Page:A general history for colleges and high schools (Myers, 1890).djvu/18

4 The Semitic family includes among its chief peoples the ancient Babylonians and Assyrians, the Hebrews, the Phœnicians, and the Arabians. We are not certain what region was the original abode of this family. We only know that by the dawn of history its various clans and tribes, whencesoever they may have come, had distributed themselves over the greater part of Southwestern Asia.

It is interesting to note that the three great historic religions of the world,—the Hebrew, the Christian, and the Mohammedan,—the three religions that alone (if we except that of Zoroaster) teach a belief in one God, arose among peoples belonging to the Semitic family.

The Aryan, or Indo-European, though probably the youngest, is the most widely scattered family of the White Race. It includes among its members the ancient Hindus, Medes, and Persians, the classic Greeks and Romans, and the modern descendants of all these nations; also almost all the peoples; of Europe and their colonists that have peopled the New World, and taken possession of other parts of the earth. This is the family to which we ourselves belong.

Migrations of the Aryans.—The original seat of the Aryan peoples was, it is conjectured, somewhere in Asia. At a period that cannot be placed later than 3000 B.C., the Aryan household began to break up and scatter, and the different clans to set out in search of new dwelling-places. Some tribes of the family spread themselves over the table-lands of Iran and the plains of India, and became the progenitors of the Medes, the Persians, and the Hindus. Other clans entering Europe probably by the way of the Hellespont, pushed themselves into the peninsulas of Greece and Italy, and founded the Greek and Italian states. Still other tribes seem to have poured in successive waves into Central Europe. The vanguard of these peoples are known as the Celts. After them came the Teutonic tribes, who crowded the former out on the westernmost edge of Europe—into Gaul and Spain, and out upon the British Isles. These hard-pressed Celts are represented to-day by the Welsh, the Irish, and the Highland Scots. Behind the