his cranium, indicate that Finn blood flows in his veins; his maxillary power, and the size of his teeth, evidence a preference for an animal diet. He has the high forehead of the thinker, but not the long eyes of the artist.

“The insular position of England, its excellent situation upon the Atlantic, its numerous and magnificent seaport towns, its watercourses and the facilities for conducting its internal navigation, all suggest a large maritime commerce and the habits which accompany it. But neither the soil, the climate, nor the geographical position, can account for the aptitudes imported by different races.

“The Englishman is two-fold—Celt and German—and it is only a superficial examination which can confound them.

“The Celt, whom in the absence of precise notions of an earlier population we have come to consider as indigenous, resembles the Neo-Latin races, and, above all, the French. He rarely exists collectively, except in Ireland, and some mountainous districts of Wales and Scotland. His cranium and features indicate artistic aptitudes. He prefers Christianity in the Anglican Catholic form. Like the old Gauls, he delights in wine, laughter, gaming, dancing, conversation, raillery, and fighting. He is spirited and fond of joking, frank and hospitable; but his versatility renders him incapable of steadily pursuing an enterprise to the end, of careful reflection, or of thought for the future. Through his powerlessness to combine his powers and act collectively, he has become a prey to enemies, who were superior to him neither in number, courage, nor even in intelligence. Old and joyous England and Ireland became subject to the Dane, the Saxon, and the Norman: they lost their proverbial gaiety, their bards, their democratic tendency, and their civilization.

“The physical and moral differences between the modern conquerors of England were but slight. They all came from the coasts of the Baltic Sea, and all possessed the elementary characteristics of the German and Scandinavian, and the aptitudes which they inherited from the old Sea Kings. They had, moreover, strength, which bade them regard conquest as a right, and take what they desired; pride, which bade them hold up their head even against the storm; individual initiative, which demanded, above all things, personal liberty; a tenacity, that nothing discouraged; an intelligence, capable of every subtlety; a general sensuality, which converted the bodily necessities into a means of enjoyment; a lack of sentiment, which pre-supposed a want of aptitude for art; and, lastly, a temperament which was calm and robust under all circumstances.

“This type, which is still found among all branches of society, not excepting the aristocracy, has been modified by its combination with the Celtic element, but it still remains predominant. The Saxon, as a rule, absorbs or destroys the other races; we may say, he drinks in their vitality, but is unable to assimilate himself to their temperament.

“We must, therefore, expect to find the customs of England proper, more Scandinavian than Celtic. The pleasures of olden time have fallen off; the merry gossips of those days find no place but in literature; raillery, when it comes from Saxon lips, is armed with sharp teeth, and tears away the morsel it attacks.

“When intelligence is averted from the ideal, and constantly directed towards the positive matters of life, it acquires the habit of considering in all things the question of profit and loss; it becomes averse to waste, which destroys property unprofitably, and loves order, without which, material prosperity is impossible; it guides the organic forces to productive industry, agriculture, and commerce, where they are fostered and matured; and last of all, to speculation, which anticipates the greater part of the fruits of commerce, agriculture, and manufacture. The Saxon finds everywhere the means of speculating, aided in his manoeuvres by the intricacy of his commercial laws. As a consequence of his phlegmatic temperament, he gives way neither to the snares of enthusiasm, nor to the deceptions of discouragement. He reasons aright, both for the present and the future. In dealing craftily with his antagonist, he is well able to guard himself against the weaknesses of feeling. His face rarely betrays his convictions, and his features are devoid of the mobility which would prove disadvantageous.

“Thus it is that the Englishman joins subtlety to will; hence his practical power. Being strong and able, he acquires a confidence in himself which easily degenerates into pride, and saves him from smallness of character. He is neither obsequious, nor prone to flattery; he casts on one side the refinements of politeness, which he regards as humiliating in one who employs them; he keeps his word, and considers that he would be dishonoured in breaking it; but he makes the best of all his advantages. For him, life is a struggle for triumph, without regard for those who are unable to contend, and who succumb in the attempt. He asks no pity, and gives but little; he cannot be called cruel, for cruelty is a form of weakness; but he does not hesitate to oppress an enemy, when to do so would be productive of material advantage. In attaching to an Englishman the characteristic of individual initiative, which is met with among all the branches of the Germanic tree, we rightly expect to find him fond of liberty, without which his powers would have no vent.

“But this liberty would soon lead him to destruction, did he not join to it the spirit of propriety, and temper it with the love of order, which he acquires in his industrial and commercial pursuits.

“.... His arts are wanting neither in talent, observation, delicacy, nor humour; they represent men and things with the most scrupulous accuracy; but they lack feeling, warmth, and ideality; they know not how to bring the passions into play, and are unable to soar above the descriptive. His stage is a failure, as is his music, both in themselves pure creations of feeling; and his architecture is governed by the nature of materials, and the application of his buildings to the needs of life. This rage for practical convenience, which makes the London houses so unsightly, has also been instrumental in simplifying his language to amphibology, and curtailing the accent to such an extent as to create discord. When harmony in the means of expressing thought is wanting, the art of talking well is no longer exercised in conversation, but becomes concentrated in discourse. There is scarcely an intermediate between the latter form of speech, and incorrect conversation among individuals. The result of this is, that the Englishman, on almost every occasion, expresses himself in speeches, which are listened to and commented upon with an imperturbable patience, but which have the grave fault of imparting to social relations a tone of pedantry and stiffness. As soon as that exists, there is no longer any room for fun and humour. Following out the spirit of formality, many things become no longer permissible, or cannot be dealt with except by reference to strict rules. Propriety, therefore, includes, over and above pure politeness, a number of conventionalities which in themselves constitute nothing less than a social tyranny. An act, which, everywhere else, would be regarded as perfectly natural, easily becomes food for scandal; and in society, by far the greater number of those one meets abstain from action, speech, or gesticulation. An icy reserve is the tone generally assumed.

“In such society as this, indiscretion and flippancy are almost out of the question. But, although the English scorn a lie, they cannot speak the whole truth: they find it necessary to reserve a portion, and frequently the most important part. The result is a peculiar form of hypocrisy which bears the name of cant, and which is really the bane of English society. Owing to this, social life is enclosed in a circle of intolerance which imparts to it a painful uniformity. Each person is obliged to do as every one else, to such an extent, that in the land of liberty, the spirit is oppressed and dejected to a degree suggestive of suicide. Hence it is that so many English, in order to escape spleen, are forced to leave their country.

“The Englishwoman is tall, fair, and strongly built. Her skin is of dazzling freshness; her features are small and elegantly formed; the oval of her face is marked, but it is somewhat heavy toward the lower portion; her hair is fine, silky, and charming; and her long and graceful neck imparts to the movements of her head a character of grace and pride.

“So far, all about her is essentially feminine; but upon analyzing her bust and limbs, we find that the large bones, peculiar to her race, interfere with the delicacy of her form, enlarge her extremities, and lessen the elegance of her postures and the harmony of her movements.

“Woman moves about two centres, which are the head and the heart. The latter deals with bodily grace, roundness and delicacy of form, inspiration in feeling, devotion in love, sympathy, a manifold and undefinable seductiveness, a sort of divine radiance, which is grace, tenderness, and all that is charming. The former supplies intelligence, spirit, animation, and consistency of action.

“If all we see in an Italian or Spanish woman tells of the supremacy of heart, which Lord Byron loved so much, all in the Englishwoman reveals mental superiority. Her physical and mental powers are well balanced.

“There are few mental occupations in which a daughter of Great Britain cannot engage. She acquires knowledge with facility; she writes with elegance, and would be capable at a stretch of improvising a speech; she is witty and even brilliant; capable of dealing with abstract sciences; she can contend with the other sex in sagacity and depth; yet her conversation does not captivate. She lacks a thousand feminine instincts, and this lack is revealed in her toilette, the posture she assumes, and in her actions and movements. She rarely possesses musical taste. Her language and song do not captivate the ear; her appreciation of colour, form, and perfume, are at fault. She loves what is striking, and instead of attaining harmony, revels in discord.

“No aristocracy, can, with reference to ability, be compared with that of England. Having ensured the influence of wealth by seizing the land, and substituting in its possession the son for the father, by virtue of the right of primogeniture, it has given the legislative power to the proprietors of the soil, through the medium of a House of Peers, whose prerogatives and domains pass to the eldest son, and of a House of Commons, the right to elect whose members is centred chiefly in the tenants of large proprietors. Where the nobility enjoy such privileges, royalty necessarily assumes a dependent position, and becomes merely an instrument. Positions of influence in the administration, the army, the magistracy, and the church, fall of right to families of distinction, who dispose of all the strength of the country, and apply it for the benefit of their own caste. Taxation is organized in such a manner as to weigh chiefly upon the lower classes, while the produce falls to the advantage of the privileged class as emoluments.

“... Before the British aristocracy could attain the importance it now possesses, many conquests were necessary, to which the substance of Spain, Portugal, Holland, and of a hundred and thirty millions of Indians, has fallen a prey. The attainment of this object, has, moreover, forced fifteen millions of English people to exist upon a daily stipend, when there is any stipend at all; and, to aid it, the cannon has opened the frontiers of China to the opium trade, and to the products of manufactures which must either sell or succumb. The only material compensation for all these evils, is, that immense power is given to wealth. The cultivation of luxury, in every form, has increased tenfold the number of objects to be provided. The houses are crowded with a number of articles of furniture, the use of which is a science in itself; the tables are loaded with an infinite variety of dishes, fruits, plate, and glass; stuffs of a thousand different shades are offered to the caprice of fashion, to be used either in adorning the person, or in the decoration of apartments; but for all that, the house is neither more beautiful nor more wholesome as an abode, the table is not more hospitable or more joyous, nor is the dress more elegant or warm; comfort stifles what is merely beautiful, which wealthy men always associate with a large outlay.

“Among the English aristocracy we must expect, neither the exquisite elegance of the Latin aristocracy, nor the appreciation of art, which, in Italy, and even in France, gives birth to so many marvels.

“Wealth has been able to accumulate in the galleries of private persons, pictures and statues, the work of other nations, but has been quite unable to raise up a school of architecture, of painting, or of sculpture; or even to assign a single division to music. Workers and statesmen abound in England; but the condition of artists is bad in the extreme. A great poet emerges from the ranks of the nobility, and employs his talent in scourging the aristocracy, and laying bare the customs of his country. Eminent writers assign a philosophic value to the romance of gentle blood, and paint in the blackest colours the mercantile and feudal genius.

Englishman

15.—ENGLISHMAN.

“The men of iron, who have transformed England into a sort of freehold, seem to think themselves altogether different from the rest of humanity; they pass through the midst of other populations without being influenced by the contact, or modifying the etiquette which rules their excesses at table and in drinking, and which governs field sports and courtship. A word or gesture is sufficient to mark its author as of low breeding, and to jar upon the nerves of the nobility, which are susceptible of still greater irritation, when writers of ability venture to speak of lords as of simple mortals; but this scandal has been obviated in the fashionable novel, in which, amid a halo of ennui, aristocratic decorum shines forth.

“All this is productive of a meditated coldness and repulsive pride, which renders expansion and joviality impossible. Moral oppression and ennui permeate their whole life, and in the end render existence insupportable. These rich and powerful men become the victims of spleen.

“Those who find no relief in political struggles, seek in foreign countries change and diversion; the more robust share their time between the table, their horses, and their dogs; they drink to a frightful extent; they unearth the fox, and follow him on horseback, clearing every object although at the risk of their neck, or else they travel a hundred leagues to see a thorough-bred horse run, and to risk upon him what would make the fortune of ten plebeians.

“Such a life as this can be led only in the country. It must therefore be noticed that the English nobility pass nine months out of the year at their country seats, in the exercise of the gorgeous hospitality which is met with in all large oligarchies, and cultivating there the comforts of ease to a degree bordering on fanaticism.

“Beneath the shade of feudality, exists a class of farmers, manufacturers, merchants, capitalists, and speculators, which consoles itself for the humiliations it experiences by those which, in its turn, it imposes on the lower classes. This middle class, oppressed by that above, and menaced by that below it, presents a singular mixture of timidity and resolution. Its existence, ever precarious, makes it easily susceptible of alarm, ready to yield to the terms of the powerful, or to assume any character. Its enthusiasm and admiration are inexhaustible, when it foresees, in the conduct of its superiors, some gain to itself; but the resistance it offers is most powerfully adroit when public affairs tend to do it harm. Danger hardly ever takes it by surprise, as its signs are seen from afar and anticipated.

“One would almost expect to find Israelitish traits of character in people who make the Bible their book of books; who, while undergoing extortion, still retain the feeling of dignity, who are passionately fond of money and whatever conduces to its possession; who risk that they may gain, and compensate one chance of loss by three chances of profit; who respect the letter of the law more than its intention, and who employ commercial uprightness as a clever means of making a fortune.

“In the middle class, the British aristocracy finds a means of keeping under the proletarian class, true representatives of the old Celts. These unfortunate men are reproached, with drunkenness, to which they fly as a means of forgetting their misfortunes; with brutality, which exhibits itself in blows, injuries, prize fights, and cock-fighting; with coarse sensuality, which feeds upon meat and beer; with selfishness, which extends even to the glasses of drinkers; and lastly, with stronger criminal desires than are met with among other civilized nations.

“But in spite of these vices, the sad fruit of misery, wretchedness, and ignorance, they possess substantial virtues. The English workman has in his heart an innate feeling of generosity. He is gentle to the weak, and rude to the strong. Goodness charms him, and whatever is generous is sure to meet with his support. Although blinded by self-interest to the point of being altogether without a notion of justice, he can hardly be accused of avarice, since he gives cheerfully. His friendship is firm, although by no means demonstrative; he keeps his word, and despises an untruth. Reverses redouble instead of causing him to abate his efforts; he never despairs of what he undertakes, since he is ready to sacrifice all for success, even his life. He has none of the sordid vanities which stain the intermediate classes. For his country, which is to him less a mother than a step-mother, he entertains an inexhaustible affection. To her he devotes his whole existence; he is rewarded by his own admiration of her, and deludes himself so far as to call her ‘Jolly Old England.’”

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Transplanted into the New World, the Englishman has already assumed a type varying somewhat from that we have described—the Yankees, as the Indians call them, that is to say, the silent men (Ya-no-ki), have lost in North America the general character and physiognomy which they possessed in the mother-country. A new type, moral and physical, approaching more to that of the Southern Red Indians, has been formed among the inhabitants of North America, which type is exaggerated towards the West, where men are rougher and coarser than in the North.

Latin Family.

The Latin family originated in Italy, whence it extended its conquests over a large portion of Europe, Asia, and Africa, thus forming the Roman empire. At the present time the Latin languages are spoken only in certain portions of this vast empire, namely, in Italy, Spain, France, and some other countries in the south-east of Europe.

The people who belong to the Latin family are, in general, of a middle stature, with black hair and eyes, and a complexion susceptible of turning brown under the sun’s action; but they present many variations. They speak numerous dialects, which frequently become confounded one with another.

Among the people who form the Latin family are separately classed: the French, the Spaniards, the Italians, and the Moldo-Walachians.

French.—The Franks proceeded from the mixture of the Gauls with the ancient inhabitants of the land, that is, the people who in olden times were indifferently called Aquitanians or Iberians, and of whom a few are still to be found in the Basque inhabitants of the lower regions of the Pyrenees, recognized at once by their language, which is that of the old Iberians.

But who were these Gauls, who, by combination with the national blood of the Iberians, formed the Franks?

The Gauls were a branch of the Celts (or Gaels), an ancient race of men, who coming from Asia, at an early period overran and occupied a portion of Western Europe, more particularly that portion which now forms Belgium, France as far as the Garonne, and a part of Switzerland. Later on, the Celts or Gaels extended their conquests as far even as the British Isles. It was in the twelfth or tenth century before Christ that they invaded Gaul, and subdued the indigenous Iberian population.

Of their Asiatic origin the Celts preserved no more than a few dogmas of Eastern worship, the organization of a priestly sect, and a language, which, through its close connection with the sacred language of the Indian Brahmins, reveals the kinship which united these people with those of Asia.

The Celts were a nomadic people, and lived essentially by hunting and pasturage. The men were very tall: their height being, it has been asserted, from six to seven feet. Many tribes dyed their skin with a colour extracted from the leaf of the woad. Others tattooed themselves. Many adorned their arms or breasts with heavy chains of gold, or clothed themselves in tissues of bright colours, analogous to the Scotch tartan. Later on they gave themselves up to greater luxury. Above their tunic they wore the saya, a short cloak, striped with purple bands and embroidered with gold or silver. Among the poorer classes this saya was replaced by the skin of some animal, or by a cloak of coarse and dark-coloured wool. Others wore the simar, which is analogous to the modern blouse or the caraco of the Normandy peasants. The second article of dress worn by the Gaelic men, was a tight and narrow form of trouser, the braya. The women wore an ample puckered tunic with an apron. Some restricted their dress to a leathern bag.

Their weapons consisted of stone knives, axes furnished with sharp flint or shell points, clubs, and spears hardened in the fire. Celtic stone hatchets are common in the West of France.

The Celts were warlike and bold. They marched against the enemy to the sound of the karnux, a sort of trumpet, the top of which represented a wild beast crowned with flowers. As soon as the signal was given, the front rank threw itself stark naked and impetuously into the struggle.

Leading a wandering form of life, the Celts constructed no fixed habitations. They moved from one pasturage to another in covered waggons, erecting simple cabins, which they abandoned after a few days. They sometimes took shelter in caves, sleeping upon a little straw, or the skins of animals spread upon the earth. More frequently, however, they ate and slept under the open sky. Fond of tales and recitations, they appear to have been inquisitive and garrulous. Their habits were peaceful.

A branch of the Celtic family, the Cymris, who, like their predecessors, originally came from Asia, overran the fertile plains which extend from the moorlands at Bordeaux to the mouth of the Rhine, their course being arrested toward the west only by the ocean, toward the east by the Vosges, and toward the south-east by the mountains of Auvergne and the last ridges of the Pyrenees and the Cevennes. The Cymris, or Belgians, brought with them the simplicity of the north, and having built towns, called upon the Gaels to join them.

These two groups, distinct in themselves although of the same race, lived apart in some countries, while in others they held supremacy. The Irish and the Highlanders of Scotland were Gaels. The Gaelic element also predominated in Eastern France. The inhabitants of Wales, Belgium, and Brittany belonged to the Cymrian branch; but the Romans confounded these two races under the general name of Britons in Great Britain, and Gauls in Gaul.

We will briefly review the physical types, manners, and customs of the Gauls.

At the time when Julius CÆsar invaded and conquered the Gauls, they were distinguished as the northern, north-eastern, western, and southern Gauls. The first were remarkable for the abundance and length of their hair; hence their name of long-haired Gauls. Those of the south and south-east were known as the braya-wearing Gauls.

The Gauls used artificial means of giving to their hair a bright red colour. Some allowed it to fall around their shoulders; others tied it in a tuft above the head. Some wore only thick mustachios, others retained the whole beard.

When arming for battle, the Gauls donned the saya. They used arrows, slings, one-edged swords in iron or copper, and a sort of halberd, which inflicted terrible wounds. A metal casque, ornamented with the horns of the elk, buffalo, or stag, covered the head of the common soldier, that of the rich warrior being adorned with flowing plumes, while figures of birds or wild beasts were wrought upon the crest. The buckler was covered with hideous figures. Beneath a breast-plate of wrought-iron the warrior wore a coat of mail, the produce of Gallic industry. He further adorned himself with necklaces; and the scarves of the chiefs glittered with gold, silver, or coral. The standard consisted of a wild boar, formed of metal or bronze, and fixed at the end of a staff.

The Gauls dwelt in spacious circular habitations, built of rough stones, cemented together with clay, or composed of stakes and hurdles, filled up with earth within and without. The roof, which was ample and solid, was composed of strong planks cut into the form of tiles, and of stubble or chopped straw kneaded with clay.

The wealthy Gaul, besides his town residence, possessed a country house. His wooden tables were very low, and in them excavations were made which answered the purpose of plates and dishes. The guests sat upon trusses of hay or straw, upon hassocks formed of rushes, or forms with wooden backs. They slept in a kind of press, formed of planks, similar to those which are met with in some cottages of Brittany and Savoy. They had earthen vessels, of delicate grey or black pottery, more or less ornamented, and brazen vases. They used horns as drinking-vessels.

The Gauls ate little bread, but a great deal of roast or boiled meat. As a rule, they tore with the teeth pieces which they held in their hands. The poor drank beer, or other less costly beverages; the rich, aromatic wines.

The beauty of the Gallic women was proverbial. The elegance of their figure, the purity of their features, and the whiteness of their skins, were universally admired. To captivate these fierce men they made abundant use of coquetry. In order to heighten the freshness of their complexions, they bathed themselves with the foam of beer, or chalk dissolved in vinegar. They dyed their eyebrows with soot, or a liquid extracted from a fish called orphi. Their cheeks they coloured with vermilion, and dressed their hair with lime in order to make it blond, and covering it with network, let it fall behind, or else turned it up crestwise. They wore as many as four tunics, one above the other, veiled their head with part of their cloak, and wore a mitre or Phrygian head-dress.

Any ordinary person who died was interred in a manner suitable to their sex and condition, with arrow-heads, hatchets, flint knives, necklaces, rings, bracelets, articles of pottery, &c. The grave was marked by an unhewn stone, which was surrounded with herbs, moss, or flowers. These tombstones were raised up in the plains, by the way-side, and amid the deep shade of the forests. They were guarded by a statue of Tentates, one of whose cheeks was painted white, the other black.

When a chief died, his body was burnt. In order to do this, the body was placed upon a pile of resinous wood, with his weapons of war and of the chase, his charger and dogs, and sometimes even, his slaves. While the flames devoured the body, the bystanders uttered loud cries, and the warriors clashed their shields. The half-calcined bones were enclosed in an urn of coarse earth, rudely ornamented with a few engravings or figures in bas relief. This urn was then deposited beneath a tumulus covered with turf. In southern Gaul it was placed beneath a funeral column.

In order to render complete the idea which we should wish to convey of the outward appearance of the Gauls, we must say a few words about the Druids.

The Druids were the priests of the Gauls, a clergy powerful by reason of their political duties and judicial functions. The Druids led a solitary life in the depth of oak forests and in secluded caves. They wore a distinctive dress, their robes reaching down to the ground. During religious ceremonies they covered their shoulders with a species of white surplice, and upon their pontifical dress was displayed a crescent which had reference to the last phase of the moon. Their feet were furnished with pentagonal wooden sandals; they allowed their hair to grow long, and shaved off their beards. In their hand they carried a sort of white wand, and suspended from their neck an amulet of oval shape set in gold.

We said the Franks proceeded from the mixture of the Gauls with the Iberian natives of the country, joined later on to the Romans, the Greeks, and more recently still to the Alanians, the Goths, the Burgundians, and the Suevians. Having spoken of the Gauls, we shall now proceed to describe the Franks.

The Frank was tall in height, with a very white skin, blue sparkling eyes, and a powerful voice. His face was shaven, save upon the upper lip, which earned a heavy mustachio. His hair, of a beautiful blond colour, was cut behind, and long in front. His dress was so short as not to cover his knees, and fitted tightly, showing plainly the form of the body. He wore a shoulder-belt, ornamented with nails, and plates of silver or inlaid metal. From his girdle hung an iron knife, an axe with short handle and heavy keen iron head (battle-axe), a very sharp ponderous sword, and a pike of medium length, the stout point of which was armed with several barbs or sharp teeth, turned back as in a fish-hook. Before going to battle, the Frank dyed his hair red. The hair itself was frequently held together by a golden net, or a copper circlet; at other times he dressed himself with the spoils of wild beasts.

16.—DRUIDS, GAULS, AND FRANKS.

We are able to extract from historical recitals an exact idea of the Frankish woman. She was powerful, and wore a long robe of dark colour, or bordered with purple. Her arms were left uncovered, and her head was wreathed with flowering broom. Her looks, sometimes fierce, bespoke masculine vigour and a character which did not shrink from sanguinary conflict.

The Celtic and Iberian languages gradually disappeared among the Franks, being replaced by Latin dialects.

The Gauls and Franks, who were subdued by the Romans, received into their blood the Latin element, which rapidly increased. Restrained for a while by the invasions of tribes from the north and east, by Asiatic hordes of Mongolian race, among which we may name the Huns; the Latin element again assumed the ascendant at the commencement of the sixteenth century; men and manners, language and art, bore witness more and more to Latin influence: the fair hair and white skin of the Frank alternating with the black locks and brown skin of the Latin people. Thus it is that the French lost the athletic frame and vigorous limbs of the Gaul, gaining in their stead the suppleness and agility of southern nations. Thus also the French language became gradually formed, modified from Latin dialects.

The existence of a single written language renders it difficult to mark the characteristic distinctions among the French of the present day. We may however, distinguish the French properly so called, who inhabit the lower district of the Loire, and whose dialects are most akin to the written language; the Walloons, in the north, whose pronunciation somewhat approaches that of Teutonic nations; and the Romanians, in the south, where the dialects become confused with those of the Spaniards and Italians. The French of the interior are those who most resemble the Celts; those of the south possess the vivacity of the ancient Iberians or Basques; and those of the north have suffered still more from Teutonic influence, the effect of which is more especially appreciable in Normandy.

Owing to the diversity of his origin, and the different races of men which have been moulded into his type, not omitting also the effect attributed to the great geological variety of the soil of France, where samples of all parts of the earth are to be found, the Frenchman, considered organically, possesses no peculiar physiognomy, which nevertheless does not prevent the complete identification of his French nationality.

From a physical point of view, and setting aside certain extremes, it may be said that the Frenchman is characterised, not so much by special features, as by the mobility and expression of these features. He is neither large nor small, yet his body is in all respects well proportioned; and although he may not be capable of developing great muscular action, he is fully qualified to contend successfully against fatigue and long journeys. Agile and nervous, as prompt in attack as in parrying a blow, full of expedient, supple, and cheerful, skilful both physically and morally, this is the character we shall easily recognise in our typical soldier of the next page.

Considered intellectually, the Frenchman is distinguished by a readiness and activity of conception which is truly unsurpassed. His comprehension is quick and sound. A halo of feeling surrounds this intellectual activity. Add to this a very fair amount of reason, solid judgment, and a veritable passion for order and method, and you have the French character.

To this combination of various qualities must be referred the respect which the French nation entertain for science and art, the admirable order which is found in their museums, and the excellent preservation of their historical monuments. This also goes to explain their excellent organization for public instruction, both in art and science, the forbearing and kindly tone of their philosophy, which above all things seeks the practical rules which govern human action, their excellent judicial system and admirable civil code, which has been copied more or less by all the nations of the New or Old Worlds.

Although the Frenchman respects science, loves the arts, and takes an interest in the productions of thought, it must be admitted that he is loth to take any personal part in them. He is glad to make use of the practical applications of science, and gratefully acknowledges the service they render him; but he shuns the idea of studying the sciences as such, and the very name of savant conveys to his mind a tiresome person. The sciences, which at the end of the last century brought so much honour to France, now languish. Scientific careers are avoided, and in the country of Lavoisier, Laplace, and Cuvier, science is visibly on the decline.

To make science palatable to French readers, the edge of the cup must be coated with honey, and the preceptor must clearly comprehend what dose of the sweetened beverage he may administer, so as not to overtax the powers or present humour of his patient.

We may say the same of the liberal arts. The Frenchman takes delight in artistic works, in fine monuments and buildings, costly statuary, magnificent pictures, engravings, and all the productions of high art; but he does nothing whatever to encourage them. France is at the present day at the head of the fine arts, and her school of painting is without a rival; and yet her artists, whether they be painters or sculptors, must seek elsewhere an outlet for their talents.

In France, the people are content with rendering a formal homage to the merit of their works of art, and leave to the government the task of encouraging and propagating them.

This encouragement consists in an annual exhibition of their paintings and sculptures, entry to this exhibition being obtained only by payment. When it is over, the various works are returned to their authors, and medals of different value assist the public to appreciate the excellence of their productions.

In France, then, the people are, properly speaking, neither studious nor artistic: they merely profess great esteem for the arts and sciences, and render them homage without the least wish to know more of them or an attempt to further their cultivation.

A very excellent quality of the French nation is its sociability. Whilst the English and Germans shut themselves up in their houses with misanthropical concern, the Frenchman prefers to share his dwelling, to inhabit a sort of hive, in which the same roof shelters a large number of individuals of all ages and conditions. He can thus perform and exchange many services, and, while living his own form of existence, enjoy that of others. See how, in French villages, the houses are grouped together or placed back to back, or, in the large towns, those houses where fifty lodgers hardly separated from one another by a scanty partition, have one common domestic, the porter, and you will at one recognize the instinct of sociability, and external affability, which is peculiar to the French nation. The readiness which each manifests to render the little services of life, to aid a wounded person, or assist in extricating his neighbour from embarrassment, are all signs of the same praiseworthy spirit of sociability.

The delicacy of feeling and thought, the extraordinary taste for order and method, and the love of art, which characterize the French nation, are all to be encountered in their various industrial products. A feeling for art is essentially characteristic of French industry, and gives it that well-known good taste, distinction, and elegance, which are so justly appreciated.

Although he is neither student nor artist, the Frenchman knows therefore perfectly how to call science and art to his aid, demand their co-operation and inspiration, and transfer them with advantage into practice. Thanks to his instinct for order and method, he succeeds in drawing material profit from studious or sentimental subjects.

Having considered the bright side of the French nation, we will now see where they are deficient.

It is a recognized fact, that, among the French, one-third of the men and more than half the women can neither read nor write: this is equivalent to saying, that of the thirty-eight millions of individuals composing the population of France, fifteen millions can neither read nor write.

The French peasant does not read, and for a very good reason. On Sunday he has read to him extracts from the Almanack of Pierre Larrivay, of Matthieu Laensberg, or some other prophet of the same cloth, who foretells what is about to happen on each day of the year; and this is as much as he wants. La BruyÈre drew of the French peasant in the time of Louis XIV. a forcible and sinister picture, which in many cases is true even at the present day: in the course of two centuries, the subject has altered but little.[5]

The French artisan reads very little. Works of popular science, which for some years past have happily been edited in France, are not read, as is imagined, by the working classes: those who seek works of this class are persons who have already received a certain amount of instruction, which they desire to increase by extending it to other branches of knowledge; these, for the greater part, include school-children, and persons, belonging to the different liberal professions, or engaged in commerce.

The bourgeois, who has some spare time, devotes a portion of it to reading, but he does not read books. In France, books are objects of luxury, used only by persons of refinement. The crowd, when they see a man go by with a book under his arm, regard him with respectful curiosity. Enter the houses, even those of the most wealthy, and you will meet with everything which is necessary for the comforts of life, every article of furniture which may be called for, but you will seldom or never find a library. Whilst in Germany, England, and Russia, it is thought indispensable, in France a library is almost unknown.

The French bourgeois reads only the papers. Unfortunately, French journals have always been devoted to politics. Literature and art, science and philosophy, nay, even commercial and current affairs, that is, all which go to make up the life and interests of a nation, are excluded with most jealous care from the greater part of the French journals, to make way for political subjects. Thus it is that politics, the most superfluous and barren of subjects, have become among the French the great and only object of consideration.

The press which indulges in light literature is much worse. Its articles are founded on old compilations. The bons-mots of the Marquis of BiÈvre are borrowed from BiÈvriana, and laid at the door of M. de Tillancourt; then Mlle. X. des VariÉtÉs is made the heroine of an anecdote borrowed from the Encyclopediana, and the trick is complete. The paper is sold at a sou, and is not worth a liard.

The papers are the chief means by which the French bourgeois stuff their heads with emptiness.

The weakness of instruction in France becomes still more apparent by comparison with that of other nations. Traverse all Switzerland, and in every house you will find a small library. In Prussia it is a most rare matter to find a person who cannot read; in that country instruction is obligatory. In Austria every one can read. In Norway and Denmark, the lowest of the peasantry can read and write their language with accuracy; while in the extreme north, in Iceland, that country given up to the rigours of eternal cold, which is, as it were, a dead spot in nature, prints are numerous. We need not say that the English and Americans are far in advance of the French as regards instruction. Nay, more, all the Japanese can read and write, as also all the inhabitants of China proper.

Let us hope that this sad condition of things will change, when, in France, gratuitous and obligatory instruction has become the law.

Uninstructed and unambitious of learning, timid artisan and plodding husbandman though he be, the Frenchman has yet one ruling virtue. He is a soldier; he possesses all the qualities necessary for war—bravery, intelligence, quickness of conception, the sentiment of discipline, and even patience when it is called for. If in 1870 a combination of deplorable fatalities forced the French to yield to the dictates of a people, who even yet wonder at their victory, the reputation of the French soldier for bravery and intelligence has in no way suffered by this unforeseen check. The day for revenge upon the barbarians of the north will come sooner or later.

Another peculiarity of the French nation is their spirit of criticism and satire. If, in the days of Beaumarchais, everything in France closed with a song, nothing at the present day is complete without a joke.

There is nothing which the French spirit of satire has not turned to ridicule. In the art of the pencil it has created la charge, namely, the caricature of what is beautiful, and the hideous exaggeration of every physical imperfection; on the stage it has introduced la cascade, a public parody bringing before the audience in an absurd manner, history, literature, and men of distinction; in the dance, it has given birth to the obscene and nameless thing which is composed of the contortions of fools, and which with strangers passes as a national dance.

The French woman is perfectly gifted in what concerns intelligence; she possesses a ready conception, a lively imagination, and a cheerful disposition. Unfortunately, the burthen of ignorance presses sorely upon her. It is a rare thing for a woman of the people to read, as only those of the higher classes have leisure, during their girlhood, to cultivate their minds. And yet even they must not give themselves up too much to study, nor aspire to honour or distinction. The epithet bas bleu (blue stocking) would soon bring them back to the common crowd—an ignorant and frivolous feminine mass. MoliÈre’s lines in Les Femmes Savantes, which for two centuries have operated so sadly in disseminating ignorance throughout one half of French society, would be with one voice applied to them.

With this ill-advised tirade, persons who think themselves perfectly right, stifle the early inclinations of young girls and women, which would induce them to open their minds to notions of literature, science, and art.

A question was once put forward whether we should permit our young women to share the education which the University affords to young men. We are speaking of the courses which were to have been held by the college of professors, according to the plans proposed by M. Duruy. But this attempt at the intellectual emancipation of young girls was very soon suppressed. Being barely tolerated at Paris, these courses were soon interdicted in the departmental towns, and woman soon returned to the knee of the church, or, in other words, was brought back to ignorance and superstition.

This want of instruction in the French woman is the more to be regretted, since, to an excellent intellectual disposition, she adds the irresistible gifts of grace and physical charms. There is in her face a seduction which cannot be equalled, although we can assign her physiognomy to no determinate type. Her features, frequently irregular, seem to be borrowed from different races; they do not possess that unity which springs from calm and majesty, but are in the highest degree expressive, and marvellously contrived for conveying every shade of feeling. In them we see a smile, though it be shaded by tears; a caress, though they threaten us; and an appeal when yet they command. Amid the irregularity of this physiognomy the soul displays its workings.

As a rule, the French woman is short of stature, but in every proportion of her form combines grace and delicacy. Her extremities and joints are fine and elegant, of perfect model and distinct form, without a suspicion of coarseness. With her, moreover, art is brought wonderfully to assist nature.

There is no place in the world where the secret of dress is so well understood as in France, or where means are so admirably applied to the rectification of natural defects of form or colour. Add to this a continual desire to charm and please, an anxious care to attract and attach the hearts of others through simplicity or coquetry, good will or malice, the wish to radiate everywhere pleasure and life, the noble craving to awake grand or touching thoughts, and you will understand the universal and charming rule which woman has always held in France, and a great portion of the influence which she perforce retains over men and things.

All these qualities, which distinguish the women of the higher classes in France, are met with also among those of the working classes. Their industrious hands excel in needlework. They make their own clothing, and that of their children; look to the household linen, make their own bonnets, and most effectually cause elegance and taste to thrive in the heart of poverty. The correctness of their judgment, their tact and delicacy, and their rare penetration, are of valuable assistance in commercial matters, where their just appreciation affords most useful aid to their husbands and children. In retail trade especially, do these qualities shine forth—order, sagacity, and patience. Their politeness and presence of mind charm the purchaser, who always finds what he wants, and is always in good humour with himself and the articles he obtains.

The French women excel in household duties and in bringing up their children. These graceful and sweet young girls become mothers whose patience is inexhaustible, and make of their home the most perfect resting-place, and the best refuge from the sufferings and hardships of life.

Hispanians.—Under this name we include the Spaniards and Portuguese.

The Hispanians result from the mixture of the Latins, with the Celts, whom they succeeded in Spain, and with the Teutons, who drove out the Romans.

Washed on three sides by the sea, divided from France on the north by the Pyrenees, and from Africa on the south by a narrow stretch of sea, Spain is crossed by ranges of mountains, which, by their various intersections, form valleys permitting only of difficult communication with each other. The mountains of Spain are one of the principal causes of the richness of this country. They contain a variety of precious metals, and the streamlets which flow from their summits fertilize the valleys and develop into large rivers.

The climate of Spain indicates the vicinity of Africa. The air during winter, is cold, dry, and sharp: during the summer it is scorching. The leaves of the trees are stiff and shining, the branches knotty and contorted, the bark dry and rugged. The fruits mingle with their perfume a sharp and acid flavour: the animals are lean and wild.

Nature therefore in Spain is somewhat violent and rude, and this characteristic is peculiar to the people of the country.

The Spaniard, like the African, is in general of moderate height. His skin is brown, and his limbs are muscular, compact, and supple. In a moral sense, passion with him obtains the mastery; indeed it is quite impossible for him to master or dissemble his feelings. He is not afraid to allow their workings to become evident, but, in their display, if they meet with curiosity or admiration, he passes all bounds and becomes a perfect spectacle. A Spaniard always allows his feelings to be plainly perceptible.

This habitual weakness for scenic display which in a people possessing evil instincts would be excessively inconvenient, produces in the Spaniard the best results, since at heart he is full of generosity and nobleness. It endows him with pride, from which spring exalted feelings and good actions; emulation, which prompts him to outdo himself; a moral tone, generosity, dignity, and discretion. Nowhere are better understood than in Spain the regard due to age or sex, and the respect called for by rank or position.

The love of distinction, place, and grade is an inevitable consequence of this state of feeling.

The pride of the Spaniard renders him very tenacious as regards his honour. He brooks not insult, and seeks to requite it with bloodshed. His hand flies to the sword which is to avenge his honour, or the knife which is to settle his disputes (fig. 19).

In Spain arms are carried by all, and their habitual contact—too much neglected in other countries—imparts to each the desire for glory or the hope of playing a leading part in the world.

Such being his disposition, the Spaniard cannot fail to make an excellent soldier. Besides having taste and aptitude for the use of arms, he is vigorous, agile, and patient; and therefore worthy to be named honorably in comparison with the French soldier. It is, however, difficult to preserve discipline among these fiery and independent men. They are not always easy to command in time of regular warfare, and when times become troublesome, they become rapidly converted into guerillas, a term which is almost synonymous with brigand.

The use of arms being familiar to every Spaniard, there is a great temptation to use them, and passion frequently creates an opportunity. Therefore it is that Spain is essentially a land of civil war.

On the most simple question arising, the peasant seizes his gun and rushes to an ambuscade, or joins a band of insurgents.

Political insurrections are an amusement to this impressionable and hasty people. In the twinkling of an eye bands of armed men overrun the country. The great want of discipline among the soldiers and non-commissioned officers, conduces to desertion to these irregular bodies, and the result is that unhappy Spain is continually in a state of local insurrection, the suppression of which invariably leads to bloodshed without producing any permanent settlement.

The passion which a Spaniard evinces in all he does, is not wanting in his religion. His piety is exalted, and the violence to which this piety frequently leads him, has had mournful results. It is this religious fury which accounts for the cruelty of the Spaniards to the Saracens and Jews; and which, later on, lit the faggots of the Inquisition, and produced the most savage intolerance. Spain has burnt, in the name of a God of peace and love, thousands of innocent creatures; and for the honour and good of the Catholic faith, has proscribed, strangled, and tortured.

This passionate exaggeration of Catholicism has proved the ruin of Spain in modern times. It is marvellous to see how this nation, so powerful in the sixteenth century, and which, under Charles V., dictated laws to all Europe, has fallen; until at the present day, it ranks among the states of the lowest class in this part of the world. But it will be seen that the multiplication of convents, both for men and women, has had the effect of rapidly depopulating the country; that the proscription of the Moors, the Jews, and lastly, of the Protestants, has proved destructive of productive industry; that the courts of the Inquisition, and the auto-da-fÉ, have led to a feeling of sadness and mistrust among the people; that the abuse of religion and its symbols, has produced a bigotry which can be likened only to idolatry; and that the fear of offending an intolerant and self-asserting religion, has arrested all moral progress, and effectually set aside all development of science, which of necessity presupposes free investigation.

This is how progress, activity, and thought, have met with their end, and how material prosperity has become extinguished in that portion of Europe, most marvellously endowed with natural gifts. Thus it is that commerce has become a bye-word in a land, whose geographical position is unrivalled, and which possessed in the New World the most flourishing and powerful colonies; and that literature and science, the two great words which indicate liberty and progress, have fallen away in the home of Michael Cervantes.

How is Spain to recover her former splendour? What remedies must be applied to these crying evils? We reply, religious toleration, and political liberty.

The type of the Spanish woman is so well known, that we need hardly recall it. She is generally brunette, although the blond type occurs much more frequently than is usually supposed. The Spanish woman is almost always small of stature. Who has not observed her large eyes, veiled by thick lashes, her delicate nose, and well-formed nostrils. Her form is always undulating and graceful; her limbs are round and beautifully moulded, and her extremities of incomparable delicacy. She is a charming mixture of vigour, languor, and grace.

Love is the great object of the Spanish woman. She loves with passion but with constancy, and the jealousy she feels is but the legitimate compensation for the attachment she bestows.

The Spanish woman, faithful as a wife, is an excellent mother. Few women can equal her as a nurse, or in the attention and patience which are called for by the care of children. The mother lavishes upon her young family her whole life, and if she fails to instruct them, it is, alas! that she lacks the power to do so; for she is no better educated than the French woman, and, as regards ignorance, is a meet companion for her in every respect.

We have said that, in France, women exercise a very manifest influence upon the course of events. The Spanish woman is not, however, in possession of this useful influence. She commands the attention of those around her only during the short period of her beauty. When, arrived at maturity, her judgment formed by experience, and her views enlarged by observation or practice, she might soothe the passion of her friends, assist them with her counsel, or unite them around her hearth, the Spanish woman retires into obscurity, and the knowledge she has gained is lost to society.

Having thus given a general view of Spanish manners, we will say something with respect to the most characteristic physiognomies of this country.

The Moorish type is met with in a marked degree in the province of Valencia. The peasants have swarthy complexions. Their head-dress consists of a handkerchief in bright colours, rolled around the head and rising to a point: strongly reminding the observer of the turban worn by Eastern nations. They sometimes wear, in addition to this, a hat formed of felt and black velvet, with the edges turned up. On fÊte-days they don a waistcoat of green or blue velvet, with numerous buttons formed of silver or plated copper. In lieu of trowsers, they wear full drawers of white cloth, which reach as far as the knees, and are kept up by a broad belt of silk or brightly striped wool. The hose consist of gaiters, kept in place by means of a broad blue riband wound round the leg. A long piece of woollen material, striped with bright colours, is thrown over the shoulders or wound round the body: this is the cloak.

The peasants are to be seen to best advantage in the market-place, whither they bring their oranges, grapes, and dates.

The women of Valencia are sometimes of remarkable beauty. Their black hair is rolled into bunches above the temples, and carried to the back of the head, where it forms an enormous chignon, through which passes a long needle of silver-gilt.

In some of the preceding cuts we have given the costumes of the inhabitants of Valencia, Xeres, Cordova, Toledo, and Madrid, as also types of Spanish physiognomy.

In Spain, dancing is a national feature. The dance scarcely varies in different provinces, but generally reflects the character of the people, who accompany it with songs and national melodies. They can hardly have enough of singing and dancing the Fandango (fig. 23), and the Bolero (fig. 24).

Portugal abuts on Spain, and its people merit some portion of our consideration.

The Portuguese women are frequently pretty, and sometimes actually beautiful. They have abundant hair, their eyes are earnest, soft, and penetrating, and their teeth excellent. Their feet are rather large, but their hands are very delicate. Their forms are well set, and strongly, though somewhat sturdily built; their joints are small, their complexion sallow, their movements are confident. Their well shaped heads are well placed, and the modest ease with which they wear the short jupon and broad felt hat, imparts to these articles of dress a certain elegance.

The inhabitants of Ponte de Lima are of small stature, and possess fine vigorous forms. The country people are worthy of special notice, they make brave and steady soldiers, who are easily amenable to discipline, and robust and intelligent workmen.

There is nothing very noteworthy about the dress of the peasantry, except as regards that of the women. The petticoat is plaited, short, and sometimes rolled up, so as to expose to view their legs, which are usually bare. The bodice, which is furnished with two or three silver buttons, displays the form. Being separated from the petticoat, it permits the chemise to puff out around the body, while the sleeves of that garment are wide and usually worn turned up. The head-dress consists of a large black felt hat, frequently adorned with bows of ribbon, and almost always furnished with a white kerchief, the folds of which fall down over the neck and shoulders. Long earrings, and even necklaces and chains of gold, complete the picturesque costume in which yellow, red, and bright green, predominate.

[91]
[92]
[93]

The streets of Oporto are much enlivened by the appearance of the peasants in their various brilliant dresses, who there vend oranges, vegetables, cheese, or flowers.

Fig. 25 represents the costume of fishmongers at Oporto.

Italians. No part of Europe can be compared with Italy, for softness of climate, clearness of the sky, fertility of the soil, and pureness of the atmosphere. The soil, which is very undulating, is watered by numerous streams, and permits largely of cultivation; while the mountains conceal precious metals, and beautiful marbles. No country is better protected by nature.

On the north arises a broad barrier of stupendous mountains, while the remaining sides are protected by the sea. Along the coast are vast ports, with good harbours; and lastly, this portion of Europe alone has the advantage of offering ready access to both Asia and Africa.

The fertility of the soil, the mild temperature, and the large variety of natural productions which furnish good food, all indicate that Italy should possess a fine, vigorous, and intelligent population. And, indeed, the Italians possess these qualities.

We shall first examine rather more closely, the origin of this people, and the differences they present in various parts of the peninsula.

The Latin family which gave its name to the human group with which we are now concerned, had Italy for its home. In Italy, therefore, we should expect to meet with it. But we should be deceived were we to expect to find the pure Latin type among the modern Italians. The barbarian invasions in the north, and the contact with Greeks and Africans in the south, have wrought much alteration in the primitive type of the inhabitants of Italy. Except in Rome, and the Roman Campagna, the true type of the primitive Latin population is hardly to be found. The Grecian type exists in the south, and upon the Eastern slope of the Apennines, while in the north, the great majority of faces are Gallic. In Tuscany and the neighbouring regions are found the descendants of the ancient Etruscans.

What most interests us is the primitive Latin population. This is met with, as we have said, in and around Rome, and in order to find it we must go there.

The features of the early Latin people can be imagined without difficulty, by reference to busts of the first Roman emperors. We may thence arrive at the following characteristic features, as probably those of the ancient Italian races. The head is large, the forehead of no great height, the vertex (summit of the cranium) flattened, the temporal region protruding, and the face proportionally short. The nose, which is divided from the forehead by a marked depression, is aquiline; the lower jaw is broad, and the chin prominent.

The modern population of Rome, without absolutely reproducing these features, still retain their beautifully pure characteristic lines.

In fig. 27, which represents a group of peasant men and women of Rome, we easily recognize these celebrated types of countenance, so familiar to every artist. The distinguishing marks will be easily seen in the Roman peasants, who, quitting their native country, seek their livelihood in France as models.

As one of these types taken from nature, we would call the reader’s attention to fig. 28, which represents a young Roman girl from the quarter on the banks of the Tiber called Transtevera, and also to fig. 29, which is a faithful portrait of peasants from around Rome.

It would be a fruitless task, were we, in studying the modern Romans, to seek among them traces, more or less eradicated, of the old Roman blood.

In a population which has been so degraded, oppressed, and polluted as this, by ages of slavery and obscurity, we should find nought but disturbance and chaos. We can make no reference to family life in this land of convents and celibacy, nor speak of intellectual faculties in a country where we see a jealous tyranny narrowing the minds of the inhabitants, and an authority that is seated in the blackest darkness, moulding body and mind in ignorance of morality and education. We should need the greatest power of penetration to find, in the effeminate and degenerate population of Modern Rome, the genius of the ancient conquerors of the world.

There are, however, reasons for hoping, that Rome, being now released from Papal authority, and having, since the year 1871, become the Capital of Italy and the residence of King Victor-Emmanuel, will gradually cease to feel the preponderance of the sacerdotal element.

Young Romans playing the favorite Italian game, la mora, with its usual accompaniment of gesticulations and shouts, is a very common street scene. The two persons playing this game raise their closed fists in the air, and then, in letting them fall, open as many fingers as they may think proper. At the same time they call out some number. The winner is he, who, by chance, calls out the number represented by the sum of all the fingers exhibited by the two players. If, for example, I call out five, and at the same time open two fingers, whilst my adversary displays three, which added to mine make five, the number called by me, I am winner. The arms of the two players are raised and lowered at the same time, and the numbers are called simultaneously, with great rapidity and regularity, producing a very singular result and one incomprehensible to a stranger.

La mora is played all over Italy.

But it is not alone in the city of Rome that the characteristic features of the ancient Latin race are to be found; the traveller passing through the suburbs of the capital of the Christian World, Frascati or Tivoli, will still encounter vestiges of the old Latins hidden beneath the sad garments of misery. (Fig. 29.)

It may be said that Rome at the present day is a vast convent. In it the ecclesiastical population holds an important position and plays an important part. This, it is, which imparts to the Eternal City its austerity, not to say, its public sadness and moral languor. We shall therefore close our series of picturesque views of the inhabitants of Modern Rome, by glancing at the costumes of the principal dignitaries of the ecclesiastical order, their representation in fig. 30 being followed by the reproduction of a well-known picture, representing the Exaltation of Pio IX. (fig. 31).

The Latin type, which physically if not morally is met with in a state of purity at Rome, and in the Roman Campagna, has, on the other hand, undergone great modification in the provinces of the North, as well as in those of Southern Italy. Let us first consider the Northern provinces.

Northern Italy, endowed to perfection with natural advantages, washed by two seas, watered by the tributaries of a large river, possessing land of extraordinary fertility, nourishes a race in which the Latin blood has mingled with that of the German and Gaul. In Tuscany and the neighbourhood are, as we have said, the descendants of the old Etruscans, and further north are the offspring of Germanic and Gallic races.

The designs which adorn the Etruscan sarcophagi, originally brought, it is said, from Northern Greece, have preserved the physical form and appearance of these people. They are bulky, and of heavy make.

The men wear no beard, and are clothed with a tunic which in some cases is thrown over the back of the head. Some hold in the left hand a small goblet, and in the right, a bowl. They repose in an easy posture, resting the body on the left side, as do also the women. The women wear a tunic, sometimes fastened below the breast by a broad girdle, which is furnished with a circular clasp, and a peplum which in many cases covers the back of the head. They hold in one hand an apple, or some fruit of the same appearance, and in the other a fan. This is the portrait of the Etruscan which has been handed down to us.

Tuscany, of all Italy, is that portion which most strongly represents the mildness, the order, and the industrious activity of modern Italy. The natural richness of the soil is there enhanced by a capable system of cultivation. The arts peacefully flourish in this land of great painters, sculptors, and architects. The habits of the people, both of the upper and lower classes, are gentle and peaceful. There is here a state of general prosperity added to a fair amount of education. The poor man here, does not, as in other countries, foster a complaining and hostile feeling against the rich; all entertain a consciousness of their own dignity; all are affable and polite. The general good feeling is manifested in word and deed, and the religious tone is moderate and tolerant. Women are loved and respected, and this respect corresponds in religion with the worship of the Virgin.

At Florence and in Tuscany we meet that Italian urbanity, which, by the French, who are unable to understand it, is improperly termed obsequiousness. This attribute of the Italian is very far from servile; it comes from the heart. A universal kindly feeling welcomes the stranger, who experiences much pleasure among this conciliatory and friendly people, and with difficulty tears himself away from this happy country, where all seem bathed in an atmosphere of art, sentiment, and goodness.

Southern Italy will show us a very different picture from that we have just described. The proximity to Africa has here much altered the physical type of the inhabitants, while the yoke of a long despotism has much lowered the social condition, through the misery and ignorance it has produced. The mixture of African blood has changed the organic type of the Southern Italian to such an extent, as to render him entirely distinct from his northern compatriots; the exciting influence, which the mate has over the senses, imparting to his whole conduct a peculiar exuberance. Hence there is much frivolity and little consistency in his character.

In the town and neighbourhood of Naples we meet a combination of the features we have just considered. Let us betake ourselves for a moment thither, and take a rapid view of the strange population, which from early dawn is to be met in the streets, singing, begging, or going about their day’s work.

Fig. 32 shows us a shop of dealers in macaroni in the market-place (mercatello), and fig. 33 the indispensable water-carrier.

The most favourable time for examining the great variety of types which unite in the population of Southern Italy, is on the occasion of the public festivals which are so numerous at Naples. This curious mixture may be investigated in the crowds of people who frequent the festival of Piedigrotta, where are to be found examples of every Greek and Latin race.

32.—A MACARONI SHOP AT NAPLES.

Here are to be seen the Procidan women (isle of Procida, near Naples), who still retain the ancient simar, the kerchief which falls loosely around the head, and the classic profiles with straight noses (fig. 34). In Southern Italy, these daughters of ancient Greece still wear the golden diadem and silver girdle of Homer’s matrons. The Capuan woman throws around her head a veil similar to that[103]
[104] of the sibyls and vestals. The Abruzzan women wear their hair in knots in the manner shown in Greek statues. The men of these parts, moreover, clothe themselves in sheepskins during the winter, and wear sandals, fastened with leathern thongs. The Etruscans, the Greeks, the Romans, and even the Normans, have left their traces in this country, whose population forms such a curious mixture.

Not less remarkable are, in this beautiful country, the peasantry of the mountains and the sea-coast. The most varying forms and the richest colours are to be met with, from the coarse cloth drawers and shirt of the fisherman, to the brilliant costume of certain of the Abruzzi, from the Phrygian cap of the Neapolitans to the peaked hat of the Calabrians—a slender, tall, and sunburnt people.

In the midst of this motley assemblage of every variety of dress and colour, the graceful acquajolo (fig. 36), that is, the stall of the dealer in oranges and iced water, forms a most picturesque object.

Walachians.—From the consideration of the types of mankind in Italy, we naturally pass to those of their neighbours, the inhabitants of Walachia and Moldavia.

Under the title, Walachians or Moldo-Walachians, are comprehended the people of Walachia, Moldavia, and some of the neighbouring provinces.

The Walachians proceed from the fusion of the Roman colonies, established by Trajan, and of some Greek settlements, with the ancient Slavonic inhabitants of these countries. The language of this people corresponds with their triple origin, for it possesses the characteristics of Latin, Greek, and Slavonic.

Walachia and Moldavia form the ancient Dacia. The Walachians, originally subject to the kingdom of Bulgaria and to that of Hungary, formed, in 1290, an independent state, the first prince of which was called Rodolph the Black. About 1350 one of their colonies occupied Moldavia under the leadership of a prince named Dragosch. But the Walachian state was never very firmly constituted, and in 1525 the battle of Mohacz reduced it finally under Turkish rule. The Turks did not disturb the internal government of the Walachians, but obliged their prince (hospodar) to pay an annual tribute to the Porte, and to maintain Turkish garrisons in all their strongholds. But Walachia, being situated between the Ottoman empire on one side, and Hungary, Poland, and Russia, on the other, became the scene of most of the struggles between its formidable neighbours. It was trampled over by both Christian and Mussulman, and this terrible situation resulted in ruin and exile to its unfortunate inhabitants. The hospodars who occupied the thrones of Walachia and Moldavia were appointed by the court of Constantinople, who sold this dignity to the highest bidder. The hospodars were then only a species of pacha; their court was formed after the pattern of those of the Byzantine emperors, but they did not possess the military power of the Turkish pachas.

This situation has changed since 1849, when a treaty was concluded between the Porte and Russia. By the terms of this treaty, the dignity of hospodar was maintained during the lifetime of its possessor. New events have happened, and, since the year 1860, the political protection of the Danubian Principalities is shared between Russia, the Porte, Prussia, and Austria. The Prince of Hohenzollern, who now occupies the throne of Moldo-Walachia, is of Prussian birth.

The two principalities of Moldavia and Walachia enjoy their nationality and independence on condition of paying a yearly tribute to the Porte.

None of their forts are now to receive a Turkish garrison.

The prince is assisted by a council formed of the leading boyards, and this council forms a high court of appeal for judicial affairs. In modern times, Couza was the best known prince of Walachia, although political events or popular discontent led to his early fall.

The public safety is attended to by a sort of indigenous police, commanded by the head spathar.

The inhabitants of Walachia are remarkable for patience and[108]
[109] resignation; without these qualities, it would have fared hard with them during the calamities which have at all times befallen their country. They are men of a mild, religious, and sober temperament. But, since they are unable to enjoy the result of their labour, they do as little work as possible. The milk of their kine, pork, a little maize, and beer of an inferior quality, with a woollen dress, is all they require. On fÊte days, however, the peasants appear in brilliant costumes, which we represent here (figs. 37, 38, 39).

“The Walachians,” says M. Vaillant, “are generally of considerable height, well-made, and robust; they have oblong faces, black hair, thick and well-arched eyebrows, bright eyes, small lips, and white teeth. They are merry, hospitable, sober, active, brave, and fitted to make good soldiers. They profess Christianity according to the rites of the Greek church. This people, which has so long inhabited countries devastated by warfare, shows at the present time a strong disposition to develop itself.”

Towns are rare in Walachia, the country being still far in arrear of the surrounding civilization, in consequence of its political subordination to Turkey, and its bad internal organization. The country of the Danube, indeed, has practically but one large town, that is, Bucharest. There are thus, in this land, no centres from whence light could emanate; it is in an incomplete state of civilization, which can be improved only by an internal revolution, or by the collision which, sooner or later, must come, of its powerful adjacent empires.

“However,” says Malte-Brun, “nature seems to await human industry with open arms; there are few regions upon which she has lavished her gifts as she has here. The finest river in Europe bathes the southern frontier of these provinces, and opens a way into fertile Hungary, and the whole Austrian empire, offering, moreover, a communication between Europe and Asia, by the Black Sea; but this is all in vain, for hardly a single vessel glides over its waves. Its rocks, its shoals, the Turkish garrisons on its banks, and above all, the plague, inspire fear. Other fine rivers flow from the summit of the Carpathian mountains, and fall into the Danube; but they serve only to supply fish during Lent, and, being left to themselves, menace the surrounding country, which, if better regulated, they would fertilize. The Aluta, Jalovitza, and Ardschis, are navigated only by flat-bottomed[110]
[111] boats. Immense marshes encumber the low parts of Walachia, and their exhalations produce a continuance of bilious fevers. The most superb forests, in which splendid oaks grow side by side with beeches, pines, and firs, cover not only the mountains, but many of the large islands in the Danube. These, instead of being used in the construction of fleets, merely furnish the wood used in paving the streets or roads; for idleness and ignorance find no means of raising the blocks of granite and marble, of which the Carpathians offer such abundance. The summit of Mount Boutchez attains a height of more than six thousand feet, and all the mineral wealth of Transylvania seems to take its origin in Upper Walachia. Copper mines have been opened at Baya di Roma, and iron mines in the district of Gersy, one especially in the neighbourhood of Zigarescht, where a bed of rocks presents the phenomenon of an almost continual igneous fermentation.

“The Aluta and other rivers bring down nuggets of gold, which are collected by the Bohemians, or Ziguans, and which indicate the presence of mines as rich as those of Transylvania; but no one thinks of looking for them. Only the salt quarries are worked, among which that of Okna Teleago furnishes 150,000 cwt. per annum. The climate, notwithstanding two months of hard winter and two months of excessive heat, is more favourable to health and agriculture than that of any of the adjacent countries. The pastures, filled with aromatic plants, supply nourishment even to the herds of neighbouring provinces, and could support even more than these. The wool of their sheep has already attained considerable value. It is estimated that Walachia contains two and a half millions of sheep, which are of three-fold variety—the zigay, with short and fine wool; the zaskam, with long coarse wool; the tatare, which forms a mean between the two foregoing varieties. Horses and oxen are exported. Fields of maize, wheat, and barley; forests of apple, plum, and cherry trees; melons and cabbages, excellent, although enormous, bear witness to the productive nature of the soil. Many of its wines sparkle with a generous fire, and with care might be brought to equal the well-known Hungarian vintages. A thousand other natural advantages are found there, but they are of little avail to a people without energy or enlightenment.”

Slavonian Family.

This family comprehends the Russians, Finns, Bulgarians, Servians, and Bosniaks, that is to say, the inhabitants of Slavonia; and the Magyars, or Hungarians, the Croats, the Tchecks, the Poles, and the Lithuanians, that is, the people who inhabit the countries intervening between the Baltic and Black Seas.

Before describing these people individually, we shall give in a general manner the characteristics of the family to which they all belong.

The Slavonian family includes the European peoples who have preserved in the greatest perfection the type of the primitive Aryan race. They are tall, vigorous, and well made, and while in this respect they recall the Caucasian type, they yet possess the most distinct marks of the Mongolian type. The cheek bones are high, the nose is depressed at the root, and turned up towards the extremity, which is almost invariably thick. The oval form of the cranium is very marked; the chest is of considerable capacity, and the shoulders and arms are large, but the lower extremities are in proportion much smaller.

Mr. William Edwards has thus described the organic type of the Slavonians:—

“The form of the head, viewed from the front, represents pretty nearly a square, since the height is about equal to the breadth, while the top is perceptibly flattened, and the direction of the jaw is horizontal. The nose is less long than the space between its basis and the chin: from the nostrils to the root, it is almost straight, that is, there is no decided curve; but if such curve were appreciable, it would be slightly concave, so as to give the tip a tendency to rise; the lower portion is rather broad, and the extremity rounded. The eyes, which are slightly hollow, are exactly in the same line, and if they present any marked characteristic, it is that they are rather small in proportion to the head. The eyebrows, which are scanty, are nearly contiguous at the inner angle, whence they are directed obliquely outwards. The mouth, which is small with thin lips, is much nearer the nose than the chin. A singular characteristic which must be taken in connection with the above, and which is very general, consists in the absence of beard except upon the upper lip.”

It has been said that the Slavonians of the present day are the old Scythians mixed with the Sarmatians, but their origin is not so simple as this. These people originally bore the name of Venedians or Servians. They occupied, at the commencement of the Christian era, the banks of the Danube and Hungary proper, whence they extended as far as the Dnieper and the Baltic. Their name of Servians is derived from a people mentioned by Ptolemy, under the name of Se????, who dwelt in the regions around the Baltic (Palus-Meotis), and belonged to the Sarmatian nation. The Sarmatians advanced by degrees from the banks of the lower Don, which was their country, to the centre of Poland, where they mixed with the Venedians. The Sarmatians were allied to the Scythians of Europe, who were an Indo-European nation, considered by Diodorus of Sicily, and Pliny, to have come originally from Media.

It will be seen that the rather complicated pedigree of the Slavonians, is connected with gradual displacements of Asiatic populations. This then explains the fact that they[115]
[116] possess the Caucasian type in a remarkable degree of purity, but altered by the admixture of Mongolian blood.

A certain love of separatism, and a tendency to rebel under the yoke of authority, have been the misfortune of these people. At an early period they separated into rival nationalities, possessing but little capacity for self-government. Anarchy was their political condition, and to this must be attributed the misfortunes of Poland and Hungary, nations which, at the present day, are almost effaced from the Map of Europe.

The Slavonians occupy a large portion of Eastern Europe; formerly they had advanced as far as the centre of Germany. The descendants of the German Slavonians are found in the Venedians of Lusatia, the Tchecks or inhabitants of Bohemia, and the inhabitants of Carinthia and Carniola. The purest type of the Slavonian race is to be found in the Servians, inhabitants of Servia, Herzegovina and Hungarian Slavonia. The Bosniaks and Montenegriners are also Slavonians. They formerly sent to Croatia colonists under the name of Uscoks (emigrants.)

The Croats are Slavonians who descended, about the ninth century, from the region of the Carpathians in Illyria, and who absorbed the previous original Pannonian and Dalmatian population.

A branch quite distinct from this great race, and which might be considered as forming a separate stock, is represented by the Lithuanians, a people whose mild and indolent nature would seem to imply a mixture at some remote period, with Finn, or, perhaps also, with Gothic blood.

Russia is occupied at the present day by a Slavonian race mixed with the Scandinavians and the primitive inhabitants of the soil. The Slavonians who occupied Poland spread from the banks of the Dnieper to the foot of the Oural mountains, while the immigration of the Varegians, a Scandinavian people, brought a northern influence into this country. These Varegians absorbed the Slavonians whom they found in this country, and the Tchoudans who had summoned them. Under this twofold action arose the Russian nation, which is mentioned by Greek writers for the first time in 839, and the elements of which were subsequently modified in various respects by the infusion of Turkish and Mongolian blood. Russia took its name from the country situate around Upsal, which was the native district of the[117]
[118] Scandinavian emigrants (Rios-Lagen, the Ruotsimaa of the Finns).

The population of Russia Major appears to be chiefly composed of a Finnish-Slavonic race. Among the inhabitants of Russia Minor (Cossacks of the Ukraine), the Polish element predominates. Among these Russians we shall find the stock of those who established themselves farther north in Russia Major, the population of which eventually absorbed them. The Bielo-Russians, or inhabitants of White Russia, who occupy the greater portion of the provinces of Mohilew, Minsk, Witepsk, Grodno, and Wilna, constitute a race intermediate between the Russians and the Poles.

The latter first appear in history with the dynasty of the Piasts, about 860. The Slovachians, who extend to the north-west of Hungary as far as Austrian Galicia, belong, as well as the Tchecks, to this same Polish branch. The Ruthenians, settled to the north of Transylvania, proceeded from the mixture of the first Slavonians established in this country with the Poles who emigrated in the twelfth century from Galicia or Red Russia.

Such is the vast collection of populations united under the name of the Slavonian family.

It is difficult to analyze the habits of a race, which, for centuries, has been divided between oppression and slavery. We will, however, endeavour to do so, and shall commence with the Northern Slavonians.

The Northern Slavonian is, in general, gentle and patient. His sweet toned language caresses the ear and the mind with expressions full of tenderness. He treats his wife and children with the greatest kindness. Like the Arab, he loves a life of wandering and adventure beneath the open sky, and, like the Arab, he can bear the greatest fatigue. On horseback he crosses plains covered with snow, as the Arab crosses the burning sands of the desert. Music has a very moving effect on the Slavonian. It forms a means of translating his tenderness and his melancholy; it responds to the vague and cloudy impressions, to the yearnings, of his swelling heart. The Slavonian peasants cultivate the voice, and men, rough and coarse in many other respects, compose melodies full of sentiment. The auditors press around the singer, like the shepherds of ancient Arcadia, and tears of emotion and pleasure are seen rolling down the unkempt beards of these poor Danubians.

The Slavonians are less sensible to linear than to musical harmony. Thus it is that Russian architecture can do no more than imitate the monuments of France and Italy. On the other hand, the taste for colour attains with them a considerable development, a fact which is evidenced by the colours of their materials and furniture, and the decoration of their apartments. The sense of ornament is to be met with in the lowest villages of Russia, and the peasant who constructs his house with the rough-hewn trunks of trees, does not omit to paint and carve his door, window, and roof.

This explains how the serf, when taken from his plough, is able, after a very short apprenticeship, to reproduce the delicate and artistic work of the Parisian jeweller.

We see, therefore, that the artistic aptitudes of the Slavonian are well developed, and that this race, in order to arrive at excellence in art, only requires the conditions of political liberty and individual independence.

From a moral aspect, the Northern Slavonian obeys, above all, the inclination of his heart, rather than of his reason. Nor must the Russian be looked to for personal initiative, or philosophical or social innovations. He does not possess the instinct of liberty, but he has, in a high degree, sympathy, collective action, and the equalizing tendencies which are its consequences.

This sentimental supremacy is manifested in the Orthodox religion which prevails in Russia, which imposes with authority its decisions, and the precepts of which are addressed less to the reason than to blind faith.

By referring to this feeling of sympathy, we are enabled to furnish an explanation of the facility with which an immense population, with bad police arrangements, bad administration, and without good means of communication, acts collectively, accepting the same faith, and obeying the same law. The minds of all in Russia seem to obey one single will and inspiration.

The Slavonian republics flourished from the sixth to the seventh century, during which time these people were happy, wealthy, and tranquil. Art and science flourished there under the shelter of municipal liberty. But, although well formed for peace, they did not possess the element of centralization which was necessary to enable them to withstand foreign aggression. They at last became a prey to the Mongolians and Germans, who brought with them a feudal form of government, and banished all prosperity by destroying the democratic element of equality. The inhabitants of Novgorod were reduced to an actual state of slavery, and Poland, devoted to deplorable political institutions, became, from that moment, a prey to the anarchy which was to bring about its fall.

Russia took its origin from the submission of the Slavonian populations of the north, to the despotic centralization so powerfully organized by Peter the Great and his successors.

The Slavonians of the South, that is, the inhabitants of Slavonia, Servia, Bulgaria, Carniola, &c., differ sensibly from those of the North. A dry and mountainous country, filled, nevertheless, with sweet odours, a burning sun, a clear sky, and the various products of the soil, have rendered the race of Southern Slavonians dark, wiry, active, warlike, and chivalrous. Few men are stronger, physically or morally, than the Slavonians of the Ottoman Empire.

The deplorable Turkish administration has been unable to change the precious qualifications of this people. Though continually beaten down with the sword, they always rise again; the least hope of independence nerves their hearts. The hospitality of the Southern Slavonians, their language brimming with poetry, and their national songs, all impart to them a fine and beautiful character. It may be safely affirmed that a brilliant civilization will arise among these people as soon as they are released from the Turkish yoke.

We will now shortly consider the principal populations whom we have classed under the Slavonian family.

Russians.—The Russians form the most important branch of this family. They may be subdivided into Russians properly so called, Rousniaks, and Cossacks.

The Russians, properly so called, inhabit, almost exclusively, the central portion of Russia, and are, moreover, disseminated throughout all the rest of the Russian Empire, the immense extent of which is well known. In the Asiatic and American portions of this vast empire, they form, not the majority, but the ruling section of the population.

Figs. 43 and 44 will convey an idea of the Russian physiognomy in the capital of the empire, St. Petersburg; fig. 43 represents the dress of the townspeople, and the sledge which takes the place of the carriage during the long winters of this latitude; fig. 44 represents the interior of an inn.

In Russian, the term isba is applied to the dwellings of the peasantry, which are almost always constructed of wood. A Russian village usually consists of only one street, lined with isbas, more or less ornamented, according to the taste or fortune of the proprietor. The houses are almost always similar. Figure 45 shows the interior of this house.

In these houses everything is made of wood, except that portion which surrounds a gigantic stove kept alight during the whole winter. The furniture consists of forms placed along the walls, and which serve as beds for the whole family, who in winter however sleep upon the stove.

To the ceiling are suspended the provisions and candles. In the corner of every room is an image of the Virgin Mary. Instruments of labour, cooking utensils, and domestic animals mingle, within the isba, in picturesque disorder.

The Russian peasant is intelligent, brave, hospitable, affable, and benevolent; but he is wanting in cleanliness, and indulges to excess in malt spirit. He wears a shirt of cotton-stuff, usually red, falling over capacious trousers, which are tucked into heavy boots.

His outer clothing consists of the touloupa, formed of a sheep’s skin with the wool on, and worn with this next the body. His low crowned hat has a broad turned up rim. The hat worn by peasants in the neighbourhood of Moscow is pointed and almost without a rim.

The women wear boots like the men: they also wear the touloupa, with a shawl and kerchief over the head and shoulders. It is only on fÊte days that this wretched costume gives place to aprons and shawls, of bright colour, and even embroidered in gold and silver. The head-dresses are elegant, and vary in the different provinces.

The pleasures of a Russian peasant are always of a serious character. The quick and sparkling expansion and gaiety of Southern populations are unknown to the inhabitants of these frozen regions.

M. d’Hearyet, who has travelled in the Russian provinces of the Baltic, informs us, that at Riga the houses are comfortable and well appointed; that immense stoves preserve a temperature of 68° or more in vast apartments, guarded from without by double windows and double doors: that persons leaving the house envelop themselves in a fur robe, which leaves no form distinguishable, so that it is difficult to say whether the individual in question is a man or woman: that at night, the bed is small, low, furnished with one or two leathern mattresses and some sheets a little larger than napkins. They live in a hot-house atmosphere, the air of which is not often enough renewed.

The Cossacks form in Russia rather a military caste than a distinct people. They seem to be descended from the Rousniaks mixed with other people, chiefly Circassians. They frequently have longer faces, more prominent noses, and are of greater height, than the Russians properly so called. Their principal settlement is upon the banks of the lower portion of the Don. They, however, rarely possess a fixed residence, since the Cossacks, spread throughout the entire Russian Empire, act as light cavalry and border troops.

Figures 48 and 49 represent different types, taken from Nature, of Cossacks who live in the Caucasus, along the frontiers which bound the Southern portion of the Russian possessions.

Finns.—The Finns form small scattered populations which extend from the Baltic sea to the east of the Obi. The Finns are regarded as the remains of people once far more numerous, who have been conquered, repressed, carried off, or driven back by Slavonians, Turks, and Mongolians. They lead the life of hunters and husbandmen, rather than that of warriors and nomads. Reddish, or, frequently red hair, a scanty beard, a complexion marked with red patches, bluish or grey eyes, sunken cheeks, prominent cheek-bones, a large occiput, and an angular frame possessing less beauty than that of the Europeans and Arameans, have been regarded as the original characteristics of the Finns: but in a large number of these people these characteristics are more or less modified. Among them are distinguished the Ostiaks, the Vogouls, the Finns of Siberia, the Finns of Eastern Russia, and the Finns of the Baltic.

The Finns of Siberia form two groups; one in the South, the other in the North.

The former is composed of certain people known under the names of the Teleouts, SagaÏs, and Kachintz, whose language bears some general affinity to Turkish dialects; these give themselves up to hunting, fishing, and agriculture, and are subject to the Russian Empire.

The Northern group is formed of two people: the Ostiaks and the Vogouls who have retained Finnish dialects.

The Vogouls form only a very insignificant population dwelling[128]
[129] east of the Oural, and have undergone such mixture with the Turks and Mongolians as to have adopted to a great extent their characteristics.

The Ostiaks who dwell upon the banks of the Obi appear to have preserved in much greater perfection the characteristics of the Finns. They are a people devoted to hunting and fishing, with red hair, very uncivilized, and partly idolatrous.

Madame Eva Felinska, during an exile in Siberia, inspected, as far as possible, the Ostiak huts. These habitations were so foul, and gave forth such putrid miasmas, that, notwithstanding her curiosity, this lady was unable to remain in them more than a minute.

The Ostiaks cover their skins with a layer of rancid fat, over which they wear a reindeer skin. They eat uncooked fish or game, this being their ordinary food. But from time to time they go with large buckets of bark to Berezer, where they collect, and devour as delicacies, the refuse of the kitchens. Fig. 51 represents an Ostiak hut.

The Finns of Eastern Russia comprise the Baskirs, the Teptiars, and the Metscheriaks of the Southern Oural: three small peoples who speak Turkish dialects mingled with Finnish words, and who exist in very much the same way. The Baskirs are the most numerous; they are engaged in rearing horses and bees. Like the Cossacks they furnish bodies of cavalry to the Russian army.

The Finns of the Volga comprise the Tchouvachians, Tcheremissians and Moadueinites, who likewise speak dialects interspersed with Turkish words: a short time since they turned their attention to husbandry.

Certain populations scattered through the governments of Perm, Vologda, Orenburg, and Viatka, are the remains of a people of some consideration, formerly independent, civilized, and commercial, whom the Russians subdued, and to a large extent absorbed: these are the Permians.

The Finns of the Baltic, or Finns properly so called, have been long under the rule of Teutonic nations, and have generally preserved the characteristics of the family we have described above. Among them are distinguished the Livonians, Esthonians, Ischorians, Kyrials, Ymes or Finlanders, and Quaines, who are respectively the remains of the ancient inhabitants of Livonia, Esthonia, Ingria, Finland, and Carelia, where they are now mixed with the Slavonians and Teutons. During the last century the Quaines pushed forward to the extremity of Norwegian Lapland, of which they at present form the principal population.

Bulgarians, Servians, and Bosniaks or inhabitants of Flavinia.—In order to describe these, we need do no more than refer to the general facts which have been stated above with reference to the Southern Slavonians. We will merely borrow a few descriptions and illustrations from the work of M. George Perrot, a French writer, “Voyage chez les Slaves du Sud,” published in 1870, and well known on account of the excellent history it contains of his travels in Asia Minor.

M. George Perrot travelled through Slavonia, Croatia, Bosnia, and the strip of territory recently cleared to serve as a frontier to[131]
[132] the Mussulman possessions, and which bears the name of Military Confines.

M. George Perrot first of all gives us some types of the inhabitants of Slavonia, which we shall reproduce here. Figure 54 represents a peasant from the neighbourhood of Essek, a town of Slavonia.

While halting at the borough of Vouka, situated a few leagues from Essek, M. George Perrot thus describes the peasants of these parts.

“The majority of the men around us have hair which is blond or of different shades of chestnut. Although much burnt by the sun, they are not generally so dark as the Magyars. Many of the women, who are tall and slender, are really beautiful. Their eyes especially, which are bright and sparkling, and sometimes blue, though more frequently of a dark grey, are charming. The lower portion of their face is less agreeable; the chin is usually prominent, and the lips are rather thick.

“Their costume recalls that met with in the East. The men wear a slouch hat of black felt with the edges turned up, a linen shirt, and full trousers down to the ankle; this in hot weather, when they are in working order, forms the whole dress. One or two loungers, who joined us, were more completely dressed than this.

“They wore large boots of thick leather, and over the shirt a waistcoat of blue cloth, adorned in front, with white metal buttons, and behind, with embroidery in yellow or white. On another occasion, when we were on the boat, we saw some men who, in addition to this, wore, over the waistcoat, a short cape or half-cloak, which did not fall lower than the waist, and of which, as a rule, the sleeves were allowed to hang loose. In winter, they add to these, warm robes of sheepskin or large mantles, which put me in mind of the rough overcoats worn by our waggoners.

“As to the women, they make me think of the Albanians of Attica. This fine September afternoon, they are wearing a long chemise, embroidered with eyelet holes and coloured patterns; this chemise, which leaves the neck very open, would reach to the ground, but in order to permit of freer movement in the fields or at home, it is hitched up, and supported by a coloured girdle, wound two or three times round the body; being thus held up, the chemise forms elegant and symmetrical folds, falling in front as low as the ankle, while behind, it extends to about half way down the calf of the leg. Over the head is thrown, in various fashions, a kerchief, which is usually white, but which on festive occasions is embroidered with silver and gold; the ends of this fall down the back, or over the bosom, as may suit the taste of the wearer. When the best dress is donned, a cloth apron, the colour and pattern of which bear a resemblance to the carpets which I have met with in Servia and Bosnia, hangs down to the knees; over the chemise is worn a species of waistcoat without sleeves, and ornamented with gold or silver embroidery. In winter, they guard against the cold by wearing over all a thick overcoat of sheepskin. All the garments worn by the women are worked by their own hands and busy fingers, during the long winter evenings.”

M. George Perrot remained for rather a long period in the provinces now called the Military Confines or Frontiers, and he describes the miserable state in which the Slavonian peasantry exist there, where they are obliged to live side by side with wild hordes of Mussulman soldiers or pandours.

Figure 55 shows peasants of these districts returning from pasture.

Figure 56 is given by the author as a type of the Slavonian women who inhabit the Military frontiers.

Let us quote a few more of this traveller’s impressions.

“What struck me in all the villages of the Confines through which I passed, were the guard stations, before which loitered, or slept beside their guns, suspended on the wall, five or six GrÄnzer. In summer, they wear merely their trousers and shirt of coarse white cloth, and sometimes a sort of brown jacket with red facings, which they also wear for field work. In winter they are seen enveloped in their large hooded cloaks of red cloth; and, thus equipped and armed, guard their flocks on the moors. The state furnishes them, for exercise and service, with guns similar to those used by regiments of the line; but when not on duty, many of them prefer long guns of Albanian manufacture or shape, with swallow-tailed stocks. These guns are transmitted from father to son for several generations. Besides these, they wear in their girdles, one or two pistols, and a kind of dagger with a bone handle inlaid with coral or glass. In this guise they have rather the appearance of Bosniak bachibozouks, than of civilized subjects of His Majesty Francis Joseph, constitutional Emperor of Austria, and King of Hungary. Their uniform, consisting of a blue trouser fitting close to the leg, and a vest of black or white wool, is only produced on field days, or in war.

“But what is it that these sentinels are guarding? This is just what I have never been able to understand. No enemy, from Belgrade to Sissek, was threatening; and these villages are exposed to no more disorder than those of the neighbouring provinces, where they dispense with all this armed exhibition. This, therefore, is another of the useless and erroneous consequences of the military rÉgime: here are hands taken day after day from their labour in the fields, and with no greater advantage than that of acquiring the habits of idleness and drunkenness, usually contracted during the period of barrack-room inactivity.”

In Fig. 57 we represent one of the military stations of the Confines, with the guards belonging to it, called GrÄnzers.

“All those who have lived for some time among the GrÄnzers, have been struck with their indolent apathy, their careless and continued idleness. For whose sake should they exhaust themselves with work? Under the rules of their community, their wives and children are almost beyond want. As regards themselves, to-morrow they may be torn from their orchards and fields, to encounter death in Italy, or on some other frontier; would it not be madness to expose themselves to privation and fatigue in view of a future upon which they have no means of reckoning? Besides this, does their property, which they can neither render as valuable as they wish, nor sell or bequeath as they may think proper, belong to them sufficiently to give them any pleasure or profit in its improvement? They have maxims which accurately indicate their character; ‘Go late to the field and return early, so as to avoid the dew;—if God does[139]
[140] not aid, what is the use of working?’ Being accustomed to rely only, as they say, ‘Upon God and the Emperor,’ they refuse to recognize the advantages to be gained from any modern invention, better tools, or more advanced methods of cultivation. ‘Thus I found it, and thus I will leave it,’ is a saying of which they often make use in speaking of their patrimonial domain.

“The only thing which, in spite of all the shackles which enchain and benumb their limbs, would have been able to arouse their minds and impart to them some desire for progress, is instruction. But ignorance is profound in the Military Confines; the regimental schools that exist are very insufficient both in number and quality; in certain districts, especially in Southern Croatia, the villages are so distant from one another, that the children, who do not dwell in the borough where the school is, are unable, without difficulty, to go there at any time. Besides, why should the government do much as regards instruction? It is clear, that, if the people of the Confines were better taught, they would be less resigned to their hard lot. If it rested entirely with the government, the schoolmaster would be entirely banished from these parts.

“Upon the banks of the Danube and of the Save, where the Confines abut upon the river, which is continually traversed by packet-boats, travellers, and merchandize, the people of the frontiers have nevertheless daily communication with the inhabitants of the neighbouring provinces, and even with strangers. This contact somewhat opens their minds and suggests new ideas; but it is chiefly in Southern Croatia, in the districts called Banal and Karlstadt, that the characteristic features of the GrÄnzer are most frequent and striking. There commences, south-east of Karlstadt, what is termed the dry-frontier; this is no longer a water-course such as the Danube or Save, but a line purely conventional, forming the boundary between Austria and Turkey.

“Surprises and hand to hand combats were recently matters of frequent occurrence upon this frontier, which is more difficult to define and to preserve; at the commencement of this century, certain forts, and other places, such as Zettin, which the Turks assaulted in 1809 and 1813, were still the subject of dispute. Here, moreover, the Frontier territory is no longer from fifteen to twenty kilometres, but from five to six myriametres broad; the people subject to the military rÉgime, here, therefore, form a more homogeneous and compact mass. Cases of armed brigandage, and assassinations, which were very common in the whole of this country, are now becoming rarer; but theft is the crime which requires most frequent punishment. The ancestors of the GrÄnzers lived chiefly by plunder, and such habits are not removed in a day.”

M. Perrot made a journey in Bosnia, down the course of the river Save. He stopped in a borough of this province, of which he speaks thus:—

“After a visit to the Bosniak priest, we wandered about the town, where we made several small purchases with a view to smuggling. I replenished my pouch with a Bosnian tobacco which is by no means so good as that of Macedonia. I purchased a rug such as are worked also by the women of Slavonia and the Military Confines: this is not, like the tissues of Persia and Anatolia, thick and soft, but a rather thin and dry quality of cloth.”

Here, also, in designs and in combination of colour, are found the same innate taste, and the same boldness which is met with usually in oriental workmanship. The Slavonian women, in Austria as in Turkey, would be no unworthy rivals of the Turcoman women, who, in the neighbourhood of Smyrna, and from the high meadow-lands of the Taurus down to the low deserts of Persia, execute, beneath their black tents of goat or camel hair, those marvellous pieces of needlework, for which, at the present time, we pay so high a price.

The inferiority of the products of this domestic industry in Turkey in Europe, is attributable to the fact, that, here the women being within comparatively easy distance of large markets, filled with European wares, are enabled to procure there wools suited to their wants, already dyed by industrial processes: but it will be understood that the colours thus obtained, which are produced with a view to cheapness and variety, are far from possessing the fresh and durable tints of those colours, few in number, always the same, and almost all obtained from the animal and vegetable worlds, the secret of which has been handed down in the bazaars of the East, and under the tents of the nomadic tribes, from the time when Nineveh, Babylon, Susa, Tyre, and Sidon, were at the height of their prosperity.

“Our purchases at an end, we returned along the banks of the Save, and, while the ferry was attempting to pass a herd of bullocks, which had just been purchased in Bosnia, I amused myself by noting the picturesque mixture of costumes and types which the bank, on which were most of the market people, offered.

59.—BOSNIAK PEASANT.

“Here was a jobbing blacksmith, who had set up his shop in the open air, hammering and putting in order the pots which were brought to him; or sharpening with his hammer, the points of long iron clamps, used to connect the rafters of houses. His arrangements were most primitive. Two vertical posts supported a horizontal piece, upon which worked the lever, by means of which the bellows were set in motion. In front of the orifice by which the air escaped, a small anvil was fixed in the ground. Around the proprietor, seated on the ground, a number of tools were scattered. The long shirt and puffed out trousers of the blacksmith appeared white by comparison with his skin, although he had probably worn them for some weeks; his chest and arms were bronze coloured.

“A little further on, the most motley groups attracted and retained my notice. Here were Mussulmans, Bosniaks, Pandours guarding the market, their attitudes and costumes carrying me right away to the East, and recalling very old recollections. One of them wore a white turban, which displayed a mass of plaited hair falling down his neck; he stood erect, his hand supporting the butt end of his gun, which rested on his shoulder. A tapestried mantle, adorned with long flocks of wool, which is peculiar to the frontiers of the two countries, was thrown over his shoulders. At his side was another Bosniak, who leant against a wall, clad in a long cloak of red wool; his feet were shod with sandals of tanned leather. Here a rich landowner of the neighbourhood, whose name I really forget, was causing his servants to remove the cattle he had not succeeded in selling: there peasants were remounting their horses, whose gay and picturesque harness I much admired.”

Figures 59 and 60 represent, according to M. Perrot, a Bosniak peasant man and woman, and figure 61, a Bosniak merchant.

The Magyars are the natives of Hungary. The chief population of this country is composed of a people who came from Asia under the name of Magyars, and who were, it would seem, a tribe of the Huns. Hungary is believed to have been populated by some of the savage companions of Attila, the terrible king of the Huns, known as the “Scourge of God.”

The Magyars are distinct from other people in their language and costumes.

They are of medium height, with black hair. Their character is warlike, and their state of civilization is superior to that of the other branches of the Slavonian family.

In his “Causeries GÉographiques,” (from Paris to Bucharest,) M. Duruy has imparted to us his impressions on a journey to Pesth in 1861. The population appeared to him superb.

The women were remarkable through their brightness and decided attractions. In dress, they do not differ much from the men. A chemise gathered in at the neck, with full sleeves richly embroidered, and slightly tightened at the wrists, which are covered with lace ruffles; a jacket body, either red, black, or green, embroidered at the back with fringes and silver buttons, sets off a slender and supple form. A light, very ample, but often rather short petticoat; a silken or velvet scarf thrown over one shoulder À la hussarde; the national high brimmed hat surmounted by a plume of feathers as head-dress; well turned feet and ankles, in embroidered shoes, or sometimes in little spurred boots of red morocco, form the Hungarian costume, represented in figs. 63, 64 and 65.

The markets which are held on the quays, have also peculiar features. You see there, says M. Duruy, groups which call to mind the savage hordes of Attila. M. Duruy almost believed he saw one of the companions of the “Scourge of God.” This was apparently a kind of peasant, flat-nosed, round-eyed, with large projecting cheekbones, and hanging mustachios. He was dark, and dressed in a vest of sheepskin, and breeches of coarse cloth, supported at the waist by a scarf falling over his heavily-shod and spurred boots. A large hat, with the edges turned up, covered his head, and beneath it hung two long plaits of hair. The Magyar language is energetic, full of similes, and filled with guttural aspirations which seem derived from the Arabic, while certain soft and caressing intonations remind us of the Italian idiom. National feeling is brisk in the towns and throughout the country. In the latter, it is kept alive by Bohemian songs, and by stories told by the heads of families during the long winter evenings.

About the other races composing the Slavonian family, namely, the Croats, the Tchecks, the Lithuanians, and the Poles, we have nothing particular to remark.

In general, what we have said at the commencement of this chapter, applies to them with but little modification.

The Greek Family.

The Greek family comprises the Greeks and the Albanians. These races derive their origin from the ancient tribes known under the name of Pelasgians. The ancient Greeks founded many colonies on the shores of the Mediterranean.

In the fourth century before Christ, led by Alexander, they subdued part of Asia, and carried their victorious arms into Egypt. But these conquests were ephemeral. The Greek empire was in its turn subjugated by other races, of whom the principal were the Romans, the Slavonians, and the Scythians.

In the present day the Greeks compose but a scanty population, concentrated in the Morea, or scattered in the neighbouring districts. The majority of the people of this race who inhabit the Asiatic continent have adopted even the language of their neighbours, and are merely reputed Greeks because they profess the Greek form of the Christian religion.

The ancient Greeks, civilized by intercourse with Egyptian colonists, already afforded an example of advanced culture, at a time when the other European and Asiatic nations were still immersed in barbarism.

In spite of the misfortunes of a social decay destined to terminate in many centuries of subjection, the Greeks have preserved up to our own day the physical characteristics of their ancestors. Everyone knows that the most beautiful development of the brow, the finest shape of the human head, is that we find traced in the sculpture of ancient Greece. It had been supposed that the magnificent heads with the noble outlines, admired in the statues of the Greeks, were not the exact reproduction of nature, and that some features had been exaggerated in the direction of ideal beauty. But, in our own day, the skulls of ancient Greeks have been found whose proportions and whose general outlines demonstrate, that, among the artists of ancient Greece, sculpture did not surpass nature, but restricted its inspiration to types who actually lived.

The Apollo Belvidere can therefore be considered as a model, but slightly idealized by art, of the general physiognomy of the ancient Greeks. In his “Travels in the Morea,” M. Pouqueville gives a description of the physiognomy of the present Greeks, which enables us to judge of the surprising persistence of the most beautiful types, even in the midst of a social condition so deeply modified.

“The inhabitants of the Morea,” says M. Pouqueville, “are generally tall and well made. Their eyes are full of fire, their mouth is admirably well formed and full of the most beautiful teeth. The women of Sparta are fair, slender, and dignified in carriage. The women of Taygetus have the gait of Pallas.... The Messenian girl is conspicuous for her plumpness; she has regular features, large eyes, and long black hair; the damsel of Arcadia, hidden under her coarse woollen garments, scarcely allows the regularity of her figure to be perceived....”

Here, besides, are the characteristics displayed in their sculpture, and which, according to what we have said, may really be considered those of the Greek type.

A high forehead, rather a wide distance between the eyes, with the slightest possible depression at the top of the nose; this last straight or slightly aquiline; large eyes, opening widely and surmounted by a scarcely arched eyebrow; a short upper lip, a small or medium sized mouth delicately cut; and a prominent and well rounded chin.

Fig. 66 represents the Greeks of Athens; fig. 67 a Greek family and the interior of a house at Athens.

To give an idea of modern Greek manners and types, we will borrow a few lines from an interesting work by M. Prout, “Journey to Athens,” published in “Le Tour du Monde” in 1862. Let us first listen to this traveller speaking to us of the inhabitants of Greece:—

“If Fallmeseyer is to be believed, there are no more Greeks in Greece, only Slavonians; it is beyond doubt that the inhabitants of Thrace and of Macedonia cannot boast so immaculate an origin as the mountaineers of Olympus or of Magnus; but it is equally certain that from Cape Malea to the Black Sea, and from Smyrna to Corfu, there are ten million individuals who speak Greek, mixed up with a population speaking Slavonic, and that in the plains of Athens, we easily distinguish the Albanian with the narrow temples and the prominent nose, from the Greek with the wide forehead and the high cheek-bones, although their dress is exactly the same. To converse for an hour with the latter is sufficient to satisfy all doubt as to the authenticity of his origin.

“His qualities of mind have remained the same as in the days of Homer: he has still the same aptitude for thorough and rapid comprehension, the same facility of graceful and metaphorical expression. These qualities give to the Greeks so great a superiority over the other races of the East, that they are liked by none of them. The Turks reproach them with being suspicious and dissimulating, because they have opposed craft to force; the Levantines accuse them of dishonesty in commercial transactions, because they themselves have taken lessons of them, and have often surpassed their instructors.

“There is no greater bond of sympathy between them and the other nations on the shores of the Mediterranean. Serious and deliberate in disposition, the tone of their mind is foreign alike to raillery and to the rapidity of dramatic intensity. Their grief pursues a peaceful and elegiac course; it is with them a latent sorrow, and not a sharp crisis leading to the ecstasies of madness. Whilst Cupid’s weapons, in Naples or in Venice for instance, inflict terrible wounds, the arrows of the Athenian god neither keep his victims from repose nor from the pursuit of business. The Greeks have preserved their tragic intonation, and are the true children of that wild Orestes who died at more than eighty years of age from the effects of an accident. In their minds, action always takes its course with deliberation and gravity, not without a certain amount of colouring, but never widely straying from reality; interrogating and holding council with itself, and taking time for reflection before making its decision.

“It is astonishing to meet with these analytical and foreseeing tendencies, even among the most ignorant. Above all nations[153]
[154] they best understand the art of listening, and whilst saying a great deal are the smallest talkers in the world.

“Everybody is familiar with the Greek dress: the short pelisse, the skirt, which goes by the name of fystan, the small fez with its tufted tassel falling on the nape of the neck of the wearer, and the embroidered gaiter fitting tight to the leg. The sailors, instead of the fystan, wear a very wide pair of trousers, and stockings instead of gaiters. In winter the talagani, a long close-fitting cloak of lambskin, is added to the rest of the dress. The Greeks, generally speaking, tall slender men of regular features, wear this national costume in a very dashing manner. Young Greece carries its dandyism a little to extremes by over pinching its waist, and exaggerating the width of its skirts. During the winter of 1858 it was the fashion to wear the entire beard. I trust that this fancy, which gave them the appearance of sappers in petticoats, has disappeared; the finely trimmed mustachios, revealing the lips, are better suited to their delicately chiselled features as well as to their refined and fanciful style of dress. But alas! Athens every day sees the pure gold of its ancient costume bartered for the dross of modern broadcloth fresh from the shelves of the tailor’s shop. Athens now boasts seventy tailors and fifty shoemakers who make in the French style, whilst only six of the former, and three of the latter still work in the spirit of their national traditions. There are sixty-two shops for the sale of female attire, but only three or four ladies are to be seen still faithful to their national dress (I except the maids of honour to the Queen, who wear it by order), and even in their case one half has disappeared. The corsage cut down upon the neck and the taktikios (cap) of Smyrna still remain; but the long narrow skirt has allowed itself to become swollen by the insinuating arts of conspiring crinoline. The style of dress in the islands is more commonplace, but the great quantity of garments worn one over the other remind one of the childish simplicity of the outlines of our own peasant women. I much prefer, in spite of its stiffness, the long Albanian robe worn by the women of the interior.

“It is particularly at Agora that specimens of all the peasantry of the neighbourhood may be seen walking about in their picturesque costumes.

“This Agora is not the ancient Agora of Ceramica; it is a market-place, composed of worm-eaten sheds roofed in with ragged cloths, in which are exhibited produce of all sorts, from the bursting figs of Asia Minor to the patent preparations of Parisian perfumers.

“On each side of this market-place stands a spectre of antiquity, the tower of the Winds, or clepsydrum of Andronicus, an octagonal monument engraved with passably mediocre figures, and the portico of Minerva Archigetis. ArchÆologists after noticing the first, hasten across the spacious vestibule to visit the second, but those, who are indifferent alike to the criticisms of Martius and of Leake, prefer to pause on the threshold of the market, particularly in the early morning when the peasantry,

pour in from the highways from Thebes and Marathon. I have said that the men were distinguished for regular symmetry of countenance; but the peasant women are simply ugly. Of middle height, robust, and sunburnt, they have no feminine attributes, in the meaning we give to the word. In commercial circles and among the Phanariots, who come principally from Asia, where the race has remained pure, there are, on the contrary, many really beautiful women to be seen. Oriental languor gives them a charm unknown in our country; but they walk badly, and are wanting in that elegance of style which French women possess in such a high degree.

“They are rarely to be seen walking out, they seldom leave their houses where they busy themselves with domestic occupations, and employ their leisure in reading romances, principally translated from the French.

“Although class distinctions are gradually disappearing, there are still in Athens two distinct sets of society; the Phanariot, and the Greek, properly so called; the first already quite Europeanized, the second on the high road to become so. The Phanariot ladies are well educated and speak French admirably. The others, whose information is extremely limited, have an instinctive good sense and a tact never at fault, by no means one of the least subjects of surprise to foreigners.

“... I have heard it said that the price of the honesty[156]
[157] of an English trader was a hundred pounds sterling, and that that of his Greek brother was less. Both are absurd statements. It is impossible to draw a hard and fast line in such matters; opportunity makes the thief. Strangers are everywhere the natural prey of the sharper, but not more so at Athens than in any other part of the world. The only difference is that in that city they are more easily taken in, on account of the complication of the currency, this complication being another instance of Bavarian error. Rothschild made an offer to the council of regency to effect a loan payable in coin similar to that struck at the French mint. The council decided that it was more ingenious, and above all more archaic, to shut their eyes to all known standards, and to reintroduce the drachma with its ancient weight. These badly executed coins were exported in ingots, and hopeless calculations about the smallest transaction are the result; calculations in which the Austrian coins, ugly and disagreeable to the touch, play the principal part, to be finally parted with, with a sense of relief, to the trader, to whatever nation he may happen to belong.

“To have done with the subject of Greek probity, which has been so much called into question; in the country the inhabitants are avaricious because they are poor, but they are honest. Travellers who jump to a conclusion from their experience of inn-keepers, porters, cabmen, &c., come to a wrong decision. These classes are everywhere the same. In Athens alone a remarkable self-possession, with a dignified manner, is found, instead of the familiar impudence of Italian facchini, or the deceitful suavity of German attendants. It is worthy of remark that one is never assailed in the streets with the importunity of beggars. These are few in number, for with the Greeks it is a sacred family duty to assist its impoverished members, and the few that do beg, shrink from publicity. The streets of Athens have a peculiar physiognomy. The stranger notices there neither the noisy disturbance of the highways of Naples, nor the methodical activity of those of London. They are rather to be compared with those of some of the provincial towns of France, where the leisured citizens stroll about, and retail to one another the gossip of the hour, remaining apparently permanent fixtures of the pavement. Athens has, on the whole, the appearance of a city where time dies hard; the male population encamp themselves during the day in the sunshine of the streets; the shopkeepers while away the hours, one foot within, and the other without their doorsill; and their customers intermingle the tedious arithmetic of barter with familiar conversation, or buttonhole the passer to gossip about the mutual acquaintance that has just passed. Alexander’s establishment, amongst others, is one of the principal head-quarters of news.

“Linger for an hour in front of the cafÉ of Beautiful Greece, where Hermes Street and Eolus Street intersect one another, you will see the whole Athenian world pass before you; the nearest lounger will tell you their names. Here comes the politician who is still in the market, there goes the statesman who has already obtained his price. That is Canaris, whose reputation is European, although his person is so puny: there are Chriesis, MÉtaxas, Mavrocordato, RangabÉ, Miaouli, the celebrities of yesterday and to-day. This man, treading as gingerly as if he stepped upon eggs, and throwing uneasy glances around him, is a Chiotian. As he passes, your cicerone scowls, for the Chiotians are not exactly beloved. Popular tradition declares that the Island of Scios was formerly settled by Jews, but this is erroneous, although the Chiotians have a Jewish appearance, and, like the children of Israel, are very successful in banking and commerce. Commercial aptitude has always been, in ancient times as well as to-day, the basis of the national character of the Chiotian. ‘Two reasons,’ says M. Lacroix, ‘explain this tendency. The position of Scios, situated in the midst of the sea, between Europe and Asia, upon the great maritime highway of ancient commerce, naturally disposed its inhabitants to become traders; while the nature of their island, whose stony soil is little suited to agriculture, rendered such a means of livelihood in part a necessity to them.’

“As the trader of Scios can be recognised by his appearance, so the Ionian islander can be distinguished by his speech. The torrent of his eloquence is heard towering above the voices of every group. I have a great admiration for the Ionians. I do not say that human perfection is to be found in these numerous islands, but wonderful natural qualities, in unison with the healthy civilization bequeathed to them by the Italian republics, are to be seen there. It is but the other day that the ingenious combination of Mr. Gladstone gave Europe an idea of the dignity of their[159]
[160] character, the extent of their patriotism, and the wisdom of their mind. To this Greek good sense they add the fire of the Italian. Active, intelligent, good hearted and honest in their dealings, they attract at once the sympathies of all.

“This admixture of which the Athenian population is composed is a curious study.

“On the Sunday, everybody leaves the cross roads in front of the Beautiful Greece to frequent the esplanade of Patissia (a corruption from Pachiscliah); the men stroll about talking together, and the women, abandoning their household gods for this day only, follow a few paces behind them. The crowd walks round and round a kiosk till a military band placed there has finished playing, and then goes home; not into the house, however, but into the streets, for during the warm summer nights nearly everybody sleeps al fresco. These sleepers advertise their presence by a continual hum, which is a kind of internal monologue, an echo of the day’s conversation, for the Greeks still remain the wittiest and the most eloquent chatterers in the world.”

We place side by side with the Greeks the Albanians, whose language has some relation to Greek. Concentrated in the mountains of their country, they appear to be the lineal representatives of the ancient inhabitants of these districts. They are the descendants of the ancient Illyrians, mixed up with the Greeks and the Slavonians. Restricting themselves almost exclusively to the profession of arms, the Albanians constitute the best soldiers of the Ottoman army. Their numbers scarcely reach two millions, although Albania is of great extent and contains several rather important towns.

Albania, part of Turkey in Europe, bounded on the north by Montenegro, Bosnia, and Servia, on the east by Macedon and Thessaly, on the south by the kingdom of Greece, on the west by the Adriatic and Ionian seas, constitutes the pachaliks of Janina, Ilbessan and Scutari. It possesses three seaports, Durazzo, Avlona, and Parga. The most important towns are Scutari, Akhissar, Berat, and Arta.

Semi-barbarians, partaking more of the pirate and the brigand than of the cultivator and the labourer, the Albanians pass their lives in a state of petty warfare among themselves.

They professed Christianity up to the fifteenth century, but after having under Scanderbeg gloriously resisted the Turkish invasion, they were forced to submit to the victorious Ottomans, who compelled the Albanians to embrace the religion of Mahomet. In some parts of Albania the Greek church still survives. In the north, between the sea and the black Drin, the courageous tribe of the Mirdites practise the Roman Catholic religion and enjoy liberty.

Fig. 70 represents the Albanian costume.

CHAPTER II.
ARAMEAN BRANCH.

Cuvier has thought fit to give the name of Aramean (derived from the ancient appellation of Syria) to the race of people who inhabit the south-west of Asia and the north of Africa. Since primeval historic times, the Aramaic race developed itself in the south-west of Asia and the north of Africa, and it has remained there up to our own day. It also extended its settlements to the south of Europe, where it became assimilated to the inhabitants of that part of the world.

At a period when Europeans were immersed in the depths of ignorance, the Arameans successfully cultivated science and art. But later, whilst progress was making rapid strides amongst the Westerns, the Arameans on the contrary came to a halt; so that the civilization of these Asiatic races is still pretty much the same as it was two thousand years ago.

Christianity sprang up amidst the Arameans, but it made few converts. Mahometanism and Buddhism attracted nearly the whole of this numerous race.

Four leading divisions are recognised among the Arameans: the Libyans, the Semitics, the Persians, and the Georgians and Circassians.

The Libyan Family.

The Libyan Family is composed of the Berbers and the Egyptians.

The Berbers.—The Berbers are the race which from very ancient times inhabited the mountains of the Atlas chain, or wandered amidst the deserts of the Sahara. The Berbers are split up into a great number of tribes, of whom the four principal are, the Kabyles, the Shellas, the Touariks and the Tibbous.

[164]
[165]

The traveller in Kabylia is struck with admiration, for its lofty mountains, the gentle and pleasing undulations of its plains, and its valleys interlaced with the windings of countless streams. Its inhabitants are pastoral, agricultural, and laborious. The headdress of their women is fashioned to suit their habit of carrying on their head jars of great weight. They balance these by rigidly straightening their waists, round which they wind, some score of times, a girdle of coarse woollen cords. Their garment is simply a piece of woollen cloth fastened together by a couple of pins over the bosom.

The Kaybles are not, like the real Arabs, nomadic. They remain, on the contrary, faithful to one spot. Whilst the Arab inhabits a tent, removable at will, and in accordance with the requirements of his family, the Kabyle lives in a stone dwelling, and his homestead is a regular village. In truth, the Kabyle is not an Arab; he is of African origin, a Berber, somewhat modified by the different races that have in turn settled on the African shores of the Mediterranean, but whose customs and physical characteristics have always remained the same.

The Roman armies subdued the Kabyles dwelling on the Mediterranean coasts, and drove them into the mountains. The principal aim of the successive Roman governors in Africa, was to drain the country of its resources to supply the insatiable requirements of Rome, and the extravagant liberality continually lavished on its citizens by the Emperors of this capital of the world. Rome thus accepted from Africa but slaves and labourers. Those of the conquered, who were unwilling to pass under the heavy yoke of the Roman governors, abandoned the plains and retired to the mountains, inaccessible retreats, whose ravines and forests offered innumerable obstacles to the cruelty of centurions, and the rapacity of prÆtors. At a future period, led by enterprising chieftains, they sallied forth from these natural fortresses to assail and ultimately to definitively repulse the Roman power.

To give an idea of the Kabylia of to-day, and of its organization, we will quote a few details from “An Excursion to great Kabylia,” published in 1867, in “Le Tour du Monde,” from the pen of Commandant Duhousset, an officer in the French army.

“In Kabylia,” he says, “the household composed of the members of one family is termed kharouba; each kharouba forming part of the village or dÉhera, elects one of its members as a dhaman to represent it at the municipal council, and to defend its interests: in a word, to be responsible for it.

“The different dÉheras are further united together under the name of arch.

“In each village authority is administered by an amin, elected by turns from each kharouba. It is the duty of this official to watch over the execution of the written laws, drawn up under the name of khanoun, and which are merely the recital of the customs handed down from time immemorial in Kabylia.

“The amin can pronounce no judgment, inflict no fine, without consulting the assembly (djemaa) of his assistants or dhamans, always chosen from the notabilities of the village. This tribunal chooses a secretary (khodja) intrusted with the duty of keeping a public register of its deliberations, and of carrying on all correspondence with the French authorities. The labours of the khodja are remunerated with perquisites of figs, olives, &c.

“The supreme command of the tribe is delegated by the French to an amin-el-oumena, whose principal duty is the superintendence of his tribe in all matters concerning public order. He is not allowed to interfere in the internal policy of the villages, which govern themselves, each according to its own interpretation of the khanoun.

“The djemaa possesses a municipal fund, kept in the hands of an ouhil (manager). This fund is supplied by the fines inflicted by the municipal council and the native officials, and by the rates levied on marriages, births, and deaths.

“Each village is divided into two factions, or soff, generally hereditary foes. It is easy to imagine the serious nature of the outrages on public tranquillity, committed by these irreconcilable neighbours, when their mutual interests are at stake.”

The elections are a constant source of disturbance in the Kabyle villages.

The way in which these villages are laid out, their dwellings overlooking one another, makes these struggles very sanguinary ones. Some of the more lofty houses have crenelated parapets, the remainder are loopholed, and the djama (mosque) becomes, on account of the military importance of its upper storey, a regular fortress, assuring the victory to its fortunate possessors.

Everybody knows that the French conquered Kabylia in 1857. What most contributed to the submission of the Kabyles, was the promise made to them to respect their customs and their communal elections. This promise was kept, and the respect shown to their local usages not a little contributed to consolidate the French conquest.

The Kabyle villages, seen from a distance, look picturesque, but on mixing with their inhabitants and entering their houses, the charm vanishes. The question immediately suggests itself how it is possible for any human beings to dwell in the midst of such universal neglect, and of such hideous filth.

“Every Kabyle,” says M. Duhousset, “is revoltingly dirty: there are no baths to be found in the whole of Kabylia of the Djujina. The children receive no care. The result of this neglect is frequent ophthalmia, sometimes complete blindness; they are also often subject to cutaneous diseases, or worse hereditary affections, which these mountaineers hand down from generation to generation, continuing to exist in spite of them ..... the women, good mothers who suckle their children up to three or four years of age .... the men, industrious workmen and good agriculturists.”

The Kabyles are independent in disposition, observant by nature, and fond of labour: but they are inclined to be avaricious, revengeful, and quarrelsome. Some of their villages, as we have shown, are divided into two hostile camps, and in many cases, part of the communal land is set apart for warlike encounters, where all differences are settled by the yataghan and the matchlock. Divorce is one of the sores of Kabyle society.

It is well known that Kabylia is a rich, tranquil country, addicted to industry, and possessing a numerous population. But a few statistics will here have a peculiar interest.

There are in France eight departments with a smaller population than Kabylia; these are, according to M. Duhousset, the Basses-Alpes, the Hautes-Alpes, the Cantal, Corsica, LozÉre, the Basses-PyreneÉs, the Hautes-PyreneÉs, and Tarn-et-Garonne. Three departments are smaller in extent; the RhÔne, the Seine, and Vaucluse.

The average population of France is 67⁹⁶³/₁₀₀₀ inhabitants to every square kilometre; that of Kabylia is 67⁷²³/₁₀₀₀. Looking, however, at the average population to every kilometre in each separate department, it appears that twenty-eight have a larger average than Kabylia, one an equal, and fifty-seven a smaller one. The agricultural productions of Kabylia are the ordinary fruits of African culture, especially the fig and the olive, to which must be added large crops of wheat. Figs are the principal article of food of the inhabitants, and olives the staple of their agricultural industry.

During harvest-time the Kabyles cover their heads with an immense straw hat of a pointed shape, with a huge brim, fourteen inches in width, shading their face. A shirt, leaving the arms and legs bare, and a leather apron, similar to that worn by our blacksmiths, constitute their dress. They reap their corn and barley in small handfuls at a time, and very close to the ground, with a sickle. The thrashing and winnowing is roughly done by oxen. M. Duhousset, who witnessed the harvest and the grinding of the corn, gives the accompanying sketch (fig. 72) of the Kabyle flour-mills. Their olive-mill is very similar to that used in the south of France, only their grindstones are turned by women, who fill the part assigned by us to horses or to a steam-engine.

In Kabylia particular care is bestowed on the cultivation of the fig, the principal article of food of the whole country. M. Duhousset took particular notice of the artificial fecundation of the fig-tree, a curious operation totally unknown in France.

The fig-tree, as well as the date-tree, is artificially fecundated in Kabylia; in the case of the latter the male flower is merely superimposed on the female blossoms to impregnate them; but with the former it is insects that carry the fertilizing dust. This process is termed caprification.

“Caprification,” says M. Duhousset, “has been practised from time immemorial by all the inhabitants on the Mediterranean coast. This curious and important process seemed to me to deserve a special investigation. I have, therefore, collected a quantity of more or less plausible details and explanations of the manner in which it is carried out, and the advantages derived from this mode of cultivation.

“The dokhar is the fruit of the wild fig-tree. It is small, flavourless, and bitter. It is not a very eatable species, and is not cultivated for the sake of food. It is precocious, and becomes ripe when the other figs, still green, have not yet attained their maturity. The tree which produces them—the caper fig-tree—yields two or three crops in the year; but it is only the first that is generally made use of.

“When quite ripe, the dokhar is gathered, and arranged in small bunches (moulak) on a string. These strings are suspended to the boughs of the female fig-tree, towards the end of June in the plains, towards the end of July on the mountains. From the stem of each dokhar, when dry, issue a quantity of small winged insects, which introduce themselves into the fruit on the tree, instil a new life into it, and prevent it from falling.

“These insects, agents of this fecundation, are produced and developed in the fruit of the wild fig-tree, and leave it, as soon as arrived at maturity, to attach themselves to the female fig-tree. Their body is hairy, like that of the bee, which is known to fulfil an analogous mission towards certain flowers.

“These insects are of two kinds, black and red. The first, smaller than the second, do not carry like the latter a sting in their abdomen. The natives assert that the black insect alone plays a useful part in the caprification of the fig—the part played by the wind, the bird, or the hand of man in the instance of the date. A long experience attributes to it the privilege of preserving the figs from perishing and falling before they have become ripe. This custom has given rise to the well-known Kabyle proverb, ‘He who is without dokhar is without figs.’ The abundance of figs in every locality and under every difference of climate depends upon that of the dokhar. Sometimes, however, the latter, although plentiful, gives birth to but a small number of these preserving insects, as in 1863, when the crop was poor, the dokhar having produced but few insects.

“The Kabyles are convinced that one of these insects can preserve ninety-nine figs, but that the hundredth becomes its tomb. This is possibly only a popular prejudice; but it is as well to cite it. Truth among primitive people becomes sometimes crystallized in the shape of a superstition, and the inexplicable pervades everything.

“Caprification takes place at least once a year. When the dokhar is abundant it is prudent to repeat the process several times at short intervals, and it is most important that it should be performed at the proper moment, either in the autumn or in the spring, or the crop may become seriously endangered and partly lost.

“A rule generally observed in the villages where the dokhar flourishes, is, that no one may sell it, under a penalty of a fine of two pounds, to a stranger, or even to an ally, before the gardens of his own locality have been copiously provided with the precious preservative.

“Previous to our rule the Kabyle tribes were continually at enmity with one another, and the sale of the dokhar was then suspended and forbidden between them. As the fig is the principal and indispensable food of the inhabitants, this prohibitory measure was the surest means of starving the enemy, or at least of occasioning him serious inconvenience. It is, therefore, probable that the different tribes frequently came to open blows in order to procure by bloodshed what they were unable to obtain by purchase.”

Copper and iron are rather abundantly found in Kabylia, and its inhabitants are expert in extracting these metals from their ores. However, they are beginning to import metal goods from Europe.

With tools of their own manufacture, or with those of foreign importation, the Kabyles make a great many useful and important articles. Jewellers and armourers are frequently found in their villages.

Fig. 73, from a sketch by M. Duhousset, represents the workshop of a Kabyle jeweller. The lathe of the Kabyle workman is used to make the wooden vases and the numerous utensils sold by the Kabyles all along the African coast. It is sufficiently noteworthy that the Kabyle turner only uses the vertical lathe, and seems ignorant of the horizontal one so convenient and so generally used in Europe.

The Shellas dwell to the west of the Atlas, while the Kabyles are found to the east of these mountains. The former are tillers of the soil, laborious and poor. They are generally independent.

The Touariks are a people distinct from the two preceding ones. They are nomadic. They wander in the desert of Sahara, and make continual raids into Egypt to carry off slaves. M. Henri Duveyrier, who has published a detailed account of the Touariks of the North, declares that they are hospitable and humane. They are generally considered to consist of rather formidable tribes, accustomed to scour the desert, stop caravans and plunder the laggards. At any rate, it is a known fact that an ill-starred traveller, Miss TinnÉ, who had courageously explored parts of Asia and Africa, was assassinated in the desert in 1869 by some Touariks.

In French Africa the generic name of Moor is given to the Mussulman population (the Turks excepted) inhabiting Barbary and Sahara; but in reality this name is only rightly applicable to two particular classes. The first of these is partly composed of the inhabitants of the towns, often supposed to be the descendants of the ancient natives of the country, that is to say of the Libyan family, but seeming on the contrary to be principally of Arab origin. The second comprises the tribes, most of them nomadic, who dwell in the south-west of Sahara, and who belong to either the Berber or the Arab race.

The Egyptians. We now proceed to speak of the Egyptians, that unchanging race which seems to slumber on, embalmed on a conservative soil, a vast hypogeum, where, for thirty centuries, generations, both of human beings and of domestic animals, have succeeded generations without any perceptible alteration. The work of Herodotus, the dialogues of Lucian, and the writings of Ammianus Marcellinus, teach us that the ancient Egyptians, similar in all respects to those of our own day, had a brown coloured skin. Two contracts of sale, dating back from the time of Ptolemy, give us particulars of the parties to it. The vendor is called e?a????? (dark brown), and the buyer e?????? (honey coloured). From all the documents and evidence we possess, it appears that several varieties in the colour of the skin existed among the ancient Egyptians, but that there was always one predominant hue. Paintings are found in the temples and the tombs, where the persons represented have a copper coloured, reddish, or light chocolate complexion. The faces of the women are sometimes of a yellower tint, merging into fawn colour.

Another faithful representation of the features of the ancient Egyptians is found in those of their paintings and sculptures that have descended to our own time. Their physiognomy shows a peculiar and remarkable type, as does also the shape of their bodies. According to Denon (Travels in Egypt), the ancient inhabitants of the kingdom of the Pharaohs had full but refined and voluptuous figures, calm and serene faces, soft and rounded features, long almond shaped eyes, half closed, languishing, and raised at the outer corner, as if the glare and heat of the sun habitually fatigued them. Round cheeks, thick and prominent lips, a large but smiling mouth, and a dark reddish copper tinted complexion, completed the peculiar expression of their countenance.

Blumenbach, after examining a large number of mummies, and comparing them with the productions of ancient art, established three leading types of ancient Egyptians, including, with more or less deviation, all individual casts of face; the Ethiopian, the Indian, and the Berber type. The first is distinguished by a prominent jaw and a thick lip, by a broad flat nose, and by protruding eyes. This type coincides with the description given by Herodotus and other Greek writers, who assign to the Egyptian a black complexion and woolly hair. The second type is widely different. The nose is long and narrow, the eyelids are thin, long, and slanting obliquely from the top of the nose towards the temples; the ears are set high in the head, the body is short and slight, and the legs are very long. This picture resembles the Hindoos from beyond the Ganges.

Such were the ancient people of Egypt. Its inhabitants of to-day are difficult to class from an ethnographic point of view. They must not be confounded, as is often done, with the Arab race. The present Egyptians are the old indigenous or Berber race, modified by its fusion with new elements. This old indigenous race is still to be met with in the country, sparsely strewn, but quite recognizable. It is this small part of the population which bears the name of Kopts.

The Kopts, a race preserved by their religion from miscegenation, but feebly represent the primitive Egyptians; for ancient Egypt was conquered and subjugated, first by the Arabs, then by the Persians, then by the Greeks and Romans, and lastly by the Mussulmans.

The Kopts (fig. 74) are generally above the middle height; they are robust in stature, and the colour of their skin is a dull red. They have a broad forehead, a rounded chin, full cheeks, a straight nose with strongly curved nostrils, large brown eyes, a narrow mouth with thick lips and white teeth, high projecting ears, and extremely black beards and eyebrows. The striking resemblance of the Kopts to ancient Egyptian sculpture is a sufficient proof that this group of mankind is really the remnant of the ancient stock of Egypt, slightly altered by mixture with the other races that have successively occupied their country.

The Kopts became Christians in the second century. In the seventh century, at the time of the conquest of Egypt by the Arabs, the Kopts numbered 600,000. To-day they only amount to 150,000, of whom 10,000 reside in Cairo. They venerate St. Mark as their principal patron. They go to communion regularly every Friday, lead a very austere life, and allow their priests to marry.

The Kopts have black eyes, and, in general, curly hair. Morose, taciturn, and dissimulating, they cringe to their superiors, hate their equals, and are arrogant to their inferiors. They excel as accountants in all kinds of business. They carry on exclusively certain industries, such as the manufacture of mills, of apparatus for irrigation, and of jewellery.

The Koptic language is the ancient language of the Pharaohs, mixed with words from the Greek and other tongues. It is written in the Greek character. It is no longer grammatically taught, and is but little spoken. It is, however, still used in their form of worship.

The Kopts enjoy rather a bad reputation in Egypt. Accomplices in the Arab invasion, and therefore tolerated by the followers of Mahomet, they were employed by the Mamelukes to collect the taxes. Thieves and mendicant monks abound amongst them. Fig. 74 represents Koptic priests before the temple of Kranah.

The most unfortunate portion of the Egyptian population, the peasants and the labourers, the same workmen who have been so useful in constructing the Suez Canal, are called Fellahs.

From an ethnographic point of view, the Fellahs are descended from the primitive indigenous inhabitants, modified by admixture with the Arabs. Although they speak the Arab tongue, the coarseness of their features keeps them distinct from the Arabs. The soil of Egypt thus supports a singular admixture of races, and it is impossible now-a-days to point out one single pure type. This is a result of the miserable political state of the country. From the very first, Egypt has always been the prey of alien conquerors, who have succeeded one another in one long roll, each in their turn adding some new feature to those of the original inhabitants of the country. In “Travels in Egypt,” by Messrs. Cammas and LefÈvre, published in the “Tour du Monde,” we read the following observations on the Fellahs:—

“The Fellahs have but a feeble conception of the dignity of man and of their own value; the only answer they give to blows is a complaint. Sometimes, indeed, they rebel like a flock of sheep, but with a conviction that their effort will be of no avail. It is thus, at the times of conscription, they resist the soldiery; but after a few have been killed, the rest allow themselves to be huddled on board the man-of-war, in which they are taken down the Nile to Cairo, the women and the young girls following them for some miles along the banks with cries and lamentations. A Fellah’s existence is not essentially more unhappy than that of our peasant hinds. His disposition is rather cheerful than melancholy; and every circumcision, every marriage, is the excuse for a holiday, shared by the whole village. Their songs and their dances are redolent of the spontaneous mirth instinctive in negroes. But with everything to render life agreeable, the consciousness of rights and obligations, that something that constitutes the freeman and the citizen, is wanting in them. The Fellah is fond of his home and of his hamlet; but Egypt is for him neither a nation nor a fatherland. It is astonishing at first sight to notice this degradation of the human species, so sad to behold; however, if the oppressive tyranny of the Mamelukes, the deep degradation of Egypt under the Greek and Roman dynasties, and the old caste law, condemning the mass of the population to the slavery of the soil, are remembered, it is easy to understand why the Fellah, ground down under the sway of the Pharaohs, stupefied under that of the Romans, and crushed by Mussulman fatalism, is slow to respond to the efforts and to the intellectual tendencies of the government of SaÏd Pacha. Since the Arab conquest, the soil has been legally the property of the sultans, the emirs, and the beys. The feudal system that once theoretically existed amongst us was rigorously carried into practice in Egypt. The whole of the crop harvested by the Fellahs passed, with the exception of a modicum necessary for their absolute existence, into the granaries of the land-owners. Now-a-days the Viceroy has abandoned the practice of monopoly; he is anxious to change arbitrary rights into regular taxes; he has yielded his just claims to the labourer, and assured to the peasant his right of succession to the fields he has watered with the sweat of his toil. But it takes a long interval to blot out the horrible stamp of their past slavery.

“The sailors of the Nile, sons and relations of the Fellahs, resemble them in their ignorance, in their humility, in their contempt for life, and in their natural disposition to laughter, to song, and to the dance. But their wits are becoming sharpened by perpetual contact with strangers; and their minds are busy on many things undreamt of by the Fellah.”

The same travellers tell us, in speaking of Egyptian marriages:—

“Marriage in Egypt is not a public act strictly registered by the law. When the bridegroom and the bride’s parents have come to an understanding, when the sum to be paid by the husband has been agreed upon (the wife brings no dower), the celebration of the union takes place before two witnesses. Sometimes the cadi is apprized; but this is a formality that is often neglected. In such a union, without any ulterior guarantee, the wife is but a purchased slave. When the husband tires of her he sends her back; she can only claim a divorce on one single ground, for a reason considered by us also as a serious injury. No legal notice is taken of the birth of children, who are consequently placed in a precarious position until they are old enough to look after themselves. Their death is easily concealed; and they occasionally perish by the hand of one of the other wives, rivals of their mother. A common custom allows the Nile sailors to have two wives, one at Girgeh, for instance, and another at Assouan. The husband passes a month with each of them in turns, as his business allows him. He brings with him a few piastres, a piece or two of blue cotton stuff, often some little seaman’s venture, that the wife proceeds to dispose of on his departure. He receives in exchange the products of the place, that in turn go to swell the trade of the other wife. We had on board a cargo of earthenware, salt, and pipes. The sailors disembarked them here and there as they went up the river, expecting to find on their return stores of tobacco, dates, and horse-trappings. Polygamy looked at in this light is productive; but it loses ground notwithstanding every day, not amongst the poor only, but amongst the rich, who have in most cases but one legitimate wife at a time. Besides, there is but one real cause for polygamy—the premature old age of the women. When the men give up the practice of marrying mere children, who become rapidly worn out by the fatigues of precocious maternity, polygamy will cease to exist.”

Fig. 77 represents the dress of a Cairo lady.

Almas, or Egyptian dancing-girls, are now-a-days scarcely more than a name in the country. It is difficult to find even one or two in Cairo. The last specimens are restricted to the town of Esneh.

The travellers from whom we have taken the above details, visited the town of Esneh, and there saw the dancing-girls. They give the following sketch of them.

“We were conducted into a building of forbidding aspect. The dancing-girls were grouped together in the midst of the apartment. They were all plain enough in the face, but young and well made. The hope of large gains had induced them to take extra pains with their dress. I still see their low-necked vests, their wide silk pantaloons, fastened above the hips with dazzling waistbands; their inner tunic of gauze or flesh-coloured muslin; some with naked feet, others with long red or yellow Turkish slippers. Most of them wore necklaces and bracelets, and small coins hanging over their foreheads; whilst at the back of their heads hung a small silk handkerchief, carelessly thrown on. The dance began with a series of attitudes, beseeching and graceful, then rapidly grew animated, till it expressed a pitch of deep passion. Their bosoms remained immovable, while they moved the rest of their bodies as if in a frenzy. A distribution of olives, of liqueurs, and a shower of small coins, won us a thousand blessings, and brought our evening to a dignified close. The almas do not meet every day with such a windfall; and if they dance during the winter, they do not sing in the summer. The population amidst which they live cannot afford to remunerate their talents. Well versed in poses plastiques, but incapable of all work, they are reduced to all sorts of expedients, and to loans, which make them the slaves of the usurers. Their time is spent in smoking, in drinking aquavitÆ, and in consuming[181]
[182] the omnipresent coffee. The miseries of such an existence daily decrease the number of almas, who, in the time of the Mamelukes, were to be found everywhere in Egypt. Esneh is their last refuge, and was, no doubt, their birthplace.”

The Semitic Family.

We have already said that the races who composed the Aramean branch kindled in Asia, at an early period in history, the torch of civilization. This observation is more particularly applicable to the nations of the Semitic family, of whom we are now going to speak. It is from this family, in fact, that sprang the nations so well known in ancient history, under the name of Assyrians, Hebrews, Phoenicians and Carthaginians. Conquered by other races, the Assyrians, the Hebrews, the Phoenicians, and the Carthaginians have successively disappeared and are now almost entirely replaced by the Arabs.

We unite to the Semitic family the Arabs, the Jews, and the Syrians.

The Arabs.—The Arabs constitute the principal population of modern Arabia; they also form a great part of the inhabitants of Egypt, Nubia, Barbary, and Sahara. They extend into Persia, and even into Hindostan.

Some of the Arabs are shepherds (Bedouins), others cultivate the soil; the former are nomadic, the latter sedentary. The Bedouins, children of the desert, perpetual wanderers, active and very temperate, are smaller and of a more slender appearance than the others, and support with ease the fatigues and privations of their mode of life. The agricultural Arabs, or fehles, are taller and more robust. The former have a wild and suspicious cast of countenance. The characteristics of the Arab race are, a long face, with a high-shaped head; an aquiline nose, nearly in a line with the forehead; a retreating and small mouth; even teeth; the eye not at all deep set, in spite of the want of prominence of the brow; graceful figures, formed by the small volume of fatty matter and cellular tissue, and by the presence of powerful but not largely developed muscle; a keen wit; a lively intelligence; and a deep and persevering mould of character. These characteristics show that they possess a remarkable superiority over other races, and Baron Larrey has found fresh evidence of this superiority in the shape of their head, in the convolutions of their brain, in the consistency of their nervous tissue, in the appearance of their muscular fibre and their bony structure, and in the regularity and perfect development of their heart and arterial system.

We see therefore that the Arab type is really an admirable one. This type, consistent and well defined as a whole, has, however, undergone considerable modifications under the influence of divers causes. The colour of their skin varies a good deal: their complexion is sometimes as white as that of Europeans of the most northern countries. In Yemen, Arab women have been noticed whose complexion was a deep yellow. In that portion of the valley of the Nile contiguous to Nubia, the Arabs are black. In this same valley of the Nile, above Dengola, the Shegya Arabs are jet black, a bright clear black, a colour which the English traveller Waddington thought the most beautiful that could be chosen for a human creature.

“These men,” says Waddington, “entirely differ from negroes in the brilliancy of their colour, in the quality of their hair, in the regularity of their features, in the gentle expression of their limpid eyes, and by the softness of their skin, which in this respect is not at all inferior to that of Europeans.”

Amongst the Arabs who dwell in more temperate climates, hair more or less fair, and blue or grey eyes have been observed. As a contrast, in the Libyan desert, tribes have been met with whose hair was woolly and nearly analogous to that of negroes. Taken altogether, the nomadic Arabs, who have faithfully adhered for many centuries to the same mode of life, exhibit, in spite of varying climates, the original mould of an exceptional beauty.

Fig. 79 shows a tent of nomadic Arabs.

The Jews.—Among the lesser nations with an affinity to the Semitic family, there is one remarkable by its historical importance, and by the manner in which it has managed to preserve its original type during the eighteen centuries in which it has been scattered all over the whole world: we mean the Jews or Israelites.[6]

The Jews have preserved much of their own peculiar physiognomy.[185]
[186] They are distinguished from the nations among whom they are dispersed, by peculiar features easily recognized in many paintings of the great masters. Still they have ended by adopting more or less the characteristics of the nations with whom they have long resided. Under the sole influence of external circumstances and mode of life, the medley of races amongst which they have existed has little by little altered their national type. In the northern parts of Europe the Jews have a white skin, blue eyes, and fair hair. In some portions of Germany many are to be seen with red beards; in Portugal they are tawny-coloured. In those districts of India where they have been long settled, in Cochin for instance, on the Malabar coast, they are black, and resemble the natives so exactly in complexion that it is often difficult to distinguish them from the Hindoos.

Fig. 80 represents a Jew of Bucharest.

Syrians.—The ancient Syrians have, as a rule, become absorbed in the races who have conquered them; their language, however, is still spoken by the Christian population of Mesopotamia and Chaldea, the Sourianis and the Yakoubis or Chaldeans.

Beyrout, at the foot of the mountains of Libanus (fig. 81), is a town and port which is the commercial centre of all Syria. Thither Libanus sends its wine and its silks; Yemen, its coffee; Haman, its corn; DjebaÏl and Lattakiah, their pale-coloured tobaccos; Palmyra, its horses; Damascus, its arms; Bagdad, its costly stuffs; and all Europe, the countless productions of its industry.

The very first glance at Beyrout shows how commerce prospers in that town. The Maronite in his gloomy and coarse garments,[187]
[188] the Druze in his white or parti-coloured turban, armed with the most costly weapons, the Arab displaying his picturesque rags, the Turk, the Greek, the Jew, and the Armenian, all hurry to and fro, jostling one another in the crowd. It is a regular Babel of language and costume: in which, however, the Christian element predominates.

But the streets of Beyrout, like all those of Eastern towns, are not in unison with such a brilliant panorama.

The houses are massive shells of stone; the streets are narrow and steep, communicating sometimes by tunnelled passages; some of the broader ones are occupied by cafedjis, inside which squatting Arabs tranquilly smoke their chibouks, sheltered from the rays of the sun by awnings of coarse rush-matting hung above their heads. In the middle of the street the children roll about in the dust.

The Maronites and the Druzes are two lesser nations of Libanus, speaking, however, like most modern Syrians, the Arabic tongue.

The Maronites are an influential but ignorant people. They derive their origin from a Christian monk of the name of Maroun, who lived towards the close of the sixth century, and died in the odour of sanctity. A convent was founded to honour his memory. A century later, one of his disciples, John the Maronite, espoused the quarrel of the Latin Christians against those of Greek descent, at that time making much headway in Libanus. The latter drew their inspiration from Constantinople; the Maronites, on the contrary, imbibed theirs from Rome. A religious pretext was made use of to hide political differences. John the Maronite armed his mountaineers, led them against the enemy, and seized the whole of Libanus right up to the walls of Jerusalem. Keeping within their mountains, although comparatively few in number, the Maronites preserved for a long time their independence. It was not until 1588 that they were conquered by Ibrahim, Pacha of Cairo, and forced to pay a yearly tribute, which they still continue to do.

In spite of this the Maronites, like all mountaineers, have kept their desire for independence. Persecuted by their masters, the Mussulmans; and by the Druzes, rivals raised up against them by the English, jealous, according to the French, of the latter[189]
[190]’s influence in Libanus; on bad terms with the Ansarieh or Mutualis; they still manage, the spade in one hand and the sword in the other, to cultivate and defend the inheritance of their fathers.

Ignorant as they are, the Maronites are the only educated race in the country. The magnificent convents which exist in the districts of the Maronites, are full of ancient manuscripts and modern Arab writings. Fig. 82 represents a Maronite convent in Libanus.

The Druzes are schismatic Mussulmans, as the Maronites are sectarian Christians. They are inclined to cultivate the soil, but are naturally warlike. Every Druze is a ready-made soldier, hospitable, if you will, but quite as capable of fighting, when the opportunity offers, as the best guÉrillÉros in Europe.

The Persian Family.

The white races who come from the south-east of the Caucasus are generally classed in the European branch, because the languages of both are somewhat similar, and have both some affinity with Sanscrit. But these races have a much greater resemblance to the Arameans than to the Europeans. Like the Arameans, the nations of the Persian family early acquired a certain degree of civilization, to which they have since added.

The races belonging to the Persian family have a white skin, black eyes and hair, and are of middle height. They inhabit not only Persia, but Armenia, Turkistan, and some portions of Hindostan.

Five well-defined divisions can be made in the races that constitute this family: 1st, the Persians, properly so called, or the Tadjiks; 2nd, the Afghans; 3rd, the Kurds; 4th, the Armenians; 5th, the small tribe of the Ossetines.

The Persians.—A great part of Persia is still occupied by tribes who wander about the country, living in tents, and forcing their slaves and servants to till the soil. But many of these tribes are aliens to the Persian race. The pure race of Persians only inhabits towns and their immediate neighbourhood. These Tadjiks or thoroughbred Persians were formerly much more numerous than they are now. The north-east of the kingdom of Iran is the land of their ancestors. All ancient writers have spoken of the primitive Persians (Medes and Persians) as a singularly fine and well made race. Ammianus Marcellinus speaks of Persia as a country renowned for the beauty of its women (ubi feminarum pulchritudo excellit), and all the old authors describe the Persians as men of a tall stature and a handsome countenance.

The figures we find in the numerous ancient sculptures on Persian monuments, at Istakhar, at Persepolis, at Ekbatana, and in many other places, confirm in every respect this evidence. In the basso-relievos from Nineveh in the Palace of the Louvre, in Paris, the refined features and the good looks which distinguished the men of that ancient city are at once recognizable. The type is a noble and dignified one, and shows traces of much reflection and intelligence.

The Tadjiks, or modern Persians, are likewise extremely handsome. They possess a great regularity of feature, an oval countenance, luxuriant hair, large and well defined black eyebrows, and that soft dark eye held in such high estimation by Easterns.

The Tadjiks are cheerful, witty, active, frivolous, idle, and vicious; fond of luxury, dress, and display. They possess a literature, and their language, remarkable for its flowery and ornamental diction, is spoken not only in Persia, but by the upper classes in a large portion of Hindostan.

Persia (the kingdom of Iran) is governed by a king (shah) who exercises almost absolute authority and who resides at Teheran. The heir to the throne is the eldest son of the king’s eldest son, according to an ancient Russian custom.

The twelve provinces of which the kingdom is composed are administered by a governor (beglebeig), who delegates his authority to a lieutenant (kakim). The towns are ruled over by a special governor, by a police inspector, and by a first magistrate. Every village elects a ruler (ketlkhoda). The legislation of Persia, differing in little from that of Turkey, is based on the Koran.

The kingdom of Persia can send into the field 150,000 soldiers; but its permanent army does not exceed 10,000 men, among whom exist as a special corps, the shah’s guards (gholaums). Persia has a small merchant navy.

Manufactures do not seem to succeed in Persia. This country, formerly the centre of a large commerce, now imports[192]
[193] almost everything, and only manufactures articles of primary necessity.

India, Russia, and Afghanistan supply the Persians with most of their manufactured goods.

Persia, having been often invaded and occupied by foreigners, has necessarily a very mixed population. This consists of four classes:

1. The nobility, who fill all public posts.

2. The citizens of the towns, comprising the clergy, and the scholastic profession, who are a mixture of Persians, Turks, Tartars, Georgians, Armenians, and Arabs.

3. The peasants, belonging to the old Persian stock.

4. The nomadic or pastoral tribes, composed of Persians, to whom must be added the remnant of the ancient conquering classes of this country. It is from this last class that spring the soldiers and all the military clique who constitute in Persia a real hereditary autocracy.

The religion of the ancient Persians was that of Zoroath, that is to say, necromancy. In the third and fourth centuries of the Christian era, Christianity made many converts in this land, although at that time it was occupied by the Arabs. But from the commencement of the fifth century the kings of Persia devoted their energies to crushing it out of their country, and Mahometanism is now the predominant religion. A new sect, the sosists, taking rise in a province in Persia (Kerman), has made many converts throughout the kingdom. The votaries of this new creed are deists, who only accept the Koran as a book of moral precepts, and who repudiate the religious dogma that Mahomet drew from it.

Fig. 84 represents several Persian types; fig. 85 gives an idea of the costly dress of the Persian nobility.

The author of a “Journey in Persia,” Count de Gobineau, has well described the internal life of the Persians. We will make a few extracts from his interesting book. Let us read, for instance, the chapter in which is described A dinner in Ispahan. “The table,” M. de Gobineau tells us, “laid for twenty guests, was almost lost in the immense size of the place. The front of the theatre was open, supported by ten lofty columns painted in light colours; the large curtain in use, white, with black designs embroidered on it, was stretched like an awning over the nearest part of the gardens. The guests overlooked a large fountain of running water and vast beds of plane trees. Numerous servants in motley dresses, and armed each according to his own fancy (some of them carried a complete arsenal), stood in groups at the end of the terrace, or handed round the dishes, helping the guests. The table had been laid out with the help of the European servants, a little in the European manner, and a good deal according to Persian customs. Its centre was occupied by a perfect forest of vases and cups, made of wood, or of blue, white, or yellow and red glass, and filled with flowers. The novelty of the thing to our hosts, lay in the spoons and forks: when by good fortune, they managed to impale a piece upon their fork and carry it to their mouths without pricking themselves, it was the signal for a burst of compliments. Their appetites were a little eccentric. One of them filled his plate with mustard, and declared he had never tasted anything half so good. As their parade was greater than the results, we begged them to help themselves in their own way. After much hesitation, they consented to hold on to the fork with the left hand while they picked up their food with the right.

“In the midst of the meal we heard a jingle of silvery bells, and saw four young boys, dressed as women, in pink and blue dresses spangled with tinsel, enter. They were dancers. They wore little gilt caps, from beneath which their long hair fell over their shoulders. The musicians were seated on the ground: one played on a kind of mandolin, another on a hand drum, and a third performed on an instrument with a quantity of strings stretched across a table, from which he drew, with some little sticks, sounds similar to those of the harp.”

M. de Gobineau tells us that Ispahan contains many men learned in various branches, rich and prosperous merchants, and men of property who live on their incomes. The town may be compared in size and tranquillity to Versailles.

Another chapter of M. de Gobineau’s book is worth reading, that headed “Betrothal, Divorce, and a Persian Lady’s Day.”

The betrothed are usually very young. The youth is from fifteen to sixteen years of age, and the girl from ten to eleven. It is unusual to find a woman of three-and-twenty who has not had at least a couple of husbands, and often many more, so easily are divorces obtained. The women are kept strictly secluded in one of the inner apartments or enderoun, that is to say, no outsider, no stranger to the family, is allowed to enter it. But they are quite at liberty to go out from morning till night, and often indeed from night to morning. In the first place they go to bathe. They go to the bath with an attendant who carries a box full of toilet necessaries and the requisite articles of dress, and it is at least four or five hours before they return from it. After that they pay visits which they make to one another, and which occupy a similar interval. Their last method of killing time is the pilgrimage they make to the graves of their kindred, which are at no great distance in the midst of pretty scenery.

All Persian women are so carefully veiled, and dressed so similarly, as to their out-door garments, that it is impossible for the most practised eye to distinguish one from the other. Besides paying visits, the excursion to the bath, the shopping in the bazaar, and their pilgrimages, the women go out of doors when it pleases them, and the streets are full of them. Unfortunately Persian women are rather in the habit of looking upon themselves as inferior irresponsible beings. Absolute mistresses at home, they are extremely passionate and violent, and their tiny slipper, furnished with a sharp iron point half an inch long, often leaves very disagreeable marks on their husbands’ faces.

The Persian in his turn spends half his time in the bazaar, and the remainder in paying and receiving visits. This is how they take place.

The intending visitor sets out on horseback accompanied by as many of his servants as he can collect, the djelodar, with the embroidered saddle-cloth across his shoulders, at his horse’s head; and behind him the kalyaudjy (musician) with his instrument. When he reaches the door he wishes to stop at, he dismounts. He then, with his servants in front of him, traverses one or two passages, invariably low and dark, and sometimes one or two courts, before reaching the apartments of the master of the house. If his visitor is of higher rank than himself, the host comes to the door to receive him. If they are equals, he sends his son or one of his young relations to do so. The opening courtesies are extremely flowery, such as “How came your lordship to conceive the compassionate idea of visiting this lowly roof?” &c.

When they reach the drawing-room, they find all the men of the family standing in a row against the wall bowing to the new-comer. As soon as every one is seated, the visitor inquires of the master of the house, “If, by the will of God, his nose is fat.” The latter replies: “Glory be to God! it is so, by means of your goodness.” This same question is sometimes repeated three or four times running. After a few moments of conversation, tea, coffee, and sherbet are handed round. The great charm of this rather frivolous gossip is its exaggeration, and the witty and amusing turn given to it.

The Persians have a peculiar taste for calligraphy. Painting is an almost unknown art amongst them. They possess, however, a certain amount of artistic instinct, as is shown by the richness and elegance of some of their monuments.

Fig. 87 shows the reader other types of Persian costume worn by different classes. The Louty and the Baktyan represented in this sketch are members of a nomadic tribe, enjoying rather a bad reputation.

The Afghans inhabit the mountainous region lying to the north of the lowlands of the Punjaub, that is to say, the basin of the Indus. Their climate is a charming one. The Afghans are fine muscular men with a long face, high cheek-bones and a prominent nose. Their hair is generally black. Their skin, according to the part of the country they inhabit, is dark, tawny, or white. They are an unpolished, warlike race, differing in customs and in language both from the Persians and the natives of India. They are subdivided into many tribes or clans.

The Beloochees, addicted to pastoral life, and primitive in their habits, move about from place to place, dwelling in tents which are constructed of felt on a slight framework of willow. They wander, with their flocks, about the table lands surrounding Kelat. They are to be found in nearly the whole of that part of eastern Persia, which, lying between Afghanistan to the north and the Indian Ocean to the south, stretches westwards from the Indus to the great Salt Desert. They speak a dialect derived from the Persian.

The Brahnis are nomadic tribes found in the colder and more elevated parts of the high grounds comprised within the above geographical limits. They are short and thickset, with round faces and flat features, and brown hair and beards. The Beloochees, who live in lower and warmer regions, are, on the contrary, fine tall men, with regular features and an expressive physiognomy. But those who dwell in the lowlands, close to the Indus, have a darker and almost black skin. The Brahnis bear the same relation to the Hindoos of the Punjaub that the Beloochees do to the Persians.

The Kurds, who occupy the lofty mountainous region, intersected by deep valleys, which is situated between the immense table land of Persia and the plains of Mesopotamia, are a semi-barbarous people, very different from the descendants of the Medo-Persians, though also sprung from an Aryan root. They are tall, with coarse features. Their complexion is brown, their hair is black, their eyes small, their mouth large, and their countenances wild looking.

The Armenians of both sexes are remarkable for their physical beauty. Their language is nearly allied to the oldest dialects of the Aryan race, and their history is connected with that of the Medes and Persians by very ancient traditions. They have a white skin, black eyes and hair, and their features are rounder than those of the Persians. The luxuriant growth of the hair on their faces distinguishes them from the Hindoos.

Fig. 88 represents a drawing-room in an Armenian’s house at Soucha.

The climate of Armenia is generally a cold one; but in the valleys and in the plains the atmosphere is less keen and the soil very fertile. Crops of wheat, wine, fruit, tobacco, and cotton are very plentiful there. Mines of gold, silver, copper, iron, and lead are found there, but these are but little worked. Armenian horses have the reputation of being the best bred in western Asia. Cochineal, an important production of this country, is very plentiful at the foot of Ararat. Excellent manna is found in the same districts. Armenian floreals are very abundant.

Armenia nowadays constitutes the pachaliks of Erzeroum, Kars, and Dijar-Bekr in Asiatic Turkey. Besides its indigenous population, it is inhabited by Turks, Kurds, Turcomans, and the remnants of other nations who formerly made raids into their country. The Armenian is distinguished by his serious, laborious, intelligent, and hospitable disposition. He is very successful in business. Fond of the traditions of his forefathers, and attached to his government, he has a good deal of sympathy with Europeans. He becomes easily accustomed to European customs, and learns our languages with little difficulty.

The Christian religion has always been followed in Armenia, and Armenians are much attached to their church. But this is divided into several sects. The Gregorian (the creed founded by Saint Gregory), the Roman Catholic, and the Protestant religions are all to be found in Armenia. The head of the first, which is the most numerous (it musters about four million worshippers), resides at Etchmiadzia, in Russian Armenia. There is another patriarch, who is nearly independent, at Cis, the ancient capital of the kingdom of Cilicia. The patriarch of the Catholics, who are fifty thousand in number, resides at Constantinople; but a second patriarch (in partibus), whose jurisdiction extends over Syria, Cilicia, and a part of Asia Minor, dwells on Mount Libanus. The Roman Catholics of Russian Armenia belong to the see of the Metropolitan residing in St. Petersburg. The head of the Protestant church, which contains from four to five thousand souls, dwells at Constantinople.

The Ossetines, who are the last branch of the Aryan race in Asia, inhabit a small portion of the chain of the Caucasian mountains, populated for the most part by races distinct from the Indo-Europeans. They resemble the peasants of the north of Russia; but their customs are barbarous, and they are given to pillage.

M. Vereschaguine met with the Ossetines in his travels in the Caucasian provinces. A Cossack, with whom he had some trouble, belonged to this race. The villages of the Ossetines lie on the slopes of the mountains. On each side of the Darial Pass lofty walls, flanked by towers, are to be seen, reminding the spectator of the days of brigandage.

The Ossetine, contrary to the customs of all the other tribes of the Caucasus and of the Trans-Caucasus, uses beds, tables, and chairs. He seats himself, like most Europeans, without crossing his legs.

The Georgian Family.

The Georgian Family is gathered together on the southern slope of the Caucasus. The beauty of the Georgian women is proverbial. M. Moynet, in his “Journey to the Caspian and the Black Seas,” tells us that they deserve all their reputation. Their physiognomy is as calm and regular as that of the immortal type handed down to us in the ancient statuary of Greece. A head-band of bright colours in the shape of a crown, and from which hangs a veil passing under the chin, forms their head-dress. Two long plaits of hair fall behind, reaching nearly to their feet. Nothing can be imagined more graceful or more dignified than this head-dress. A long ribbon of the gayest hues serves them for a sash, and falls down the front of their dress to the ground. Out of doors they wrap themselves up in a flowing white cloth, which shields them from the sun, and which they wear with much grace.

The men are also generally handsome. They have preserved the Caucasian type untouched and unaltered. They wear rich dresses, embroidered with gold and silver, and carry costly, sparkling arms. They are brave and chivalrous, and are passionately fond of horses.

The Circassian Family.

The Circassian Family, collected in the Caucasian mountains, is composed of a population distinguished for their bravery, but very feebly civilized. The Circassian type has in the whole of the East a great reputation for beauty, and it deserves it. Most Circassians have a long oval face, a thin straight nose, a small mouth, large dark eyes, a well-defined figure, a small foot, brown hair, a very white skin, and a martial appearance.

In affinity with the Circassians are the Abases, who speak a dialect akin to Circassian. They are semi-barbarous, and live on the produce of their herds and from the spoil of their brigandage. Their features show no sign of Circassian grace. They have a narrow head, a prominent nose, and the lower half of their face is extremely short.

The Mingrelians, inhabitants of Mingrelia, a little kingdom on the shores of the Caspian Sea, resemble the Georgians in physical appearance, in manners, and in customs.