[78] Sayce (_Hibbert Lectures_) and Bagster's _Records of the Past_. Inscriptions of Cyrus published in the last volume of the latter appear to set at rest the vexed questions relating to early Elam. It would seem that in the earliest times Cushites and Semitic Elamites contended for the fertile plains and the mountains east of the Tigris, and were finally subjugated by Japhetic Medes and Persians. Thus this region first formed a part of the Cushite Nimrodic empire (Genesis ii. 11, x. 8); it then became the seat of a conquering Elamite power (Genesis xiv. 1 to 4); and was finally a central part of the Medo-Persian empire. All this agrees with the Bible and the inscriptions, as well as in the main with Herodotus. So far as the writer in Genesis is informed, he does not seem to be aware of any sons of Japhet having colonised Palestine or Egypt. It was only in the later reflux of population that the sons of Javan gained a foothold in these regions. They were both colonised primarily by Hamites and subsequently intruded on by Semites. Here a little prehistoric interlude noted by the writer, or by an author whom he quotes, gives a valuable clue not often attended to. The oldest son of Ham, Cush, begat Nimrod, the mighty hunter and prehistoric conqueror, who organised the first empire in that Euphratean plain which subsequently became the nucleus of the Babylonian and Assyrian power. The site of his kingdom cannot be doubted, for cities well known in historic times, Babel, Erech, Accad, and Calneh, were included in it, as well as probably Nineveh. The first point which I wish to make in this connection is that we cannot suppose this to have been a Semitic empire. Its nucleus must have been composed of Nimrod's tribal connections, who were Hamites and presumably Cushites. He is, indeed, said to have gone into or invaded the land of Ashur, and if by this is meant the Semitic Ashur, he must have been hostile to these people, as indeed the Chaldeans were in later times. The next point to be noted is that the Nimrodic empire must have originated at a time when the Cushites were still strong on the Lower Euphrates, and before that great movement of these people which carried them across Arabia to the Upper Nile, and ultimately caused the name Cush or Kesh to be almost exclusively applied to the Ethiopians of Africa. Now is this history, or mere legend? [Illustration: HEAD ILLUSTRATING THE MOST ANCIENT TYPE OF CUSHITE TURANIAN, FROM TEL-LOH (after de Sarzec). The cap is perhaps an imitation of the antediluvian shell-caps, like that of the 'man of Mentorie.']