Page:Essays ethnological and linguistic.djvu/180

168 having advocated it within the last two years in a pamphlet which has been lauded in the 'Quarterly Review,' and enlarged upon in another work by the Rev. C. Forster, so as to give it a support which forbids our passing it over cursorily.

The arguments advanced by these writers in favour of their views are founded on the traditions of the Afghans, on their Jewish physiognomy, and a fancied resemblance of names among them to those of the ancient Israelites. But the Jewish physiognomy and Jewish names are common all over the East, among the Arabs and other cognate nations, and among Mahommedan as well as among many Christian tribes and professed Jews, so that no satisfactory conclusion can be admitted on such grounds. It may be undoubtedly true that some tribe or family may be found among the Afghans calling themselves by the name of Joseph, or of one similar to that of Simeon, without however affording any rational argument to prove they are the representatives of those tribes of Israel. Yet it is upon these grounds alone that the advocates of the Afghan theory have relied for the establishment of their hypothesis; and it is fortunate therefore for us, in asserting a contrary opinion, to be able to trace those two particular tribes existing in their own land, among the rest of their nation long after the Assyrian conquest.

With regard to traditions among the Afghans, if they are at all to be relied on, we are informed that they declare themselves to be descended from a certain Afghana, who they say was a son of King Saul, and therefore of the tribe of Benjamin, and that their ancestors were taken away captives from Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar. Such a tradition is entirely unworthy of attention; but the reasoning upon it, that it shows an Israelitish descent, only mistaken in its particular statement, is a conclusion, however ingeniously argued, that can as little be allowed. If traditions are at all admissible, the modern Samaritans, or Sichemites, have a still better claim to this descent, as, according to Basnage, they held themselves to be "of the tribe of Joseph, by Ephraim and Manasseh, and of the tribe of Levi;" and it should be remembered, that among the ancient Israelites the name of the tribe of Joseph had been merged in Ephraim and Manasseh, so as to have become obsolete at the time of the captivity.

But all arguments on the claim of the Afghans to this descent may be dispensed with in consideration of their real history. Our most eminent modern orientalists, Mountstuart Elphinstone and the late Mr. T. M, Dickinson (Journal of