In our previous examination of the peoples of the Steppes, we discovered that all were more or less directly sprung from the same sources;--the yellow or Mongolian race, which blends in the north with the Hyperborean race, and in the west with the Japhetic or Indo-Germanic. We have now to note a not less remarkable fact--that the whole Desert zone is likewise occupied by one family, the Semitic, modified in certain parts of Africa by commixture with the Negro race. Soon we shall see the latter peopling of itself the plains of Central and Southern Africa; the Malayo-Polynesian and Papuan, but slightly distinguished from the preceding, in possession of the islands of the Indian Ocean, those of Oceania, and the Australian continent; the Hyperborean race, scattered through the Arctic solitudes; and, finally, the "Red Man," gradually dying away among the prairies and forests of the two Americas: so that, to each of the great divisions of the Savage or Desert World corresponds one of the great fractions of the human species. The Shemites--so named because the Bible attributes their origin to Shem, the eldest son of Noah--are now-a-days represented only by the Jews and the Arabs, though they formerly included also the Assyrians, the Chaldæans or Babylonians, the Syrians, Phoenicians, and Ethiopians. Of their modern representatives, the Jews alone have displayed any real aptitude for civilization. The Arabs, whose name is derived from the word _Arâba_, which signifies "desert," seem almost exclusively adapted for a nomadic life; and it is to them can most correctly be applied the characteristics which Renan too broadly attributes to the entire Shemitic race. "As far as concerns the civil and political life," says that distinguished orientalist, "the Shemites are distinguished by the same character of simplicity. They have never understood civilization in the sense which we apply to the word. We do not find among them any great organized empires, or commerce, or public spirit--nothing which recalls the absolute monarchy of Egypt and Persia. The true Shemitic society is that of the tent and the tribe: it owns no political or judiciary institution; its principle is, man free, without any controlling authority, and without any other security than that of the family tie. The questions of aristocracy, democracy, feudality, which sum up all the history of the Aryan peoples, have no meaning for the Shemites. Aristocracy, not having among them a military origin, is accepted without protest and without repugnance. The Shemitic nobility is purely patriarchal: it owes nothing to conquest; it has its origin in blood."