Chapter V: Front Matter (5)

How any race first came into a country, is a matter of little moment, especially when the epoch of their arrival so far transcends the dawn of history as does that of the Iberians. Even the first wave of the Celtic migration had reached the West before any scrutiny of their progress was possible; for when tradition first dimly opens upon Gaul, about 1500 B. C., its territory was occupied by these two primitive and distinctly-marked Caucasian races—the Celts and Iberians: the one fair-skinned and light-haired, the other a dark race; and each speaking a language bearing no affinity to that of the other—precisely as the Euskaldune of the present Basques is unintelligible to Gaelic tribes of Lower Brittany. Some of the subsequent waves of Celtic or Scythic migration come within the ken of history; and it is remarkable that the line of march which these followed, after passing the shores of the Black Sea, seems to have been along the “Riphæan Valley,” which lay to the north of the Carpathian mountains, and stretched to the Baltic. Now, if we look at the contour map of Europe in _Johnston’s Physical Atlas_, we see a narrow strip of the lowest elevation extending from the Black Sea to the Baltic—nowhere rising to the second line of elevation, _i.e._ more than 150 and less than 300 feet above the level of the sea,—and turning to the geological map, we find that this same tract is overlaid with recent diluvial deposits. We know that the Scandinavian region is rising, and it is probable that all the plain of Sarmatia has partaken of the elevation,—and before the barriers of the Thracian Bosphorus burst, it is quite certain that the waters of the Caspian, the Euxine, and the Baltic were united by that “ocean-river” of which Homer, Hesiod, and all the old bards sing, and by sailing along which, both the Argonauts and Ulysses are reported to have passed northwards into the western ocean. The existence of this vast belt of water, stretching from the southmost point of the Baltic to the Caucasus, is probably one reason why the Slavonians were late of appearing in southern Europe, and why no sprinkling of them or of the Mongols is to be found among the early settlers of South-western Europe. All the early migrations into Europe proceeded from Caucasian or sub-Caucasian regions—a circumstance which, considering the known simultaneous existence of roving hordes and a great population on the Mongolian plains, can hardly be accounted for on the supposition that the face of Eastern Europe has since then undergone no change. But on the supposition we make, the chain of the Ural Mountains and this large Mediterranean basin would for long act as restraints upon any tendency of the Mongolian population to move westward, or of the Slavonians to move southwards.[31]

The next wave of population which flowed westwards was the Cimbri or Cimmerians,—a people cognate to the Celts or Gaels, yet by no means closely related. About the seventh century B.C., as may be inferred from Herodotus, a clan of this race abandoned the Tauric Chersonese, and marched westwards,—this Cimbrian migration, however, like most others, not being conducted in one mass, but by successive and sometimes widely-severed movements. Three centuries afterwards we find the Cimbri on the shores of the Northern Ocean in Jutland; and between the years 113 and 101 B.C., we find the race all on the move, and setting out on that southward career of devastation which eventually brought them into Gaul, Spain, and Italy. The Belgians seem to have been a Cimbrian tribe which had preceded the main body; for when, in this invasion, the Cimbri reached Northern Gaul, the Belgæ immediately joined them as allies against the Celts,—and it seems also proven that the Cimbri and Belgæ spoke dialects of the same language. The Celts, routed by the invaders, were impelled to the south and east, doubtless trespassing in turn upon the dark-skinned Iberians. It was immediately after this inroad that Cæsar and his Romans entered Gaul, and commenced his Commentaries with the well-known statement:—“All Gaul is divided into three parts, of which one is inhabited by the Belgians, [or Cimbri, in the north]—another by the Aquitanians [or Iberians, in the south-west],—and the third [or eastern], by those who in their own language, call themselves Celts, and who in our tongue are called Gael (_Galli_). These races differ among themselves by their language, their manners, and their laws.” Previous to this time the Teutons had settled in central Europe, and in alliance with Celtic tribes made incursions into Italy.

We have now reached a period at which the population of Europe becomes greatly mixed, in consequence of the constant rovings and incursions of the various races and tribes of which it was composed. It is interesting to note the effect of such a state of things upon the physical characteristics of the people. And first it is to be observed, that, with extremely rare exceptions, conquest is not attended by extermination. When one people, even in semi-barbarous times, conquers another, it does not annihilate and rarely displaces, but for the most part only overlays it. The annihilating process, of which a sample may be seen in America, only takes place in the rare case of the meeting of two nations, in such widely different states of civilisation as to render amalgamation impossible,—and even in this case only when the inferior race is so intractable as to resist all obedience to the superior. _Displacement_—which is obsolete now, since advancing civilisation has rendered conquest political only—was pretty common two thousand years ago, when Europe was thinly and nomadically peopled, and tribes migrated _en masse_. In this way, for example, the Cimbri wedged themselves in among the Celts in Northern Gaul, and took possession of a large tract in Northern Italy. But soon after the Christian era—chiefly in consequence of the increasing density and settled habits of the population—conquest ceased to produce either extermination or displacement, and consisted merely in the overlaying of one population by another much less numerous but more powerful. Thus the Normans in England and the Franks in Gaul were but a handful compared to the conquered population; and consequently, though they might give their laws and even their name to the country, they could not materially alter the physical character of the people.

The chief influence which, in the case of two races mingling, determines the preservation or extinction of types or national features, is simply the numerical proportion existing between the two races thus amalgamating. When races meet and mix on equal terms, and with no natural repugnance to each other (in other words, _cæteris paribus_), the relative number of the two races decides the question—the type of the smaller number, in this hypothetical case, inevitably disappearing in the long run. Take, for example, a thousand white families and fifty black ones—place them on an island, and let them regularly intermarry; and the result would be, that in the course of time the black type would disappear, although there is reason to believe that traces of it would “crop out” during a very long period. And if two fair-skinned races were brought into contact in a similar manner, and in similar proportions, the extermination of the less numerous one would be even sooner effected. The operation of this law is well illustrated in the lower animals. Cross two domestic animals of different breeds—take the offspring and cross it with one of the parent stocks, and continue this process for a few generations, and the result is that the one becomes swallowed up in the other. This is the theory; but in the actual world races never intermarry with such theoretical regularity and indifference. Each community of mankind has, as its conservative element, a tendency to form unions within its own limits; and if a foreign element is once introduced into a population, the operation of this predilection tends to preserve the type of the lesser number for a much longer period than mere theory would assign to it. The stranger-hating and obstinate-tempered Bretons and Basques, for instance, by intermarrying among themselves, have thus preserved the type of the old Iberians through three thousand years, although surrounded on all sides by the fair-haired Celts. In the case of a conquering race like the Franks and Normans, there is generally less isolation than this; but then, the way in which the amalgamation between the conquerors and the conquered takes place, is such as to give a great advantage to the former. The sons of the conquerors may wed the daughters of the conquered, for the sake of their lands; but it is comparatively seldom that the daughters of the invaders will condescend to tarnish their scutcheon by becoming wedded to and merged in the class of the vanquished. The principle of caste is all-pervading, even when nominally repudiated; and thus, as the male ever influences most directly the type of the offspring, a small number of conquerors may for long perpetuate their line in comparative purity, even though surrounded by myriads of a different race.

From all this it results, that when a small body of foreigners is shot into the middle of a large population, as it were in virtue of a mere casual impetus, and not owing to higher qualities and organisation on the part of the aliens, the new-comers are quickly absorbed into the general mass of the population, and their type, in course of time, wholly disappears. The history of Italy throws important light upon this subject. Successive hordes of barbarians broke into and overran that country, powerful from their rude energy, but numerically weak, and inferior in mental condition to the conquered race. Again and again did human waves of Visigoths, Vandals, Huns, Herules, Ostrogoths, Lombards, and Normans roll in succession over the Italian plains; and even the Saracens for a time held possession of some of its fairest provinces; yet what vestiges remain in Italy of these barbarian surges? The first three passed over it like tornados; the two next, after contending with the Goths, were expelled from the land; and of the whole conglomerate mass but small fragments were left, too insignificant to materially influence the native Italic types. The Lombards, indeed, remained, and implanted their name on a portion of the peninsula; but, with this fragmentary exception, the aboriginal population of Italy has remained unaltered in blood and features since the early times when the Celts and Cimbri made settlements in its northern provinces. And thus the normal law is fulfilled, in the invaders being swallowed up in the mass of the native population,—leavening it, of course, more or less, but ever tending towards ultimate extinction.

When a really conquering race, however—one superior alike in physical and mental power to the subjugated population—invades a country, and, instead of being expelled, or passing onwards like a transient whirlwind, continues to hold the realm in virtue of superior power, such a race, as we have said, may long and almost indelibly perpetuate their features in the land. In such a case they in reality, if not in name, form a caste; each one of the invaders becomes a noble; and when they make exceptions to the practice of intermarrying among themselves, it is only that they may more widely diffuse their lineaments, by forming matrimonial or other unions with the female portion of the native race.[32] Thus the feudalism of the all-conquering Normans was a system of caste, by means of which they long maintained the purity and pre-eminence of their race in the countries which they conquered; as may best be seen in French history, where the _vieux noblesse_, even in 1789, were the lineal descendants of the soldiers of Clovis; and where the distinction between _noble_ and _roturier_ was kept up with such rigid and antiquated pertinacity, that at length the Celtic population, becoming more and more developed alike in intellect and resources, threw off the whole foreign system like an incubus, and returned to those principles of equality and volatility in government which distinguished their ancestors of old Gaul.

We may remark in conclusion, on this topic, that the ascendancy of certain families of mankind is due not only to their superior physical, but even more to their superior mental organisation, which ever keeps them uppermost, and enables them to mate themselves with whom they please. It is a remarkable fact, as illustrative of the native vigour of some races, that there is not a head in Christendom which _legitimately_ wears a crown—not a single family in Europe whose blood is acknowledged to be royal, but traces its genealogy to that Norman colossus, WILLIAM the CONQUEROR. This has been well shown by M. Paulmier;[33] but we may add, as a curiosity which lately attracted our own notice, when looking at the portrait of the Conqueror—namely, that a strong resemblance exists between his fine and massive features and those of the present Czar of Russia. Both are distinguished by the same broad brow and arched eyebrows (not each forming a semicircle, as seems to be the meaning of the term “arched” when applied to eyebrows nowadays, but both combining to form an oval curve, vaulting over the under part of the face, as was the meaning among the Greeks), the same thick straight nose, and the same massive and beautiful conformation in the bones of the jaw and chin. The face of the Czar, however, we must add, is not equal in solid strength and intellect to that of his great progenitor.

The operation of these physiological laws upon the population of Europe has been interestingly illustrated by the recent researches of a French naturalist of high reputation, M. Edwards. This gentleman, after perusing Thierry’s _History of the Gauls_, made a tour through France, Belgium, Switzerland, and Italy, engaged in careful study of the present population in relation to the ancient settlers; and he asserts that now, after the lapse of two thousand years, the types of the Cimbri, the Celts, and Iberians are still distinctly traceable among their living descendants, in the very localities where history first descries these early families. Of the inland eastern parts of France, tenanted of old by the Gauls proper, and which were never penetrated into by the Cimbri, who took quiet possession of their outskirts, M. Edwards thus speaks:—“In traversing, from north to south, the part of France which corresponds to Oriental Gaul—viz., Burgundy, Lyons, Dauphiny, and Savoy—I have distinguished that type, so well marked, which ethnographers have assigned to the Gauls.” That is to say, “the head is so round as to approach the spherical form; the forehead is moderate, slightly protuberant, and receding towards the temples; eyes large and open; the nose, from its depression at its commencement to its termination, almost straight—that is to say, without any marked curve; its extremity is rounded, as well as the chin; the stature medium;—the features thus being quite in harmony with the form of the head.” Of the northern part of ancient Gaul, the principal seat of the Belgæ or Cimbri, he says:—“I traversed a great part of the _Gallia Belgica_ of Cæsar, from the mouth of the Somme to that of the Seine; and here I distinguished for the first time the assemblage of features which constitutes the other type, and often to such an exaggerated degree that I was very forcibly struck,—the long head, the broad high forehead, the curved nose, with the point below, and the wings tucked up; the chin boldly developed; and the stature tall.” In the other parts of France (exclusive of the south and west, anciently occupied by the Iberians), M. Edwards found that the Cimbrian type had been overcome by the round heads and straight noses of the Gauls, who were the more numerous because the more ancient race in those parts, and had covered the whole country before the arrival of the Cimbrians.

Passing into Italy, he continues his examinations. “Whatever may have been the anterior state of matters,” he says, “it is certain, from Thierry’s researches and the unanimous accord of all historians, that the _Peuples Gaulois_ have predominated in the north of Italy, between the Alps and the Apennines. We find them established there at the first dawn of history; and the most authentic testimony represents them with all the character of a great nation, from this remote period down to a very advanced point of Roman history. This is all I need to trouble myself about. I know the features of their compatriots in Transalpine Gaul—I find them again in Cisalpine Gaul.” The old “Gallic” settlers in northern Italy appear to have been Cimbrian. After describing the well-known head of Dante—which is long and narrow, with a high and developed forehead, nose long and curved, with sharp point and elevated wings—M. Edwards says that he was struck by the great frequency of this type in Tuscany (although a mixed Roman type is there the prevailing one) among the peasantry; in the statues and busts of the Medici family; and also amongst the effigies and bas-reliefs of the illustrious men of the republic of Florence. This type is well marked since the time of Dante, as doubtless long before. It extends to Venice; and in the ducal palace, M. Edwards had occasion to observe that it is common among the doges. The type became more predominant as he approached Milan, and thence he traced it as to its fountain into Transalpine Gaul. The physical characteristics of the present population, therefore, correspond with the statements of history, and show that the ancient type of this widespread people, the Cimbri, has survived the lapse and vicissitudes of two thousand years.

In passing through Florence, M. Edwards took occasion to visit the Ducal Gallery, to study the ancient Roman type,—selecting, by preference, the busts of the early Roman emperors, because they were descendants of ancient families. Augustus, Tiberius, Germanicus, Claudius, Nero, Titus, &c., exemplify this type in the Florentine collections; and the family resemblance is so close, and the style of features so remarkable, that they cannot be mistaken. The following is his description:—“The vertical diameter of the head is short, and, consequently, the face broad. As the summit of the cranium is flattened, and the lower margin of the jaw-bone almost horizontal, the contour of the head, when viewed in front, approaches a square. The lateral parts, above the ears, are protuberant; the forehead low; the nose truly aquiline—that is to say, the curve commences near the top and ends before it reaches the point, so that the base is horizontal; the chin is round; and the stature short.” This is the characteristic type of a Roman; but we cannot expect now to meet with absolute uniformity in any race, however seemingly pure. Such a type M. Edwards subsequently found to predominate in Rome, and certain parts of Italy, at the present day. It is the original type of the central portions of the peninsula, and, however overlayed at times, has swallowed up all intruders. As a singular corroboration of the French ethnographer’s observations, Mr J. C. Nott, an American surgeon and naturalist, says:—“A sailor came to my office, a few months ago, to have a dislocated arm set. When stripped and standing before me, he presented the type described by M. Edwards so perfectly, and moreover combined with such extraordinary development of bone and muscle, that there occurred to my mind at once the beau-ideal of a Roman soldier. Though the man had been an American sailor for twenty years, and spoke English without foreign accent, I could not help asking where he was born. He replied in a deep strong voice, ‘In _Rome_, sir!’”[34]

In Greece the Hellenes and Pelasgi are two races identified with the earliest traditions of the country; but when we appeal to history for their origin, or seek for the part that each has played in the majestic drama of antiquity, there is little more than conjecture to guide us. Greece did not come fairly within the scope of M. Edwards’ researches, yet he has ventured a few note-worthy observations in connection with this point. He thinks the same principles that governed his examination of Gaul may be applied to Greece; and that the Hellenes and Pelasgi might be followed ethnologically like the Celts and Cimbri. Perhaps the most important remark which he makes is that which refers to the differences between what he calls the _heroic_ and _historic_—or what is generally termed the ideal and real types of the Greek countenance. The ancient monuments of art in Greece exhibit a wide diversity of types, and this at every period of their history. Of the two great classes into which these may be divided, M. Edwards says:—

“Most of the divinities and personages of the _heroic_ times are
formed on that well-known model which constitutes what we term the
beau-ideal. The forms and proportions of the head and countenance are
so regular that we may describe them with mathematical precision. A
perfectly oval contour, forehead and nose straight, without depression
between them, would suffice to distinguish this type. The harmony is
such that the presence of these traits implies the others. But such is
not the character of the personages of truly _historic_ times. The
philosophers, orators, warriors, and poets almost all differ from it,
and form a group apart. It cannot be confounded with the rest: it is
sufficient to point it out, for one to recognise at once how far it is
separated. It greatly resembles, on the contrary, the type which is
seen in other countries of Europe, while the former is scarcely met
with there.”

This observation is just. The head of Alexander the Great is nearly allied to the pure classical or heroic type; but this case is an exception—and the lineaments of Lycurgus, Eratosthenes, and most other specimens of old Greek portrait-sculpture, are, with the exception of the beard (if indeed such an exception is now requisite), very much like those which one meets with daily in our streets. “Were we to judge solely by the monuments of Greece,” continues M. Edwards, “on account of this contrast, we should be tempted to regard the type of the fabulous or heroic personages as ideal. But imagination more readily creates monsters than models of beauty; and this principle alone will suffice to convince us that such a type has existed in Greece, and the countries where its population has spread, if it does not still exist there.”

In corroboration of this conjecture, it may be stated that the learned travellers, M.M. de Stackelberg and de Bronsted, who have journeyed through the Morea and closely examined the population, assert that the _heroic_ type is still extant in certain localities. M. Poqueville likewise assures us that the models which inspired Phidias and Apelles are still to be found among the inhabitants of the Morea. “They are generally tall, and finely formed; their eyes are full of fire, and they have a beautiful mouth, ornamented with the finest teeth. There are, however, degrees in their beauty, though all may be generally termed handsome. The Spartan woman is fair, of a slender make, but with a noble air. The women of Taÿgetus have the carriage of a Pallas when she wielded her formidable ægis in the midst of a battle. The Messenian woman is low of stature, and distinguished for her _embonpoint_,” (this may be owing to a mixture with the primitive race of the Morea, who, as Helots, long existed as a distinct caste in Messenia); “she has regular features, large blue eyes, and long black hair. The Arcadian, in her coarse woollen garments, scarcely suffers the symmetry of her form to appear; but her countenance is expressive of innocence and purity of mind.” In the time of Poqueville the Greek women were extremely ignorant and uneducated; but, he says, “music and dancing seem to have been taught them by nature.” He speaks of the long flaxen hair of the women of Sparta, their majestic air and carriage, their elegant forms, the symmetry of their features, lighted up by large blue eyes, fringed and shaded with long eye-lashes. “The men,” he says, “among whom some are ‘blonds,’ or fair, have noble countenances; are of tall stature, with masculine and regular features.” They have preserved something of the Dorians of ancient Sparta.

It would be erroneous, however, to conclude from this that Greek art owed everything to the actual. The type existed more or less imperfectly in the population, but Phidias and the Greek artists took and developed it, by the aid of the imagination, into that perfect phase of physical beauty which we justly term the _beau-ideal_. A nation’s beau-ideal is always the perfectionment of its own type. It is easy to see how this happens. In nations, as in individuals, the soul moulds the body, so far as extrinsic circumstances permit, into a form in accordance with its own ideas and desire; and accordingly, whenever a marked difference exists in the physical aspect of two nations, there, also, we may expect to find a variance in their beau-ideals. Not, as is generally supposed, from the eye of each race becoming accustomed to the national features, but because these features, are themselves an incarnation and embodiment of the national mind. It is the soul which shapes the national features, not the national features that mould the æsthetic judgment of the soul. It is not _association_, therefore, that is the cause of the different beau-ideals we behold in the world, but a psychical difference in the nations which produce them,—a circumstance no more remarkable than those moral and intellectual diversities in virtue of which we see one race excelling in the exact sciences, another in the fine arts, a third in military renown, and a fourth in pacific industry. We may adduce, in curious illustration of this point, the well-known fact that Raphael and many other eminent artists have repeatedly given their own likeness to the imaginary offspring of their art,—not real, but idealised likenesses. How was this? From vanity? No, certainly; but because the ideal most congenial to them, which they could most easily hold in their mind, and which it gave them most pleasure to linger over and beautify, was the ideal constituted by the perfectionment of their own features. There is something more than mere vanity in the pleasure usually derived from looking into a mirror; for when the features are in exact or nearly exact accordance with the desires of the framing Spirit within, there must always be a pleasure in the soul looking upon its own likeness: even as it experiences a similar delight when meeting with a being of perfectly congenial nature—in other words, its spiritual (as the other is its physical) likeness. It is to be expected, _cæteris paribus_, that this pleasure will be most felt by those who are gifted with much personal beauty, and whose features are most perfect of their kind; for in their case there is more than ordinary harmony between the soul and its fleshly envelope. Accordingly, no artist ever painted himself more than the beautiful Raphael. And we could name an eminent individual, now no more, as rarely gifted with physical beauty as with mental powers, to whom the contemplation of his portrait was almost a passion. Some of our readers may recognise the distinguished man of whom we speak. No one less vain or more noble-hearted than he, yet his painted likeness had always a fascination for him. “It is a curious thing,” he used to say, “how I like to look at my own portrait.” Was it not because, in that beautifully developed form and countenance, the spirit within had most successfully embodied its ideal, with little or no hindrance from extrinsic circumstances, and accordingly rejoiced, though it knew not why, in the presence of its own likeness?

But to return to ethnography, and trace out the successive changes which have taken place in the population of Europe. As we have already observed, the great ebb and flow of nations was over by the Christian era. The population had become comparatively dense, so that room could no more be made for tribes of new-comers—and settled in their habits and occupations, so as no longer to admit of their shifting or being driven to and fro like waves over the land, as was the case while they were in the nomadic state. And as the nations became consolidated, they began, however feebly at first, to live a national existence, and to put forth national efforts of self-defence against those who assailed them. On these various accounts, the system of conquest by displacement, which marked the pre-historic and in a faint degree the early historic times, was brought to an end,—the conquests of the Northmen being the last examples of the kind; and these being hardly worthy of the name, as they were marked rather by the political predominance of the new-comers, and by an overlaying rather than by any displacement of the native population. For all useful purposes, therefore, we may conceive that at the Christian era the various nations of Europe were arranged on the map very much as they are now,—the only exceptions worth mentioning being the influx of the Magyars and Turks, and the southward progress of several of the Slavonian tribes through the old Byzantine provinces into Greece.

“Had a Roman geographer of the days of the Empire,” it has been well
observed, “advanced in a straight line from the Atlantic to the
Pacific, he would have traversed the exact succession of races that is
to be met in the same route now. First, he would have found the Celts
occupying as far as the Rhine; thence, eastward to the Vistula and
Carpathian mountains, he would have found Germans; beyond them, and
stretching away into Central Asia, he would have found the so-called
Scythians,—a race which, had he possessed our information, he would
have divided into the two great branches of the Slavonians or European
Scythians, and the Tartars and Turks, or Asiatic Scythians; and
finally, beyond these, he would have found Mongolian hordes
overspreading Eastern Asia to the shores of the Pacific. These
successive races or populations he would have found shading off into
each other at their points of junction. He would have remarked, also,
a general westward pressure of the whole mass, tending toward mutual
rupture and invasion,—the Mongolian pressing against the Tartars, the
Tartars against the Slavonians, the Slavonians against the Germans,
and the Germans against the Celts.”

Although the early history and migrations of the Slavonians are involved in greater obscurity than that of either of the other two great branches of the European population, it is erroneous to suppose that they are a recent accession out of the depths of Asia. It was evidently a branch of them that Herodotus describes as peaceful, pastoral, and agricultural tribes located near the shores of the Black Sea. Instead of entering Europe _via_ Asia Minor and the southern borders of the Euxine, as many of the Celtic and Teutonic tribes did, they appear to have taken the route by the north of the Caspian and Black Seas, and probably advanced southwards into Europe on the gradual and ultimately sudden subsidence of the waters of the inland sea which primevally stretched from the Baltic eastwards to the Sea of Aral.

This race, which now constitutes the largest ethnographical unit of population in Europe, numbering nearly eighty millions, has never yet been examined in rigorous detail. The earliest and best developed of its tribes is the Polish, which, though it has in recent times been subjected by the Russo-Slavons aided by the German powers, has not yet lost its nationality; and it is probable that, in the course of the future, the mighty Slavonic race will yet give rise to several distinct states. Both in features and complexion there is much diversity to be found in the various tribes which it comprises; but, if we consider the immense numbers of the race, and the different climes and temperatures under which they are located, it must be allowed that they are more homogeneous in character than any other people in Europe. The general type of the Slavonians is thus described by M. Edwards:—

“The contour of the head, viewed in front, approaches nearly to a
square; the height surpasses a little the breadth; the summit is
sensibly flattened; and the direction of the jaw is horizontal. The
length of the nose is less than the distance from its base to the
chin; it is almost straight from the depression at its root—that is to
say, without any decided curvature; but, if appreciable, it is
slightly concave, so that the end has a tendency to turn up; the lower
part is rather large, and the extremity rounded. The eyes, which are
rather deep-set, are [unlike those of the Tartars] perfectly on the
same line; and when they have any particular character, they are
smaller than the proportion of the head ought to indicate. The
eyebrows are thin, and very near the eyes, particularly at the
internal angle; and from this point are often [like those of the
Tartars] directed obliquely outwards. The mouth, which is not salient,
has thin lips, and is much nearer to the nose than to the tip of the
chin. Another singular characteristic may be added, and which is very
general, viz., their small beard, except on the upper lip [a trait
connecting them with the peoples of Upper Asia]. Such is the common
type among the Poles, Alesians, Moravians, Bohemians, Slavonic
Hungarians, and is very common among the Russians.”

Having thus briefly and imperfectly glanced at the ethnographical features of Europe prior to the Christian era, we come now to note, equally briefly, the accession of foreign elements which the Continent has received subsequently to that period. The first of these is the memorable one of the Jews. Unlike the other incomers, they came not as conquerors, nor in a mass—but as isolated exiles, seeking new homes where they might be suffered to preserve their religion and gain a livelihood. A military race when in the land of their fathers, in Europe they developed only that other feature of their nation, the passion for moneymaking. In pursuit of this object they have settled in every country of Europe; and, in spite of persecutions innumerable, continue to preserve to this day their religion and their national features. Despite the warm passions of the Hebrews, which, even when in their own land, repeatedly led both the people and their princes into the contraction of sexual alliances with other nations, the Jewish blood on the whole is still much purer than that of any other race—the foreign elements from time to time mingled with it being gradually thrown off by innumerable crossings and re-crossings with the native stock. At present there are about two millions of Jews in Europe, and in the rest of the world about a million and a half. The modern Jews, while preserving the national features, present every variety of complexion save black—for the _black_ Jews of Malabar are not Jews at all, but the descendants of apostate Hindoos. In regard to the matter of complexion, which varies so much with the climate and condition of the people, we shall say something by-and-by; but we shall here give some remarks of Mr Leeser, a learned Jew of Philadelphia, on the curious diversities of complexion so remarkably observable among the Hebrew race:—

“In respect to the true Jewish complexion, it is _fair_; which is
proved by the variety of the people I have seen, from Persia, Russia,
Palestine, and Africa, not to mention those of Europe and America, the
latter of whom are identical with the Europeans, like all other white
inhabitants of this continent. All Jews that ever I have beheld are
_identical in features_; though the colour of their skin and eyes
differs materially, inasmuch as the Southern are nearly all
black-eyed, and somewhat sallow, while the Northern are blue-eyed, in
a great measure, and of a fair and clear complexion. In this they
assimilate to all Caucasians, when transported for a number of
generations into various climates. Though I am free to admit that the
dark and hazel eye and tawny skin are oftener met with among the
Germanic Jews than among the German natives proper. There are also
red-haired and white-haired Jews, as well as other people, and perhaps
of as great a proportion. I speak now of the Jews north—I am myself a
native of Germany, and among my own family I know of none without blue
eyes, brown hair (though mine is black), and very fair skin—still I
recollect, when a boy, seeing many who had not these characteristics,
and had, on the contrary, eyes, hair, and skin of a more southern
complexion. In America, you will see all varieties of complexion, from
the very fair Canadian down to the almost yellow of the West
Indian—the latter, however, is solely the effect of exposure to a
_deleterious_ climate for several generations, which changes, I should
judge, the texture of the hair and skin, and thus leaves its mark on
the constitution—otherwise the Caucasian type is strongly developed;
but this is the case more emphatically among those sprung from a
German than a Portuguese stock. The latter was an original inhabitant
of the Iberian Peninsula, and whether it was preserved pure, or became
mixed with Moorish blood in the process of centuries, or whether the
Germans contracted an intimacy with Teutonic nations, and thus
acquired a part of their national characteristics, it is impossible to
be told now. But one thing is certain, that, both in Spain and
Germany, conversions to Judaism during the early ages, say from the
eighth to the thirteenth century, were by no means rare, or else the
governments would not have so energetically prohibited Jews from
making proselytes of their servants and others. I know not, indeed,
whether there is any greater physical discrepancy between northern and
southern Jews than between English families who continue in England or
emigrate to Alabama—I rather judge there is not.”—_Types of Mankind_,
p. 121.

The Huns and Magyars were the next tribes who made their way into Europe; and their advent, fierce, rapid, and exterminating, was conducted like a charge of cavalry. They hewed their way with the sword through the Slavonian and other tribes who impeded their march; and after being for a brief season the terror of Europe, they settled _en permanence_ on the plains of Hungary, where for upwards of a thousand years they dominated, like a ruling caste, over the surrounding Slavonic tribes. The influx of this warlike race took place by two migrations,—firstly, of the Huns, under Attila, in the fifth century; and, secondly, of the Magyars, under Arpad, in the ninth. The type of the two races was identical; it is peculiarly exotic, and unlike any other in Europe. It belongs to the great Uralian-Tatar stem of Asia; but, strangely enough, though they differ in type from the Fins, the Magyars speak a dialect of the Finnish language,—which shows that the two races must have been associated in some way at a remote epoch, and before either of them emerged from the depths of Asia. M. Edwards thus describes the Magyar type:—“Head nearly round; forehead little developed, low, and bending; the eyes placed obliquely, so that the external angle is elevated; the nose short and flat; mouth prominent, and lips thick; neck very strong, so that the back of the head appears flat, forming almost a straight line with the nape; beard weak and scattering; stature short.” The Magyars did not belong to the Caucasian stock; and their long-continued supremacy over tribes decidedly Caucasian, is a nut to crack for those ethnographers who deduce everything from race, irrespective of the habits and state of development of particular nations.

The next alien race which entered Europe was the Gypseys, the history and peculiarities of which strange people present many curious analogies with those of the Israelites. “Both have had an exodus; both are exiles, and dispersed among the Gentiles, by whom they are hated and despised, and whom they hate and despise under the names of Busnees and Goyim; both, though speaking the language of the Gentiles, possess a peculiar language which the latter do not understand; and both possess a peculiar cast of countenance by which they may without difficulty be distinguished from all other nations. But with these points the similarity terminates. The Israelites have a peculiar religion, to which they are fanatically attached; the Romas (gypseys) have none. The Israelites have an authentic history; the Gypseys have no history,—they do not even know the name of their original country.” Everything connected with the Gypsey race is involved in mystery; though, from their physical type, language, &c., it is conjectured that they came from some part of India. It has been supposed that they fled from the exterminating sword of the great Tartar conqueror, Tamerlane, who ravaged India in 1408–9 A.D.; but Borrow’s work furnishes good ground for believing that they may have migrated at a much earlier period northwards, amongst the Slavonians, before they entered Germany and the other countries where we first catch sight of them. All that we know with certainty is, that in the beginning of the fifteenth century they appeared in Germany, and were soon scattered over Europe, as far as Spain. The precise day upon which these strange beings first entered France has been recorded,—namely, the 17th of August 1427. The entire number of the race at present is estimated at about 700,000,—thus constituting them the smallest as well as the most singular and distinctly marked of races. But if their numbers be small, their range of habitat is one of the widest. They are scattered over most countries of the habitable globe—Europe, Asia, Africa, and both the Americas, containing specimens of these roving tribes. “Their tents,” says Borrow, “are pitched on the heaths of Brazil and the ridges of the Himalaya hills; and their language is heard in Moscow and Madrid, in London and Stamboul. Their power of resisting cold is truly wonderful, as it is not uncommon to find them encamped in the midst of the snow, in slight canvass tents, where the temperature is 25° or 30° below the freezing-point according to Reaumur;” while, on the other hand, they withstand without difficulty the sultry climes of Africa and India.

The last accession which the population of Europe received was accomplished by an irruption similar to that of the Huns, but on a grander scale. In the beginning of the fifteenth century the Osmanli Turks swept across the Hellespont and Bosphorus, and in 1453 established their empire in Europe by the capture of Byzantium. In proportion to its numbers, no race ever gave such a shock to the Western world as this; and, by its very antagonism, it helped to quicken into life the population and kingdoms of central and eastern Europe. It is semi-Caucasian by extraction, but, coming from the northern side of the Caucasus, and pretty far to the east, the original features of the race had a strong dash of the Tartar in them. The portrait of Mahomed II., the conqueror of Byzantium, may be taken as a fair sample of the primitive Turkish type,—indeed a more than average specimen, for among all nations the nobles and princes, as a class, are ever found to possess the most perfect forms and features. The Turkish tribes who still follow their ancient nomadic life, and wander in the cold and dry deserts of Turkistan, still exhibit the Tartar physiognomy—even the Nogays of the Crimea, and some of the roving tribes of Asia Minor, present much of this character. The European Turks, and the upper classes of the race generally, exhibit a greatly superior style of countenance, in consequence of the elevating influences of civilisation, and of their harems having been replenished for four centuries by fair ones from Georgia and Circassia,—a region which, as Chardin long ago remarked, “is assuredly the one where nature produces the most beautiful persons, and a people brave and valiant, as well as lively, _galant_, and loving.” There is hardly a man of quality in Turkey who is not born of a Georgian or Circassian mother,—counting downwards from the Sultan, who is generally Georgian or Circassian by the female side. As this crossing of the two races has been carried on for several centuries, the modern Ottomans in Europe are in truth a _new nation_—and, on the whole, a very handsome one. The general proportion of the face is symmetrical, and the facial angle nearly vertical,—the features thus approaching to the Circassian mould; while the head is remarkable for its excellent globular form, with the forehead broad and the glabella prominent.

The natural destiny of the Turks in Europe, like that of ruling castes everywhere when holding in subjection a population greatly more numerous than themselves, is either to gradually relax their sway and share the government with the subject races, as the Normans in England did,—or, if obstinately maintaining their class-despotism, to be violently deposed from the supremacy. The increasing development of the Greek and other sections of the population of European Turkey has of late years made one or other of these alternatives imminent; but the extensive reforms and liberalisation of the government simultaneously undertaken by the Ottoman rulers, and the remarkable abeyance in which they have begun to place the _distinctive_ tenets of the Mahommedan faith, promised, if unthwarted by foreign influences, to keep the various races in amity, and admit Christians to offices in the state. The history of the last fifteen years has shown this system of governmental relaxation growing gradually stronger—so that Lord Palmerston was justified in saying that no country in the world could show so many reforms accomplished in so short a time as Turkey. And after the recent exploits of the Ottomans in defeating simultaneously the attacks of Russia and of the Greek and Montenegrin insurgents, and the Turkish predilections even of those provinces which were entered by the Christian forces of the Czar, it cannot be doubted that the Turkish rule was on the whole giving satisfaction, and that, if unaided by foreign Powers, no insurrection against the supremacy of the bold-hearted Osmanlis had the slightest chance of success. It was this state of matters which alarmed the ambitious Czar into his present aggression; for he felt that now or never was the time to interfere, if he did not wish to see a Turko-Greek state establish itself in such strength as to bid defiance to his power. We may add, that, whatever be the issue of the present contest, it must tend to a further and higher development of the Turkish character. The contagion of Western ideas, disseminated in the most imposing of ways by the presence of the armies of England and France, cannot fail to impress itself on the slumbrous but awakening Ottomans, and not only expand their stereotyped civilisation into a wider and freer form, but possibly to strike also from their religion the more faulty and obstructive of its tenets.

Such are the elements of the present population of Europe,—a population which, in its western and southern portions, no longer presents distinct masses of diverse tribes, and whose various sections every century is drawing into closer contact. The progress of commerce and civilisation produces not only an interchange of products of various climes, and of ideas between the various races of mankind, but also a commingling of blood; and as the most nobly developed races are always the great wanderers and conquerors, it will be seen that the progress of the world ever tends to improve the types of mankind by infusing the blood of the superior races into the veins of the inferior. The settlements of the Normans are an instance of this. And a still more remarkable, though exceptional, exemplification of the same thing may at present be witnessed in America—where the Negroes, transported from their native clime, have already become a mixed race, owing to the relation in which all female slaves stand to their masters, and the consequent frequent crossing of the European blood with the blood of Africa. In point of fact, there are slaves to be found in the Southern States, who, like “George” in _Uncle Tom’s Cabin_, are as Caucasian in their features and intellect as their masters,—a circumstance fraught with considerable danger to the White caste in these States, because producing the extremest irritation in these nearly full-blood “white slaves,” and at the same time providing able and fiery leaders for the oppressed Negro race in the event of an insurrection and servile war.

But the great variety of countenance and temperament in Western and Southern Europe is not due merely to actual crossings of the commingling races. Civilisation itself is the parent of variety. The progress of humanity produces physical effects upon the race, which may be classed under two heads, one of these being a general physical improvement, and the other increasing variety. Take an undeveloped race like the Tartars or Negroes, and you will find the aspect and mental character of the nation nearly homogeneous,—the differences existing amongst its individual members being comparatively trivial. Pass to the Slavonians, and you will perceive this uniformity lessened; and when you reach the nations of Western Europe, you will find the transition accomplished, and homogeneity exchanged for variety. The explanation of this is obvious. Just as all plants of the same species, when in embryo, are nearly alike, undeveloped races of mankind present but few signs of spiritual life; and therefore their individual members greatly resemble one another,—because the fewer the characteristics, the less room is there for variety, and the more radical and therefore more universal must be the characteristics themselves. Pebbles, as they lie rough upon the sea-shore, may present a great uniformity of appearance; but take and polish them, and a hundred diversities of colour and marking forthwith show themselves;—even so does civilisation and growth develop the rich varieties of human nature. As these mental varieties spring up within, they ever seek to develop themselves by corresponding varieties in the outer life,—placing men now in riches, now in poverty, now under the sway of the intellect, now of the passions, now of good principles, now of bad, and moreover leading to an infinite diversity of external occupation. The joint influence of the feelings within, and of the corresponding circumstances without, in course of time comes to affect the physical frame, often in a very marked manner; and, indeed, it is well known that even so subtle a thing as the predominant thoughts and sentiments of an individual are almost always reflected in the aspect of his countenance. Nations, when in a primitive uncultured state, differ as widely from those at the apex of civilisation, as the monotonous countenance and one-phased mind of a peasant contrasts with the rich variety of expression in the face of genius, whose nature is quickly responsive to every influence, though often steadied into a masculine calm. Let any one inspect the various classes of our metropolitan population, and he will perceive an amount of physical, mental, and occupational variety such as he will meet with nowhere else in the world—presenting countenances deformed now by this form of brutal passion, now by that, ranging upwards to the noblest types of the human face, the joint product of easy circumstances and high mental and spiritual culture. It is all the result of civilisation, which ever tends to break up the uniformity of a population, and allows of its members rising to the highest heights or sinking to the lowest depths,—thus breaking the primitive monotony of life into its manifold prismatic hues.