merica), etc., etc.

I do not intend entering here on a scientific ethnological discussion;
and, besides, I am sure no one fails to see that the reasoning of
scientists sometimes takes a very strange turn when they set to prove
some favorite theory of theirs. It is enough to remember how entangled
and obscure is the history of the ancient Scythians to abstain from
drawing any positive conclusions whatsoever from it. The tribes that go
under one general denomination of Scythians were many, and still it is
impossible to deny that there is a good deal of similitude between the
customs of the old Scandinavians, worshipers of Odin, whose land indeed
was occupied by the Scythians more than five hundred years B.C. and the
customs of the Rajputs. But this similitude gives as much right to the
Rajputs to say that we are a colony of Surya-vansas settled in the West
as to us to maintain that the Rajputs are the descendants of Scythians
who emigrated to the East. The Scythians of Herodotus and the Scythians
of Ptolemy, and some other classical writers, are two perfectly distinct
nationalities. Under Scythia, Herodotus means the extension of land from
the mouth of Danube to the Sea of Azoff, according to Niebuhr; and to
the mouth of Don, according to Rawlinson; whereas the Scythia of Ptolemy
is a country strictly Asiatic, including the whole space between the
river Volga and Serika, or China. Besides this, Scythia was divided by
the western Himalayas, which the Roman writers call Imaus, into Scythia
intra Imaum, and Scythia extra Imaum. Given this lack of precision,
the Rajputs may be called the Scythians of Asia, and the Scythians
the Rajputs of Europe, with the same degree of likelihood. Pinkerton's
opinion is that European contempt for the Tartars would not be half
so strong if the European public learned how closely we are related
to them; that our forefathers came from northern Asia, and that our
primitive customs, laws and mode of living were the same as theirs; in
a word, that we are nothing but a Tartar colony... Cimbri, Kelts and
Gauls, who conquered the northern part of Europe, are different names of
the same tribe, whose origin is Tartary. Who were the Goths, the Swedes,
the Vandals, the Huns and the Franks, if not separate swarms of the same
beehive? The annals of Sweden point to Kashgar as the fatherland of
the Swedes. The likeness between the languages of the Saxons and the
Kipchak-Tartars is striking; and the Keltic, w