Thus it is once more demonstrated that to the Aryan race, naturally and without violence, is reserved the pre-eminence in modern civilization. A thousand years ago northern Russia was peopled by Finnish tribes; in still more recent times the Asiatic fisherman cast his nets where now stands the capital of Peter the Great; and yet without any war of extermination, without any emigration of masses, without persecutions, or the deprivation of legal privileges, the aboriginal Finns have subsided, have been absorbed,--have become Russianized, in a word. This is not surprising, perhaps, to us who believe in the absolute superiority of the Indo-European race, noble, high-minded, capable of the loftiest and profoundest conceptions possible to the human intellect. I may say that the Russian ethnographical evolution may be compared with that of my own country, if we may trust recent and well-authenticated theories. The most remote peoples of Russia were, like those of Spain, of Turanian origin, with flattish faces, and high cheek-bones, speaking a soft-flowing language; and to this day, as in Spain also, one may see in some of the physiognomies clear traces of the old blood in spite of the predominance of the invading Aryan. In Spain, perhaps, the aboriginal Turanian bequeathed no proofs of intellectual keenness to posterity, and the famous Basque songs and legends of Lelo and Altobizkar may turn out to be merely clever modern tricks of imitation; but in Russia the Finnish element, whose influence is yet felt, shows great creative powers. One of the richest popular literatures known to the researches of folk-lore is the epic cycle of Finland called the Kalevala, which compares with the Sanscrit poems of old.