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* Ancient India, by E. J. Rapson
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What came before?  What was the Fourth Sub-race?  Well:  I imagine we may have the relic, the sishta or seed of it, in the Hamitic peoples and languages:  the Libyans, Numidians, Egyptians, Iberians, and Pelasgians of old; the Somalis, Gallas, Copts, Berbers, and Abyssinians of today.  We are almost able to discern a time—­but have not guessed when it was—­when this Iberian race, having perhaps its central seat in Egypt, held all or most lands as far as Ireland to the west, and Japan and New Zealand eastward; we find them surviving, mixed with, but by no means submerged under, Aryan Celts in Spain—­which is Iberia; we find their name (I imagine) in that of Iverne, Ierine, Hibernia, or Ireland; we know that they gave the syntax of their language to that of the Celts of the British Isles; and that the Celtic races of today are mainly Iberian in blood—­I daresay all Europe is about half Iberian in blood, as a matter of fact;—­that the Greeks found them in Greece:  I suspect that the main difference between Sparta and Athens lay in the fact that Sparta was pure Aryan, Athens mainly Iberian.—­It seems to me then that we can almost get a glimpse of the sub-race preceding our own.  Some have been puzzled by a seeming discrepancy between Katherine Tingley’s statement that Egypt is older than India, and H. P. Blavatsky’s, that Menes, founder of the Egyptian monarchy, went from India to Egypt to found it.  But now suppose that something like this happened—­would it not solve the problem?—­In 158,000 B. C., or at the time this present Aryan Sub-race began, Egypt, one state in the huge Iberian series, was already a seat of civilization as old as the Iberian race.  There may have been an Iberian Empire, almost world-wide; which again may have split into many kingdoms; and as the star of the whole race was declining, we may suppose Egypt in some degree of pralaya; or again, that it may have been an outlying and little-considered province at that time. In Central Asia the Sanskrit-speaking tribe begins to increase and multiply furiously.  They pour down into Iberian Hindustan.  They are strong, and the Gods are leading them; the Iberians have grown world-weary with the habit of long empire.  The Iberian power goes down before them; the Iberians become a subject people.  But there is one Menes among the latter, of the royal house perhaps, who will not endure subjection.  He stands out as long as he may; then sails west with his followers for Iberian lands that the Aryans have not disturbed, and are not likely to.  In their contests with the invaders of India, they have thrown off all world-weariness, and become strong; Prince Menes is hailed in Egypt (as the last of the Ommevads, driven out from the East by the Abbasids, was hailed in Spain); he wakens Egypt, and founds a new monarchy there.—­I am telling the tale of very ancient and unknown conditions in terms of historic conditions we know about and can understand; it is only the skeleton of the story I would stand for.