These reasons are more specious than solid. We can only admit provisionally the Finnish origin of the Turkish race. Up to now, it has been supported only by a single argument, the affinity of language. I will show later how the argument from language, when taken alone, is peculiarly open to doubt and criticism. Assuming however that the ancestors of the Turkish people belonged to the yellow race, we can easily show that they had excellent reasons for keeping themselves apart from it. From the time when the first Turanian hordes descended from the north-east to that when they made themselves masters of the city of Constantine, a period comprising many centuries, great changes passed over the world; and the Western Turks suffered many vicissitudes of fortune. They were in turn victors and vanquished, slaves and masters; and very diverse were the peoples among whom they settled. According to the annalists,[74] the Oghuzes, their ancestors, came down from the Altai Mountains, and, in the time of Abraham lived in the immense steppes of Upper Asia that extend from the Katai to Lake Aral, from Siberia to Tibet. This is the ancient and mysterious domain that was still inhabited by many Germanic peoples.[75] It is a curious fact that as soon as Eastern writers begin to speak of the peoples of Turkestan, they praise their beauty of face and stature.[76] Hyperbolic expressions are the rule, in this connexion; and as these writers had the beautiful types of the ancient world before their eyes, as a standard, it is not very likely that their enthusiasm should have been aroused by the sight of creatures so incontrovertibly ugly and repulsive as the ordinary specimens of the Mongolian race. Thus in spite of the linguistic argument, which may itself be wrongly used,[77] we might still make out a good case for our view. But we will concede the point, and admit that the Oghuzes of the Altai were really a Finnish people; and we will pass on to the Mohammedan period, when the Turkish tribes were established, under different names and varied circumstances, in Persia and Asia Minor.