Such are some of the Bedouins; but the most formidable Arab tribes have always been the Hemyarites of Yemen; a restless and enterprising people, whose migrations have been chiefly directed to Africa, and especially to the valley of the Nile; a region which they have invaded and more or less occupied from the earliest times, through the reigns of the Pharaohs, Ptolemies, and Cæsars, down to a recent period of our own era. What language can be stronger than that of Juba, (about the commencement of our own era,) that the inhabitants of the valley of the Nile, from Philæ to Meroë, were not Ethiopians, but Arabs? So, also, in the days of Strabo, half the population of Coptos itself was made up of the same people.
The cranial resemblances between the Arabs and ancient Egyptians impressed me forcibly from the commencement of my inquiries; which last I have been able to prosecute in a more satisfactory manner by means of a series of Arab skulls, obtained in Egypt by Mr. Gliddon. I subjoin outline drawings of five of them, in order that the reader may judge for himself.
These skulls are all adult, and though comparatively small, give a mean internal capacity of eighty-four cubic inches, which is above the Egyptian average. The analogy, however, is greater in form than in size, as may be observed by comparing the above outlines with several of the embalmed heads from the catacombs, and especially that figured Plate [VI]., Fig. 7. In fact, the resemblance between the Egyptian and Arab head is so striking, that nothing but a faithful study of the monuments has satisfied me that the two nations were primitively distinct from each other; and that what I at first believed to be the Austral-Egyptian conformation, is no other than the Egyptian itself. Some very ancient paintings, copied by Rosellini from the temple decorations at Beyt-el-Wàlee, in Nubia, appear, also, to pertain to the Arab physiognomy. (Plate [XIV]., Figs. 19, 20.) In these the yellowish-red complexion indicates, we might suppose, some affinity with the Egyptian nation, while the small, pointed beard, and sharp, prominent face, point to the Arabian stock of nations. Their name reads Tohen on the monuments; and they pertain to the age of Rameses II., and illustrate the conquests of that monarch 1579 years before Christ.
Without entering into a philological discussion, it is worthy of remark, that the Gheez or Ethiopic language, the oldest of the known tongues of Abyssinia, is directly allied to the Arabic and Hebrew. The period of its introduction into Africa is unknown, though it probably dates far beyond our era. Moreover, among the ruins recently discovered at Hasan Ghorâb, (170 miles east of Aden,) at Sanaa, and at other places in Yemen, inscriptions have been abundantly found in the old Ethiopic tongue, which, in the opinion of the late Professor Gesenius, is a modification of the parent Hemyarite language.
These few facts, with others which will be adduced hereafter, go to prove that the Egyptian people must have been more or less blended with the Arabian race; nor can there be a question that the Meröite or Austral-Egyptian communities were composed, at least in part, of an Indo-Arabian stock engrafted on the aboriginal Libyan population.
An able but anonymous author not only asserts the Arab origin of the monumental Ethiopians, but endeavours to prove, by an ingenious series of facts and reasonings, that they were the “Blemies of history, a Bejáwy branch of the Arabian family;” that they were broken and finally dispersed by the policy of the Roman government, which, in the reign of Dioclesian, introduced Negro colonies from Kordofan; and, finally, that the Nubians of our day are not, as a nation, descended from the ancient stock. The last proposition, as a general rule, is undeniable; but the preceding conclusions are not yet susceptible of proof.[[77]]
Convinced as we are that the Egyptians were a distinct and aboriginal people, the sentiment of M. Jomard may yet become, to a certain extent, an axiom in ethnography:—“L’Arabie à été de tout temps, et elle est encore de nos jours, l’aliment de la population Egyptienne.”[[78]]