f an
East African origin. On the whole, therefore, it seems most probable
that the race designated in Scripture by the hero-founder Nimrod, and
among the Greeks by the eponym of Belus, passed from East Africa, by way
of Arabia, to the valley of the Euphrates, shortly before the opening of
the historical period.

Upon the ethnic basis here indicated, there was grafted, it would seem,
at a very early period, a second, probably Turanian, element, which very
importantly affected the character and composition of the people. The
_Burbur_ or _Akkad,_ who are found to have been a principal tribe under
the early kings, are connected by name, religion, and in some degree by
language, with an important people of Armenia, called _Burbur_ and
_Urarda,_ the Alarodians (apparently) of Herodotus. It has been
conjectured that this race at a very remote date descended upon the plain
country, conquering the original Cushite inhabitants, and by degrees
blending with them, though the fusion remained incomplete to the time of
Abraham. The language of the early inscriptions, though Cushite in its
vocabulary, is Turanian in many points of its grammatical structure, as
in its use of post-positions, particles, and pronominal suffixes; and it
would seem, therefore, scarcely to admit of a doubt that the Cushites of
Lower Babylon must in some way or other have become mixed with a Turanian
people. The mode and time of the commixture are matters altogether
beyond our knowledge. We can only note the fact as indicated by the
phenomena, and form, or abstain from forming, as we please, hypotheses
with respect to its accompanying circumstances.

Besides these two main constituents of the Chaldaean race, there is
reason to believe that both a Semitic and an Arian element existed in the
early population of the country. The subjects of the early kings are
continually designated in the inscriptions by the title of
_kiprat-arbat,_ "the four nations," or _arba lisun,_ "the four tongues."
In Abraham's time, again, the league of four kings seems correspondent
to a fourfold ethnic division, Cushite, Turanian, Semitic, and Arian,
the chief authority and ethnic preponderance being with the Cushites.
The language also of the early inscriptions is thought to contain traces
of Semitic and Arian influence; so that it is at least probable that the
"four tongues" intended were not mere local dialects, but distinct
languages, the representatives respectively of the