Lesghi. The country of this race is about 12,000 square miles, the N. and S. slopes of the Caucasus. Narrow valleys and lofty mountains are occupied also by their tributaries, the Avar, and others. Monteith says there are four tribes,—Kajar Kumak, 20,000 families ; Kafir Kumak, 25,000 ; Avar, 32,000 ; mid the Ak Kuscha, 12,000. The Lesghi are the bravest but most turbulent of all the tribes of the Caucasus ; most of them are Muhanimadans. Nadir. Shah lost 30,000 of his best soldiers in a campaign against the Lesghi, but'they were totally defeated by the Russians in 1788. Their government is democratic.
Avar, a predatory tribe of Lesghi, occupying the north slope of the Caucasus between the rivers Alisai and Koisu. They are of Tartar descent.
Osset, a tribe dwelling on both sides of the ,Caucasus, numbering 167000 to 20,000 families, partly Christians and in part pagans. They •s; -zy to the Indo-Germanic race, with many similar to the Germans. They are of of and light form, some with brown or / air. They sit on chairs or benches, never 0 s-legged like orientals. They are cleanly, ,w and drink beer, using horns, and drink healths. They show the grave of the prophet Elijah (Asiljalegat) in a grove near the village of Lamadan. They pay money for their wives. Until the married woman bear a child, she must, as with the Armenians, be silent. A widow who has borne children may be re-married to the father or brother of her deceased husband. There are nobles, freemen, and slaves. They adhere to the vendetta. They are short, 5 feet 4 inches, and thick-set, with haggard features, usually blue eyes, and red or light-brown hair. The women are seldom pretty.
Pehavi, a tribe of the Caucasus, living in fifteen villages, and numbering 3698 souls. They hold the mountains between Kakhetians and Chechenz.
ARABIA.—The Arab has been a migrating, conquering race. The first emigration from Arabia is supposed to have taken place about 700 years before the time of Solomon. Arabia is described in the Periplus as a country filled with pilots, sailors, and merchants. In Pliny's time Arabs were the carriers of the Indian trade; their settlers have occupied the north and east of Africa, have filled the western shores of Ceylon, have estab lished themselves on the coast of Malabar, and they are prominent in Siunatra in the ArchipeLago, n all parts of the south of Europe, W. Africa,
. and S. and E. Asia, are to be seen descendants of Arab conquerors. They occupy Khuzistan and the whole of the Persian littoral, and also that of Persian and 13aluch Mekmn. Their armies have overrun the valley of the Lower Indus, have been dominant in Samarcand, Oudh, and Arcot, on the east have reached the Chinese territories, and on the west the Atlantic, Malta, Italy, and Spain.
The present Arabians, according to their own historians, are sprung from two stocks : Kahtan, the same with Joktan or Yoktan of the Bible, the son of Eber, whose descendants occupy the south ; and Adnan, descended in a direct line from Ishmael, the son of Abraham and Hagar, who occupy the north. Yoktan, according to Ch. Bunsen, was one of the two sons of Nimrnd, and was the chief of the first Arabian emigration that proceeded south wards. Tradition points to the mountains of Armenia as the birthplace of the Arab and Canaanitish races, and it is supposed that they travelled along the banks of the Tigris into Meso potamia, from which a portion of them commenced a great migration southwards, the result of which was the foundation of the primeval kingdoms of S. Arabia, the kingdoms of the Adites in Yemen, who believe that they came from the sacred north, and once lived in a glorious garden of the earth, which they are to restore. In the matter of their present locations, Dr. Latham, in his Ethnology, considers that Hejaz is peopled by the descend ants of Ishmael, but the inhabitants of Mecca and Jedda consist of pilgrims and their descend ants of African, Persian, and Turk blood. In S. Arabia, Yemen, Hadramaut, and Oman, the people are more or less Ilimyarite in blood, history, and civilisation. Those of the towns of Mocha, Sanai, Rodda, and Loheia are the more civilised, and the desert and hill Arabs are rude and ignorant, one of them so rude in speech as to be named the Bin-i-Kalb, children of dogs : and the Berekede, a branch of the Asir, are said to lend their wives. The Asir tribe occupy be tween Mecca and Medinah. They have six kabileb, —Bin-ul-Asmar, Bin-ul-Akmar, Charaan, Asir, Roufeida, and Ahida, and muster about 44,500 fighting men.