The American Encyclopedia of History, Biography and Travel Comprising Ancient and Modern History: the Biography of Eminent Men of Europe and America, and the Lives of Distinguished Travelers.

[Illustration: WASHINGTON’S HOUSE, MOUNT VERNON.]

The

American Encyclopedia

Of

History, Biography And Travel,

Comprising

Ancient And Modern History:

The

Biography Of Eminent Men

Of Europe And America,

And The

Lives Of Distinguished Travelers.

Illustrated with over 100 Engravings.

By Thomas H. Prescott, A. M.

Columbus:

Published And Sold Exclusively By Subscription,

By J. & H. Miller.

1857.

Entered According to Act of Congress, in the Year 1855, by the

Ohio State Journal Company,

In the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of the United States, for the Southern District of Ohio.

Printed By Osgood And Pearce.

Bound By H. C Behmer.

Columbus, Ohio.

Preface.

One of the most useful directions for facilitating the study of history, is to begin with authors who present a compendium, or general view of the whole subject of history, and, afterwards, to apply to the study of any particular history with which a more thorough acquaintance is desired. The Historical Department of this work has been compiled with a view to furnishing such a compendium. It covers the whole ground of Ancient History, including China, India, Egypt, Arabia, Syria, the Phœnicians, Jews, Assyrians, Babylonians, Lydians, Modes and Persians, together with Greece and Rome, down through the dark ages to the dawn of modern civilization. It also embraces the history of the leading nations of modern Europe, and of the United States of America.

Wisdom is the great end of history. It is designed to supply the want of experience; and though it does not enforce its instructions with the same authority, yet it furnishes a greater variety of lessons than it is possible for experience to afford in the longest life. Its object is to enlarge our views of the human character, and to enable us to form a more correct judgment of human affairs. It must not, therefore, be a tale, calculated merely to please and addressed to the fancy. Gravity and dignity are essential characteristics of history. Robertson and Bancroft may be named as model historians in these particulars. No light ornaments should be employed――no flippancy of style, and no quaintness of wit; but the writer should sustain the character of a wise man, writing for the instruction of posterity; one who has studied to inform himself well, who has pondered his subject with care, and addresses himself to our judgment rather than to our imagination. At the same time, historical writing is by no means inconsistent with ornamented and spirited narration, as witness Macaulay’s popular History of England. On the contrary, it admits of much high ornament and elegance; but the ornaments must be consistent with dignity. Industry is, also, a very essential quality in an accurate historian.

As history is conversant with great and memorable actions, a historian should always keep posterity in view, and relate nothing but what may be of some account to future ages. Those who descend to trivial matters, beneath the dignity of history, should be deemed journalists rather than historians. As it is the province of a historian to acquaint us with facts, he should give a narration or description not only of the facts, or actions themselves, but likewise of such things as are necessarily connected with them; such as the characters of persons, the circumstances of time and place, the views and designs of the principal actors, and the issue and event of the actions which he describes. The drawing of characters is one of the most splendid, as it is one of the most difficult, ornaments of historical composition; for characters are generally considered as professed exhibitions of fine writing; and a historian who seeks to shine in them, is often in danger of carrying refinement to excess, from a desire of appearing very profound and penetrating. Among the improvements that have of late years been introduced into historical composition, is the attention that is now given to laws, customs, commerce, religion, literature, and every thing else that tends to exhibit the genius and spirit of nations. Historians are now expected to exhibit manners, as well as facts and events. Voltaire was the first to introduce this improvement, and Allison, Macaulay, and others, have adopted it.

The first and lowest use of history is, that it agreeably amuses the imagination, and interests the passions; and in this view of it, it far surpasses all works of fiction, which require a variety of embellishments to excite and interest the passions, while the mere thought that we are listening to the voice of truth, serves to keep the attention awake through many dry and ill-digested narrations of facts. The next and higher use of history is, to improve the understanding and strengthen the judgment, and thus to fit us for entering upon the duties of life with advantage. It presents us with the same objects which occur to us in the business of life, and affords similar exercise to our thoughts; so that it may be called anticipated experience. It is, therefore, of great importance, not only to the advancement of political knowledge, but to that of knowledge in general; because the most exalted understanding is merely a power of drawing conclusions and forming maxims of conduct from known facts and experiments, of which necessary materials of knowledge the mind itself is wholly barren, and with which it must be furnished by experience. By improving the understanding history frees the mind from many foolish prejudices that tend to mislead it. Such are those prejudices of a national kind, that have induced an unreasonable partiality for our own country, merely as our own country, and as unreasonable a repugnance to foreign nations and foreign religions, which nothing but enlarged views resulting from history can cure. It likewise tends to remove those prejudices that may have been entertained in favor of ancient or modern times, by giving a just view of the advantages and disadvantages of mankind in all ages. To a citizen of the United States, one of the great advantages resulting from the study of history is, that so far from producing an indifference to his own country, it disposes him to be satisfied with his own situation, and renders him, from rational conviction, and not from blind prejudice, a more zealous friend to the interests of his country, and to its free institutions. It is from history, chiefly, that improvements are made in the science of government; and this science is one of primary importance. Another advantage is, that it tends to strengthen sentiments of virtue, by displaying the motives and actions of truly great men, and those of a contrary character,――thus inspiring a taste for real greatness and solid glory.

The second department of our work has been devoted to BIOGRAPHY,――a species of history more entertaining, and in many respects equally useful, with general history. It represents great men more distinctly, unincumbered with a crowd of other actors, and, descending into the detail of their actions and character, their virtues and failings, gives more insight into human nature, and leads to a more intimate acquaintance with particular persons, than general history allows. A writer of biography may descend with propriety to minute circumstances and familiar incidents. He is expected to give the private as well as the public life of those whose actions he records; and it is from private life, from familiar, domestic and seemingly trivial occurrences, that we often derive the most accurate knowledge of the real character. To those who have exposed their lives, or employed their time and labor, for the service of their fellow men, it seems but a just debt, that their memories should be perpetuated after them, and that posterity should be made acquainted with their benefactors. To a volume of biography may be applied the language of a pagan poet:――

“Here patriots live, who for their country’s good, In fighting fields were prodigal of blood; Priests of unblemished lives here make abode, And poets worthy their inspiring god; And searching wits of more mechanic parts, Who graced their age with new invented arts; Those who to worth their bounty did extend, And those who knew that bounty to commend: The heads of these with holy fillets bound, And all their temples are with garlands crowned.”

In the lives of public persons, their public characters are principally, but not solely, to be regarded. The world is inquisitive to know the conduct of its great men as well in private as in public; and both may be of service, considering the influence of their examples. In preparing this department of our work we have aimed to introduce variety,――selecting representative men from all the various pursuits of life.

The third department of our work has been designated as the Department of TRAVEL. It embraces the principal voyages of discovery and the lives of great navigators and travelers, since the days of Columbus and Vasco de Gama. In the history of scientific expeditions, the five following divisions may be made: 1. The earliest age of the Phœnicians down to Herodotus, 500 years before Christ. The Phœnicians undertook the first voyages of discovery for commercial purposes, or to found colonies. 2. The travels of the Greeks and the military expeditions of the Romans, from 500 B. C. to 400 A. D. The Greeks made journeys to enlarge the territories of science. The armies of Rome, during this period, supplied an extensive knowledge of a part of Asia, Egypt, the northern part of Africa, and Europe to South Britain. 3. The expeditions of the Germans and Normans until 900 A. D. The Normans discovered the Faroes, Iceland and Greenland. 4. Besides the commercial and military voyages of the Arabs and Mongols, the travels of the Christian Missionaries, and other Europeans, down to 1400, furnished much valuable information. 5. The fifth period, from the year 1400 to the present time, is the period particularly embraced in this work. During this time, North and South America, a portion of Asia, and the interior of Africa, have been explored, and the adventurous voyagers in the Arctic and Antarctic seas, have pushed their researches to within twelve degrees of the poles. Sir J. Ross reached the south latitude of 78 deg. 4 min. in the year 1841. Such are the results of the labors of four centuries. The knowledge has been slowly gathered, but it will remain a lasting testimony to the triumphs of intellect. It is but recently that human enterprise has penetrated many of the secrets of the Antarctic regions,――that realm of mighty contrasts,――and it will doubtless pursue the investigation. ‘Meantime the wintry solitudes of the far south will be undisturbed by the presence of man; the penguin and the seal will still haunt the desolate shores; the shriek of the petrel and the scream of the albatross will mingle with the dash and roar of continual storms, and the crash of wave-beaten ice; the towering volcano will shoot aloft its columns of fire high into the gelid air; the hills of snow and ice will grow and spread; frost and flame will do their work; till, in the wondrous cycle of terrestrial change, the polar lands shall again share in the abundance and beauty which now overspread the sun-gladdened zones.’

Table Of Contents.

Department Of History.

Ancient History.

Ethiopian History 18-20

MONGOLIAN HISTORY.――The Chinese 20-26

CAUCASIAN HISTORY.――Ancient India――Eastern Nations――The Egyptians――Arabians――Syria――The Phœnicians――Palestine――The Jews――The Assyrians and Babylonians――The Medes and Persians―― States of Asia Minor――The Lydians――The Persian Empire 26-53

GRECIAN HISTORY.――Early History and Mythology――Religious Rites―― Authentic History――Sparta――Lycurgus――Athens――Persian Invasion―― Pericles――Alcibiades――Decline of Athenian Independence―― Alexander the Great――Concluding Period 53-78

ROMAN HISTORY.――The Latins――The Kings――The Commonwealth―― Struggle between the Patricians and Plebeians――Invasion of the Gauls――The Samnite Wars――The Punic Wars――The Revolutions of the Gracchi――Social Wars――Marius and Sulla――Pompey, Cicero, Cataline, Cæsar――Gallic Wars――Extinction of the Commonwealth――Civil Wars――Augustus――Dissemination of Christianity――Division of the Empire――Downfall of the Western Empire 78-112

MIDDLE AGES.――The Eastern Empire――Constantine――Julian the Apostate――Theodosius the Great――Justinian; his Code――Arabia――Mohammed――Empire of the Saracens――The Feudal System――Charlemagne――The New Western Empire――France――The German Empire――Italy――Spain――General state of Europe――The Crusades――Chivalry――Rise of new Powers――Wm. Tell――The Italian Republics――Commerce――The Turks――Fall of Constantinople――Rise of Civil Freedom 112-145

Modern History.

GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND.――Conquest by the Romans; by the Saxons; by the Normans――Early Norman Kings――William the Conqueror――Henry――Richard Cœur de Lion――John――Magna Charta――Origin of Parliament――Edwards――Conquest of Scotland――Richard II――House of Lancaster――House of York――House of Tudor――Henry VIII――The Reformation――Edward VI――Queen Mary; Elizabeth――Mary, Queen of Scots――The Stuarts――Gunpowder Plot――Revolution――Irish Rebellion――Oliver Cromwell――Trial and Execution of Charles I――The Commonwealth――Subjugation of Ireland and Scotland――The Protectorate――The Restoration――Charles II――Dutch War――Plague and Fire in London――The Rye House Plot――Death of Charles II――James II――Expedition of Monmouth――Arbitrary Measures of the King――The Revolution――William and Mary――Establishment of the Bank of England――Queen Anne――Union of England and Scotland――Marlborough’s Campaigns――House of Hanover――George I――Rebellion of 1715-16――George II――Rebellion of 1745-46――George III――American Stamp Act――American War of Independence――French Revolution――Rebellion in Ireland――Union with Great Britain――War with U. States――George IV――William IV――Queen Victoria――War with Russia――Alliance with France――Attack on Odessa――Operations in the Baltic――The Crimea――Battle of the Alma――Sebastopol described――Allies opening Trenches――Bombardment――Explosion of French Batteries and Russian Powder Magazine――The Allied Fleet――Cannonade――Battle of Balaklava――The Turks――The Highlanders――The Russian Cavalry――Capt. Nolan――Battle of Inkermann――Morning of the Battle――The Attack――The Zouaves――Chasseurs――Night after the Battle――Council of War――Determination to Winter――Reinforcements demanded 145-256

HISTORY OF FRANCE.――Clovis, A. D. 486; division of his Empire――The Merovingian Kings――The Carlovingians――Pepin―― Charles Martel――Charlemagne; his Empire――Louis――Division of the Empire――Charles――Arnulf――Charles the Simple――Invasion of the Normans――Hugh Capet and his Successors――Philip VI of Valois――Wars with England, 1328-1415――Charles VI――Maid of Orleans――Louis XI――Francis II――France during the War of Religion――Persecution of the Huguenots――Coligni――The Massacre of St. Bartholomew, 1572――Henry III――Henry IV――Edict of Nantes――The Age of Louis XIV――Richelieu and Mazarin―― Persecution of the Calvinists――Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, 1685――The Last Days of Absolute Monarchy――Louis XV――Louis XVI――The French Revolution――National Assembly―― Mirabeau, Dante, Marat, Robespierre――The 10th of August―― Dethronement of the King――National Convention――Trial and Execution of the King――Jacobins and Girondists――Exclusion of the Girondists from the Convention――Execution of the Queen, Madame Elizabeth, and the Duke of Orleans――La Vendee――Fall of Danton and Camille Desmoulins――Overthrow of Robespierre and the Jacobins――Reconstruction of the Government――Napoleon Bonaparte――Italian Campaign――Expedition to Egypt and Syria―― Return to France――The First Consulate――Consul for Life――Duke d’Enghein――Napoleon Emperor――Austrian Campaign――Russians―― Battle of Austerlitz――Confederation of the Rhine――War with Prussia――Alliance of Prussia and Russia――Victory at Friedland―― Peace of Tilsit――Occupation of Portugal――Spain――Annexation of the Roman States and imprisonment of the Pope――New war with Austria――Peace of Vienna――Marriage with Maria Louisa――Russian Campaign――Conflagration of Moscow――Retreat of the French―― Alliance of Russia, Prussia, etc.――Congress of Prague――Austria―― Battle of Leipsic――Retreat of the French――Invasion of France by the Allies――Abdication of Napoleon――Louis XVIII――Escape of Napoleon from Elba――Defeat at Waterloo――Death at St. Helena―― Louis XVIII――Charles X――Abdication――Louis Philippe――Revolution―― Louis Napoleon――War with Russia and alliance with England and Turkey 256-302

HISTORY OF SPAIN.――Gothic Monarchy――The Moors――Castile――Henry IV―― Ferdinand and Isabella――Conquest of Grenada――Christopher Columbus――Discovery of America――Charles V――Hernando Cortez―― Conquest of Mexico――Francis Pizarro――Conquest of Peru――Ignatius Loyola――Philip II――War with England――Defeat of the Invincible Armada――Philip III――Banishment of the descendants of the Moors―― Philip IV――Accession of the House of Bourbon――Charles III――The Seven Years’ War――Charles IV――Ferdinand――Joseph Bonaparte―― Alliance of the Spaniards and English――Return of Ferdinand―― Isabella II 302-312

GERMANY AND AUSTRIA.――Division of the Empire of Charlemagne, and formation of the German Empire――Succession of Henry the Fowler to the throne of Conrad of Franconia――The Germans build cities――Accession of Hildebrand――Pope Gregory III――His Excommunication of Henry IV――Strife of Guelphs and Ghibelines―― Pope Adrian IV――Tancred――Richard III of England――The House of Hapsburg succeeds that of Swabia――Death of Albert――Charles IV issues the Golden Bull――Council of Constance――Martyrdom of John Huss and Jerome of Prague――Invention of Printing――Luther; the Reformation――Thirty Years’ War――Peace of Westphalia―― Insurrection of Hungarians aided by Turks――The War of Succession―― Prince Eugene――Maria Theresa――Pragmatic Sanction――Revolt of the Netherlands――Confederation of the Rhine――Congress of Vienna―― Hungarian Revolution of 1848 312-326

HISTORY OF RUSSIA.――Russia rescued from the Tartars by John Basilowitz――Michael Theodorowitz, First of the House of Romanoff, Czar of Muscovy――Reorganization of Russia by Alexis――Reign of Peter the Great――Foundation and embellishment of St. Petersburg――Succession of the Czarina Catherine――Catherine II―― Annexation of the Crimea――Dismemberment of Poland――Kosciusko―― Suwarrow――Resignation of Stanislaus――Paul――War against the French Republic――Assassination of Paul――Alexander――Coalition against Napoleon, by Austria and England――Peace of Tilsit――Napoleon declares war against Russia――Smolensko――Burning of Moscow―― Constantine――Nicholas――Extirpation of Poland――Siege of Sevastopol by France, England, and Turkey――Death of Nicholas――Succession of Alexander II 326-334

History Of The United States.

I. COLONIAL HISTORY.――Discoveries of Cabot――The Huguenots――Sir Walter Raleigh――Champlain――Henry Hudson――Virginia――Jamestown―― John Smith――Pocahontas――Indian War――Gov. Berkeley――Nathaniel Bacon――New England Colonies――Puritans――Principles of their early Government――Quaker Persecution――Pequod Indian War――King Philip――Royal Governors――Salem Witchcraft――Connecticut――Rhode Island――Dutch Settlement of New Amsterdam――Indian War―― Annexation of New Amsterdam to the English Colonies, and change of name to N. York――Lord Baltimore――Civil War――Carolina――Wm. Penn――Indian Treaty――Frame of Government――Oglethorpe――Wesley―― Whitfield――Principles and characteristics of the Colonists 334-363

II. CONTEST OF FRANCE AND ENGLAND FOR AMERICA.――King William’s War――The French War――The Ohio Company――George Washington―― Braddock――Gen. Wolfe――Rising Colonial prosperity 363-368

III. THE REVOLUTION.――Stamp Act――N. Y. Congress――War of publications against Britain――Boston Massacre――Tea Party―― Lexington――Declaration of Independence――Franklin, Lafayette, Kosciusko――Trenton――Brandywine――Burgoyne’s Defeat――Alliance of France and America――Baron Steuben――D’Estaing――Stony Point―― Arnold――Col. Hayne――Capitulation of Cornwallis――Treaty at Paris――Washington――Paralyzed condition of the Government―― Massachusetts Rebellion 1786――Formation of Government by the Constitutional Convention 368-394

IV. CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.――Federalists and anti-Federalists―― Defeat of Harmar and St. Clair――Prohibition of the Slave Trade――Death of Washington――Purchase of Louisiana――War with Tripoli――Embargo Acts――War with England――Campaign of 1812―― American Naval Victories――Perry’s victory on Lake Erie――Gen. Harrison――Treaty at Ghent――Battle of New Orleans――Seminole War――Lafayette――Tariff――U. S. Bank――Nullification――Compromise of 1820――Commercial Bankruptcy――Annexation of Texas――Mexican War――Discovery of Gold in California――Gadsden Treaty 394-413

Biographical Department.

HERNANDO CORTEZ 415 WILLIAM PENN 441 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 467 PETER THE GREAT 475 COUNT RUMFORD 498 NICHOLAS COPERNICUS 523 TYCHO BRAHE 526 GALILEO 528 KEPLER 531 SIR ISAAC NEWTON 533 HUYGENS 536 HALLEY 537 FERGUSON 539 SIR WILLIAM HERSCHEL 544 SIMON BOLIVAR 547 FRANCIA, THE DICTATOR 554 ALEXANDER WILSON 562 JAMES WATT 569 JOHN HOWARD 572 LORD BYRON 598 PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY 612 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 615 EDWARD GIBBON 619 DAVID HUME 623 ALEXANDER POPE 627 JOHN ADAMS 634 THOMAS JEFFERSON 644 SAMUEL ADAMS 649 JAMES OTIS 651 FISHER AMES 653 AARON BURR 655 ALEXANDER HAMILTON 657 PATRICK HENRY 660 JOHN HANCOCK 664 ETHAN ALLEN 665 BENEDICT ARNOLD 667 HORATIO GATES 680 THADDEUS KOSCIUSKO 681 NATHANIEL GREEN 685 FREDERICK WILLIAM AUGUSTUS STEUBEN 688 BARON DE KALB 689 RICHARD MONTGOMERY 690 GILBERT MOTIER LAFAYETTE 691 ISRAEL PUTNAM 696 STEPHEN DECATUR 698 ISAAC HULL 700 OLIVER HAZARD PERRY 702 JOHN MARSHALL 704 JOHN PAUL JONES 706 ANDREW JACKSON 710 WINFIELD SCOTT 713 ZACHARY TAYLOR 714 JOHN E. WOOL 724 DANIEL WEBSTER 726 HENRY CLAY 732 LEVI WOODBURY 735 ROBERT RANTOUL 737 FRANKLIN PIERCE 740 SAMUEL FINLEY BREESE MORSE 741 M. DAGUERRE 747 VICTOR HUGO 749 OMAR PASHA 751 EDWARD EVERETT 753 WASHINGTON IRVING 754 WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT 756 GEORGE BANCROFT 756 WILLIAM HICKLING PRESCOTT 758 HIRAM POWERS 759

Department Of Travel.

HISTORICAL SKETCH OF NAVAL ARCHITECTURE 761 EARLY MARITIME DISCOVERIES 774 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS 775 FERDINAND MAGELLAN 800 SIR FRANCIS DRAKE 802 HENRY HUDSON 804 LE MAIRE AND SCHOUTEN 805 CAPTAIN JAMES 806 WILLIAM DAMPIER 811 CAPTAIN WOODES ROGERS 814 JOHN CLIPPERTON 815 COMMODORE ANSON 817 CAPTAIN BYRON 823 CAPTAIN WALLIS 829 DE BOUGAINVILLE 832 CAPTAIN JAMES COOK 837 CAPTAINS PORTLOCK AND DIXON 864 MONSIEUR DE LA PEROUSE 870 GEORGE VANCOUVER 891 PERRY’S VOYAGES 896 SIR JOHN FRANKLIN 920 TRAVELS IN AFRICA――Parke, Denham, Clapperton, Lander and others 927 SAMUEL HEARNE 953 JOHN LEWIS BURKHARDT 955 JAMES BRUCE 958 JOHN LEDYARD 966 JOHN BAPTIST BELZONI 967 GEORGE FORSTER 974 EDWARD DANIEL CLARKE 976 RICHARD POCOCKE 979 OVERLAND JOURNEY TO INDIA 981

List Of Illustrations.

PAGE. Opium Smuggling 22 Japanese Funeral Procession 23 Aga 30 Japanese Agriculture 31 Terrace of St. Peter’s 126 Gibraltar 127 Marine Arsenal, Constantinople 232 Place of Kossuth’s Imprisonment 233 Castle of Eisenstadt 322 King of Denmark 323 Captain Smith and Pocahontas 336 Providence, R. I. 338 Newport, R. I. 339 New Haven, Conn. 342 Philadelphia, Pa. 343 Halifax, N. S. 348 Lake George 349 Castle William 354 Castle Garden 355 Wilmington, N. C. 358 Prison, Phila. 359 Fort Putnam 364 Pillar Rock 365 Place des Armes, New Orleans 370 Blackwell Penitentiary 371 Columbus, O. 402 Depot, Cleveland, O. 403 Cincinnati, O. 406 Sandusky City, O. 407 Battle Monument, Baltimore 410 Bombardment of Vera Cruz 411 State House, Wisconsin 414 View on Grand River, Ohio 570 Bridge, Conneaut River, O. 571 Kosciusko’s Monument 683 Paul Jonas 707 Gen. Scott 712 Fort Ancient 716 Milford, near Cincinnati, O. 717 Gen. Wool 725 Daniel Webster 728 Residence of Daniel Webster 729 Henry Clay 733 Hon. Levi Woodbury 734 Birth Place of John Q. Adams 736 Franklin Pierce 738 William R. King 739 Euclid Creek, O. 742 Red Bank 743 Prof. Morse 744 Daguerre 746 Victor Hugo 748 Omar Pasha 752 Disappointed Gold Seekers 760 Gold Seeker’s Grave 760 Naval Architecture, from the tenth to the seventeenth century (17 Engravings) 762-770 City of Panama 812 Panama Gate 813 City of Havana 818 Scene in Havana 819 Adelaide 824 Bathurst, N. S. W. 825 Valparaiso 834 Iron Bridge, Jamaica 835 Sidney, N. S. W. 856 Humboldt 857 California 874 Ranche 875 Post Office 876 River-bed Claim on the Turon 877 Removing Goods 878 Dry Diggings 879 Portraits of Sir John Franklin’s Expedition, (9 Engravings) 22-926 Calcutta 973 Rail Road Bridge 964 Elk Creek 965 East Branch Rocky River 982 West Branch Rocky River 983

American Encyclopedia.

[Illustration: VIEW OF Sᵀ. LOUIS (MISSOURI.)]

The

American Encyclopedia

Of

History, Biography And Travel.

Department Of History.

Ancient History.

The general consent of mankind points to the region of Central Asia as having been the original seat from which the human race dispersed itself over the globe; and accordingly, it is this region, and especially the western portion of it, which we find to have been the theatre of the earliest recorded transactions. In short, it was in Central Asia that the first large mass of ripened humanity was accumulated――a great central nucleus of human life, so to speak, constantly enlarging, and from which emissaries incessantly streamed out over the globe in all directions. In process of time this great central mass having swollen out till it filled Asia and Africa, broke up into three fragments――thus giving parentage to the three leading varieties into which ethnographers divide the human species――the Caucasian, the Mongolian, and the Ethiopian or Negro――the Caucasians overspreading southern and western Asia; the Mongolians overspreading northern and eastern Asia; and the Ethiopians overspreading Africa. From these three sources streamed forth branches which, intermingling in various proportions, have constituted the various nations of the earth.

Differing from each other in physiological characteristics, the three great varieties of the human species have also differed widely in their historical career. The germs of a grand progressive development seem to have been implanted specially in the Caucasian variety, the parent stock of all the great civilized nations of ancient and modern times. History, therefore, concerns itself chiefly with this variety: in the evolution of whose destinies the true thread of human progress is to be found. Ere proceeding, however, to sketch the early development of this highly-endowed variety of our species in the nations of antiquity, a few observations may be offered regarding the other two the Ethiopian and Mongolian――which began the race of life along with the Caucasian, and whose destinies, doubtless, whatever may have been their historical functions hitherto, are involved in some profound and beautiful manner with the bearing of the race as a whole.

Ethiopian History.

A German Historian thus sums up all that is known of Ethiopian history――that is, of the part which the great Negro race, inhabiting all Africa with the exception of the north-eastern coasts, performed in the general affairs of mankind in the early ages of the world:――‘On the history of this division of the species two remarks may be made: the one, that a now entirely extinct knowledge of the extension and power of this branch of the human family must have been forced upon even the Greeks by their early poets and historians; the other, that the Ethiopian history is interwoven throughout with that of Egypt. As regards the first remark, it is clear that in the earliest ages this branch of the race must have played an important part, since Meroe (in the present Nubia) is mentioned both by Herodotus (B. C. 408) and Strabo (A. D. 20); by the one as a still-existing, by the other as a formerly-existing seat of royalty, and centre of the Ethiopian religion and civilization.[1] To this Strabo adds, that the race spread from the boundaries of Egypt over the mountains of Atlas, as far as the Gaditanian Straits. Ephorus, too (B. C. 405), seems to have had a very great impression of the Ethiopians, since he names in the east the Indians, in the south the Ethiopians, in the west the Celts, in the north the Scythians, as the most mighty and numerous peoples of the known earth. Already in Strabo’s time, however, their ancient power had been gone for an indefinite period, and the Negro states found themselves, after Meroe had ceased to be a religious capital, almost in the same situation as that in which they still continue. The second remark on the Negro branch of the human race and its history, can only be fully elucidated when the interpretation of the inscriptions on Egyptian monuments shall have been farther advanced. The latest travels into Abyssinia show this much――that at one time the Egyptian religion and civilization extended over the principal seat of the northern Negroes. Single mummies and monumental figures corroborate what Herodotus expressly says, that a great portion of the Egyptians of his time had black skins and woolly hair; hence we infer that the Negro race had combined itself intimately with the Caucasian part of the population. Not these notices only, but the express testimonies also of the Hebrew annals, show Egypt to have contained an abundance of Negroes, and mention a conquering king invading it at the head of a Negro host, and governing it for a considerable time. The nature of the accounts on which we must found does not permit us to give an accurate statement; we remark, however, that the Indians, the Egyptians, and the Babylonians, are not the only peoples which aimed at becoming world-conquerors before the historic age, but that also to the Ethiopian stock warlike kings were not wanting in the early times. The Mongols alone seem to have enjoyed a happy repose within their own seats in the primitive historic times, and those antecedent to them; they appear first very late as conquerors and destroyers in the history of the west. If, indeed, the hero-king of the Ethiopians, Tearcho, were one and the same with the Tirhakah of the book of Kings (2 Kings, xix. 9), then the wonder of those stories would disappear which were handed down by tradition to the Greeks; but even Bochart has combatted this belief, and we cannot reconcile it with the circumstances which are related of both. It remains for us only to observe, by way of summary, that in an age antecedent to the historic, the Ethiopian peoples may have been associated together in a more regular manner than in our own or Grecian and Roman times; and that their distant expeditions may have been so formidable, both to the Europeans as far as the Ægean Sea in the east, and to the dwellers on the Gaditanian Straits (Gibraltar) on the west, that the dim knowledge of the fact was not lost even in late times. In more recent ages we observe here and there an Ethiopian influence, and especially in the Egyptian history; but as concerns the general progress of the human species, the Negro race never acquired any vital importance.

The foregoing observations may be summed up in this proposition:――That in the most remote antiquity, Africa was overspread by the Negro variety of the human species; that in those parts of the continent to which the knowledge of the ancient geographers did not extend――namely, all south of Egypt and the Great Desert――the Negro race degenerated, or at least dispersed into tribes, kingdoms, etc., constituting a great savage system within its own torrid abode, similar to that which even now, in the adult age of the world, we are vainly attempting to penetrate; but that on the coasts of the Mediterranean and the Red Sea, the race either preserved its original faculty and intelligence longer, or was so improved by contact and intermixture with its Caucasian neighbors, as to constitute, under the name of the Ethiopians, one of the great ante-historic dynasties of the world; and that this dynasty ebbed and flowed against the Caucasian populations of western Asia and eastern Europe, thus giving rise to mixture of races along the African coasts of the north and east, until at length, leaving these mixed races to act their part awhile, the pure Ethiopian himself retired from historic view into Central Africa, where he lay concealed, till again in modern times he was dragged forth to become the slave of the Caucasian. Thus Negro history hitherto has exhibited a retrogression from a point once occupied, rather than a progress in civilization. Even this fact, however, must somehow be subordinate to a great law of general progress; and it is gratifying to know that, on the coast of Africa, a settlement has recently been formed called Liberia, peopled by liberated negro slaves from North America; and who, bringing with them the Anglo-American civilization, give promise of founding a cultured and prosperous community.

Mongolian History――The Chinese.

As from the great central mass of mankind, the first accumulation of life on our planet, there was parted off into Africa a fragment called the Negro variety, so into eastern Asia there was detached, by those causes which we seek in vain to discover, a second huge fragment, to which has been given the name of the Mongolian variety. Overspreading the great plains of Asia, from the Himalehs to the Sea of Okhotsk, this detachment of the human species may be supposed to have crossed into Japan; to have reached the other islands of the Pacific, and either through these, or by the access at Behring’s Straits, to have poured themselves through the great American continent; their peculiarities shading off in their long journey, till the Mongolian was converted into the American Indian. Blumenbach, however, erects the American Indian into a type by himself.

Had historians been able to pursue the Negro race into their central African jungles and deserts, they would no doubt have found the general Ethiopic mass breaking up there under the operation of causes connected with climate, soil, food, etc., into vast sections or subdivisions, presenting marked differences from each other; and precisely so was it with the Mongolians. In Central Asia, we find them as Thibetians, Tungusians, Mongols proper; on the eastern coasts, as Mantchous and Chinese; in the adjacent islands, as Japanese, etc.; and nearer the North Pole, as Laplanders, Esquimaux, etc.; all presenting peculiarities of their own. Of these great Mongolian branches circumstances have given a higher degree of development to the Chinese and the Japanese than to the others, which are chiefly nomadic hordes, some under Chinese rule, others independent, roaming over the great pasture lands of Asia, and employed in rearing cattle.

There is every reason to believe that the vast population inhabiting that portion of eastern Asia called China, can boast of a longer antiquity of civilization than almost any other nation of the world, a civilization, however, differing essentially in its character from those which have appeared and disappeared among the Caucasians. This, in fact, is to be observed as the grand difference between the history of the Mongolian and that of the Caucasian variety of the human species, that whereas the former presents us with the best product of Mongolian humanity, in the form of one great permanent civilization――the Chinese――extending from century to century, one, the same, and solitary, through a period of 3000 or 4000 years; the latter exhibits a succession of civilization――the Chaldean, the Persian, the Grecian, the Roman, the modern European (subdivided into French, English, German, Italian, etc.,) and the Anglo-American; these civilizations, from the remotest Oriental――that is, Chaldean――to the most recent Occidental――that is, the Anglo-American――being a series of waves falling into each other, and driven onward by the same general force. A brief sketch of Chinese history, with a glance at Japan, will therefore discharge all that we owe to the Mongolian race.

Authentic Chinese history does not extend father back than about 800 or 1000 years B. C.; but, as has been the case more or less with all nations, the Chinese imagination has provided itself with a mythological history extending many ages back into the unknown past. Unlike the mythology of the Greeks, but like that of the Indians, the Chinese legends deal in large chronological intervals. First of all, in the beginning of time, was the great Puan-Koo, founder of the Chinese nation, and whose dress was green leaves. After him came Ty-en-Hoang, Ti-Hoang, Gin-Hoang and several other euphonious potentates, each of whom did something towards the building up of the Chinese nation, and each of whom reigned, as was the custom in those grand old times, thousands of years. At length, at a time corresponding to that assigned in Scripture to the life of Noah, came the divine-born Fohi, a man of transcendent faculties, who reigned 115 years, teaching music and the system of symbols, instituting marriage, building walls round cities, creating mandarins, and, in short, establishing the Chinese nation on a basis that could never be shaken. After him came Shin-ning, Whang-ti, etc., until in due time came the good emperors Yao and Shun, in the reign of the latter of whom happened a great flood. By means of canals and drains the assiduous Yu saved the country, and became the successor of Shun. Yu was the first emperor of the Hia dynasty, which began about 2100 B. C. After this dynasty came that of _Shang_, the last of whose emperors, a great tyrant, was deposed (B. C. 1122) by Woo-wong, the founder of the Tchow dynasty.

[Illustration: OPIUM SMUGGLING, CHINA.]

[Illustration: JAPANESE FUNERAL PROCESSION.]

In this Tchow dynasty, which lasted upwards of 800 years, authentic Chinese history commences. It was during it, and most probably about the year B. C. 484, that the great Con-fu-tse, or Confucius, the founder of the Chinese religion, philosophy, and literature, flourished. In the year B. C. 248, the Tchow dynasty was superseded by that of Tsin, the first of whose kings built the Great Wall of China, to defend the country against the Tartar Nomads. The Tsin dynasty was a short one: it was succeeded in B. C. 206 by the Han dynasty, which lasted till A. D. 238. Then followed a rapid series of dynastic revolutions, by which the nation was frequently broken into parts; and during which the population was considerably changed in character by the irruptions of the nomad hoards of Asia who intermingled with it. Early in the seventh century, a dynasty called that of Tang acceded to power, which ended in 897. After half a century of anarchy, order was restored under the Song dynasty, at the commencement of which, or about the year 950, the art of printing was discovered, five centuries before it was known in Europe. ‘The Song dynasty,’ says Schlosser, ‘maintained an intimate connection with Japan, as contrary to all Chinese maxims; the emperors of this dynasty imposed no limits to knowledge, the arts, life, luxury, and commerce with other nations. Their unhappy fate, therefore (on being extinguished with circumstances of special horror by the Mongol conqueror Kublai Khan, A. D. 1281), is held forth as a warning against departing a hairsbreadth from the old customs of the empire. From the time of the destruction of the Song dynasty by the Mongol monarchy, the intercourse between China and Japan was broken, until again the Ming, a native Chinese dynasty (A. D. 1366) restored it. The Mongol rulers made an expedition against Japan, but were unsuccessful. The unfortunate gift which the Japanese received from China was the doctrine of Foë. This doctrine, however, was not the first foreign doctrine or foreign worship that came into China. A religion, whose nature we cannot fix――probably Buddhism, ere it had assumed the form of Lamaism――was preached in it at an earlier date. About the time of the Tsin dynasty (B. C. 248-206), a warlike king had incorporated all China into one and subdued the princes of the various provinces. While he was at war with his subjects, many of the roving hordes to the north of China pressed into the land, and with them appeared missionaries of the religion above mentioned. When peace was restored, the kings of the fore-named dynasty, as also later those of Han and the two following dynasties, extended the kingdom prodigiously, and the western provinces became known to the Greeks and Romans as the land of the _Seres_. As on the one side Tartary was at that time Chinese, so on the other side the Chinese were connected with India; whence came the Indian religion. It procured many adherents, but yielded at length to the primitive habits of the nations. In consequence of the introduction of the religion of Foë, the immense country fell asunder into two kingdoms. The south and the north had each its sovereign; and the wars of the northern kingdom occasioned the wanderings of the Huns, by whose agency the Roman Empire was destroyed. These kingdoms of the north and south were often afterwards united and again dissevered; great savage hordes roamed around them as at present; but all that had settled, and that dwelt within the Great Wall, submitted to the ancient Chinese civilization. Ghenghis Khan, indeed, whose power was founded on the Turkish and Mongol races, annihilated both kingdoms, and the barbaric element seemed to triumph; but this was changed as soon as his kingdom was divided. Even Kublai, and yet more his immediate followers, much as the Chinese calumniate the Mongol dynasty of Yeven, maintained everything in its ancient condition, with the single exception that they did homage to Lamaism, the altered form of Buddhism. This religion yet prevails, accommodated skillfully, however, to the Chinese mode of existence――a mode which all subsequent conquerors have respected, as the example of the present dynasty proves.’ The dynasty alluded to is that of _Tatsin_ Mantchou, a mixed Mongol and Tartar stock, which superseded the native Chinese dynasty of Ming in the year 1644. The present emperor of China is the sixth of the Tatsin dynasty.

From the series of dry facts just given, we arrive at the following definition of China and its civilization: As the Roman Empire was a great temporary aggregation of matured Caucasian humanity, surrounded by and shading off into Caucasian barbarism, so China, a country more extensive than all Europe, and inhabited by a population of more than 300,000,000, is an aggregation of matured Mongolian humanity surrounded by Mongolian barbarism. The difference is this, that while the Roman Empire was only one of several successive aggregations of the Caucasian race, each on an entirely different basis, the Chinese empire has been one permanent exhibition of the only form of civilization possible among the Mongolians. The Jew, the Greek, the Roman, the Frenchman, the German, the Englishman――these are all types of the matured Caucasian character; but a fully-developed Mongolian has but one type――the Chinese. Chinese history does not exhibit a progress of the Mongolian man through a series of stages; it exhibits only a uniform duration of one great civilized Mongolian empire, sometimes expanding so as to extend itself into the surrounding Mongolian barbarism, sometimes contracted by the pressure of that barbarism, sometimes disturbed by infusions of the barbaric element, sometimes shattered within itself by the operation of individual Chinese ambition, but always retaining its essential character. True, in such a vast empire, difference of climate, etc., must give rise to specific differences, so that a Chinese of the north-east is not the same as a Chinese of the south-west; true, also, the Japanese civilization seems to exist as an alternative between which and the Chinese, Providence might share the Mongolian part of our species, were it to remain unmixed; still the general remark remains undeniable, that from the extremest antiquity to the present day, Mongolian humanity has been able to cast itself but into one essential civilized type. It is an object of peculiar interest, therefore, to us who belong to the multiform and progressive Caucasian race, to obtain a distinct idea of the nature of that permanent form of civilization out of which our Mongolian brothers have never issued, and apparently never wish to issue. Each of our readers being a civilized Caucasian, may be supposed to ask, ‘What sort of a human being is a civilized Mongolian?’ A study of the Chinese civilization would answer this question. Not so easy would it be for a Chinese to return the compliment, confused as he would be by the multiplicity of the types which the Caucasian man has assumed――from the ancient Arab to the modern Anglo-American.

Hitherto little progress has been made in the investigation of the Chinese civilization. Several conclusions of a general character have, however, been established. ‘We recognise,’ says Schlosser, ‘in the institutions of the Chinese, so much praised by the Jesuits, the character of the institutions of all early states; with this difference, that the Chinese mode of life is not a product of hierarchical or theocratic maxims, but a work of the cold understanding. In China, all that subserves the wants of the senses was arranged and developed in the earliest ages; all that concerns the soul or the imagination is yet raw and ill-adjusted; and we behold in the high opinion which the Chinese entertain of themselves and their affairs, a terrible example of what must be the consequence when all behavior proceeds according to prescribed etiquette, when all knowledge and learning is a matter of rote directed to external applications, and the men of learning are so intimately connected with the government, and have their interest so much _one_ with it, that a number of privileged doctors can regulate literature as a state magistrate does weights and measures.’ Of the Chinese government the same authority remarks――‘the patriarchal system still lies at the foundation of it. Round the “Son of Heaven,” as they name the highest ruler, the wise of the land assemble as round their counselor and organ. So in the provinces (of which there are eighteen or nineteen, each as large as a considerable kingdom), the men of greatest sagacity gather round the presidents; each takes the fashion from his superior, and the lowest give it to the people. Thus one man exercises the sovereignty; a number of learned men gave the law, and invented in very early times a symbolical system of syllabic writing, suitable for their mono syllabic speech, in lieu of their primitive system of hieroglyphics. All business is transacted in writing, with minuteness and pedantry. Their written language is very difficult; and as it is possible in Chinese writing for one to know all the characters of a certain period of time, or of a certain department, and yet be totally unacquainted with those of another department, there is no end to their mechanical acquisition.’ It has already been mentioned that Chinese thought has at various times received certain foreign tinctures, chiefly from India; essentially, however, the Chinese mind has remained as it was fixed by Confucius. ‘In China,’ says Schlosser, ‘a so-named philosophy has accomplished that which in other countries has been accomplished by priests and religions. In the genuine Chinese books of religion, in all their learning and wisdom, God is not thought of; religion, according to the Chinese and their oracle and lawgiver Con-fu-tse has nothing to do with the imagination, but consists alone in the performance of outward moral duties, and in zeal to further the ends of state. Whatever lies beyond the plain rule of life is either a sort of obscure natural philosophy, or a mere culture for the people, and for any who may feel the want of such a culture. The various forms of worship which have made their way into China are obliged to restrict themselves, to bow to the law, and to make their practices conform; they can arrogate no literature of their own; and, good or bad, must learn to agree with the prevailing atheistic Chinese manner of thought.’

Such are the Chinese, and such have they been for 2000 or 3000 years――a vast people undoubtedly civilized to the highest pitch of which Mongolian humanity is susceptible; of mild disposition; industrious to an extraordinary degree; well-skilled in all the mechanical arts, and possessing a mechanical ingenuity peculiar to themselves; boasting of a language quite singular in its character, and of a vast literature; respectful of usage to such a degree as to do everything by pattern; attentive to the duties and civilities of life, but totally devoid of fervor, originality, or spirituality; and living under a form of government which has been very happily designated a pedantocracy――that is, a hierarchy of erudite persons selected from the population, and appointed by the emperor, according to the proof they give of their capacity, to the various places of public trust. How far these characteristics, or any of them, are _inseparable_ from a Mongolian civilization, would appear more clearly if we knew more of the Japanese. At present, however, there seems little prospect of any reörganization of the Chinese mind, except by means of a Caucasian stimulus applied to it. And what Caucasian stimulus will be sufficient to break up that vast Mongolian mass, and lay it open to the general world-influences? Will the stimulus come from Europe; or from America after its western shores are peopled, and the Anglo-Americans begin to think of crossing the Pacific?

Caucasian History.

While the Negro race seems to have retrograded from its original position on the earth, while the Mongolian has afforded the spectacle of a single permanent and pedantic civilization retaining millions within its grasp for ages in the extreme east of Asia, the Caucasian, as if the seeds of the world’s progress had been implanted in it, has worked out for itself a splendid career on an ever-shifting theatre. First attaining its maturity in Asia, the Caucasian civilization has shot itself westward, if we may so speak, in several successive throes; long confined to Asia; then entering northern Africa, where, commingling with the Ethiopian, it originated a new culture; again, about the year B. C. 1000, adding Europe to the stage of history; and lastly, 2500 years later, crossing the Atlantic, and meeting in America with a diffused and degenerate Mongolism. To understand this beautiful career thoroughly, it is necessary to observe the manner in which the Caucasians disseminated themselves from their central home――to count, as it were, and note separately, the various flights by which they emigrated from the central hive. So far as appears, then, from investigations into language, etc., the Caucasian stock sent forth at different times in the remote past five great branches from its original seat, somewhere to the south of that long chain of mountains which commences at the Black Sea, and, bordering the southern coast of the Caspian, terminates in the Himalehs. In what precise way, or at what precise time, these branches separated themselves from the parent stock and from each other, must remain a mystery; a sufficiently clear general notion of the fact is all that we can pretend to. 1_st._ The Armenian branch, remaining apparently nearest the original seat, filled the countries between the Caspian and Black Seas, extending also round the Caspian into the territories afterwards known as those of the Parthians. 2_d_, The Indo-Persian branch, which extended itself in a southern and eastern direction from the Caspian Sea, through Persia and Cabool, into Hindoostan, also penetrating Bokhara. From this great branch philologists and ethnographers derive those two races, the distinction between which, although subordinate to the grand fivefold division of the Caucasian stock, is of immense consequence in modern history――the Celtic and the Germanic. Pouring through Asia Minor, it is supposed that the Indo-Persian family entered Europe through Thrace, and ultimately, through the operation of those innumerable causes which reäct upon the human constitution from the circumstances in which it is placed, assumed the character of Celts and Germans――the Celts being the earlier product, and eventually occupying the western portion of Europe――namely, northern Italy, France, Spain and Great Britain――still undergoing subdivision, however, during their dispersion, into Iberians, Gaels, Cymri, &c.; the Germans being a later off-shoot, and settling rather in the centre and north of Europe in two great moieties――the Scandinavians and the Germans Proper. This seems the most plausible pedigree of the Celtic and Germanic races, although some object to it. 3_d_, The Semitic or Aramaic branch, which, diffusing itself southward and westward from the original Caucasian seat, filled Syria, Mesopotamia, Arabia, etc., and founded the early kingdoms of Assyria, Babylonia, Phœnicia, Palestine, etc. It was this branch of the Caucasian variety which, entering Africa by the Isthmus of Suez and the Straits of Babelmandel, constituted itself an element at least in the ancient population of Egypt, Nubia, and Abyssinia; and there are ethnographers who believe that the early civilization which lined the northern coasts of Africa arose from some extremely early blending of the Ethiopic with the Semitic, the latter acting as a dominant caste. Diffusing itself westward along the African coast as far as Mauritania, the Semitic race seems eventually, though at a comparatively late period, to have met the Celtic, which had crossed into Africa from Spain; and thus, by the infusion of Arameans and Celts, that white or tawny population which we find in northern Africa in ancient times, distinct from the Ethiopians of the interior, seems to have been formed. 4_th_, The Pelasgic branch, that noble family which, carrying the Greeks and Romans in its bosom, poured itself from western Asia into the south-east of Europe, mingling doubtless with Celts and Germans. 5_th_, The Scythian, or Slavonic branch, which diffused itself over Russia, Siberia, and the central plains of Asia, shading off in these last into the Mongolian Such is a convenient division of the Caucasian stock; a more profound investigation, however, might reduce the five races to these two――the Semitic and the Indo-Germanic; all civilized languages being capable, it is said, of being classified under these three families――the Chinese, which has monosyllabic roots; the Indo-Germanic (Sanscrit, Hindoostanee, Greek, Latin, German, and all modern European languages), which has dissyllabic roots; and the Semitic (Hebrew, Arabic, &c.), whose roots are trisyllabic. Retaining, however, the fivefold distribution which we have adopted, we shall find that the history of the world, from the earliest to the remotest times, has been nothing else than the common Caucasian vitality presenting itself in a succession of phases or civilizations, each differing from the last in the proportions in which it contains the various separate elements.

It is advisable to sketch first the most eastern Caucasian civilization――that is, that of India; and then to proceed to a consideration of the state of that medley of nations, some of them Semitic, some of them Indo-Persian, and some of them Armenian, out of which the great Persian empire arose, destined to continue the historic pedigree of the world into Europe, by transmitting its vitality to the Pelasgians.

ANCIENT INDIA. One of the great branches, we have said, of the Caucasian family of mankind was the Indo-Persian, which, spreading out in the primeval times from the original seat of the Caucasian part of the human species, extended itself from the Caspian to the Bay of Bengal, where, coming into contact with the southern Mongolians, it gave rise, according to the most probable accounts, to those new mixed Caucasian-Mongolian races, the Malays of the Eastern Peninsula; and, by a still farther degeneracy, to the Papuas, or natives of the South Sea Islands. While thus shading off into the Mongolism of the Pacific, the Indo-Persian mass of our species was at the same time attaining maturity within itself; and as the first ripened fragment of the Mongolians had been the Chinese nation, so one of the first ripened fragments of the Indo-Persian branch of the Caucasians seems to have been the Indians. At what time the vast peninsula of Hindoostan could first boast a civilized population, it is impossible to say; all testimony, however, agrees in assigning to Indian civilization a most remote antiquity. Another fact seems also to be tolerably well authenticated regarding ancient India; namely, that the northern portions of it, and especially the north-western portions, which would be nearest the original Caucasian seat, were the first civilized; and that the civilizing influence spread thence southwards to Cape Comorin.

Notwithstanding this general conviction, that India was one of the first portions of the earth’s surface that contained a civilized population, few facts in the ancient history of India are certainly known. We are told, indeed (to omit the myths of the Indian Bacchus and Hercules), of two great kingdom――those of Ayodha (Oude) and Prathisthana (Vitera)――as having existed in northern India upwards of a thousand years before Christ; of conquests in southern India, effected by the monarchs of these kingdoms; and of wars carried on between these monarchs and their western neighbors the Persians, after the latter had begun to be powerful. All these accounts, however, merely resolve themselves into the general information, that India, many centuries before Christ, was an important member in the family of Asiatic nations; supplying articles to their commerce, and involved in their agitations. Accordingly, if we wish to form an idea of the condition of India prior to that great epoch in its history――its invasion by Alexander the Great, B. C. 326――we can only do so by reasoning back from that we know of its present condition, allowing for the modifying effects of the two thousand years which have intervened; and especially for the effects produced by the Mohammedan invasion, A. D. 1000. This, however, is the less difficult in the case of such a country as India, where the permanence of native institutions is so remarkable, and though we cannot hope to acquire a distinct notion of the territorial divisions, etc., of India in very ancient times, yet, by a study of the Hindoos as they are at present, we may furnish ourselves with a tolerably accurate idea of the nature of that ancient civilization which overspread Hindoostan many centuries before the birth of Christ, and this all the more probably that the notices which remain of the state of India at the time of the invasion of Alexander, correspond in many points with what is to be seen in India at the present day.

The population of Hindoostan, the area of which is estimated at about a million square miles, amounts to about 120,000,000; of whom about 100,000,000 are Hindoos or aborigines, the remainder being foreigners, either Asiatic or European. The most remarkable feature in Hindoo society is its division into castes. The Hindoos are divided into four great castes――the _Brahmins_, whose proper business is religion and philosophy; the _Kshatriyas_, who attend to war and government; the _Vaisyas_, whose duties are connected with commerce and agriculture; and the _Sudras_, or artisans and laborers. Of these four castes the Brahmins are the highest; but a broad line of distinction is drawn between the Sudras and the other three castes. The Brahmins may intermarry with the three inferior castes――the kshatriyas with the vaisyas and the Sudras; and the vaisyas with the Sudras; but no Sudra can choose a wife from either of the three superior castes. As a general rule, every person is required to follow the profession of the caste to which he belongs: thus the Brahmin is to lead a life of contemplation and study, subsisting on the contributions of the rich; the Kshatriya is to occupy himself in civil matters, or to pursue the profession of a soldier; and the Vaisya is to be a merchant or a farmer. In fact, however, the barriers of caste have in innumerable instances been broken down. The ramifications, too, of the caste system are infinite. Besides the four pure, there are numerous mixed castes, all with their prescribed ranks and occupations.

A class far below even the pure Sudras is the _Pariahs_ or outcasts; consisting of the refuse of all the other castes, and which, in process of time, has grown so large as to include, it is said, one-fifth of the population of Hindoostan. The Pariahs perform the meanest kinds of manual labor. This system of castes――of which the Brahmins themselves, whom some suppose to have been originally a conquering race, are the architects, if not the founders――is bound up with the religion of the Hindoos. Indeed of the Hindoos, more truly than of any other people, it may be said that a knowledge of their religious system is a knowledge of the people themselves.

[Illustration: AGA.]

[Illustration: JAPANESE AGRICULTURE]

The Vedas, or ancient sacred books of the Hindoos, distinctly set forth the doctrine of the infinite and Eternal Supreme Being. According to the Vedas, there is ‘one unknown, true Being, all present, all powerful, the creator, preserver, and destroyer of the universe.’ This Supreme Being ‘is not comprehensible by vision, or by any other of the organs of sense, nor can he be conceived by means of devotion or virtuous practices.’ He is not space, nor air, nor light, nor atoms, nor soul, nor nature: he is above all these and the cause of them all. He ‘has no feet, but extends everywhere; has no hands, but holds everything; has no eyes, yet sees all that is; has no ears, yet hears all that passes. His existence had no cause. He is the smallest of the small and the greatest of the great; and yet is, in fact neither small nor great.’ Such is the doctrine of the Vedas in its purest and most abstract form; but the prevailing theology which runs through them is what is called _Pantheism_, or that system which speaks of God as the soul of the universe, or as the universe itself. Accordingly, the whole tone and language of the highest Hindoo philosophy is Pantheistic. As a rope, lying on the ground, and mistaken at first view for a snake, is the cause of the idea or conception of the snake which exists in the mind of the person looking at it, so, say the Vedas, is the Deity the cause of what we call the universe. ‘In him the whole world is absorbed; from him it issues; he is entwined and interwoven with all creation.’ ‘All that exists is God: whatever we smell, or taste, or see, or hear, or feel, is the Supreme Being.’

This one incomprehensible Being, whom the Hindoos designate by the mystical names _Om_, _Tut_, and _Jut_, and sometimes also by the word _Brahm_, is declared by the Vedas to be the only proper object of worship. Only a very few persons of extraordinary gifts and virtues, however, are able, it is said, to adore the Supreme Being――the great OM――directly. The great majority of mankind are neither so wise nor so holy as to be able to approach the Divine Being himself, and worship him. It being alleged that persons thus unfortunately disqualified for adoring the invisible Deity should employ their minds upon some visible thing, rather than to suffer them to remain idle, the Vedas direct them to worship a number of inferior deities, representing particular acts or qualities of the Supreme Being; as, for instances, Crishnu or Vishnu, the god of preservation; Muhadev, the god of destruction; or the sun, or the air, or the sea, or the human understanding; or, in fact any object or thing which they may choose to represent as God. Seeing, say the Hindoos, that God pervades and animates the whole universe, everything, living or dead, may be considered a portion of God, and as such, it may be selected as an object of worship, provided always it be worshiped only as constituting a portion of the Divine Substance. In this way, whatever the eye looks on, or the mind can conceive, whether it be the sun in the heavens or the great river Ganges, or the crocodile on its banks, or the cow, or the fire kindled to cook food, or the Vedas, or a Brahmin, or a tree, or a serpent――all may be legitimately worshiped as a fragment, so to speak, of the Divine Spirit. Thus there may be many millions of gods to which Hindoos think themselves entitled to pay divine honours. The number of Hindoo gods is calculated at 330,000,000, or about three times the number of their worshipers.

Of these, the three principal deities of the Hindoos are Brahma the creator, Vishnu the preserver, and Seeb or Siva the destroyer. These three of course, were originally intended to represent the three great attributes of the Om or Invisible Supreme Being――namely, his creating, his preserving, and his destroying attributes. Indeed the name OM itself is a compound word, expressing the three ideas of creation, preservation, and destruction, all combined. The three together are called _Trimurti_, and there are certain occasions when the three are worshiped conjointly. There are also sculptured representations of the Trimurti, in which the busts of Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva are cut out of the same mass of stone. One of these images of the Trimurti is found in the celebrated cavern temple of Elephanta, in the neighborhood of Bombay, perhaps the most wonderful remnant of ancient Indian architecture. Vishnu and Siva are more worshipped separately than Brahma――each having his body of devotees specially attached to him in particular.

Hindooism, like other Pantheistic systems, teaches the doctrine of the transmigration of souls: all creation, animate and inanimate, being, according to the Hindoo system, nothing else but the deity Brahm himself parceled out, as it were, into innumerable portions and forms (when these are reunited, the world will be at an end), just as a quantity of quicksilver may be broken up into innumerable little balls or globules, which all have a tendency to go together again. At long intervals of time, each extending over some thousand millions of years, Brahm does bring the world to an end, by reäbsorbing it into his spirit. When, therefore, a man dies, his soul, according to the Hindoos, must either be absorbed immediately into the soul of Brahm, or it must pass through a series of transmigrations, waiting for the final absorption, which happens at the end of every universe, or at least until such time as it shall be prepared for being reunited with the Infinite Spirit. The former of the two is, according to the Hindoos, the highest possible reward: to be absorbed into Brahm immediately upon death, and without having to undergo any farther purification, is the lot only of the greatest devotees. To attain this end, or at least to avoid degradation after death, the Hindoos, and especially the Brahmins, who are naturally the most intent upon their spiritual interests, practice a ritual of the most intricate and ascetic description, carrying religious ceremonies and antipathies with them into all the duties of life. So overburdened is the daily life of the Hindoos with superstitious observances with regard to food, sleep, etc., that, but for the speculative doctrines which the more elevated minds among the Brahmins may see recognised in their religion, the whole system of Hindooism might seem a wretched and grotesque polytheism.

A hundred millions of people professing this system, divided into castes as now, and carrying the Brahminical ritual into all the occupations of lazy life under the hot sun, and amid the exuberant vegetation of Hindoostan――such was the people into which Alexander the Great carried his conquering arms; such, doubtless, they had been for ages before that period; and such did they remain, shut out from the view of the rest of the civilized world, and only communicating with it by means of spices, ivory, etc., which found their way through Arabia or the Red Sea to the Mediterranean, till Vasco de Gama rounded the Cape of Good Hope, and brought Europe and India into closer connection. Meanwhile a Mohammedan invasion had taken place (A. D. 1000); Mohammedans from Persia had mingled themselves with the Hindoos; and it was with this mixed population that British enterprise eventually came into collision.

Ere quitting the Indians, it is well to glance back at the Chinese, so as to see wherein these two primeval and contemporaneous consolidations of our species――the Mongolian consolidation of eastern Asia, and the Caucasian consolidation of the central peninsula of southern Asia――differ. ‘Whoever would perceive the full physical and moral difference,’ says Klaproth, ‘between the Chinese and Indian nations, must contrast the peculiar culture of the Chinese with that of the Hindoo, fashioned almost like a European, even to his complexion. He will study the boundless religious system of the Brahmins, and oppose it to the bald belief of the original Chinese, which can hardly be named religion. He will remark the rigorous division of the Hindoos into castes, sects, and denominations, for which the inhabitants of the central kingdom have even no expression. He will compare the dry prosaic spirit of the Chinese with the high poetic souls of the dwellers on the Ganges and the Dsumnah. He will hear the rich and blooming Sanscrit, and contrast it with the unharmonious speech of the Chinese. He will mark, finally, the literature of the latter, full of matters of fact and things worth knowing, as contrasted with the limitless philosophic-ascetic writing of the Indians, who have made even the highest poetry wearisome by perpetual length.’

HISTORY OF THE EASTERN NATIONS TILL THEIR INCORPORATION IN THE PERSIAN EMPIRE. Leaving India――that great fragment of the original Caucasian civilization――and proceeding westward, we find two large masses of the human species filling in the earliest times the countries lying between the Indus and the Mediterranean――namely, an Indo-Persian mass filling the whole tract of country between the Indus and the Tigris; and a Semitic-Aramaic mass filling the greater part of lesser Asia and the whole peninsula of Arabia, and extending itself into the parts of Africa adjoining the Red Sea. That in the most remote ages these lands were the theatres of a civilized activity is certain, although no records have been transmitted from them to us, except a few fragments relative to the Semitic nations. The general facts, however, with regard to these ante-historic times, seem to be: 1_st_, That the former of the two masses mentioned――namely, the population between the Indus and the Caspian――was essentially a prolongation of the great Indian nucleus, possessing a culture similar to the Indian in its main aspects, although varied, as was inevitable, by the operation of those physical causes which distinguish the climate of Persia and Cabool from that of Hindoostan; 2_d_, That the Semitic or Aramaic mass divided itself at a very early period into a number of separate peoples or nations, the Assyrians, the Babylonians, the Phœnicians, the Jews, the Arabians, etc., and that each of these acquired a separate development, and worked out for itself a separate career; 3_d_, That upwards of a thousand years before Christ the spirit of conquest appeared among the Semitic nations, dashing them violently against each other; and that at length one Semitic fragment――that is, the Assyrians――attained the supremacy over the rest, and founded a great dominion, called the Assyrian empire, which stretched from Egypt to the borders of India (B. C. 800); and 4_th_, That the pressure of this Semitic power against the Indo-Persic mass was followed by a reäction――one great section of the Indo-Persians rising into strength, supplanting the Assyrian empire, and founding one of their own, called the Persian empire (B. C. 536), which was destined in its turn to be supplanted by the confederacy of Grecian states in B. C. 326.

Beginning with Egypt, let us trace separately the career of each of the Eastern nations till that point of time at which we find them all embodied in the great Persian empire:――

THE EGYPTIANS. Egypt, whose position on the map of Africa is well known, is about 500 miles long from its most northern to its most southern point. Through its whole length flows the Nile, a fine large stream rising in the inland kingdom of Abyssinia, and, from certain periodic floods to which it is subject, of great use in irrigating and fertilizing the country. A large portion of Egypt consists of an alluvial plain, similar to our meadow grounds, formed by the deposits of the river, and bounded by ranges of mountains on either side. The greatest breadth of the valley is 150 miles, but generally it is much less, the mountain ranges on either side often being not more than a few miles from the river.

A country so favorably situated, and possessing so many advantages, could not but be among the earliest peopled; and accordingly, as far back as the human memory can reach, we find a dense population of a very peculiar character inhabiting the whole valley of the Nile. These ancient Egyptians seem, as we have already said, to have been a mixture of the Semitic with the Ethiopic element, speaking a peculiar language, still surviving in a modified form in the Coptic of modern Egypt. In the ancient authors, however, the Egyptians are always distinguished from the Ethiopians, with whom they kept up so close an intercourse, that it has been made a question whether the Egyptian institutions came from the Ethiopian Meroe, or whether, as is more probable, civilization was transmitted to Ethiopia from Egypt.

The whole country is naturally divided into three parts――Upper Egypt, bordering on what was anciently Ethiopia; Middle Egypt; and Lower Egypt, including the Delta of the Nile. In each there were numerous cities in which the population was amassed: originally Thebes, a city of Upper Egypt, of the size of which surprising accounts are transmitted to us, and whose ruins still astonish the traveler, was the capital of the country; but latterly, as commerce increased, Memphis in Middle Egypt became the seat of power. After Thebes and Memphis, Ombi, Edfou, Esneh, Elephantina, and Philoe seem to have been the most important of the Egyptian cities.

Our accounts of the Egyptian civilization are derived chiefly from the Greek historian Herodotus (B. C. 408), who visited Egypt and digested the information which he received from the priests as to its ancient history; and Manetho, a native Egyptian of later times, who wrote in Greek. From their accounts it is inferred that the country was anciently divided into thirty-six sections or provinces called _nomes_――ten in Upper, sixteen in Middle, and ten in Lower Egypt. ‘Many of the separate nomes were of considerable substantive importance, and had a marked local character each to itself, religious as well as political; though the whole of Egypt, from Elephantine to Pelusium and Kanopus, is said to have always constituted one kingdom.’ Of this kingdom, the population, according to a rough estimate, may have been about seven millions. The government was a monarchy based on an all-powerful priesthood, similar to the Brahminical system of India; and, as in India, the most striking feature in the Egyptian society was the division of the people into hereditary castes. ‘The population of Egypt,’ says Mr Grote in his History of Greece, ‘was classified into certain castes or hereditary professions, of which the number is represented differently by different authors. The priests stand clearly marked out as the order richest, most powerful, and most venerated, distributed all over the country, and possessing exclusively the means of reading and writing, besides a vast amount of narrative matter treasured up in the memory, the whole stock of medical and physical knowledge then attainable, and those rudiments of geometry (or rather land-measuring) which were so often called into use in a country annually inundated. To each god and to each temple throughout Egypt, lands and other properties belonged, whereby the numerous band of priests attached to him were maintained. Their ascendancy, both direct and indirect, over the minds of the people was immense; they prescribed that minute ritual under which the life of every Egyptian, not excepting the king himself, was passed, and which was for themselves more full of harassing particularities than for any one else. Every day in the year belonged to some particular god, and the priests alone knew to which. There were different gods in every nome, though Isis and Osiris were common to all; and the priests of each god constituted a society apart, more or less important, according to the comparative celebrity of the temple. The property of each temple included troops of dependents and slaves, who were stamped with “holy marks,” and who must have been numerous, in order to suffice for the service of the large buildings and their constant visitors.

Next in importance to the sacerdotal caste were the military caste or order, whose native name indicated that they stood on the left hand of the king, while the priests occupied the right. They were classified in Kalasires and Hermotybii, who occupied lands in eighteen particular nomes or provinces, principally in Lower Egypt. The Kalasiries had once amounted to 160,000 men, the Hermotybii to 250,000, when at the maximum of their population; but that highest point had long been past in the time of Herodotus. To each man of this soldier-caste was assigned a portion of land, equal to about 6½ English acres, free from any tax. The lands of the priests and the soldiers were regarded as privileged property, and exempt from all burdens; while the remaining soil was considered as the property of the king, who however, received from it a fixed proportion――one-fifth of the total produce――leaving the rest in the hands of the cultivators. The soldiers were interdicted from every description of art and trade.’

The other castes are differently given in different authors; the most probable account, however, is that which assigns them as three――the caste of the husbandmen, that of the artificers, and that of the herdsmen, which last caste included a variety of occupations held in contempt, the lowest and most degraded of all being that of swineherd. The separation between the husbandmen and the herdsmen seems to have arisen from the circumstance that different parts of the country, not suitable for agriculture, were entirely laid out in pasture. The artificers, constituting the vast town population of Egypt, were subdivided into a great variety of occupations, weavers, masons, sculptors, etc., who were compelled to these professions by hereditary obligation. It was by the labor of this vast town population, assisted by that of herds of slaves, that those huge works were accomplished, the remains of which attest the greatness of ancient Egypt. Part of the artisan population were exclusively occupied in skilled labor; and in a country where there was such a taste for works of masonry, sculpture was necessarily one of the most largely-stocked of the skilled occupations. ‘Perfect exactness of execution,’ it is said, ‘mastery of the hardest stone, and undeviating obedience to certain rules of proportion, are general characteristics of Egyptian sculpture. There are yet seen in their quarries obelisks not severed from the rock, but having three of their sides already adorned with hieroglyphics, so certain were they of cutting off the fourth side with precision.’ These skilled artificers may be supposed to have acted as foremen and overseers of the great numbers of laborers who were employed in public works such as the Pyramids. In the construction of these works no degree of labor for any length of time seems to have intimidated the Egyptians. The huge blocks of stone, sometimes weighing 1000 tons each, were dragged for hundreds of miles on sledges, and their transport, perhaps, did not occupy less time than a year; in one case which is known, 2000 men were employed three years in bringing a single stone from a quarry to the building in which it was to be placed. Usually, the sledges were drawn by men yoked in rows to separate ropes, all pulling at a ring fixed to the block. Where it was possible, the blocks were brought from the quarries on flat-bottomed boats on the Nile. But the transport of these masses was much more easily accomplished than the placing of them in elevated situations in the buildings. They were raised by the power of levers and inclined planes at immense trouble and cost. The waste of human life in these gigantic works must have been enormous. About 120,000 men are said to have perished in the digging of a canal, which was left unfinished, between the Red Sea and an arm of the Nile; and according to Herodotus, the Egyptian priests of his day described the building of the Pyramids as a time of extreme exhaustion and hardship to the whole country.

The religion of the Egyptians seems to have been, in its popular form at least, a mere gross Fetishism, whose principal characteristic was a worship of teeming animal life――the bull, the cat, the ibis, the crocodile, etc.; different animals in different nomes. Whatever profounder meaning lay hid under this gross ceremonial the priest-caste reserved to themselves, as one of the mysteries, the possession of which severed them from the rest of the population. Among these mysteries was the art of writing, which was practised both in the alphabetical and the hieroglyphic form; the latter being used for special purposes. Some vague notion of the immortality of the soul, resembling the Hindoo tenet of transmigration, seems to have pervaded the Egyptian religion; and this belief appears to have lain at the foundation of the Egyptian practice of embalming the dead. The business of embalming was a very dignified one, and was aided by a host of inferior functionaries, who made and painted coffins and other articles which were required. The bodies of the poorer classes were merely dried with salt or natron, and wrapt up in coarse cloths, and deposited in the catacombs. The bodies of the rich and great underwent the most complicated operations, wrapt in bandages dipped in balsam, and laboriously adorned with all kinds of ornaments. Thus prepared they were placed in highly-decorated cases or coffins, and then consigned to sarcophagi in the catacombs or pyramids. Bodies so prepared have been called mummies, either from the Arabian word _momia_, or the Coptic _mum_, signifying bitumen or gum-resin.

Although the Egyptians carried on from early times a caravan-commerce with the adjacent countries of Phœnicia, Palestine, and Arabia, importing such articles as wine, oil, and spices for embalming, yet exclusiveness and self-sufficiency were characteristics of their civilization. There, on the banks of the Nile, these millions lived, changeless in their methods through centuries, each individual mechanically pursuing the occupation to which he was born――millions cultivating the soil, and producing wheat, etc., for the subsistence of the whole: others tending the cattle necessary for food or sacrifice; millions, again, crowded into the numerous towns, occupied in the various handicrafts necessary to provide articles of clothing, luxury, etc.――a large proportion of this class being available for stupendous architectural works; and lastly, diffused through these country and town populations, two other proprietor-castes――the one a militia, occupied in gymnastic exercises alone; the other a sacerdotal or intellectual order, within whose body was accumulated all the speculative or scientific wisdom of the country. Relations existed between Egypt and the adjacent countries; and rumours of the nature of its peculiar civilization may have spread through the nations of the Mediterranean; but for a long while it was shut, like the present China, against foreign intrusion; and it was not till about the year 650 B. C. that it was thrown open to general inspection. In the sixth and fifth centuries B. C., the philosophers of other countries, and especially of Greece, used to visit Egypt in order to acquire, by intercourse with the Egyptian intellectual caste, some of that precious knowledge of which they were believed to be the depositaries.

Although the Egyptian civilization is known to have existed pretty much as we have described it from immemorial antiquity, yet, with the exception of what we learn from Scripture, we know little of Egyptian history, properly so called, anterior to the time when the country was thrown open to the Greeks. Herodotus and Manetho, indeed, have given us retrospective lists of the Egyptian kings, extending back into the primitive gloom of the world; but portions of these lists are evidently constructed backwards on mythical principles. Thus Manetho, preserving doubtless the traditions of the sacerdotal Egyptian caste, to which he is supposed to have belonged, carries back the imagination as far as 30,000 years before the birth of Christ. From this date till B. C. 5702, great divine personages ruled in Egypt; then (B. C. 5702) it came into the possession of human kings, the first of which was Menes. From the accession of Menes down to the incorporation of Egypt with the Persian empire (B. C. 525), Herodotus assigns 330 kings, or, as they are called in Scripture, Pharaohs, whose names he informs us, were read to him out of a papyrus manuscript by the Egyptian priests, who pledged themselves to its accuracy; and Manetho reckons up twenty-six dynasties, some of them native and others foreign, which divided the long period into portions of different lengths.

ARABIA. The great peninsula of Arabia was in the earliest times inhabited by a population of the Semitic stock, in all essential respects similar to that which inhabits it now, partly concentrated in cities, partly wandering in tribes through the extensive deserts which mark the surface of the country. The inhabitants of the towns subsist by agriculture and commerce; the wandering tribes by cattle rearing and pillage. In ancient times, as now, the Arabs were celebrated for their expert horsemanship, their hospitality, their eloquence, and their free indomitable spirit. In religion, however, the modern Arabs, who are Mohammedans, differ from the ancient Arabs, who were idolaters, chiefly worshippers of the celestial luminaries, nowhere so beautiful as in the sky of an Arabian desert. The Arabs themselves trace their history back, the older tribes to Kahtan (the Joktan of the 10th chapter of Genesis), the latter to Adnan, a descendant of Ishmael, the offspring of Abraham. It is unnecessary, however, to enter into this history, as Arabia was not incorporated with the Persian empire, and only assumed historical importance in later times, when it sent forth the religion of Mohammed over the East.

SYRIA. The Semitic or Aramaic population overspreading Syria――which name is generally applied to the country lying between the Euphrates and Arabian desert on the east, and the Mediterranean on the west――had early divided itself into various independent states or kingdoms, which ultimately resolved themselves, it would appear, into three. These were _Phœnicia_, a narrow strip of coast-land, extending from Mount Carmel to the river Eleutheros; _Palestine_, or the _Holy Land_, including the country south of Phœnicia, between the Arabian desert and the Mediterranean, as well as the inland district lying between Mount Carmel and Mount Herman; and _Syria Proper_, whose capital was Damascus, and which, when the power of the Damascan kings was at its highest, included all the country except Palestine and Phœnicia. Syrian history possesses no independent importance; we pass, therefore, to the history of the Phœnician and Jewish nations.

THE PHŒNICIANS. Phœnicia was an exceedingly small country, its length being only about 120 miles, and its breadth nowhere greater than 20 miles. Indeed it may be described as a mere slip of coast-land, sufficiently large to accommodate a range of port towns, such as a merchant people required. The most northern of these Phœnician cities was Aradus, situated on a small island; the most southern was the famous Tyre; and between the two were situated many others, of which the chief were Sidon, Berytus, Tripolis, and Byblus. The greater part of the population was contained in these cities, the rural population being small in proportion.

Originally, Phœnicia was divided into a number of little states or communities, each having a town for its metropolis, with a hereditary king of its own; and ere the country was restricted by the formation of the Jewish nation, the number of these Phœnician or Canaanitish principalities must have been considerable. The Phœnicians were a fragment of the Canaanites of Scripture; and doubtless in the annals of the separate Phœnician towns, such as Tyre, Sidon, and Aradus, were preserved record from the Phœnician point of view, of many of those ancient transactions which are related in the Scriptural account of the settlement of the Jews in Canaan. Without going back, however, into the remoter period of Phœnician history, one of the questions connected with which is, whether Tyre (founded, it was said, B. C. 2700) or Sidon was the more ancient town, let us give a summary view of the nature of the Phœnician civilization at the period of its highest celebrity――namely, from B. C. 1200 to B. C. 700, at which time we find Tyre exercising a presiding influence over the other Phœnician communities.

The Phœnicians were the great trading nation of antiquity. Situated at so convenient a point on the Mediterranean, it devolved on them to transport to the sea-shore the commodities of the East, brought to them overland by Arabian and Egyptian caravans, and from the sea-shore to distribute them among the expecting nations of the west. Nor were they without valuable products of their own. The sand of their coasts was particularly suitable for the manufacture of glass; their bays abounded in species of fish which produced a fine purple dye――the celebrated Tyrian purple of antiquity; and in various parts of the country there were excellent mines of iron and copper. It was, in fact, essential for the general interests of the race that the people inhabiting that portion of the Mediterranean coasts should devote themselves to commerce. In anticipation of this, as it might seem, the mountains of Libanus, which separated the narrow Phœnician territory from Syria, were stocked with the best timber, which, transported over the short distance which intervened between these mountains and the sea, abundantly supplied the demands of the Phœnician dockyards. There was something in the Phœnician character, also, which suited the requirements of their geographical position. Skillful, enterprising, griping in their desire for wealth, and in other respects resembling much their neighbors the Jews, to whom they were allied in race, and whose language was radically identical with their own――theirs was essentially the merchant type of character.

Standing as the Phœnicians did as the people by whom the exchange between the East and the West was managed, a complete view of their life and manner of activity should embrace _first_, their relations with the East――that is, their overland trade with Assyria, Arabia, Egypt, Persia, and India; _secondly_, their relations with the West――that is, their maritime trade with the various nations of the Mediterranean and Atlantic coasts; and _thirdly_, the peculiar character of mind which either accompanied or resulted from the consciousness of such a position in the great family of mankind.

With regard to the overland trade of the Phœnicians with the Eastern countries, little requires to be said except that it was one attended with great risks――the journey of a caravan across the deserts, and through the roaming tribes which separated Phœnicia from interior Asia, being a more serious enterprise than a long sea voyage. It is probable that the Phœnicians managed this commerce not in their own persons, but as wealthy speculative merchants, dealing in a skillful manner with the native Egyptian, Assyrian, or Arabian caravan-proprietors, with whom they maintained an understood connection. At the same time it is likely that they stimulated and regulated the Eastern commerce, by means of Phœnician agents or emissaries despatched into the interior with general instructions, just as in later times European agents were often despatched into the interior of Africa to direct the movements of native merchants. It was in their maritime trade with the West, however, that the Phœnicians chiefly exhibited the resources of their own character. Shipping the Oriental commodities, as well as their native products, at Tyre or Sidon, they carried them to all the coasts of the Mediterranean as far as Spain, selling them there at immense profit, and returning with freights of Western goods. With some of the nations of the Mediterranean their intercourse would be that of one civilized nation with another; with others, and especially with those of the West, it must have been an intercourse similar to that of a British ship with those rude islanders who exchange their valuable products for nails, bits of looking-glass, and other trifles. Whether their customers were civilized or savage, however, the Phœnicians reaped profits from them. Their aim was to monopolise the commerce of the Mediterranean. ‘If at any time,’ it is said, ‘their ships bound on a voyage observed that a stranger kept them company, or followed them in their track, they were sure to get rid of him, or deceive him if they could; and in this they went so far as to venture the loss of their ships, and even of their lives, so that they could but destroy or disappoint him; so jealous were they of foreigners, and so bent on keeping all to themselves. And to add to the dangers of the sea, and discourage other nations from trading, they practiced piracy, or pretended to be at war with such as they met when they thought themselves strongest.’ This policy succeeded so far, that hardly a merchant ship was to be seen in the Mediterranean not manned by Phœnicians. From this extension of the Phœnician commerce throughout the Mediterranean resulted, by necessity, an extensive system of colonization. The distance, for instance, of Spain from Phœnicia, rendered all the greater by the ancient custom of always sailing close by the coast, made it necessary for the Phœnician traders to have intermediate ports, settlement, or factories, to which their vessels might resort, not to say that such settlements were required for the collection of the produce which was to be taken back to Phœnicia. Accordingly, in process of time, Phœnician colonies were established at all available points of the Mediterranean――on the coasts of Africa, Sicily, Sardinia, and Spain, and in the Balearic Islands; the rising maritime spirit of the Greeks excluding the Phœnicians from the Ægean and the coasts of Asia Minor. Among the most ancient of the colonies from Tyre were Carthage and Utica on the African coast, and Gades (Cadiz) in Spain; all of which were founded before the first of the Greek Olympiads (B. C. 884). From these afterwards arose smaller settlements, which diffused the Phœnician agency still more extensively among the uncivilized nations of Africa and western Europe. Gades in Spain, situated, according to the ancient mode of navigation, at a distance of seventy-five days’ sail from Tyre and Sidon――a distance larger than that which now divides Liverpool from Bombay――was a colony of special importance; first, as commanding the inland Spanish trade, particularly valuable at that time, inasmuch as the gold and silver mines of Spain caused it to be regarded as the Mexico or Peru of the ancient world; and secondly, as forming a point from which the Phœnician commerce could be still farther extended along the extra-Mediterranean shores. From this point, we are told, the Phœnician ships extended their voyages southward for thirty days’ sail along the coast of Africa, and northwards as far as Britain, where they took in tin from Cornwall, and even as far as the Baltic, where they collected amber. Upon what a scale of profit must these expeditions have been conducted, when, from Tyre to Cornwall, not a merchant ship besides those of the Phœnicians was to be seen! And who can tell what influence these Phœnician visits may have had on the then rude nations bordering the Atlantic?――or how far these ante-historic Phœnician impulses may have stimulated the subsequent career of these nations? Like the visit of an English merchantman now to a South Sea Island, so must have been the visit of a Phœnician trading vessel 3000 years ago to the Britons of Cornwall.

As might be expected, this great merchant people were among the most cultured of antiquity, and especially skilled in all the arts of luxurious living. The 27th chapter of the book of Ezekiel presents a most striking picture of the pride and magnificence of the Tyrians, and embodies many minute particulars relative to Phœnician customs and mode of life. Indeed it has been pronounced the most early and most authentic record extant relative to the commerce of the ancients.

Among the contributions made by the Phœnicians to the west, were alphabetical writing, the Greek alphabet being a derivative from the Phœnician; the scale of weight; and that of coined money. Having made these and other contributions to the west, Phœnicia began about (700 B. C.) to decline in importance; the Ionian Greeks, and latterly the Egyptians, becoming its commercial rivals on the Mediterranean: and the invasions of the Assyrians from the east depriving it of independence. Subdued by the Assyrians and Babylonians, Phœnicia was transferred by them to the Persians. Among the last of the Phœnician achievements was the circumnavigation of Africa B. C. 600――a feat undertaken by Phœnician sailors at the command of the Egyptian king Nekos, one of the immediate successors of Psammetik: and, as is now believed, really performed――the course pursued being from the Red Sea round Africa to Spain――the reverse, therefore, of that followed by Vasco de Gama 2000 years later. About the time that Phœnicia began to wane, her colony, Carthage, assumed her place in the affairs of the world. Carthaginian civilization was essentially a mere repetition of the Phœnician, although under a different form of government; Carthaginian history interweaves itself with that of the Romans.

PALESTINE――THE JEWS. Palestine extends from north to south a length of about 200 miles, and 50 in breadth; and is therefore, in point of size, of nearly the same extent as Scotland. The general character of the country is that of a hilly region, interspersed with moderately fertile vales; and being thus irregular in surface, it possesses a number of brooks or streams, which for the most part are swollen considerably after rains, but are almost dry in the hot seasons of the year. The present condition of Palestine scarcely corresponds with its ancient fertility. This is chiefly attributable to the devastating effects of perpetual wars; and some physical changes have also contributed to the destruction of agricultural industry. Yet, after all, so excellent would the soil appear to be, and so ample its resources, that Canaan may still be characterized as a land flowing with milk and honey.

The history of the extraordinary nation which once inhabited this land, must be so much more familiar to our readers than that of any other ancient nation, that all that is necessary here is a brief sketch, such as will assist the imagination in tracing with due completeness the general career of the East till the establishment of the Persian empire. According to the accounts given of the Jews in Scripture, and in their history by Josephus, they were descended from Abraham, who was born in the 292d year (according to other authorities, in the 352d year) after the Deluge, ‘left the land of Chaldea when he was seventy-five years old, and, at the command of God, went into Canaan, and therein he dwelt himself, and left it to his posterity. He was a person of great sagacity, both for understanding of all things and persuading his hearers, and not mistaken in his opinions; for which reason he began to have higher notions of virtue than others had, and he determined to renew and to change the opinion all men happened then to have concerning God; for he was the first that ventured to publish this notion, that there was but ONE God, the Creator of the universe; and that as to other gods, if they contributed anything to the happiness of men, that each of them afforded it only according to His appointment, and not by their own power. For which doctrines, when the Chaldæans and other people of Mesopotamia raised a tumult against him, he thought fit to leave that country, and at the command of God he came and lived in the land of Canaan. And when he was there settled, he built an altar, and performed a sacrifice to God.’ After the death of Abraham’s son Isaac, _his_ younger son Jacob remained for a number of years in Canaan, surrounded by a family of twelve sons, one of whom, Joseph, as related in Scripture, became the cause of the removal of his father and brethren, and all belonging to them, into Egypt. The Hebrew emigrants were seventy in number, and formed at the first a respectable colony among the Egyptians. Jacob died after having been seventeen years in Egypt, and his body was carried by Joseph to Hebron, and buried in the sepulchre of his father and grandfather. Joseph also died in Egypt at the age of 110, and at length his brethren died likewise. Each of the twelve sons of Jacob became the progenitor of a family or tribe, and the twelve tribes, personified by the term ISRAEL, continued to reside in Egypt, where they increased both in number and in wealth. Their rapid increase and prosperity soon excited the jealousy of the masters of the country; and from being in high favor, the different tribes gradually fell under the lash of power, and came to be treated as public slaves.

The entire body of Israelites, guided by Moses, fled from Egypt in the year 1490 before Christ, at a time when Thebes, Memphis, and the other magnificent cities of that country, were in all their glory. Proceeding in a north-easterly direction from Rameses (near the site of modern Cairo), they went through the level region of the land of Goshen (now a barren sandy plain) to the head of the Gulf of Suez, the western branch of the Red Sea. Here they crossed in a miraculous manner to the opposite shore, to a spot now called the Wells of Moses, where, according to the Scripture narrative, they sang their song of thanksgiving for their deliverance. The country in which they had now arrived was a portion of Arabia Petræa, consisting of a dismal barren wilderness, now called the Desert of Sinai, from the principal mountain which rises within it. From the point at which the Israelites had crossed the Red Sea from Egypt, they were conducted by a most circuitous and tedious route towards the Promised Land of Canaan.

The country on the shore of the Mediterranean which was allotted as a settlement to this people, was at that time occupied by many warlike tribes, who had grown strong in its fertile plains and valleys; and the generation of the Hebrews who were conducted into it were compelled to fight for its possession. The struggle was not of long continuance. The whole land was conquered in the year B. C. 1450.

According to the account given in the 26th chapter of the book of Numbers, the Hebrew nation thus brought out of the land of Egypt and settled in Canaan amounted to 601,730 souls, unto whom the land was divided for an inheritance, according to the number of individuals in the respective tribes.

Moses dying before the inheritance was entered upon, was succeeded by Joshua as a leader, and by him the Israelites were conducted across the Jordan. The political government of the various tribes, after their conquest and settlement of Canaan, appears to have been republican, with military leaders called Judges; but these acted by the direction of the Priesthood, who were immediately counseled by the Deity within the sanctuary. This period of separate government in tribes, called the Period of the Judges, lasted 300 years (B. C. 1427-1112), and was one of daring actions and great deliverances――the heroic age of the Jews.

The epoch of kings succeeded that of judges. The reign of Saul, their first monarch, though the people were stronger by being united, was gloomy and troubled. David, who succeeded, was a soldier and a conqueror. He rendered the Hebrews formidable to the whole of their enemies, and gave them a regular and defensible position, expelling their old antagonists from every part of the country. He left an empire peaceful, respected, and strong; and, what was of as much importance, he selected from among his sons a successor who was able to improve all these advantages, and to add to the progress which his countrymen had already made in prosperity. Under Solomon, the name of the Hebrew government being able to protect its subjects in other countries, the people and their king began to employ themselves in commerce. Their trade was at first engrafted on that of the Phœnicians of Tyre. A greater contrast cannot be imagined than between the troubles of the time of the Judges (only 100 years before), and the peace, security, and enjoyment of this reign. ‘And the king made silver to be in Jerusalem as stones, and cedars made he to be as sycamore trees that are in the vale for abundance; and Judah and Israel were many; as the sand which is by the sea-shore for multitude, eating, and drinking, and making merry.’ (1 Kings, x. 27.)

After the death of Solomon, the country fell into the same divisions which had weakened it in the time of the Judges. Each of the districts of North and South Israel was under a separate king, and the people were exposed both to the attacks of their enemies and to quarrels with each other. Their history is a succession of agitating conflicts for independence, and of unexpected and remarkable deliverances, of a similar nature to those of the earlier period, and they continued for about the same length of time (380 years); but they are marked by fewer of those traits of heroic devotion which distinguished the epoch of the Judges. The backslidings, errors, and misgovernment of their kings, is the chief and painful subject which is presented to us; and though these are relieved at times by the appearance of such monarchs as Josiah, Jehoshaphat, and Hezekiah, yet the whole history of this period is overcast with the gloominess of progressive decline.

By far the most delightful parts of it are those which relate to the lives of the prophets, who were raised up at intervals to warn the nation and its rulers of the fate which they incurred by forsaking the religion of their fathers. These inspired men sometimes sprang up from among the humblest classes of the community: one from the ‘herdsmen of Tekoa,’ another from ‘ploughing with twelve yoke of oxen;’ several were of the priestly order, and one (Isaiah) is said to have been of royal lineage; but the works of all are marked with the same sacredness, force, and authority. They reprehend their countrymen, in the most eloquent strains, at one time for idolatry, and at another for hypocrisy; and their indignation is expressed with the same freedom and dignity against the vices of the highest and the lowest.

Of the two kingdoms into which Palestine divided itself after the death of Solomon (B. C. 975), the northern, called the Kingdom of Israel, was conquered by the Assyrians of Nineveh (B. C. 722), who carried off many thousand of the people into captivity. Little is known of their fate. By some they are supposed to have been carried to India, by others to Tartary: ‘what became of all the Israelites of the ten tribes,’ is still a question with historians. The southern kingdom, called the kingdom of Judah, retained its independence till B. C. 588, when it was invaded and subdued by Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, who destroyed Jerusalem, and carried away a great number of the principal Jews into captivity at Babylon. On the subversion of the Babylonian dominion by Cyrus, seventy years afterwards, the captives, to the number of 42,360, were permitted to return to their own land, and rebuild Jerusalem. At this period, the whole of Palestine merged in the growing Persian empire.

THE ASSYRIANS AND BABYLONIANS. That large extent of level country situated between and on the banks of the two great rivers, the Euphrates and the Tigris, was in the earliest antiquity, the seat of a Semitic population living under an organized government. Of the cities, the most important ultimately were Babylon, built, by Nimrod, (B. C. 2217); and Nineveh (called Ninos by the Greeks), built either by Asshur or Nimrod about the same time, but afterwards rebuilt and enlarged, according to ancient tradition, by a great king, Ninus, (B. C. 1230). With these two cities as capitals, the country divided itself into two corresponding parts or kingdoms――the kingdom of Assyria proper, including, besides part of Mesopotamia, the country to the right of the Tigris as far as Mount Zagros; and the kingdom of Babylonia, including the western part of Mesopotamia, together with the country to the left of the Euphrates as far as Syria proper. The two kingdoms, however, are often included under the joint name of Assyria; a word which, as well as the shorter form Syria, was often employed by the ancient Greek writers to designate the whole region lying along the courses of the two great rivers from the Black Sea to the northern angle of the Persian Gulf.

Although Babylon was according to Scripture, the earlier of the two powers, yet the Assyrians of Nineveh attained such strength under their hero Ninus, as to reduce the Babylonians to a species of dependence. Under Ninus, and his wife and successor the great conqueress Semiramis, says ancient mythical history, the city of the Tigris extended its dominions far and wide, from Egypt to the border of India. This empire, known in the common chronologies by the name of ‘The Assyrian Empire,’ lasted, according to the usual accounts, five or six centuries, during which it was governed, in the absolute Oriental manner, by the successors of Ninus and Semiramis. Of these several are mentioned in Scripture――Phul, the contemporary of Menahem, king of Israel (B. C. 761), Tiglath Pileser (B. C. 730), both of whom were mixed up with the affairs of Israel and Judah; Salmanassar, cotemporary with Hezekiah, king of Judah, and Hoseah, king of Israel, by whom it was that Samaria was taken (B. C. 722), and the Israelites led into captivity (B. C. 722); and Sennacherib, or Sanherib (B. C. 714), who attacked Egypt, and whose fruitless invasion of Judah forms the subject of the striking narrative in the 18th and 19th chapters of the second book of Kings. The last of the great line of the Assyrian kings of Nineveh was the luxurious Sardanapalus, in whose reign the empire was dissolved, through the instrumentality of its revolted subjects the Medes (B. C. 626).

After Nineveh, the greatest city in the Assyrian dominion was Babylon. Even while under the dominion of the kings of Nineveh, Babylon appears to have possessed a special organization under its own chiefs, several of whose names――such as Beldesis (B. C. 888), and Nabonassar (B. C. 747)――have been preserved; and, together with the whole province of which it was the capital, to have pursued a special career. The peculiar element in the Babylonian society which distinguished it from that of Assyria proper, was its Chaldæan priesthood. ‘The Chaldæan order of priests,’ says Mr. Grote, ‘appear to have been peculiar to Babylon and other towns in its territory, especially between that city and the Persian Gulf; the vast, rich, and lofty temple of Belus in that city served them at once as a place of worship and an astronomical observatory; and it was the paramount ascendancy of this order which seems to have caused the Babylonian people generally to be spoken of as Chaldæans, though some writers have supposed, without any good proof, a conquest of Assyrian Babylon by barbarians called Chaldæans from the mountains near the Euxine. There were exaggerated statements respecting the antiquity of their astronomical observations,[2] which cannot be traced, as of definite and recorded date, higher than the era of Nabonassar (B. C. 747), as well as respecting the extent of their acquired knowledge, so largely blended with astrological fancies and occult influences of the heavenly bodies on human affairs. But however incomplete their knowledge may appear when judged by the standard of after-times, there can be no doubt that, compared with any of their cotemporaries of the sixth century B. C.――either Egyptians, Greeks, or Asiatics――they stood preëminent, and had much to teach, not only to Thales and Pythagoras, but even to later inquirers, such as Eudoxus and Aristotle. The conception of the revolving celestial sphere, the gnomon, and the division of the day into twelve parts, are affirmed by Herodotus to have been first taught to the Greeks by the Babylonians.’ This learned Chaldæan class seems to have pervaded the general mass of Babylonian society, as the corresponding priest-caste in Egypt pervaded Egyptian society, with this difference, that Babylonian society does not appear to have been parceled out like the Egyptian into a rigorous system of castes.

On the dissolution of the Assyrian empire of Nineveh by the Medes (B. C. 626), the Chaldæan fragment of it rose to eminence on its ruins, chiefly by the efforts of Nabopolassar, a viceroy of the last Assyrian king. Establishing Babylonia as an independent power in the east, Nabopolassar came into collision with Nekos, king of Egypt, who was at that time extending his empire into Asia. It was in opposing Nekos (Pharaoh-Necho) on his march to Babylon, that Josiah, king of Judah, was slain. At length (B. C. 608) Nebuchadnezzar, or Nebuchodonosor, the son of Nabopolassar, defeated Nekos, and annexed all his conquests in Asia to his father’s kingdom. Two years afterwards the same prince took Jerusalem, and carried away a number of captives to Babylon, among whom were Daniel and his companions. Succeeding his father, B. C. 605, Nebuchadnezzar reigned over Babylon forty-three years (B. C. 605-561); and during his reign extended the empire to the Mediterranean and the borders of Egypt, adding to it Palestine, Phœnicia, etc. With his countenance the Medes and Lydians destroyed Nineveh (B. C. 601). The great abduction of Jewish captives by his orders took place B. C. 588. He was succeeded (B. C. 561) by his son, Evil-Merodach, who was dethroned (B. C. 559) by his brother-in-law Neriglissar, whose son and successor, Laboroso-archod, was dethroned, after a brief reign, by Nabonnedus, the Belshazzar of Scripture (B. C. 555); in the eighteenth year of whose reign (B. C. 538) Babylon was taken by Cyrus, and passed into the hands of the Persians.

It was during the reign of Nebuchadnezzar that the city of Babylon attained that glory which has rendered it a known word to all who are at all acquainted with history. Herodotus, who saw the city in its decline, gives a description of it which has seemed incredible to many, although now fully verified. ‘The city, divided in the middle by the Euphrates, was surrounded with walls in thickness 75 feet, in height 300 feet and in compass 480 stadia, or about 60 of our miles.’ Within this circuit there was included, besides the houses, a space of vacant ground, gardens, pasture, etc., sufficient to accommodate the country population in case of invasion: the height and strength of the walls rendered the city itself to all appearance impregnable. ‘These walls formed an exact square, each side of which was 120 stadia, or 15 miles in length; and were built of large bricks cemented together with bitumen, a glutinous slime which issues out of the earth in that country, and in a short time becomes harder than the very brick or stone which it cements. The city was encompassed without the walls of a vast ditch filled with water, and lined with bricks on both sides; and as the earth that was dug out of it served to make the bricks, we may judge of the depth and largeness of the ditch from the height and thickness of the walls. In the whole compass of the walls there were a hundred gates――that is, twenty-five on each side, all made of solid brass. At intervals round the walls were 250 towers. From each of the twenty-five gates there was a straight street extending to the corresponding gate, in the opposite wall; the whole number of streets was therefore fifty, crossing each other at right angles, and each fifteen miles long. The breadth of the streets was about 150 feet. By their intersection the city was divided into 676 squares, each about two miles and a quarter in compass, round which were the houses, three or four stories in height; the vacant spaces within being laid out in gardens,’ etc. Within the city the two greatest edifices were the royal palace with its hanging gardens, and the temple of Belus, composed of eight towers built one above another, to the enormous height, it is said, of a furlong.

Without the city were numerous canals, embankments, etc., for the purpose of irrigating the country, which, as little or no rain fell, depended on the river for moisture. ‘The execution of such colossal works as those of Babylon and Egypt,’ it has been remarked, ‘demonstrates habits of regular industry, a concentrated population under one government, and above all, an implicit submission to the regal and kingly sway――contrasted forcibly with the small self-governing communities of Greece and western Europe, where the will of the individual citizen was so much more energetic.’ In the latter countries only such public works were attempted as were within the limits of moderate taste. Nineveh is said to have been larger even than Babylon, and is described as an oblong, three days’ journey round――that is, upwards of 60 miles.

THE MEDES AND PERSIANS. Extending, as we have said, from the Mediterranean to the Indus, the Assyrian empire had included not only the chief Semitic nations of western Asia, but also that portion of the Indo-Germanic family which was contained between Mount Zagros and the river Indus. Essentially a prolongation of the great race which inhabited Hindoostan, the nature of their country――a vast table-land, here and there rising into hills, or presenting spots of great fertility――had made them quite different in character and habits from the settled and stereotyped Hindoos. All parts of this plateau of Iran, as it was called, including the present countries of Persia, Cabool, and Belochistan, were not alike; in some portions, where the soil was fertile, there existed a dense agricultural population; in others, the inhabitants were nomadic horse-breeders, cattle-rearers, and shepherds. All the tribes, however, were bound together by the ties of a common Indo-Persic language, quite distinct from that spoken by their Semitic neighbors and masters, and by a common religion. This religion, called the Religion of Zend, a modification probably of some more ancient form, from which Hindooism may also have sprung, was taught by Zerdusht or Zoroaster, a great native reformer and spiritual teacher, who lived six or seven centuries before Christ. The principal doctrine of his religion was that of the existence of two great emanations from the Supreme and perfect Deity――the one a good spirit (Ormuzd), who created man, and fitted him for happiness; the other an evil spirit, named Ahriman, who has marred the beauty of creation by introducing evil into it. Between these two spirits and their adherents there is an incessant struggle for the mastery; but ultimately Ormuzd will conquer, and Ahriman and evil will be banished from the bosom of creation into eternal darkness. The worship annexed to this doctrine was very simple, dispensing with temples or images, and consisting merely of certain solemn rites performed on mountain tops, etc. Fire, and light, and the sun, were worshiped either as symbols or as inferior deities. A caste of priests, called the Magi, answering in some respects to the Brahmins of India or the Chaldæans of Babylon, superintended these ceremonies, and commented on the religion of Zoroaster.

Various of the tribes of Iran, associating themselves together, constituted little nations. Thus adjacent to Assyria, and separated from it by Mount Zagros, was an agglomeration of seven tribes or villages, under the special name of the Medes, the country which they inhabited being thence called Media. South from Media, and nearer the sea, was another district of Iran, called Persis or Persia, inhabited also by an association of tribes calling themselves the Persians. Other nations of Iran were the Parthians, the Bactrians, etc.――all originally subject to the Assyrian empire.

Median history begins with a hero king called Deiokes (B. C. 710-657), who effected some important changes in the constitution of the nation, and founded the Median capital Ekbatana in one of the most pleasant sites in the world. His son, Phraortes (B. C. 657-635), pursued a career of conquest, subjugated Persia and other districts of Iran, and perished in an invasion of Assyria. He was succeeded by his son Cyaxares, who continued his designs of conquest, and extended the Median dominion as far westward into Asia Minor as the river Halys. He was engaged in a repetition of his father’s attempt against Nineveh, when he was called away to defend his kingdom against a great roving population, belonging, as is most likely, to the Scythian branch of the Caucasian race (although some reckon them Mongols), who, bursting with their herds of horses and mares from their native seat in Central Asia, had driven the Cimmerians, a kindred race, before them into Asia Minor, and then had poured themselves over the plateau of Iran. Defeating Cyaxares, they kept him from his throne for a period of twenty-eight years, during which they ruled in savage fashion over Media, Persia, etc. At length, having assassinated their chiefs by a stratagem, Cyaxares regained his dominions, and drove the invaders back into the north. He then renewed his attempt against Nineveh; took it; and reduced the Assyrian empire, with the exception of Babylonia, under his dominion. The Median empire, thus formed, he bequeathed (B. C. 595) to his son Astyages.

Astyages having given his daughter Mandane in marriage to a Persian chieftain named Cambyses, the issue of this marriage was the famous Cyrus, the founder of the Persian monarchy. The circumstances which led to the revolt of the Persians under Cyrus against the Medes, and the dethronement by him of his grand-father Astyages (B. C. 560), had been woven into a romance resembling the story of Romulus, even so early as the age of Herodotus (B. C. 408), so that that accurate historian could not ascertain the particulars. ‘The native Persians,’ says Mr. Grote, ‘whom Cyrus conducted, were an aggregate of seven agricultural and four nomadic tribes, all of them rude, hardy, and brave, dwelling in a mountainous region, clothed in skins, ignorant of wine or fruit, of any of the commonest luxuries of life, and despising the very idea of purchase or sale. Their tribes were very unequal in point of dignity; first in estimation among them stood the Pasargadæ; and the first clan among the Pasargadæ were the Achæmenidæ, to whom Cyrus belonged. Whether his relationship to the Median king whom he dethroned was a fact or a politic fiction we cannot well determine, but Xenophon gives us to understand that the conquest of Media by the Persians was reported to him as having been an obstinate and protracted struggle.’

Master of Media, the Persian chief in his turn became a great Oriental conqueror; indeed all the Oriental conquests bear the same character. A nomadic race, led by a chief of great abilities, invades the more organized states, and conquers them; the chief assumes the government, and founds a dynasty, which after a rule of several generations, becomes enervated, and gives way before some new nomadic incursion. The first power against which Cyrus turned his arms, after having subdued the Medes, was the famous Lydian kingdom, which then subsisted in Asia Minor under the great Crœsus. And here, therefore, we must give some account of the ancient condition of Asia Minor and its principalities.

STATES OF ASIA MINOR――THE LYDIANS. The river Halys divided Asia Minor into two parts. East of the Halys, or near its source, were various nations of the Semitic stock――Cappadocians, Cilicians, Pamphylians etc.――each organized apart, but all included under the Assyrian, and latterly, as we have seen, under the Median empire. West of the Halys, the inhabitants were apparently of the Indo-Germanic race, although separated by many removes from the Indo-Germans of Persia. Overspreading this part of Asia Minor, as well as Thrace and other parts of south-eastern Europe, this great race had been broken up into fragments distinguished by characteristic differences. To enumerate these various nations, assigning to each its exact geographical limits, is impossible; the chief, however, were the Bithynians, a sort of Asiatic Thracians on the southern coast of the Euxine; the Lydians and Carians in the south-west; and, intermediate between the two, geographically as well as in respect of race and language, the Mysians and Phrygians. These were the native states; but along the whole Ægean shore was diffused a large Greek population, emigrants, it is believed, from European Greece, chiefly gathered into cities. These Greeks of Asia Minor were of three races――the Æolic Greeks in the north, and the Ionian and Dorian Greeks in the south; and perhaps the earliest manifestations of Greek genius, political or literary, were among these Greeks of Asia. The intercourse of these Greeks with the native Lydians, Phrygians, etc., gave rise to mixture of population as well as to interchange of habits; the native music especially of the Lydians and Phrygians became incorporated with that of the Greeks.

When Lydia, with its capital Sardis, first began to be a powerful state, is not known; it is remarkable, however, that the Lydians are not mentioned in Homer. According to Herodotus, the Lydians traced their history back through three dynasties. 1_st_, The Atyadæ, from the earliest times to B. C. 1221; 2_d_, The Heracleidæ, from B. C. 122 to B. C. 716; and 3_d_, The Mermnadæ. Only the last dynasty is historic; the manner in which it succeeded to that of the Heracleidæ forms the subject of a curious Lydian legend.

The first king of the Mermoad dynasty was Gyges (B. C. 716-678), the second Ardys (B. C. 678-629), in whose reign the Cimmerians invaded Asia Minor, the third Sadyattes (B. C. 629-617), the fourth Alyattes (B. C. 617-560). Each of these Lydian kings was engaged in wars both with the Asiatic Greeks of the coast and the native states of the interior. The growth of the Lydian power was impeded by the Cimmerian invasion; but those savage nomades were at length expelled by Alyattes; and Crœsus, the son of Alyattes by an Ionian wife, having succeeded his father B. C. 560, soon raised himself to the position of a great potentate, ruling over nearly the whole country westward of the Halys, comprehending Æolian, Ionian, and Dorian Greeks; Phrygians; Mysians, Paphlagonians, Bithynians, Carians, Pamphylians, etc. At Sardis, the capital of this extensive dominion, was accumulated an immense treasure, composed of the tribute which the Lydian monarch derived from the subject states; hence the proverb, ‘as rich as Crœsus.’

Separated from the Median kingdom only by the river Halys, the Lydian dominion naturally became an object of desire to Cyrus after he had acquired the sovereignty of Media. Accordingly (B. C. 546), provoked by an invasion of Crœsus, who had received from the Delphic oracle the equivocal assurance, that ‘if he attacked the Persians he would subvert a mighty monarchy,’ Cyrus crossed the Halys, advanced into Lydia, took Sardis, and made Crœsus prisoner. It was intended by the conqueror that the Lydian king should be burnt alive――it is even said that the fire was kindled for the purpose; Cyrus, however, spared his life, and Crœsus became his friend and confidential adviser. On the subversion of the Lydian monarchy, its subjects, the Greeks of Asia Minor, were obliged to submit to the conqueror, after having in vain solicited the aid of their brethren the European Greeks. The Lacedæmonians indeed sent an embassy into Asia Minor; and one of their ambassadors had a conference with Cyrus at Sardis, where he warned him ‘not to lay hands on any of the Greek towns, for the Lacedæmonians would not permit it.’ ‘Who are the Lacedæmonians?’ said the astonished warrior. Having been informed that the Lacedæmonians were a Greek people, who had a capital called Sparta, where there was a regular market, ‘I have never yet,’ said he, ‘been afraid of this kind of men, who have a set place in the middle of their city where they meet to cheat one another and tell lies. If I live, they shall have troubles of their own to talk about.’ To save themselves from the Persians, the Ionian portion of the Asiatic Greeks proposed a universal emigration to the island of Sardinia――a striking design, which, however, was not carried into execution. All Asia Minor ultimately yielded to Cyrus.

THE PERSIAN EMPIRE. Having subdued Asia Minor, Cyrus next turned his arms against the Assyrians of Babylon. His siege and capture of Babylon (B. C. 538), when he effected his entrance by diverting the course of the Euphrates, form one of the most romantic incidents in history; an incident connected with Scriptural narrative through its result――the emancipation of the Jews from their captivity. Along with Babylon, its dependencies, Phœnicia and Palestine, came under the Persians.

Cyrus, one of the most remarkable men of the ancient world, having perished in an invasion of Scythia (B. C. 529), was succeeded by his son Cambyses, who annexed Egypt to the Persian empire (B. C. 525), having defeated Psammanitus, the son of the Pharaoh Amasis. Foiled in his intention of penetrating Libya and Ethiopia, Cambyses was dethroned by a Magian impostor, who called himself Smerdis, pretending that he was the younger brother of Cambyses, although this brother had been put to death by the order of Cambyses during a fit of madness. A conspiracy of seven great nobles having been formed against the false Smerdis, he was put to death. He was succeeded by one of the conspiring chiefs called Darius Hystaspes, who reigned――over the immense Persian empire, extending from the Nile to the Indus, and beyond it――from B. C. 531 to B. C. 485. ‘The reign of Darius,’ says Mr. Grote, ‘was one of organization, different from that of his predecessor――a difference which the Persians well understood and noted, calling Cyrus “the father,” Cambyses “the master,” and Darius “the retail trader or huckster.” In the mouth of the Persians this last epithet must be construed as no insignificant compliment, since it intimates that he was the first to introduce some methodical order into the imperial administration and finances. Under the two former kings there was no definite amount of tribute levied upon the subject provinces. But Darius probably felt it expedient to relieve the provinces from the burden of undefined exactions. He distributed the whole empire into twenty departments (called Satrapies), imposing upon each a fixed annual tax. This, however, did not prevent each satrap (the Persian governor appointed by the king) in his own province from indefinite requisitions. The satrap was a little king, who acted nearly as he pleased in the internal administration of his province, subject only to the necessity of sending up the imperial tribute to the king at Susa, the capital of the Persian empire; of keeping off foreign enemies; and of furnishing an adequate military contingent for the foreign enterprises of the great king. To every satrap was attached a royal secretary or comptroller of the revenue, who probably managed the imperial finances in the province, and to whom the court of Susa might perhaps look as a watch upon the satrap himself. The satrap or the secretary apportioned the sum payable by the satrapy in the aggregate among the various component districts, towns, or provinces, leaving to the local authorities in each of these latter the task of assessing it upon individual inhabitants. From necessity, therefore, as well as from indolence of temper and political incompetence, the Persians were compelled to respect the authorities which they found standing both in town and country, and to leave in their hands a large measure of genuine influence. Often even the petty kings who had governed separate districts during their state of independence, prior to the Persian conquest, retained their title and dignity as tributaries to the court of Susa. The empire of the great king was thus an aggregate of heterogeneous elements, connected together by no tie except that of common fear and subjection――noway coherent nor self-supporting, nor pervaded by any common system or spirit of nationality.’

CONTINUATION THROUGH GREEK AND ROMAN HISTORY. How Darius, in consequence of the assistance rendered by the Athenians to the Ionian Greeks of Asia Minor, who had revolted against him (B. C. 502), sent a vast Persian army into European Greece; how this army was defeated by the Athenian general, Miltiades, with only 11,000 men, in the glorious battle of Marathon (B. C. 490); how, ten years later, Xerxes, the son and successor of Darius, undertook an expedition against Greece with a host of several millions, and was defeated by Themistocles in a naval battle at Salamis (B. C. 480), which was followed by two contemporaneous defeats of his lieutenants at Platæa and Mycale (B. C. 479); how the Persians were thus finally driven back into Asia; how for a century and a-half relations, sometimes hostile and sometimes friendly, were maintained between the Greek states and the Persian monarchs, the degenerate successors of Darius and Xerxes, under whom the empire had begun to crumble; how at length, in the reign of Darius Codomannus (B. C. 324), Alexander the Great retaliated on the Persians the wrongs they had done the Greeks by invading and destroying their decrepit empire, and organizing all the countries between the Adriatic and the Indus under, not a Semitic, as in the case of the Assyrian empire, nor an Indo-Germanic, as in the case of the Persic empire, but a Greek or Pelasgic system; how, on Alexander’s death (B. C. 323), this vast agglomeration of the human species fell asunder into three Greek monarchies――the Macedonian monarchy, including the states of European Greece; the Egyptian monarchy of the Ptolemies, including, besides Egypt, Phœnicia, Palestine, and Arabia; and the Syrian monarchy of the Seleucidæ, comprehending, although with a weak grasp, Asia Minor (or at least parts of it which had belonged to the Lydian and Assyrian empires), Syria, Assyria, and Babylonia――with the loss, however, of the countries between the Tigris and the Indus, where a germ of independence arose (B. C. 236) in a native nomad dynasty, which ultimately united all the tribes of Iran in one empire, called _the Parthian_ _Empire_; and how these three fragments dragged on a separate existence, full of wars and revolts; all this belongs to Grecian history.

How, about two centuries and a half before Christ, another, but more mixed portion of this Pelasgic family, which had arisen in Italy, and in the course of several centuries rendered itself coëxtensive with that peninsula――began to assume consequence in the wider area of the Mediterranean world: how it first grappled with the power of the Carthaginians (B. C. 264-201), who for several centuries had been pursuing the career of world-merchants, formerly pursued by their fathers the Phœnicians; how it then assailed and subdued the crumbling Macedonian monarchy, incorporating all Greece with itself (B. C. 134); how retrograding, so to speak, into Asia, it gradually absorbed the Syrian and Egyptian monarchies, till it came into collision with the Parthian empire at the Euphrates (B. C. 134-B. C. 60); how, advancing into the new regions of northern and western Europe, it compelled the yet uncultured races there――the Celts or Gauls, the Iberians, etc.――to enter the pale of civilization (B. C. 80-50); how thus, from the Atlantic to the Euphrates, was founded a new empire, called ‘The Roman,’ retaining, with vast additions, all that portion of humanity which the former empires had embraced, with the exception of what had lapsed back to the Parthians; how this empire subsisted for several centuries, a great mass of matured humanity girt by comparative barbarism――that is, surrounded on the east by the Parthians, on the south by the Ethiopians, on the north by the Germans and Scythians, and on the west by the roar of the Atlantic; and how at last (A. D. 400-475) this great mass, having lost its vitality, fell asunder before the irruption of the barbaric element――that is, the Germans, the Scythians, and the Arabs――giving rise to the infant condition of the modern world; all this belongs to Roman history, which forms the subject of a separate treatise.

With one general remark we shall conclude; namely: that the progress of history――that is, of Caucasian development――has evidently been, upon the whole, from the east westward. First, as we have seen, the Assyrian or Semitic fermentation affected western Asia as far as the Mediterranean; then the Persian movement extended the historic stage to the Ægean; after that the Macedonian conquest extended it to the Adriatic; and finally, the Romans extended it to the Atlantic. For fifteen centuries humanity kept dashing itself against this barrier; till, at length, like a great missionary sent in search, the spirit of Columbus shot across the Atlantic. And now, in the form of a dominant Anglic race, though with large inter-mixture, Caucasian vitality is working in its newest method, with Ethiopian help, on the broad and fertile field of America.

History Of Greece――Early Mythology.

The history of the Grecian states commences about 1800 years before Christ, when the Egyptians on the opposite side of the Mediterranean were in a high state of civilization; but the portion of history which precedes 884 B. C. is understood to be fabulous, and entitled to