Without entering into a philological discussion, it is worthy of remark, that the Gheez or Ethiopic language, the oldest of the known tongues of Abyssinia, is directly allied to the Arabic and Hebrew. The period of its introduction into Africa is unknown, though it probably dates far beyond our era. Moreover, among the ruins recently discovered at Hasan Ghorâb, (170 miles east of Aden,) at Sanaa, and at other places in Yemen, inscriptions have been abundantly found in the old Ethiopic tongue, which, in the opinion of the late Professor Gesenius, is a modification of the parent Hemyarite language. These few facts, with others which will be adduced hereafter, go to prove that the Egyptian people must have been more or less blended with the Arabian race; nor can there be a question that the Meröite or Austral-Egyptian communities were composed, at least in part, of an Indo-Arabian stock engrafted on the aboriginal Libyan population. An able but anonymous author not only asserts the Arab origin of the monumental Ethiopians, but endeavours to prove, by an ingenious series of facts and reasonings, that they were the “Blemies of history, a Bejáwy branch of the Arabian family;” that they were broken and finally dispersed by the policy of the Roman government, which, in the reign of Dioclesian, introduced Negro colonies from Kordofan; and, finally, that the Nubians of our day are not, as a nation, descended from the ancient stock. The last proposition, as a general rule, is undeniable; but the preceding conclusions are not yet susceptible of proof.[77] Convinced as we are that the Egyptians were a distinct and aboriginal people, the sentiment of M. Jomard may yet become, to a certain extent, an axiom in ethnography:—“L’Arabie à été de tout temps, et elle est encore de nos jours, l’aliment de la population Egyptienne.”[78] ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 4. THE HINDOOS. I observe among the Egyptian crania, some which differ in nothing from the Hindoo type either in respect to size or configuration. I have already, in my remarks upon the ear, mentioned a downward elongation of the upper jaw, which I have more frequently met with in Egyptian and Hindoo heads than in any others, although I have seen it occasionally in all the races. This feature is remarkable in two of the following five crania, (A, B,) and may be compared with a similar form from Abydos. (Plate V., Fig. 2.) [Illustration]