The Natural History of the Varieties of Man

by R. G. Latham

Neither is the assumption of the Turk in his most European form as a standard of comparison, rather than that of the more Mongoliform Turks, objectionable. One writer is as fully at liberty to treat all deviations from the type of a Constantinopolitan Osmanli as anomalous, as another is to apply a Mongol standard. Provided that facts are accumulated, ethnology is the gainer.

It is only when the idea of the Turk type being one thing, and the Mongol another, has so far taken possession of a writer, as to make him overvalue the import of such differences, that evil arises. Then a fact which should even be expected à priori, becomes an anomaly; and the assumption of some extraordinary cause—generally the mixture of race—is assumed. I say assumed, because in many cases it is taken for granted, simply and solely because it will explain the phenomena. Where this is not the fact, where there are other grounds for believing that intermixture has occurred, it is not only legitimate, but it is necessary to admit it.

Rule.—Intermixture of race solely for the sake of accounting for varieties of physical conformation is not to be assumed, except in extreme cases.

Practically I consider that the Mongoliform physiognomy is the rule with the Turk rather than the exception, and that the Turk of Turkey exhibits the exceptional character of his family. Both these facts are what we should expect. Ethnological affinity, as proved by language, exists in a very close degree between the Turks and the Mongolians. Common conditions of climate exist also. Either implies similarity of physical conformation. On the other hand, where the Turk is least like the Mongol, we know that intermixture has taken place; intermixture like that of the Circassian and Georgian blood in Europe, and that of the Persian in Asia. Hence, if I allowed myself to assume at all, I would assume an intermixture to account for the difference between the Turk and Mongol—not to account for the similarity.

Extract from Burnes's description of the Uzbek chief of Kunduz.—"Moorad Beg is about fifty years of age, his stature is tall, and his features are those of a genuine Uzbek; his eyes are small to a deformity; his forehead broad and frowning; and his whole cast of countenance most repulsive."—Vol. ii. 358.

Extract from Khamikoff respecting the Uzbeks of Bokhara.—"The exterior of the Uzbeks reminds us strongly of the Moghul race, except that they have larger eyes and are somewhat handsomer; they are generally middle-sized men; the colour of their beards varies between a shade of red and dark auburn, whilst few are found with black hair."—Translation by the Baron de Bode.

Statements of this kind might be multiplied, particularly in respect to the Uzbeks.

Descent of certain portions of the Turk Branch—Epoch of its present extension.—The Turk Branch of the Turanian stock introduces a series of ethnological questions, which have, as yet, presented themselves only in a rudimentary form. Few of the tribes hitherto described, were known to the ancients sufficiently to make the question of descent between the present nations and their real or supposed representatives in classical antiquity, a matter of much—although, of course, it is always of some—importance. With the Turk nations it is otherwise: a large, perhaps a very large, portion of the ancient Scythia must have been Turk; and, if so, it is amongst the Turks that we must look for some of the widest and fiercest of ancient conquerors.

At what time did the present enormous diffusion of Turk tribes take place? The answer to this question is the answer to many others. By knowing this we know also the probable ethnological position of such famous peoples as the Kimmerii, Sakæ, Massagetæ, Alans, Avars, Huns, Nephthalites, Bulgarians, and others—peoples whereof the records are written in the annals not only of Rome and Greece, but of Lydia, Media, and Assyria.

At what epoch did the diffusion of the Turk tribes take place? If at a period anterior to history, their frontier must have been the same in the time of Herodotus as at present; and, consequently, their geographical relations to Persia and Europe, the same.