the second column of the Achoemenian inscriptions.  In grammatical structure this ancient tongue resembles dialects of the Turanian family, but its vocabulary has been pronounced to be “decidedly Cushite or Ethiopian;” and the modern languages to which it approaches the nearest are thought to be the Mahra of Southern Arabia and the Galla of Abyssinia.  Thus comparative philology appears to confirm the old traditions.  An Eastern Ethiopia instead of being the invention of bewildered ignorance, is rather a reality which henceforth it will require a good deal of scepticism to doubt; and the primitive race which bore sway in Chaldaea Proper is with much probability assigned to this ethnic type.  The most striking physical characteristics of the African Ethiopians were their swart complexions, and their crisp or frizzled hair.  According to Herodotus the Asiatic Ethiopian:  were equally dark, but their hair was straight and not frizzled.  Probably in neither case was the complexion what we understand by black, but rather a dark red-brown or copper color, which is the tint of the modern Gallas and Abyssinians, as well as of the Cha’b and Montefik Arabs and the Belooches.  The hair was no doubt abundant; but it was certainly not woolly like that of the negroes.  There is a marked distinction between the negro hair and that of the Ethiopian race, which is sometimes straight, sometimes crisp, but never woolly.  This distinction is carefully marked in the Egyptian monuments, as is also the distinction between the Ethiopian and negro complexions; whence we may conclude that there was as much difference between the two races in ancient as in modern times.  The African races descended from the Ethiopians are on the whole a handsome rather than an ugly people; their figure is slender and well shaped; their features are regular, and have some delicacy; the forehead is straight and fairly high; the nose long, straight, and fine, but scarcely so prominent as that of Europeans; the chin is pointed and good. [Plate vi., Fig. 2.]

The principal defect is in the mouth, which has lips too thick and full for beauty, though they are not turned out like a negro’s.  We do not possess any representations of the ancient people which can be distinctly assigned to the early Cushite period.  Abundant hair has been noticed in an early tomb; and this in the later Babylonians, who must have been descended in great part from the earlier, was very conspicuous; but otherwise we have as yet no direct evidence with respect to the physical characteristics of the primitive race.  That they were brave and warlike, ingenious, energetic, and persevering, we have ample evidence, which will appear in later chapters of this work; but we can do little more than conjecture their physical appearance, which, however, we may fairly suppose to have resembled that of other Ethiopian nations.