Chapter 8

1. Men, whatever their pursuit or business, can live only in one of two ways: they can stay where they are, or they can go from one place to another. In the present state of the world, we generally do a little of both. There is some place--city, village, or farm--where we have our home and our work. But from time to time we go to other places, on visits or on business, or travel for a certain length of time to great distances and many places, for instruction and pleasure. Still, there is usually some place which we think of as home and to which we return. Wandering or roving is not our natural or permanent condition. But there are races for whom it is. The Bedouin Arabs are the principal and best known of such races. Who has not read with delight accounts of their wild life in the deserts of Arabia and Northern Africa, so full of adventure and romance,--of their wonderful, priceless horses who are to them as their own children,--of their noble qualities, bravery, hospitality, generosity, so strangely blended with love of booty and a passion for robbing expeditions? They are indeed a noble race, and it is not their choice, but their country which has made them robbers and rovers--Nomads, as such wandering races are called in history and geography. They cannot build cities on the sand of the desert, and the small patches of pasture and palm groves, kept fresh and green by solitary springs and called "oases," are too far apart, too distant from permanently peopled regions to admit of comfortable settlement. In the south of Arabia and along the sea-shore, where the land is fertile and inviting, they live much as other nations do, and when, a thousand years ago, Arabs conquered vast and wealthy countries both in Europe and Asia, and in Africa too, they not only became model husbandmen, but built some of the finest cities in the world, had wise and strictly enforced laws and took the lead in literature and science. Very different are the scattered nomadic tribes which still roam the steppes of Eastern Russia, of Siberia and Central Asia. They are not as gifted by far as the Arabs, yet would probably quickly settle down to farming, were it not that their wealth consists in flocks of sheep and studs of horses, which require the pasture yielded so abundantly by the grassy steppes, and with which they have to move from one place, when it is browsed bare, to another, and still another, carrying their felt-tents and simple utensils with them, living on the milk of their mares and the meat of their sheep. The Red Indian tribes of the far West present still another aspect of nomadic life--that of the hunter, fierce and entirely untamed, the simplest and wildest of all.

2. On the whole, however, nomadic life is at the present day the exception. Most of the nations that are not savages live in houses, not in portable tents, in cities, not encampments, and form compact, solidly bound communities, not loose sets of tribes, now friendly, now hostile to one another. But it has not always been so. There have been times when settled life was the exception and nomadic life the rule. And the older the times, the fewer were the permanent communities, the more numerous the roving tribes. For wandering in search of better places must have been among the first impulses of intelligent humanity. Even when men had no shelter but caves, no pursuit but hunting the animals, whose flesh was their food and in whose skins they clothed themselves, they must frequently have gone forth, in families or detachments, either to escape from a neighborhood too much infested with the gigantic wild beasts which at one time peopled the earth more thickly than men, or simply because the numbers of the original cave-dwellers had become too great for the cave to hold them. The latter must have been a very usual occurrence: families stayed together until they had no longer room enough, or quarrelled, when they separated. Those who went never saw again the place and kindred they left, although they carried with them memories of both, the few simple arts they had learned there and the customs in which they had been trained. They would stop at some congenial halting-place, when, after a time, the same process would be repeated--and so again and again.

3. How was the first horse conquered, the first wild-dog tamed and conciliated? How were cattle first enticed to give man their milk, to depend on his care and follow his movements? Who shall tell? However that may have happened, it is certain that the transition from a hunter's wild, irregular and almost necessarily lawless existence to the gentler pursuits of pastoral life must have been attended by a great change in manners and character. The feeling of ownership too, one of the principal promoters of a well-regulated state of society, must have quickly developed with the possession of rapidly increasing wealth in sheep and horses,--the principal property of nomadic races. But it was not a kind of property which encouraged to settling, or uniting in close communities; quite the contrary. Large flocks need vast pasture-grounds. Besides, it is desirable to keep them apart in order to avoid confusion and disputes about wells and springs, those rare treasures of the steppes, which are liable to exhaustion or drying up, and which, therefore, one flock-owner is not likely to share with another, though that other were of his own race and kin. The Book of Genesis, which gives us so faithful and lively a picture of this nomadic pastoral life of ancient nations, in the account of the wanderings of Abraham and the other Hebrew patriarchs, has preserved such an incident in the quarrel between the herdsmen of Abraham and his nephew Lot, which led to their separation. This is what Abraham said to Lot: "Is not the whole land before thee? Separate thyself, I pray thee, from me: if thou wilt take the left hand, then I will go to the right; or if thou depart to the right hand, then I will go to the left."[Y] So also it is said of Esau that he "went into the country from the face of his brother Jacob: for their riches were more than they might dwell together, and the land wherein they were strangers could not bear them because of their cattle."[Z] This was a facility offered by those immense plains, unclaimed as yet by any one people in particular, and which must oft-times have averted strife and bloodshed, but which ceased from the moment that some one tribe, tired of wandering or tempted by some more than usually engaging spot, settled down on it, marking that and the country around it, as far as its power reached, for its own. There is even now in the East something very similar to this mode of occupation. In the Turkish Empire, which is, in many places, thinly peopled, there are large tracts of waste land, sometimes very fertile, accounted as nobody's property, and acknowledged to belong, legally and forever, to the first man who takes possession of them, provided he cultivates them. The government asks no purchase price for the land, but demands taxes from it as soon as it has found an owner and begins to yield crops.

4. The pastoral nomad's life is, like the hunter's, a singularly free one,--free both from restraint, and, comparatively, from toil. For watching and tending flocks is not a laborious occupation, and no authority can always reach or weigh very heavily on people who are here to-day and elsewhere to-morrow. Therefore, it is only with the third stage of human existence, the agricultural one, that civilization, which cannot subsist without permanent homes and authority, really commences. The farmer's homestead is the beginning of the State, as the hearth or fireplace was the beginning of the family. The different labors of the fields, the house, and the dairy require a great number of hands and a well-regulated distribution of the work, and so keep several generations of the settler's family together, on the same farm. Life in common makes it absolutely necessary to have a set of simple rules for home government, to prevent disputes, keep up order and harmony, and settle questions of mutual rights and duties. Who should set down and enforce these rules but the head of the family, the founder of the race--the patriarch? And when the family has become too numerous for the original homestead to hold it, and part of it has to leave it, to found a new home for itself, it does not, as in the primitive nomadic times, wander off at random and break all ties, but settles close by on a portion of the family land, or takes possession of a new piece of ground somewhat further off, but still within easy reach. In the first case the land which had been common property gets broken up into lots, which, though belonging more particularly to the members who separate from the old stock, are not for that withdrawn from the authority of the patriarch. There are several homesteads now, which form a village, and, later on, several villages; but the bond of kindred, of tradition and custom is religiously preserved, as well as subordination to the common head of the race, whose power keeps increasing as the community grows in numbers and extent of land, as the greater complications of relationships, property, inheritance, demand more laws and a stricter rule,--until he becomes not so much Father as King. Then naturally come collisions with neighboring similar settlements, friendly or hostile, which result in alliances or quarrels, trade or war, and herewith we have the State complete, with inner organization and foreign policy.

5. This stage of culture, in its higher development, combines with the fourth and last--city-building, and city-life, when men of the same race, and conscious of a common origin, but practically strangers to each other, form settlements on a large scale, which, being enclosed in walls, become places of refuge and defence, centres of commerce, industry and government. For, when a community has become very numerous, with wants multiplied by continual improvements and increasing culture, each family can no longer make all the things it needs, and a portion of the population devotes itself to manufacture and arts, occupations best pursued in cities, while the other goes on cultivating the land and raising cattle, the two sets of produces--those of nature and those of the cunning hand and brain--being bartered one for the other, or, when coin is invented, exchanged through that more convenient medium. In the same manner, the task of government having become too manifold and complicated for one man, the former Patriarch, now King, is obliged to surround himself with assistants--either the elders of the race, or persons of his own choice,--and send others to different places, to rule in his name and under his authority. The city in which the King and his immediate ministers and officers reside, naturally becomes the most important one--the Capital of the State.

6. It does not follow by any means that a people, once settled, never stirred from its adopted country. The migratory or wandering instinct never quite died out--our own love of travelling sufficiently proves that--and it was no unfrequent occurrence in very ancient times for large tribes, even portions of nations, to start off again in search of new homes and to found new cities, compelled thereto either by the gradual overcrowding of the old country, or by intestine discords, or by the invasion of new nomadic tribes of a different race who drove the old settlers before them to take possession of their settlements, massacred them if they resisted and reduced those who remained to an irksome subjection. Such invasions, of course, might also be perpetrated with the same results by regular armies, led by kings and generals from some other settled and organized country. The alternative between bondage and emigration must have been frequently offered, and the choice in favor of the latter was helped not a little by the spirit of adventure inborn in man, tempted by so many unexplored regions as there were in those remote ages.

7. Such have been the beginnings of all nations. There can be no other. And there is one more observation which will scarcely ever prove wrong. It is that, however far we may go back into the past, the people whom we find inhabiting any country at the very dawn of tradition, can always be shown to have come from somewhere else, and not to have been the first either. Every swarm of nomads or adventurers who either pass through a country or stop and settle there, always find it occupied already. Now the older population was hardly ever entirely destroyed or dislodged by the newcomers. A portion at least remained, as an inferior or subject race, but in time came to mix with them, mostly in the way of intermarriage. Then again, if the newcomers were peaceable and there was room enough--which there generally was in very early times--they would frequently be suffered to form separate settlements, and dwell in the land; when they would either remain in a subordinate condition, or, if they were the finer and better gifted race, they would quickly take the upper hand, teach the old settlers their own arts and ideas, their manners and their laws. If the new settlement was effected by conquest, the arrangement was short and simple: the conquerors, though less numerous, at once established themselves as masters and formed a ruling nobility, an aristocracy, while the old owners of the land, those at least that did not choose to emigrate, became what may be called "the common people," bound to do service and pay tribute or taxes to their self-instituted masters. Every country has generally experienced, at various times, all these modes of invasion, so that each nation may be said to have been formed gradually, in successive layers, as it were, and often of very different elements, which either finally amalgamated or kept apart, according to circumstances.

The early history of Chaldea is a particularly good illustration of all that has just been said.

FOOTNOTES:

[Y] Genesis, xiii. 7-11.

[Z] Genesis, xxxvi. 6-7.

II.

THE GREAT RACES.--CHAPTER X. OF GENESIS.

1. The Bible says (Genesis xi. 2): "And it came to pass, as they journeyed in the east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar; and they dwelt there."

Shinar--or, more correctly, Shineâr--is what may be called Babylonia proper, that part of Mesopotamia where Babylon was, and south of it, almost to the Gulf. "They" are descendants of Noah, long after the Flood. They found the plain and dwelt there, but they did not find the whole land desert; it had been occupied long before them. How long? For such remote ages an exact valuation of time in years is not to be thought of.

2. What people were those whom the descendants of Noah found in the land to which they came from the East? It seems a simple question, yet no answer could have been given to it even as lately as fifteen or sixteen years ago, and when the answer was first suggested by unexpected discoveries made in the Royal Library at Nineveh, it startled the discoverers extremely. The only indication on the subject then known was this, from a Chaldean writer of a late period: "There was originally at Babylon" (i.e., in the land of Babylon, not the city alone) "a multitude of men of foreign race who had settled in Chaldea." This is told by Berosus, a learned priest of Babylon, who lived immediately after Alexander the Great had conquered the country, and when the Greeks ruled it (somewhat after 300 B.C.). He wrote a history of it from the most ancient times, in which he gave an account of the oldest traditions concerning its beginnings. As he wrote his book in Greek, it is probable that his object was to acquaint the new masters with the history and religion of the land and people whom they had come to rule. Unfortunately the work was lost--as so many valuable works have been, as long as there was no printing, and books existed only in a few manuscript copies--and we know of it only some short fragments, quoted by later writers, in whose time Berosus' history was still accessible. The above lines are contained in one such fragment, and naturally led to the question: who were these men of foreign race who came from somewhere else and settled in Chaldea in immemorial times?

3. One thing appears clear: they belonged to none of the races classed in the Bible as descended from Noah, but probably to one far older, which had not been included in the Flood.

4. For it begins to be pretty generally understood nowadays that the Flood may not have been absolutely universal, but have extended over the countries _which the Hebrews knew_, which made _their_ world, and that not literally all living beings except those who are reported to have been in the Ark may have perished in it. From a negligent habit of reading Chap. VI.-IX. of Genesis without reference to the texts of other chapters of the same Book, it has become a general habit to understand it in this literal manner. Yet the evidence is by no means so positive. The question was considered an open one by profounder students even in antiquity, and freely discussed both among the Jews themselves and the Fathers of the early Christian Church. The following are the statements given in the Book of Genesis; we have only to take them out of their several places and connect them.

5. When Cain had killed his brother Abel, God banished him from the _earth_ which had received his brother's blood and laid a curse on him: "a fugitive and a vagabond shalt thou be in the _earth_"--using another word than the first time, one which means earth in general (_éréç_), in opposition to _the_ earth (_adâmâh_), or fruitful land to the east of Eden, in which Adam and Eve dwelt after their expulsion. Then Cain went forth, still further East, and dwelt in a land which was called "the land of Nod," _i.e._, "of wandering" or "exile." He had a son, Enoch, after whom he named the city which he built,--the first city,--and descendants. Of these the fifth, Lamech, a fierce and lawless man, had three sons, two of whom, Jabal and Jubal, led a pastoral and nomadic life; but the third, Tubalcain, invented the use of metals: he was "the forger of every cutting instrument of brass and iron." This is what the Chap. IV. of Genesis tells of Cain, his crime, his exile and immediate posterity. After that they are heard of no more. Adam, meanwhile, has a third son, born after he had lost the first two and whom he calls Seth (more correctly _Sheth_). The descendants of this son are enumerated in Chap. V.; the list ends with Noah. These are the parallel races: the accursed and the blest, the proscribed of God and the loved of God, the one that "goes out of the presence of the Lord" and the one that "calls on the name of the Lord," and "walks with God." Of the latter race the last-named, Noah, is "a just man, perfect in his generation," and "finds grace in the eyes of the Lord."

6. Then comes the narrative of the Flood (Chap. VI.-VIII.), the covenant of God with Noah and re-peopling of the earth by his posterity (Chap. IX.). Lastly Chap. X. gives us the list of the generations of Noah's three sons, Shem, Ham and Japhet;--"of these were the nations divided in the earth after the flood."

7. Now this tenth chapter of Genesis is the oldest and most important document in existence concerning the origins of races and nations, and comprises all those with whom the Jews, in the course of their early history, have had any dealings, at least all those who belonged to the great white division of mankind. But in order properly to understand it and appreciate its value and bearing, it must not be forgotten that EACH NAME IN THE LIST IS THAT OF A RACE, A PEOPLE OR A TRIBE, NOT THAT OF A MAN. It was a common fashion among the Orientals--a fashion adopted also by ancient European nations--to express in this manner the kindred connections of nations among themselves and their differences. Both for brevity and clearness, such historical genealogies are very convenient. They must have been suggested by a proceeding most natural in ages of ignorance, and which consists in a tribe's explaining its own name by taking it for granted that it was that of its founder. Thus the name of the Assyrians is really Asshur. Why? Clearly, they would answer, if asked the question, because their kingdom was founded by one whose name was Asshur. Another famous nation, the Aramæans, are supposed to be so called because the name of their founder was Aram; the Hebrews name themselves from a similarly supposed ancestor, Heber. These three nations,--and several more, the Arabs among others--spoke languages so much alike that they could easily understand each other, and had generally many common features in looks and character. How account for that? By making their founders, Asshur, and Aram, and Heber, etc., sons or descendants of one great head or progenitor, Shem, a son of Noah. It is a kind of parable which is extremely clear once one has the key to it, when nothing is easier than to translate it into our own sober, positive forms of speech. The above bit of genealogy would read thus: A large portion of humanity is distinguished by certain features more or less peculiar to itself; it is one of several great races, and has been called for more than a hundred years the Semitic, (better Shemitic) race, the race of Shem. This race is composed of many different tribes and nations, who have gone each its own way, have each its own name and history, speak dialects of the same original language, and have preserved many common ideas, customs and traits of character,--which all shows that the race was once united and dwelt together, then, as it increased in numbers, broke up into fractions, of which some rose to be great and famous nations and some remained comparatively insignificant tribes. The same applies to the subdivisions of the great white race (the whitest of all) to which nearly all the European nations belong, and which is personified in the Bible under the name of Japhet, third son of Noah,--and to those of a third great race, also originally white, which is broken up into very many fractions, both great nations and scattered tribes, all exhibiting a decided likeness to each other. The Bible gives the names of all these most carefully, and sums up the whole of them under the name of the second son of Noah, Ham, whom it calls their common progenitor.