The Human Race

The most unfortunate portion of the Egyptian population, the peasants and the labourers, the same workmen who have been so useful in constructing the Suez Canal, are called Fellahs.

From an ethnographic point of view, the Fellahs are descended from the primitive indigenous inhabitants, modified by admixture with the Arabs. Although they speak the Arab tongue, the coarseness of their features keeps them distinct from the Arabs. The soil of Egypt thus supports a singular admixture of races, and it is impossible now-a-days to point out one single pure type. This is a result of the miserable political state of the country. From the very first, Egypt has always been the prey of alien conquerors, who have succeeded one another in one long roll, each in their turn adding some new feature to those of the original inhabitants of the country. In “Travels in Egypt,” by Messrs. Cammas and Lefèvre, published in the “Tour du Monde,” we read the following observations on the Fellahs: —

75. – A FELLAH WOMAN AND CHILDREN.

“The Fellahs have but a feeble conception of the dignity of man and of their own value; the only answer they give to blows is a complaint. Sometimes, indeed, they rebel like a flock of sheep, but with a conviction that their effort will be of no avail. It is thus, at the times of conscription, they resist the soldiery; but after a few have been killed, the rest allow themselves to be huddled on board the man-of-war, in which they are taken down the Nile to Cairo, the women and the young girls following them for some miles along the banks with cries and lamentations. A Fellah’s existence is not essentially more unhappy than that of our peasant hinds. His disposition is rather cheerful than melancholy; and every circumcision, every marriage, is the excuse for a holiday, shared by the whole village. Their songs and their dances are redolent of the spontaneous mirth instinctive in negroes. But with everything to render life agreeable, the consciousness of rights and obligations, that something that constitutes the freeman and the citizen, is wanting in them. The Fellah is fond of his home and of his hamlet; but Egypt is for him neither a nation nor a fatherland. It is astonishing at first sight to notice this degradation of the human species, so sad to behold; however, if the oppressive tyranny of the Mamelukes, the deep degradation of Egypt under the Greek and Roman dynasties, and the old caste law, condemning the mass of the population to the slavery of the soil, are remembered, it is easy to understand why the Fellah, ground down under the sway of the Pharaohs, stupefied under that of the Romans, and crushed by Mussulman fatalism, is slow to respond to the efforts and to the intellectual tendencies of the government of Saïd Pacha. Since the Arab conquest, the soil has been legally the property of the sultans, the emirs, and the beys. The feudal system that once theoretically existed amongst us was rigorously carried into practice in Egypt. The whole of the crop harvested by the Fellahs passed, with the exception of a modicum necessary for their absolute existence, into the granaries of the land-owners. Now-a-days the Viceroy has abandoned the practice of monopoly; he is anxious to change arbitrary rights into regular taxes; he has yielded his just claims to the labourer, and assured to the peasant his right of succession to the fields he has watered with the sweat of his toil. But it takes a long interval to blot out the horrible stamp of their past slavery.

76. – A FELLAH DONKEY BOY.

“The sailors of the Nile, sons and relations of the Fellahs, resemble them in their ignorance, in their humility, in their contempt for life, and in their natural disposition to laughter, to song, and to the dance. But their wits are becoming sharpened by perpetual contact with strangers; and their minds are busy on many things undreamt of by the Fellah.”

The same travellers tell us, in speaking of Egyptian marriages: —

“Marriage in Egypt is not a public act strictly registered by the law. When the bridegroom and the bride’s parents have come to an understanding, when the sum to be paid by the husband has been agreed upon (the wife brings no dower), the celebration of the union takes place before two witnesses. Sometimes the cadi is apprized; but this is a formality that is often neglected. In such a union, without any ulterior guarantee, the wife is but a purchased slave. When the husband tires of her he sends her back; she can only claim a divorce on one single ground, for a reason considered by us also as a serious injury. No legal notice is taken of the birth of children, who are consequently placed in a precarious position until they are old enough to look after themselves. Their death is easily concealed; and they occasionally perish by the hand of one of the other wives, rivals of their mother. A common custom allows the Nile sailors to have two wives, one at Girgeh, for instance, and another at Assouan. The husband passes a month with each of them in turns, as his business allows him. He brings with him a few piastres, a piece or two of blue cotton stuff, often some little seaman’s venture, that the wife proceeds to dispose of on his departure. He receives in exchange the products of the place, that in turn go to swell the trade of the other wife. We had on board a cargo of earthenware, salt, and pipes. The sailors disembarked them here and there as they went up the river, expecting to find on their return stores of tobacco, dates, and horse-trappings. Polygamy looked at in this light is productive; but it loses ground notwithstanding every day, not amongst the poor only, but amongst the rich, who have in most cases but one legitimate wife at a time. Besides, there is but one real cause for polygamy – the premature old age of the women. When the men give up the practice of marrying mere children, who become rapidly worn out by the fatigues of precocious maternity, polygamy will cease to exist.”

Fig. 77 represents the dress of a Cairo lady.

77. – A LADY OF CAIRO.

Almas, or Egyptian dancing-girls, are now-a-days scarcely more than a name in the country. It is difficult to find even one or two in Cairo. The last specimens are restricted to the town of Esneh.

The travellers from whom we have taken the above details, visited the town of Esneh, and there saw the dancing-girls. They give the following sketch of them.

“We were conducted into a building of forbidding aspect. The dancing-girls were grouped together in the midst of the apartment. They were all plain enough in the face, but young and well made. The hope of large gains had induced them to take extra pains with their dress. I still see their low-necked vests, their wide silk pantaloons, fastened above the hips with dazzling waistbands; their inner tunic of gauze or flesh-coloured muslin; some with naked feet, others with long red or yellow Turkish slippers. Most of them wore necklaces and bracelets, and small coins hanging over their foreheads; whilst at the back of their heads hung a small silk handkerchief, carelessly thrown on. The dance began with a series of attitudes, beseeching and graceful, then rapidly grew animated, till it expressed a pitch of deep passion. Their bosoms remained immovable, while they moved the rest of their bodies as if in a frenzy. A distribution of olives, of liqueurs, and a shower of small coins, won us a thousand blessings, and brought our evening to a dignified close. The almas do not meet every day with such a windfall; and if they dance during the winter, they do not sing in the summer. The population amidst which they live cannot afford to remunerate their talents. Well versed in poses plastiques, but incapable of all work, they are reduced to all sorts of expedients, and to loans, which make them the slaves of the usurers. Their time is spent in smoking, in drinking aquavitæ, and in consuming the omnipresent coffee. The miseries of such an existence daily decrease the number of almas, who, in the time of the Mamelukes, were to be found everywhere in Egypt. Esneh is their last refuge, and was, no doubt, their birthplace.”

78. – ALMA OR DANCING-GIRL.

The Semitic Family

We have already said that the races who composed the Aramean branch kindled in Asia, at an early period in history, the torch of civilization. This observation is more particularly applicable to the nations of the Semitic family, of whom we are now going to speak. It is from this family, in fact, that sprang the nations so well known in ancient history, under the name of Assyrians, Hebrews, Phœnicians and Carthaginians. Conquered by other races, the Assyrians, the Hebrews, the Phœnicians, and the Carthaginians have successively disappeared and are now almost entirely replaced by the Arabs.

We unite to the Semitic family the Arabs, the Jews, and the Syrians.

The Arabs.– The Arabs constitute the principal population of modern Arabia; they also form a great part of the inhabitants of Egypt, Nubia, Barbary, and Sahara. They extend into Persia, and even into Hindostan.

Some of the Arabs are shepherds (Bedouins), others cultivate the soil; the former are nomadic, the latter sedentary. The Bedouins, children of the desert, perpetual wanderers, active and very temperate, are smaller and of a more slender appearance than the others, and support with ease the fatigues and privations of their mode of life. The agricultural Arabs, or fehles, are taller and more robust. The former have a wild and suspicious cast of countenance. The characteristics of the Arab race are, a long face, with a high-shaped head; an aquiline nose, nearly in a line with the forehead; a retreating and small mouth; even teeth; the eye not at all deep set, in spite of the want of prominence of the brow; graceful figures, formed by the small volume of fatty matter and cellular tissue, and by the presence of powerful but not largely developed muscle; a keen wit; a lively intelligence; and a deep and persevering mould of character. These characteristics show that they possess a remarkable superiority over other races, and Baron Larrey has found fresh evidence of this superiority in the shape of their head, in the convolutions of their brain, in the consistency of their nervous tissue, in the appearance of their muscular fibre and their bony structure, and in the regularity and perfect development of their heart and arterial system.

We see therefore that the Arab type is really an admirable one. This type, consistent and well defined as a whole, has, however, undergone considerable modifications under the influence of divers causes. The colour of their skin varies a good deal: their complexion is sometimes as white as that of Europeans of the most northern countries. In Yemen, Arab women have been noticed whose complexion was a deep yellow. In that portion of the valley of the Nile contiguous to Nubia, the Arabs are black. In this same valley of the Nile, above Dengola, the Shegya Arabs are jet black, a bright clear black, a colour which the English traveller Waddington thought the most beautiful that could be chosen for a human creature.

“These men,” says Waddington, “entirely differ from negroes in the brilliancy of their colour, in the quality of their hair, in the regularity of their features, in the gentle expression of their limpid eyes, and by the softness of their skin, which in this respect is not at all inferior to that of Europeans.”

Amongst the Arabs who dwell in more temperate climates, hair more or less fair, and blue or grey eyes have been observed. As a contrast, in the Libyan desert, tribes have been met with whose hair was woolly and nearly analogous to that of negroes. Taken altogether, the nomadic Arabs, who have faithfully adhered for many centuries to the same mode of life, exhibit, in spite of varying climates, the original mould of an exceptional beauty.

Fig. 79 shows a tent of nomadic Arabs.

The Jews.– Among the lesser nations with an affinity to the Semitic family, there is one remarkable by its historical importance, and by the manner in which it has managed to preserve its original type during the eighteen centuries in which it has been scattered all over the whole world: we mean the Jews or Israelites.6

79. – WANDERING ARABS.

The Jews have preserved much of their own peculiar physiognomy. They are distinguished from the nations among whom they are dispersed, by peculiar features easily recognized in many paintings of the great masters. Still they have ended by adopting more or less the characteristics of the nations with whom they have long resided. Under the sole influence of external circumstances and mode of life, the medley of races amongst which they have existed has little by little altered their national type. In the northern parts of Europe the Jews have a white skin, blue eyes, and fair hair. In some portions of Germany many are to be seen with red beards; in Portugal they are tawny-coloured. In those districts of India where they have been long settled, in Cochin for instance, on the Malabar coast, they are black, and resemble the natives so exactly in complexion that it is often difficult to distinguish them from the Hindoos.

80. – JEW OF BUCHAREST.

Fig. 80 represents a Jew of Bucharest.

Syrians.– The ancient Syrians have, as a rule, become absorbed in the races who have conquered them; their language, however, is still spoken by the Christian population of Mesopotamia and Chaldea, the Sourianis and the Yakoubis or Chaldeans.

Beyrout, at the foot of the mountains of Libanus (fig. 81), is a town and port which is the commercial centre of all Syria. Thither Libanus sends its wine and its silks; Yemen, its coffee; Haman, its corn; Djebaïl and Lattakiah, their pale-coloured tobaccos; Palmyra, its horses; Damascus, its arms; Bagdad, its costly stuffs; and all Europe, the countless productions of its industry.

81. – BEYROUT.

The very first glance at Beyrout shows how commerce prospers in that town. The Maronite in his gloomy and coarse garments, the Druze in his white or parti-coloured turban, armed with the most costly weapons, the Arab displaying his picturesque rags, the Turk, the Greek, the Jew, and the Armenian, all hurry to and fro, jostling one another in the crowd. It is a regular Babel of language and costume: in which, however, the Christian element predominates.

But the streets of Beyrout, like all those of Eastern towns, are not in unison with such a brilliant panorama.

The houses are massive shells of stone; the streets are narrow and steep, communicating sometimes by tunnelled passages; some of the broader ones are occupied by cafedjis, inside which squatting Arabs tranquilly smoke their chibouks, sheltered from the rays of the sun by awnings of coarse rush-matting hung above their heads. In the middle of the street the children roll about in the dust.

The Maronites and the Druzes are two lesser nations of Libanus, speaking, however, like most modern Syrians, the Arabic tongue.

The Maronites are an influential but ignorant people. They derive their origin from a Christian monk of the name of Maroun, who lived towards the close of the sixth century, and died in the odour of sanctity. A convent was founded to honour his memory. A century later, one of his disciples, John the Maronite, espoused the quarrel of the Latin Christians against those of Greek descent, at that time making much headway in Libanus. The latter drew their inspiration from Constantinople; the Maronites, on the contrary, imbibed theirs from Rome. A religious pretext was made use of to hide political differences. John the Maronite armed his mountaineers, led them against the enemy, and seized the whole of Libanus right up to the walls of Jerusalem. Keeping within their mountains, although comparatively few in number, the Maronites preserved for a long time their independence. It was not until 1588 that they were conquered by Ibrahim, Pacha of Cairo, and forced to pay a yearly tribute, which they still continue to do.

82. – MARONITES OF LIBANUS.

In spite of this the Maronites, like all mountaineers, have kept their desire for independence. Persecuted by their masters, the Mussulmans; and by the Druzes, rivals raised up against them by the English, jealous, according to the French, of the latter’s influence in Libanus; on bad terms with the Ansarieh or Mutualis; they still manage, the spade in one hand and the sword in the other, to cultivate and defend the inheritance of their fathers.

Ignorant as they are, the Maronites are the only educated race in the country. The magnificent convents which exist in the districts of the Maronites, are full of ancient manuscripts and modern Arab writings. Fig. 82 represents a Maronite convent in Libanus.

The Druzes are schismatic Mussulmans, as the Maronites are sectarian Christians. They are inclined to cultivate the soil, but are naturally warlike. Every Druze is a ready-made soldier, hospitable, if you will, but quite as capable of fighting, when the opportunity offers, as the best guérilléros in Europe.

The Persian Family

The white races who come from the south-east of the Caucasus are generally classed in the European branch, because the languages of both are somewhat similar, and have both some affinity with Sanscrit. But these races have a much greater resemblance to the Arameans than to the Europeans. Like the Arameans, the nations of the Persian family early acquired a certain degree of civilization, to which they have since added.

The races belonging to the Persian family have a white skin, black eyes and hair, and are of middle height. They inhabit not only Persia, but Armenia, Turkistan, and some portions of Hindostan.

Five well-defined divisions can be made in the races that constitute this family: 1st, the Persians, properly so called, or the Tadjiks; 2nd, the Afghans; 3rd, the Kurds; 4th, the Armenians; 5th, the small tribe of the Ossetines.

The Persians.– A great part of Persia is still occupied by tribes who wander about the country, living in tents, and forcing their slaves and servants to till the soil. But many of these tribes are aliens to the Persian race. The pure race of Persians only inhabits towns and their immediate neighbourhood. These Tadjiks or thoroughbred Persians were formerly much more numerous than they are now. The north-east of the kingdom of Iran is the land of their ancestors. All ancient writers have spoken of the primitive Persians (Medes and Persians) as a singularly fine and well made race. Ammianus Marcellinus speaks of Persia as a country renowned for the beauty of its women (ubi feminarum pulchritudo excellit), and all the old authors describe the Persians as men of a tall stature and a handsome countenance.

The figures we find in the numerous ancient sculptures on Persian monuments, at Istakhar, at Persepolis, at Ekbatana, and in many other places, confirm in every respect this evidence. In the basso-relievos from Nineveh in the Palace of the Louvre, in Paris, the refined features and the good looks which distinguished the men of that ancient city are at once recognizable. The type is a noble and dignified one, and shows traces of much reflection and intelligence.

The Tadjiks, or modern Persians, are likewise extremely handsome. They possess a great regularity of feature, an oval countenance, luxuriant hair, large and well defined black eyebrows, and that soft dark eye held in such high estimation by Easterns.

The Tadjiks are cheerful, witty, active, frivolous, idle, and vicious; fond of luxury, dress, and display. They possess a literature, and their language, remarkable for its flowery and ornamental diction, is spoken not only in Persia, but by the upper classes in a large portion of Hindostan.

Persia (the kingdom of Iran) is governed by a king (shah) who exercises almost absolute authority and who resides at Teheran. The heir to the throne is the eldest son of the king’s eldest son, according to an ancient Russian custom.

The twelve provinces of which the kingdom is composed are administered by a governor (beglebeig), who delegates his authority to a lieutenant (kakim). The towns are ruled over by a special governor, by a police inspector, and by a first magistrate. Every village elects a ruler (ketlkhoda). The legislation of Persia, differing in little from that of Turkey, is based on the Koran.

The kingdom of Persia can send into the field 150,000 soldiers; but its permanent army does not exceed 10,000 men, among whom exist as a special corps, the shah’s guards (gholaums). Persia has a small merchant navy.

83. – HADY-MERZA-AGHAZZI.

Manufactures do not seem to succeed in Persia. This country, formerly the centre of a large commerce, now imports almost everything, and only manufactures articles of primary necessity.

India, Russia, and Afghanistan supply the Persians with most of their manufactured goods.

Persia, having been often invaded and occupied by foreigners, has necessarily a very mixed population. This consists of four classes:

1. The nobility, who fill all public posts.

2. The citizens of the towns, comprising the clergy, and the scholastic profession, who are a mixture of Persians, Turks, Tartars, Georgians, Armenians, and Arabs.

3. The peasants, belonging to the old Persian stock.

4. The nomadic or pastoral tribes, composed of Persians, to whom must be added the remnant of the ancient conquering classes of this country. It is from this last class that spring the soldiers and all the military clique who constitute in Persia a real hereditary autocracy.

The religion of the ancient Persians was that of Zoroath, that is to say, necromancy. In the third and fourth centuries of the Christian era, Christianity made many converts in this land, although at that time it was occupied by the Arabs. But from the commencement of the fifth century the kings of Persia devoted their energies to crushing it out of their country, and Mahometanism is now the predominant religion. A new sect, the sosists, taking rise in a province in Persia (Kerman), has made many converts throughout the kingdom. The votaries of this new creed are deists, who only accept the Koran as a book of moral precepts, and who repudiate the religious dogma that Mahomet drew from it.

Fig. 84 represents several Persian types; fig. 85 gives an idea of the costly dress of the Persian nobility.

84. – PERSIAN TYPES.

The author of a “Journey in Persia,” Count de Gobineau, has well described the internal life of the Persians. We will make a few extracts from his interesting book. Let us read, for instance, the chapter in which is described A dinner in Ispahan. “The table,” M. de Gobineau tells us, “laid for twenty guests, was almost lost in the immense size of the place. The front of the theatre was open, supported by ten lofty columns painted in light colours; the large curtain in use, white, with black designs embroidered on it, was stretched like an awning over the nearest part of the gardens. The guests overlooked a large fountain of running water and vast beds of plane trees. Numerous servants in motley dresses, and armed each according to his own fancy (some of them carried a complete arsenal), stood in groups at the end of the terrace, or handed round the dishes, helping the guests. The table had been laid out with the help of the European servants, a little in the European manner, and a good deal according to Persian customs. Its centre was occupied by a perfect forest of vases and cups, made of wood, or of blue, white, or yellow and red glass, and filled with flowers. The novelty of the thing to our hosts, lay in the spoons and forks: when by good fortune, they managed to impale a piece upon their fork and carry it to their mouths without pricking themselves, it was the signal for a burst of compliments. Their appetites were a little eccentric. One of them filled his plate with mustard, and declared he had never tasted anything half so good. As their parade was greater than the results, we begged them to help themselves in their own way. After much hesitation, they consented to hold on to the fork with the left hand while they picked up their food with the right.