their outlet. It was by the route of the Borysthenes that the great migration, consisting of Kimmerioi, penetrated northwards from the 'Pontic Scythia,' while the Ligures and the kindred tribes worked their way westward up the valley of the Danube.

The Cimmerii must have spread themselves northward, and also over the Mediterranean coasts, at a period of the most remote antiquity. According to Greek antiquaries the Greeks settled in Italy some eighteen centuries B.C. (vide p. 11), and the Cimmerii had certainly reached that country before them. The Ligurian tribes were on the move later than the Cimmerii, but still at a very early date. The Ibēres, we have concluded, were displaced by the Egyptian colonists in Colchis, and Colchis was probably settled by one of the Pharaohs of the old monarchy, in other words, before the time of Abraham. The Ligures certainly came after the Ibēres, but were not, I think, many centuries behind them. The Colchian colonies on the Adriatic would, as long as they flourished, be a serious bar in the way of Ligurian movements westward, and I believe the Ligures were settled in Noricum and on the upper Danube before Olchynium, Pola, and Oricum were founded by the Colchians. The Umbri in all probability penetrated into central Italy before the year 1000 B.C.; for Cato tells us (Pliny 3. 4. 19) that Ameria, one of their towns, was founded at a date which answers to 1035 B.C. The Ligures may have passed into Spain and driven the Sikanoi from the Ebro a century or two later. The last Celtic migration into Italy was no doubt that of the Veneti. We may

fix it with all but historical certainty early in the sixth century B.C.

CHAPTER IV.1

EARLY military races; our knowledge of them derived mainly from the Biblenarrative; objections to its credibility considered; antiquity of man; the creative days; the deluge; subsidences of the earth's surface; story of the Atlantis; migration to Shinar; confusion of tongues. Eber (Melchizedek) passes westward; father of the Joktanite Arabs; his relations to the Ibrim (Hebrews) and to the Philistines. Jerusalem an ancient centre of religion. — Probable settlement of Melchizedek in the valley of the Kedron.

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Dignified position held by Eber in the Jewish annals. The phrase 'Asshur and Eber' used by Balaam to denote all the races which are now called Shemitic, and his prophecy could not have been published much later than the year 1400 B.C. Lud and Aram. The Rutennu represent Asshur. Fortunes of Nineveh. Ibrim.'

Changes in the meaning of the word Identity of Melchizedek with Eber. Palestine and its neighbourhood known to the Egyptians as the land of the Ibrim, and as ta neter, or the holy land; may have received both names as being the seat of this great Patriarch.

IN the preceding chapters we have rapidly glanced over the history of the three great colonizing races of western Europe the Cimmerii, the Iberes, and the Ligures; and have only incidentally noticed the disturbing influences which operated from without, and interfered with their peaceful settlement. We have now to turn our attention to the

According to his original plan Dr. Guest included in a single chapter (IV) the discussion of the several topics which fall into Chapters IV, V, VI and VII, as they now stand. Some time before he ceased working he had begun to recast this part of the book, and had partially rearranged the matter of Chapter IV, in four chapters, expanding the argument as he proceeded. Upon this he was engaged when he was finally compelled to give up work. This fact must account for the abrupt transitions which mark the following chapters as being somewhat fragmentary; and for the want of proportion between them. It also explains how certain passages, in different connexions, occur in almost identical words.

military races, which at different times attacked and in part subdued them. Our knowledge of the latter races is chiefly to be gathered from that wonderful book, whose authority has of late been so rudely questioned. I have treated the Bible narrative hitherto as worthy of credit, but, now that I am about to make it in a more especial manner the basis of my reasoning, it may be well to state the grounds on which I rest its claim to our confidence. The subject is a momentous one, and I hope to meet with indulgence though I treat it more fully than is usual with respect to matters merely introductory.

Men of literary and scientific standing have started theories as to the antiquity of man, which conflict not only with the views I have laid before the reader, but also with the narrative contained in the first chapter of Genesis. I am one of those who believe that narrative to be simple history; and, as every one is now expected to render reasons for his faith, I give mine-not as affording a full solution of a most difficult problem, but as reasons that satisfied a mind which I may venture to call honest, and which is certainly more inclined to question than blindly to acquiesce in generally received opinions. The conclusions about to be submitted to the reader's judgment were arrived at in early life, when I had to stand on my defence against German rationalism; they have been modified but not materially altered by the later discussions that have taken place in our own country.

"In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.' I do not see how any critical and unprejudiced mind can give to these words other than one meaning, In the bygone eternity God created, &c. The Jews who wrote the Septuagint rendered the phrase 'In the beginning' by the very Greek words which St. John afterwards used in the opening of his Gospel 'In the beginning was the Word,' &c.; and in the oldest Chaldee paraphrase, the next most ancient authority we can appeal to, we find it rendered by a Chaldee phrase which is equivalent to that used in the Septu

IV.]

TOHU AND BOHU.

105

agint. Where is the modern Hebraist whose opinion can for a moment be weighed against these venerable authorities?

6

And the earth was without form and void (tohu and bohu); and darkness was upon the face of the deep.' According to Dathe's translation, which I would say carries conviction with it, the passage should be rendered 'and the earth became without form,' &c. Here then we are carried at once from the creation of the earth to that period in the earth's history when chaos and darkness overspread the land which was to be man's dwelling-place. What was the nature of the darkness we can only conjecture, but there is a passage in Jeremiah (4. 23) which seems to point not obscurely to the agency employed in producing it. The prophet likens the ruin of Israel to the confusion of chaos. I beheld the earth, and, lo, it was without form and void (tohu and bohu); and the heavens, and they had no light. I beheld the mountains, and, lo, they trembled, and all the hills moved lightly.' Here we have the very phrase 'tohu and bohu' which is found in Genesis and nowhere else in Scripture save in this passage. We can therefore hardly be mistaken as to the reference intended, and we may, I think, fairly illustrate the earlier passage by the later one. Now in the geological periods immediately preceding those in which man left traces on the earth, the crust of the earth was subjected to fearful convulsions. The Alps, the Apennines, the Pyrenees, the Carpathians, &c. were then extruded above the earth's surface. These stupendous upheavements carry us beyond the range of man's experience. What physical effects would follow the extrusion of such vast molten masses no 'physicist' could tell us, were he simple enough to attempt it. But we know there are agents in nature, which, if liberated, would either in solution or vapour quench the light of any midday sun, and, for aught we know to the contrary, the very atmosphere might be dissipated above the seething cauldron. Curious however though the inquiry be as to the nature of the darkness,

there is one no less interesting and more to our purpose, as to the portion of the earth's surface which it covered. The question is an important one, and has not met with the attention it deserves. My scanty limits barely allow me to glance at it.

That the ground on which we tread is made up of strata, each containing its peculiar remains, vegetable and animal, is known to every one; and the revolutions in vegetable and animal life which these remains indicate have given rise to speculations the most varied and discordant. Many of these strata cover vast areas; and it has been supposed by some that the globe has been subjected to successive catastrophes, each of which was followed by a new creation, while others maintain that new conditions of the earth's surface led gradually to the extinction or, it may be, to the variation of the older types of being, and that there has been no sudden and abrupt break in the chain that united the earlier and the later forms of life. I think no sensible man can read the works that have been written in support of these different views, without being satisfied, that the writers are dealing with an indeterminate problem. We have not the data before us necessary to arrive at any definite conclusion on the subject. Remains of animals allied to the Kangaroo are found in our English oolites—and the family of the pouched animals form the more important part of the Australian fauna-whence it has been supposed that Australia is the remnant of a vast continent that once stretched over half the globe-a paradise of Kangaroos1. Till we find in English oolite the remains of some animal now actually existing, or which has existed in Australia,

1 A few years back a skull belonging to the Prehistoric Man' was brought to London from Scotland. The eminent person whose hypothesis I am alluding to, thought (according to newspaper report) that it resembled the skull of an Australian so we were to infer that there was a time when the Australian variety of man as well as the kangaroo was to be found in Britain! There were no circumstances connected with the finding of the skull inconsistent with the belief that the human being it belonged to was living within the last ten or twelve centuries.