Hence, the present classification is provisional, since if we admit the Gafat to be primarily Semitic, the Tigré to represent a secondary influx of population, and the Amharic to be fundamentally the same as the Gafat, only containing a greater admixture of the Gheez, we have a class into which other sections of the Abyssinian populations should be admitted; e.g. the Agows, truly considered by Dr. Beke to be the aborigines of Æthiopic Africa.
In order to exhibit in full the elements of the ethnology of the Semitic class, notice must be taken of—
1. The Hittites, Hivites, &c.—The earlier inhabitants of Palestine, Canaanitish idolaters, geographically, but not genealogically, Semitic.
2. The Philistines.—Uncircumcised idolaters, of which a portion remained unconquered at and beyond the date of the Jewish Captivity. Language, probably unintelligible to the Hebrews; on the other hand, they seem to have been closely related to the Phœnicians—facts not easily reconciled.
3. Solymi.—Cilicians. The question involved in the Semitic character of the Solymi, is the difficult question as to the north-western frontier of the Semitic area.
4. Elamites.—These have the same import with the Solymi, mutatis mutandis, i.e. in the consideration of the south-eastern Semitic frontier.
5. Cyprians.—Almost certainly Semitic; probably Phœnician.
6. Cappadocians.—Stated by Strabo to have been white Syrians.
Throughout the whole of the present volume the complex question of descent, or the relation between the people of antiquity and the modern populations of the same area is only indicated. Truly a part of ethnology, it is the one most liable to extreme differences of opinion, as well as the one which involves the most subtle and minute criticism.