Page:EB1911 - Volume 02.djvu/793

 seas. Forms of sea-horses (Hippocampus), pipe-fishes (Syngnathus), fife-fishes (Sclerodermus), and sun-fish, globe-fish, and other allied forms of Gymnodontes, are not uncommon.

Of the cartilaginous fishes, Chondropterygii, the true sharks and hammer-headed sharks, are numerous. The dog-fish also is found, one species extending from the Indian seas to the Cape of Good Hope. The saw-fishes, Pristidae, the electrical rays, Torpedinae, and ordinary rays and skates, are also found in considerable numbers.

The fresh waters of southern Asia are deficient in the typical forms of the Acanthopterygii, and are chiefly inhabited by carp, siluroids, simple or spined eels, and the walking and climbing fishes. The Siluridae attain their chief development in tropical regions. Only one Silurus is found in Europe, and the same species extends to southern Asia and Africa. The Salmonidae are entirely absent from the waters of southern Asia, though they exist in the rivers that flow into the Arctic Ocean and the neighbouring parts of the northern Pacific, extending perhaps to Formosa; and trout, though unknown in Indian rivers, are found beyond the watershed of the Indus, in the streams flowing into the Caspian. The Cyprinidae, or carp, are largely represented in southern Asia, and there grow to a size unknown in Europe; a Barbus in the Tigris has been taken of the weight of 300 ℔ The chief development of this family, both as to size and number of forms, is in the mountain regions with a temperate climate; the smaller species are found in the hotter regions and in the low-lying rivers. Of the Clupeidae, or herrings, numerous forms occur in Asiatic waters, ascending the rivers many hundred miles; one of the best-known of Indian fishes, the hilsa, is of this family. The sturgeons, which abound in the Black Sea and Caspian, and ascend the rivers that fall into them, are also found in Asiatic Russia, and an allied form extends to southern China. The walking or climbing fishes, which are peculiar to south-eastern Asia and Africa, are organized so as to be able to breathe when out of the water, and they are thus fitted to exist under conditions which would be fatal to other fishes, being suited to live in the regions of periodical drought and rain in which they are found.

The insects of all southern Asia, including India south of the Himalaya, China, Siam and the Malayan Islands, belong to one group; not only the genera, but even the species are often the same on the opposite sides of the Bay of Bengal. The connexion with Africa is marked by the occurrence of many genera common to Africa and India, and confined to those two regions, and similarities of form are not uncommon there in cases in which the genera are not peculiar. Of Coleopterous insects known to inhabit east Siberia, nearly one-third are found in western Europe. The European forms seem to extend to about 30° N., south of which the Indo-Malayan types are met with, Japan being of the Europeo-Asiatic group. The northern forms extend generally along the south coast of the Mediterranean up to the border of the great desert, and from the Levant to the Caspian.

Of the domesticated animals of Asia may first be mentioned the elephant. It does not breed in captivity, and is not found wild west of the Jumna river in northern India. The horse is produced, in the highest perfection in Arabia and the hot and dry countries of western Asia. Ponies are most esteemed from the wetter regions of the east, and the hilly tracts. Asses are abundant in most places, and two wild species occur. The horned cattle include the humped oxen and buffaloes of India, and the yak of Tibet. A hybrid between the yak and Indian cattle, called zo, is commonly reared in Tibet and the Himalaya. Sheep abound in the more temperate regions, and goats are universally met with; both of these animals are used as beasts of burden in the mountains of Tibet. The reindeer of northern Siberia call also for special notice; they are used for the saddle as well as for draught.

Asia, including its outlying islands, has become the dwelling-place of all the great families into which the races of men have been divided. By far the largest area is occupied by the Mongolian group. These have yellow-brown skins, black eyes and hair, flat noses and oblique eyes. They are short in stature, with little hair on the body and face. In general terms they extend, with modifications of character probably due to admixture with other types and to varying conditions of life, over the whole of northern Asia as far south as the plains bordering the Caspian Sea, including Tibet and China, and also over the Indo-Malayan peninsula and Archipelago, excepting Papua and some of the more eastern islands.

Next in numerical importance to the Mongolians are the races which have been called by Professor Huxley Melanochroic and Xanthochroic. The former includes the dark-haired people of southern Europe, and extends over North Africa, Asia Minor, Syria to south-western Asia, and through Arabia and Persia to India. The latter race includes the fair-haired people of northern Europe, and extends over nearly the same area as the Melanochroi, with which race it is greatly intermixed. The Xanthochroi have fair skins, blue eyes and light hair; and others have dark skins, eyes and hair, and are of a slighter frame. Together they constitute what were once called the Caucasian races. The Melanochroi are not considered by Huxley to be one of the primitive modifications of mankind, but rather to be the result of the admixture of the Xanthochroi with the Australoid type, next to be mentioned.

The third group is that of the Australoid type. Their hair is dark, generally soft, never woolly. The eyes and skin are dark, the beard often well developed, the nose broad and flat, the lips coarse, and jaws heavy. This race is believed to form the basis of the people of the Indian peninsula, and of some of the hill tribes of central India, to whom the name Dravidian has been given, and by its admixture with the Melanochroic group to have given rise to the ordinary population of the Indian provinces. It is also probable that the Australoid family extends into south Arabia and Egypt.

The last group, the Negroid, is represented by the races to which has been given the name of Negrito, from the small size of some of them. They are closely akin to the negroes of South Africa, and possess the characteristic dark skins, woolly but scanty beard and body hair, broad flat noses, and projecting lips of the African; and are diffused over the Andaman Islands, a part of the Malay peninsula, the Philippines, Papua, and some of the neighbouring islands. The Negritos appear to be derived from a mixture of the true Negro with the Australoid type.

The distribution of the Mongolian group in Asia offers no particular difficulty. There is complete present, and probably previous long-existing, geographical continuity in the area over which they are found. There is also considerable similarity of climate and other conditions throughout the northern half of Asia which they occupy. The extension of modified forms of the Mongolian type over the whole American continent may be mentioned as a remarkable circumstance connected with this branch of the human race.

The Mongolians of the northern half of Asia are almost entirely nomadic, hunters and shepherds or herdsmen. The least advanced of these, but far the most peaceful, are those that occupy Siberia. Farther south the best-known tribes are the Manchus, the Mongols proper, the Moguls and the Turks, all known under the name of Tatars, and to the ancients as Scythians, occupying from east to west the zone of Asia comprised between the 40th and 50th circles of N. lat. The Turks are Mahommedans; their tribes extend up the Oxus to the borders of Afghanistan and Persia, and to the Caspian, and under the name of Kirghiz into Russia, and their language is spoken over a large part of western Asia. Their letters are those of Persia. The Manchus and Mongols are chiefly Buddhist, with letters derived from the ancient Syriac. The Manchus are now said to be gradually falling under the influence of Chinese civilization, and to be losing their old nomadic habits, and even their peculiar language. The predatory habits of the Turkish, Mongolian and Manchu population of northern Asia, and their irruptions into other parts of the continent and into Europe, have produced very remarkable results in the history of the world.

The Chinese branch of the Mongolian family are a thoroughly settled people of agriculturists and traders. They are partially Buddhist, and have a peculiar monosyllabic, uninflected language, with writing consisting of symbols, which represent words, not letters.

The countries lying between India and the Mongolian are occupied by populations chiefly of the Mongolian and Chinese type, having languages fundamentally monosyllabic, but using letters derived from India, and adopting their religion, which is almost everywhere Buddhist, from the Indians. Of these may be named the Tibetans, the Burmese and the Siamese. Cochin-China is more nearly Chinese in all respects. It is known that to the Tibeto-Chinese modifications of the pure Mongolian type all the eastern Burmese tribes—Chins, Kachins, Shans, &c.—belong (as indeed do the Burmese themselves), and that a cognate race occupies the Himalaya to the eastern limits of Kashmir.

Some light has been thrown on the connexion between the Tibetan race and certain tribes of central India, the Bhils and Kols; and it seems more probable that these tribes are the remnants of a Mongolian race which first displaced a yet earlier Negroid population, and was then itself shouldered out by a Caucasian irruption, than that they entered India by any of the northern passages within historic times. Mongolian settlements have lately been found very much farther extended into the border countries of north-west India than has been hitherto recognized. The Mingals, who, conjointly with the Brahuis, occupy the hills south of Kalat to the limits of the Rajput province of Las Bela, claim Mongolian descent, and traces of a Mongolian colony have been found in Makran.

The Malays, who occupy the peninsula and most of the islands of the Archipelago called after them, are Mongols apparently modified by their very different climate, and by the maritime life forced upon them by the physical conditions of the region they inhabit. As they are now known to us, they have undergone a process of partial civilization, first at the hands of the Brahminical Indians, from whom they borrowed a religion, and to some extent literature and an alphabet, and subsequently from intercourse with the Arabs, which has led to the adoption of Mahommedanism by most of them.

The name of Aryan has been given to the races speaking languages derived from, or akin to, the ancient form of Sanskrit, who now occupy the temperate zone extending from the Mediterranean, across the highlands of Asia Minor, Persia and Afghanistan, to