Chaldæa

The islands of the Pacific Ocean are peopled by a dark race or races called Polynesians and Melanesians. The former vary in colour, from a shade in some of the groups little differing from that of Europeans, to a dark brown, sometimes approaching black, in others. The Melanesians are, as their name signifies, black, or nearly so. Some ethnologists are inclined to think that they are of the same race as the Polynesians, and Mr. Coddrington finds strong similarities in the two languages. Others again are of opinion that the Melanesians are offshoots of the true Nigritian stock, whose presence in these seas it is difficult to explain. I do not propose to extend my inquiries to the Melanesians, or to any of the peoples inhabiting the islands from Papua to New Caledonia My remarks will be confined entirely to the race known as Polynesian, who are admitted by all to speak dialects of one common language, and for whom the theory has been set up and largely accepted that the several groups of islands have been successively peopled by migrations from other groups. The principal of these groups are: The Sandwich Islands, called in the vernacular Hawaii; the Marquesas, or Nukuhiva; the Society Islands, or Tahiti; the Harvey, or Cook Islands, or Rarotonga; the Bowditch Islands, or Fakaafo; the Gambier Group, or Mangarewa; the Friendly Islands, or Tonga; the Navigators, or Samoa; the Low, or Dangerous Archipelago, or Paumotu; the Austral Islands, or page 2 Tapuai; the New Zealand Islands, or Aotearoa; the Chatham Islands, or Wharekauri; Disappointment Islands, or Otua; the Anaans, or Western Paumotu; Kingsmill Group, or Tarawa; Union Islands, or Otafu; Ellice Group, or Vaitupa; Wallis' Islands, or Uea; Caroline Islands, or Oualau; the Earaka Islands.

I cannot discover that the inhabitants of any of these groups have any true ethnic designation, with the exception of the Sandwich Islanders, who are called Hawaians; the New Zealanders, who are called Maori; and the Chatham Islanders, who are known by a similar name, Morion. According to Dr. Shortland the Hawaians are also called Maori. The other islanders are known simply from the names of their islands, as, for example, Tongans or Samoans.

We have, then, for our contemplation a very homogeneous people, scattered over a vast number of islands in the greatest ocean of the world, all speaking a language which, considering the long periods of time during which the several groups have been segregated, has proved itself singularly conservative, and has undergone but slight phonetic corruption, much less than the Latin dialects of Europe, and whose religion and customs all point to a settlement in one common home at some very remote period of time. Where that home was, and how and when it was abandoned, is the subject of our inquiry.

I do not propose to enter with Mr. Stuart Poole ("Genesis of the Earth and Man") into any speculations as to the Pre-Adamite races, not because there is anything in his book which is not based on very strong facts and arguments, or which is not in entire accordance with the sacred records of the creation, descent, and dispersion of mankind, but because our historical sources of information, combined with popular traditions, are sufficient to trace the subjects of our inquiry to the great races who take their names from the sons of Noah. To account for the origin of the Chinese and some of the black tribes of Africa may require the acceptance of a belief in the existence of peoples whose origin cannot be page 3 connected with the Noachian genealogies, but there is no such necessity in the case before us.

It is agreed amongst all the great writers on the early formation and movements of the nations, that at the very dawn of history a great Cushite or Ethiopian empire prevailed from the Caucasus to the Indian Ocean, from the shores of the Mediterranean to the mouth of the Ganges—possibly the empire spoken of in the Greek myths as the empire of Dionusos. It is said by some that the founders of this empire migrated into Mesopotamia through Arabia from that part of Africa afterwards called by the Greeks and that to a similar movement down the Nile valley is to be attributed the foundation of the Egyptian empire. It certainly does appear that there was at one time a gathering of the Cushite people in the Mesopotamian valley from the South-west, embracing probably the related people of Africa, but the manifestations of this movement are rather those of a return of outposts to the parent hive than of an original swarm. The two views are reconciled by supposing that the Eastward movement took place at a later date than the original dispersion of the Cushites from the primeval home of mankind. Indeed, it must be so, if the biblical account of the separation of people is accepted. Lepsius combated with great success the view of the African origin of the Egyptians, and a conscientious examination of the authorities results in the entire belief in their Asiatic home, in accordance with the scheme of Gen. x.

How long the descendants of Cush remained in the hive of the world before they migrated into Arabia, and subsequently into the opposite coasts of Africa, it is impossible to say, nor is it likely that any increased knowledge of the Babylonian libraries will ever satisfactorily establish the chronology of these early periods. That this great and powerful Cushite empire was the dominant one in Chaldæa for many centuries is well established, though neither its date nor its limits can be strictly defined. Humboldt ("Kosmos") stretches the boundaries very far. He is sure that some connection existed between ancient Ethiopia and the elevated plains of Central Asia. There were invasions which reached from the shores of Arabia into China. "An Arabian sovereign, Schamar-Jarasch, is described by Hamza, Nuwayri, and others as a powerful ruler and conqueror, who carried his arms successfully far into Central Asia; he occupied Samarcand and invaded China. He erected an edifice at Samarcand, bearing an inscription in Himyarite or Cushite characters, 'In the name of God, Schamar-Jarasch has erected this edifice to the Sun, his Lord.'" (Baldwin: "Prehistoric Nations.") It appears probable that this military expedition was at a later period in the history of the Cushites than the time of the first Cushite empire, whose principal seat of government was in the Mesopotamia valley; page 5 probably it must be referred to the epoch of the Arabian dynasty in Babylonia—a supposition that is confirmed, if, as is generally supposed, the Himyaritic characters were imported from Phoenicia.^*

The Arabian traditions, according to Lenormant and Chevallier ("Ancient History of the East"), bring their eponymic hero Ad from the North-east. In the time of Shedad, one of his sons, the people of Ad were a thousand tribes, each composed of several thousands of men. Great conquests are attributed to Shedad: he subdued, it is said, all Arabia and Irak. The migration of the Canaanites and their establishment in Syria are by many Arabian writers attributed to an expedition of Shedad. Great magnificence in buildings and a high state of civilisation characterised the times of this ruler. "In other words, an ancient, sun-worshipping, powerful, and conquering race overran Arabia at the very dawn of history." "In the legends," says Lenormant, "we find traces of a wealthy nation constructing great buildings, with an advanced civilisation analogous to that of Chaldæa, professing a similar religion to the Babylonian; a nation, in short, with whom material progress was allied to great depravity and obscene rites. These facts must be true and strictly historical, for they are every-where met with among the Cushites, as among the Canaanites, their brothers by origin."

The Holy Scriptures entirely agree with the monumental record, in representing the region between the Persian Gulf, the Erythraean or Red Sea of the classical writers, and the Armenian mountains as the hive of the world, throwing off successive swarms of various great races: "the cradle of Semitic civilisation," as Dr. Birch writes, "highly civilised and densely populated at a time when Egypt was still in its youthful prime."

The descendants of Ham or Shem were not, however, the first civilisers of Babylonia. Those far-spreading tribes called by

^* On all these grounds we are led to the conclusion that the Tyrian alphabet must have been communicated to the tribes of Southern Arabia several centuries at least before the third century B.C. There is, indeed, no reason why the alphabet should not have been conveyed to Saba and Sheba as early as the reign of Solomon, when the direct trade route by the Red Sea was opened by the enterprise of Hiram, King of Tyre.—"The Alphabet," by Isaac Taylor.

page 6 ethnologists Turanian had been beforehand. A thick stratum of Turanian civilisation underlay Semitism in Western Asia. In fact, all the great towns of Assyria and Babylonia bear Turanian names. (Professor Sayce: "Origin of Semitic Civilisation.")

Japhet was the eldest son of Noah, and it is probable that his descendants were the first to branch off from the family. "All appearances," says Lenormant, "would lead us to regard the Turanian race as the first branch of the family of Japhet which went forth into the world," and thus would lay the foundations of civilisation and subordination to authority as it advanced in page 7 its progress. Doubtless, for a time, all the races of the Noachian family which afterward peopled the world sojourned together^* in the Mesopotamian basin, speaking one language, and worshipping one god either directly or mediately as represented by the heavenly bodies or natural objects, but gradually degenerating from a pristine excellence of religion, as shadowed forth in that most remarkable book, Job. How the pure adoration of one god subsisted alongside of the representative worship of the heavenly bodies is admirably described by that patriarch. I take Mr. Poole's translation:—

"If I beheld a sun when it shined
Or a splendid moon progressing,
And my heart were secretly enticed,
And my hand touched my mouth,
Surely this (were) a depravity of judgment,
For I should have denied God above."

—Job xxxi. 26, 28.

The difference between the two extreme points of the series amounting to no less than 2079.

But in 2280 we find firm ground in Chaldæan chronology. In that year a powerful king of Elam, named Kudur-Nankhunte, conquered the country, ravaged Erech the capital, and carried off the image of Nana or Ishtar (the goddess Astarte), "the archer of the goddesses," which remained at Shushan for 1635 years till recaptured and restored to Erech by Assurbanipal. That monarch mentions the fact and the period in an inscription, and thus we get a certain date of 2280 B.C. for the epoch of Kudur-Nankhunte. The Elamites were a Shemite people, and appear to have maintained their sovereignty until 2250, when Izdubar or Dhubar, as his name is (provisionally) written, slew Humbaba, a monarch or leader of the Elamites, and restored the Chaldæan power. Professor Sayce shows good reason for identifying this leader with the biblical Nimrod, and the identity is generally accepted as a historical fact.

"Nimrod began to be a mighty hunter on the earth, and the beginning (i.e., head) of his kingdom was Babel and Erech, and Akkad and Oalneh, in the land of Shinar." The cycle of legends discovered by Mr. George Smith makes this hero-king, Izdubar or Nimrod, rule over a great empire, extending from the Persian Gulf to the land of Bitani or Bachtan, and his capital city was Erech, called in the earliest times, as Mr. Smith has discovered from an inscription, Unuk or Anak. Nimrod was a descendant of Cush. He is not mentioned in Gen. x. amongst the sons of Cush, but is the subject of a supplementary paragraph. How many generations intervened cannot be certainly affirmed, but if Professor Sayce and other scholars are correct in identifying him with the Izdhubar of the inscriptions, his era would be about 300 years before Abram.

One of the tablets recently discovered is remarkable for the number of cities mentioned as already existing in the plains of Shinar in the time of Izdubar. Combining this information with other parts of the legends, the statements of Berosus, and the notice of the cities of Nimrod in Genesis, we get the following list of the oldest known cities in the Euphrates valley:—

Babylon	Nipur	Harriskalama
Borsippa	Erech	Gaugaunapage 9
Cutha	Akkad	Amarda
Larancha	Calneh	Assur
Surippak	Sippara	Nineveh
Eridu	Kisu	Rehobothair
Resen	Calah

So far as the various statements go, says Mr. G. Smith ("Chaldsean Account of Genesis"), all these cities, and probably many others, were in existence at the time of Nimrod, and some of them even before the Flood.

Kassi meaning the Cushites and Akkadi the Akkadians, ethnically the same people. The seal of Dungi, the son of Urukh, is now in the British Museum.

But troubles seem to have again come from the North, for it is stated in the Book of Genesis that in the time of Abraham Babylonia was under the dominion of a king of Elam, and the monarch of that country bore the name of Chedor-Laomar or Kudur-lagamar, so surnamed after a local goddess. This was a Semitic conquest, and it appears to have finally subverted the Cushite empire as the dominant power, which thus yielded to the successive attacks of the adjoining Semitic races. It appears to have been extinguished page 10 as a distinct political authority by the year 1700, when, Professor Sayce says, the Akkadian language had ceased to be spoken. It is in reference, I presume, to this epoch that Mr. G. Smith states, in the quotation on a previous page, that the Semitic conquerors "imposed only their language, and adopted from the subjugated people its mythology, laws, literature, and almost every art of civilisation."

But the final extinction of Cushite dominion in Shinar cannot be said to have been absolutely accomplished at the epoch of Kudur-Lagomar, for Tidal and the other allied kings who accompanied Kudur-Lagomar, on the occasion of their defeat by Abraham on the expedition to chastise the revolted provinces of Syria, do not appear to have been reduced to complete subjection. It was not until the time of Sargon or Sargina, about 1600 or 1700 B.C., that the Akkadian power was finally terminated The date of this conqueror is given by MM. Lenormant and Menant as about 2000 B.C., but other scholars have preferred the date I have given, and the later discoveries seem to confirm this view.

Sargina presents a striking figure in these remote ages. He bore the title of "King of Justice," and like most people who peculiarly pride themselves on such a distinction, he appears slightly to have regarded mercy, or, in truth, anything but his own personal distinction. He became a renowned conqueror, says Mr. Tomkins ("Times of Abraham"), carrying his arms successfully into Elam on the East and through Syria on the West, even to the Mediterranean Sea. "His image at the setting sun he set up," he records. He subdued the whole of Babylonia and established his capital at Agané (north of Babylon). He was, however, a devoted friend to literature and science, and founded a library at Erech, whence his invaluable records were long afterwards removed by Assurbanipal, copied, translated, and edited for his library. They are now in the British Museum. This was also a Semitic conquest, and it is worthy of remark that Sargina writes, "the people of the dark races I ruled," as if by way of contrast with his own race. These dark races were undoubtedly the Kassi or Cushites, mixed and unmixed.

It is not necessary to trace any further the history of Babylonia. During the whole of the period that I have endeavoured briefly to traverse there is evidence of an intimate connection between the Akkadian inhabitants of Shinar and their kindred people in Eastern and Southern Arabia and Eastern Africa. Indeed, Dr. Brugsch seems to be of opinion that Nimrod came from Arabia; and Sir Henry Rawlinson, in a lecture delivered in 1856 before the British Association for the Advancement of Science on recent discoveries in Assyria and Babylonia, and on the results of cuneiform research, said "that there were many traces in the inscriptions of a tradition that the first colonists had come from Ethiopia under the leading of a hero, who answered to the Nimrod of Scripture, and who was deified in the country as Nergal—an explanation being thus afforded of the biblical ethnic scheme which described Nimrod as the son of Cush. . . . The language in which all the early legends were written was of the Hamite family, having been brought apparently from Ethiopia through Arabia by the primitive colonists. Many of the terms belonging to it were to be recognised in the Galla, the most ancient, perhaps, of the African dialects now available for comparison." Whether the entire people comprised in the name Cushite or Ethiopian (for the words are identical) were at any one time all included in the great Hamite empire which preceded the Semitic domination in Chaldea, it is impossible now to determine. It is clear, however, that at a later period the Ethiopians of Africa established there a powerful and independent kingdom, whose capital was Mirikh, the Chaldæan name of a deity recognised as the god of war, corrupted by the Greeks into Meroe. The intercourse between the Arabian Cushites and the African Cushites appears to have been constant down to the classical times, and it is occasionally difficult to determine whether the inscriptions on the Egyptian tombs and temples, in speaking of the "Holy Land," "the Land of the Gods," Pun, or Punt, refer to the African Ethiopia or the Cushite tribes of Arabia.^* Dr. Brugsch thus accounts for the separation and settlement of that

^* A difficulty of a similar nature occurs respecting Homer's "Æthiopia."

page 12 branch of the great Cushite race which is the subject of this inquiry:—

"Of the sons of Ham, Cush migrated from the East into the Southern parts of Arabia and the opposite coasts of Africa (the Somali countries), where their abodes are marked by the Egypto-Semitic name of Pun, which in my opinion signifies the East country, since in Hebrew the name of Paneh (in proper names, pena, peni) indicates the eastern side. From hence one body (schwarm), led by Nimrod, went to the region of the Euphrates, and ruled first in the land of Shinar, in the towns of Babel, Erech, Accad, and Kalneh. The Babylonian tradition also fully recognised the arrival of these Cushite emigrants from the coasts of the Erythraean Sea, and had treated thereof in its own myths. A second branch passed over the Red Sea, and, conquering and driving out the native negro races, took possession of the country situated on the South of Egypt, upon the coasts of the Red Sea, and the eastern bank of the Upper Nile. The city of Meroe formed the centre of the kingdom founded there."

The power and prosperity of the Arabian or Southern branch of the Cushites appears to have increased in the same proportion and synchronously with the diminution of the dominion of the Northern or Shinar, or Akkadian branch, and doubtless the pressure of the Semitic invasions must have had great effect in causing a constant southwards movement of the people. Nevertheless, in the time of Abraham (2000 to 1900), the cities of Shinar were large and important commercial emporiums, and the religion of the people was carried on in great splendour. Ur was the capital city. It was situated on the westward side of the Euphrates, near to where it falls into the Persian Gulf—or rather near to where it formerly fell into the Persian Gulf, for the deposits of the river during 4000 years have converted into marshes the northern part of the sea for the distance of 130 miles. On this spot mounds of ruins still rise from the level plain, the sole remains of the once populous commercial city of Ur. This city gave the name of Uruma to a large district of country. Lenormant says that the name should be properly read "Urunu- page 13 ma." In this great city Abraham was born, and passed his early years in the house of his father, Terakh, whom the latter part of his name proclaims to have been a person of high rank.^* The Rev. H. G. Tomkins ("Times of Abraham") gives us the following picture of Urunu-ma:—

"From the part where the Euphrates discharged its ample waters into the beautiful and sheltered sea, the ships of Ur set sail, like the ships of Egypt, with their precious lading of corn and dates and other fruits: for the warm land, irrigated like a garden (the natural home of the wheat plant, where it was twice mown in the year and then fed down), was (as the classic writers tell us) the richest in all Asia. The wheat would commonly produce two hundred-fold or even three hundred-fold. The chief boast of Chaldæa is the stately date-palm, whose endless uses for man and beast have been celebrated for all ages. The shady palm-groves embowered the whole country, laden with their delicious golden clusters, and mingled with tamarisks, acacias, and pomegranates."

"This region," writes Professor Rawlinson, "was amongst the most productive on the face of the earth, spontaneously producing some of the best gifts of God to man, and capable, under proper management, of being made one continuous garden."

Un of the Chaldees of the Scriptures is undoubtedly the Urunu above mentioned. The late G. Smith, learned amongst learned men, says, "I have no doubt that by Ur of the Chaldees the Babylonian city of Ur is meant. There is not the slightest evidence

^* The word "khak" or "hyk," though a Cushite root, does not appear to have been confined to the Hamite peoples. It is present in Tirhak, and is common to the royal lists of Susiana and Egypt, and appears in Hyksos or Hykshausa (kings of the nomads), as used by a mixed race. In the Maori language we have it as "ariki," the chief by descent as distinguished originally from "rangatira," the military chief. In the modern Semitic and the mixed dialects of Arabia and Eastern Africa, it takes the form of "scheik," and it has been adopted into the English language with the game of chess, introduced from Arabia—"checkmate" being in truth "schcik-mate," "the chief is dead:" "mate," "morte," "mors," Maori "mate" (two syllables), being the word for death in many existing dialects. How true it is that words are condensed history. The Talmud says that Terakh's wife was Amulai, daughter of Carnebo-Karanebo, a priest of Nebo, judging from the name, a Cushite.

page 14 of a northern Ur and a northern land of the Chaldees at this period."

In the list of cities obtained from the inscriptions and from Berosus, stated on a previous page, were mentioned the four cities called in the Bible the cities of Nimrod—Babel and Erech, Akkad and Calneh.

Babel is translated in the margin of our Bibles as "confusion." According to Rawlinson ("Herodotus") Babel, or Bab-II, as the cuneiform name is written, signifies the gate of II (God), and is the Semitic translation of a Hamite term, Kara (Ra being the sun-god), which must have been the original title of the place, The name was probably given in allusion to the first establishment of a seat of justice, as it was in the "gate of the palace" or the "gate of the temple" that in early times justice was administered. A similar term is frequently used in the Egyptian inscriptions, and is preserved to this clay as descriptive of the Turkish court, "the Sublime Porte." The word Kara, thus formed, appears to have been adopted into the Akkadian language as a word always associated with the idea of dignity or sacredness. Thus Akkadian kings bore names comprehending this word, as Kara-Kit, Kara-Indas, and a priest of Nebo was called Kara-nebo. It also takes a prominent part in the formation of the names of the Egyptian kings—Noferkara, Menkara, and other names thus compounded being frequent. In the Maori language the term also appears, and always in connection with a similar idea. Thus "e kara" is the most respectful form of address known to the language, and is used to old men and persons of superior rank, and may be considered equivalent to "Oh, sir!" or "My lord." Kara-Ida is the word signifying an incantation, and has been adopted by the missionaries (wrongly, I think) as the translation of "worship." I say wrongly, because a Maori karakia was an incantation or charm, a form of words which was effective simply by its own innate virtue, without reference to the state of mind of the person using it and without the interventive assistance of any superior power giving it its effect. A good karakia for fishing or for war was a property of value, and was handed down from father to son wife page 15 great secrecy. Instances are preserved in tradition of karakias having been secretly overheard and stolen, but it generally happened that the thief made a mistake in the recitation, which caused the karakia to lose its effect. The karakia seems to comprise the idea of the opus operatum of a certain class of religionists. The term kara appears again in karamata, the head of a tree which was sacred. Kara-mu is the name of the shrub (coprosma) which was used by the priests (tohunga) for asperging with waters persons who had been concerned in burying or preparing for burial dead bodies, and who were thus freed from the "tapu" and purified, and also in baptismal and other ceremonies. And it is probable that mikara was the name originally of the sacrificial knife, maripi or oka being the terms in ordinary use.

Erech, called in the Septuagint, Urikut in the Talmud, and, as before mentioned, Unuk or Anak in the vernacular, was the great necropolis of Babylonia. Whole mountains of coffins are still to be found there.

The biblical Calneh is said by Professor Sayce to be plainly the Akkadian Kal-unu.

Akkad is a Semitic term, of which the native name, according to Canon Rawlinson, is Agadé.

Attention has been directed to these names because they will reappear further on, and some of them have important significance in tracing the history of the people who conferred them.

The religion of the Akkadians may be comprised in one term of description: Astral worship. The process of degeneration from the adoration of one invisible God to the worshipping of visible natural objects whose beneficial or injurious operations were matters of daily observation, was doubtless very gradual. Nevertheless, very few generations sufficed to destroy the representative character which at first was the idea of astral worship, and to elevate the significant object into the divinity signified. Thus the moon, and the sun, and the planets, in process of time, came to be regarded as separate divine powers, each having its own name, its own priests and ceremonial, its own attributes, and its own town of special devotion. Hur-Ki or Hur- page 16 Aku, the moon god, according to Lenormant, afterwards called by the Assyrians Sin, was particularly worshipped at Urunu. This god was regarded as masculine, and seems to have borne also the name of Rono. Tu, the god of death and bloodshed, representing the setting sun, and Ra, the sun-god, were generally recognised over all Akkadia. Ishtar and Bilat were the tutelaries of Erech. Marduk, or, in Akkadian, Amar-Utuki—probably represented now by the Polynesian Tiki—was another of their deities. Hea, now or lately called Hei in Polynesia, was the god of wisdom. The little greenstone ornament, so highly valued, which is still frequently seen hung to a Maori's neck, and which is called a "Heitiki," is probably the existing remains of a Theism, the meaning of which has long since been forgotten, or become grossly corrupted. It appears that at a later date the Babylonians had different names for the gods of the sun and the moon, at their different stages—in this resembling the Egyptians, who called the god of the morning sun Ra, the sun at the meridian, when apparently at rest, Hor-Makhu, and the setting sun, Ra-tum, who thus came to be regarded as the god of death.

"In the inscriptions of the kings of the ancient Chaldæan empire," Mr. Tomkins says, "Hurki, the moon-god, appears as holding one of the most exalted places among the gods, and the higher we advance in antiquity the greater appears the importance of his cultus. He was the god of the most ancient capital of Akkad, the town holy above all to the Chaldæans, the great city of Ur, whence Abram departed at the summons of Jehovah. With the deepest interest we read the liturgical hymns given by this distinguished man (M. Lenormant). One of these, the best preserved of all and almost uninjured, is the hymn to the moon-god actually used in the city of Ur in the earliest times, of which the Akkadian original is given, with its Assyrian translation, in a tablet in the British Museum."^*

Mr. Tomkins adds, "There are yet some mutilated lines to complete this magnificent ode of pristine idolatry, calling on this king of kings to favour his dwelling, the city of Ur, invoking him as the 'Lord of Rest' (that is, the weekly Sabbath rest)." The prominence given in this hymn to the divine attribute of "not remembering wrong" is very remarkable in an ante-Christian creed, and goes far to show that the remembrance of a higher doctrine, in which God was regarded as a beneficent being and a protecting Father, had not entirely faded away from the popular mind. I doubt whether the theology of the Greeks or Romans can furnish a similar expression.

It will not be out of place here to place alongside of this ancient hymn a poem of the Maori, produced probably three or four thousand years later. The translation is by my lamented friend the late Judge Maning, who presented me with the MS. from which the poem is printed. The address to Tu, the god of war, is as striking as the invocation of the moon-god, though the reader will search in vain for the mild and benevolent strain of idea which permeates the latter.

The Maori Spirit Land: a New Zealand Poem.

The Maori formerly believed that the souls of the dead entered the other world through a cave, which is situated by the seaside at the northern extremity of the North Island, and it was supposed that some of the priests or seers could see their spirits passing away on their journey by the shore to the cavern in the North. Many very strange and poetical ideas are associated with the procession of the spirits to the northern cavern, where they take a final departure from "day," and enter the "night," such, for instance, as the waterfalls ceasing to roar as they pass by, etc. I have often seen the long leaves of a plant which grows on the shore in the North tied in knots; these knots were made by the spirits as a memorial to their friends, and to show the path they had taken. Infidels think these knots are made by the wind whirling about the long narrow leaves, which are more like ribbons in shape than leaves.

The Spirit Land.
The seer stands on the sacred hill above the ocean strand,
His eyes fixed on the spirit path that leads to the spirit land;
To the far North, with many a bend, along the rugged shore
That sad road leads, o'er rocks and weeds, whence none returneth more.
The weak, the strong, all pass along—the coward and the brave—
From that dread track none turneth back, none can escape the grave.

Seer.
Tangaroa! Tangaroa!^* whither have fled your waves?
Who 'gainst the land eternal war wage from their ocean caves.
Why abashed, with lowly head,
Sleep they on their heaving bed—
Your sons! your braves!
And, Tangaroa, tell me why flows this fountain silently?
Why has the cataract ceased to moan,
Bounding his last bound,
From mountain top to salt sea stone
Headlong, but with no sound?
And the west wind passes by,
Silently, without a sigh!

Tangaroa.
Passing now are the ghosts of the dead,
The winds are hushed, the rude waves hide their head;
And the fount flows silently,
And the breeze forgets to sigh,
And the torrent to moan
O'er rock and stone.
For the dead pass by!
Now on the barren spirit track
Lingering sadly, gazing back,
Slowly moves a ghastly train,
Shades of warriors, brave in vain:
For what can mortal valour do
Against thee, furious war-god Tu?
You, by sacrifice and pray'r,
To hostile ranks allured were;
None but you, O Tu! could slay them,
None but the war-god's self dismay them
You who spoke first at thy birth,
"Let us destroy heaven and earth;"

You who, charging like a flood,
Wrap whole armies in their blood;
You who scale the hill fort steep
When the weary warriors sleep,
And awake them but to die
With the Wakaara cry;
You who, when the fight is done,
Roast the flesh on heated stone.
Brother of the thunder, scarlet-belted Tu,^*
For ever and for ever shall the warriors worship you;
Wealth and power and high command
Are all in thy forceful hand.
Earth-shaker,
Spoil-taker,
Climber of mountains, climber of waves,
Weapon-bearer, binder of slaves,
Battle-fighter, wrathful Tu,
Builder of the war canoe.
Though your followers may lie
In their blood on battle plain,
They alone can never die,
For in song they live again;
And their names remembered long,
Twine in many a warlike tale;
And the tangi, plaintive song,
Makes for them the parting wail.
The seer has left the hill. Hark! hark! that wailing cry;
The shades he saw were the braves of his tribe to the Reinga passing by.

How long the dynasty of Sargina remained supreme in Babylonia it is not necessary to inquire. Shortly after his epoch a great change seems to have taken place in the politics of Chaldæa, and an Arab dynasty reigned there. Whether the intruding power were Arabs of the same Cushite race, i.e., from Arabia Felix and

^* Tu, who is so frequently mentioned in these verses, is the Maori war god. He was supposed to assimilate more nearly in his nature to man than any of the other Maori gods. All the epithets applied to this deity, who appears greatly to resemble the Odin of our Northern forefathers, are in strict accordance with native tradition and custom. Indeed, the whole imagery employed is due to the peculiar poetry of the Maori mind.

"Scarlet-belted Tu."—The maro or belt of the Maori warriors before they came to this country was covered with very beautiful scarlet feathers; and from all time the war god Tu has been supposed to wear the scarlet belt and girdle.

page 21 Hadramaut, or Joktanite Arabs from the northern parts of Arabia, there is no need to inquire. In the former case there would occur an enlargement of the political influence of Southern Arabia and a temporary retrograde movement of the population; and in the latter the Cushite inhabitants would most certainly flee to Southern Arabia for refuge and safety among the people who were akin to them in blood and in language; so that the result would be the same, so far as the subject population was concerned. Respecting this remarkable historical event, Dr. Brugsch ("Egypt under the Pharaohs") states, while recounting the difficulties that beset Thutmes, the great Egyptian Pharaoh: "A great revolution took place at the same time (about 1600) in the mighty empire of the Chaldæans on the banks of the Euphrates. The Chaldæan dynasty was attacked by the Arabs from the South, and the ruling princes of the land were overthrown and expelled, or carried away into captivity. A new era began, the era of the Arab kings in Babylon, who from this time bore rule for many years in the river-land of Mesopotamia."