We have been led to believe that the civilisation of the ancient world originated among the Cainites, of whom the Turanians are the line of descendants. We have seen reason, moreover, for supposing that the particular branch of the Turanian stock, among whom the development of the art of metallurgy first took place, was the Ural-Altaic, to which the earliest inhabitants of Chaldea belonged, and whom Dr. Topinard supposes to be the connecting-link between the fair types of Europe and the brachycephalic types of Asia. The building art was one of the earliest to be developed, as is evident from the reference in Genesis to the building of a city by Cain. The erection of the first city is connected with the slaying of Abel, and therefore the origin of architecture may be referred back to almost the earliest period of human culture, and we may well suppose that some of the least cultured Turanian tribes represent a still earlier stage of Cainite civilisation. M. Lenormant objects to Herr Knobel’s theory that the Chinese and the Mongolian peoples are Cainites, that “the geographical horizon of the traditions of Genesis did not extend far enough to include them.” If, however, when the Chinese first descended into the plains they were still in the stone age, they may have been true Cainites, the more so as their immediate ancestors were located much nearer than are their descendants to the primeval home of Adamite man. The remarkable influence which the veneration for the serpent has obtained among the Chinese, a superstition which was developed no less remarkably among the peoples belonging to the Western branch of the Turanian family, and through them among the Hamitic peoples, would seem to prove that it was of primeval origin. The arts of metallurgy and architecture appear to have had a later development, and to have originated among the Turanian Aithiopians or Kuths, to whom the civilisation of the ancient world was ascribed. After leaving their home in West-Central Asia they settled in Chaldea, from whence they gradually spread throughout Western Asia, Northern Africa, and Europe, where, in later years, they came in contact with the Caucasian races, who gave a higher tone to their intellectual culture and their religious ideas, the latter being especially observable in the position assigned to the great serpent as the embodiment of evil. * * * * * _Note._—The legend of the slaying of Abel by his brother Cain referred to at page 138, is met with in the Mythologies of some of the American tribes. See _Monographie des Dènè Dindjié_, by C. R. E. Petitot, pp. 62-84, and for a similar legend of the Aztecs, see _American Hero-Myths_, by Daniel G. Brinton, pp. 64-68. CHAPTER VI. SACRED PROSTITUTION.