It is thus that we trace the Pelasgic type of feature and expression through all the various castes of the Egyptian population, beginning with kings and ending with peasants and plebeians. The illustrations have been purposely selected from those remote times wherein chronology becomes confusion, down to the later periods of recorded history,—a vast period of thirteen centuries, of which the latest date looks back nine hundred years before the birth of Christ! People of Pelasgic features and complexion are often seen on the monuments as prisoners taken in war. One of these is copied, Plate XIV., Fig. 23. It is from Abousimbel, and dates with Rameses III. The very fair skin, regular features and black hair seem to point to a nation of southern Europe. The nose is nearly straight, and on the same line with the forehead, although the latter recedes more than is consistent with our ideas of the Grecian profile.[72] ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 3. THE SEMITIC RACE.[73] That people of this great family were numerous in Egypt is amply attested both by sacred and profane history; and the proximity of their respective countries necessarily brought the Semitic and Egyptian communities into frequent contact for war or for peace. This fact is abundantly proved by the monuments. The Jewish people, however, appears, for the most part, to have been admitted into Egypt upon sufferance; for the Exodus, and all subsequent annals, are conclusive on this subject. Those peculiar lineaments which, from very remote times, have characterized some of the Semitic nations, have been already noticed. How many of these nations possessed these physical characters, cannot now be determined; but it is probable that all partook of them in degree. It is in the temple of Beyt-el-Wàlee, in Nubia, in paintings of the age of Rameses II., (B.C. 1579,) that we meet with one of the earliest unquestionable delineations of these people. (Plate XIV., Fig. 24.)