THE Arab may be divided into three racesa classification which agrees equally well with genesitic genealogy, the traditions of the country, and the observations of modern physiologists.[FN#1]
[p.77]The first race, indigens or autochthones, are those sub-Caucasian tribes which may still be met with in the province of Mahrah, and generally along the coast between Maskat and Hazramaut. [FN#2] The Mahrah, the Janabah, and the Gara especially show a low development, for which hardship and privation alone will not satisfactorily account.[FN#3] These are Arab al-Aribah for whose inferiority oriental fable accounts as usual by thaumaturgy.
The principal advenæ are the Noachians, a great Chaldaean or Mesopotamian tribe which entered Arabia about
[p.78] 2200 A.C., and by slow and gradual encroachments drove before them the ancient owners and seized the happier lands of the Peninsula. The great Anzah and the Nijdi families are types of this race, which is purely Caucasian, and shows a highly nervous temperament, together with those signs of blood which distinguish even the lower animals, the horse and the camel, the greyhound and the goat of Arabia. These advenae would correspond with the Arab al-Mutarribah or Arabicized Arabs of the eastern historians.[FN#4]
The third family, an ancient and a noble race dating from A.C. 1900, and typified in history by Ishmael, still occupies the so-called Sinaitic Peninsula. These Arabs, however, do not, and never did, extend beyond the limits of the mountains, where, still dwelling in the presence of their brethren, they retain all the wild customs and the untamable spirit of their forefathers. They are distinguished from the pure stock by an admixture of Egyptian blood,[FN#5]
[p.79] and by preserving the ancient characteristics of the Nilotic family. The Ishmaelities are sub-Caucasian, and are denoted in history as the Arab al-Mustarribah, the insititious or half-caste Arab.
Oriental ethnography, which, like most Eastern sciences, luxuriates in nomenclative distinction, recognises a fourth race under the name of Arab al-Mustajamah. These barbarized Arabs are now represented by such a population as that of Meccah.
That Aus and Khazraj, the Himyaritic tribes which emigrated to Al-Hijaz, mixed with the Amalikah, the Jurham, and the Katirah, also races from Al-Yaman, and with the Hebrews, a northern branch of the Semitic family, we have ample historical evidence. And they who know how immutable is race in the Desert, will scarcely doubt that the Badawi of Al-Hijaz preserves in purity the blood transmitted to him by his ancestors.[FN#6]