d set in.

It seems to have been some sort of feudal system that the natural bent
of the Turanian race tended to develop. Each chief was supreme on his
own territory, and the king was only _primus inter pares_. The chiefs
who formed his council occasionally murdered their king and set up one
of their own number in his place. They were a turbulent and lawless
race--brutal and cruel also. The fact that at some periods of their
history regiments of women took part in their wars is significant of
the last named characteristics.

But the strange experiment they made in social life which, but for its
political origin, would more naturally have been dealt with under
"manners and customs," is the most interesting fact in their record.
Being continually worsted in war with their Toltec neighbours, knowing
themselves to be greatly outnumbered, and desiring above all things
increase of population, laws were passed, by which every man was
relieved from the direct burden of maintaining his family. The State
took charge of and provided for the children, and they were looked
upon as its property. This naturally tended to increase the birth-rate
amongst the Turanians, and the ceremony of marriage came to be
disregarded. The ties of family life, and the feeling of parental love
were of course destroyed, and the scheme having been found to be a
failure, was ultimately given up. Other attempts at finding
socialistic solutions of economical problems which still vex us
to-day, were tried and abandoned by this race.

The original Semites, who were a quarrelsome marauding and energetic
race, always leant towards a patriarchal form of government. Their
colonists, who generally took to the nomadic life, almost exclusively
adopted this form, but as we have seen they developed a considerable
empire in the days of the second map period, and possessed the great
"City of the Golden Gates." They ultimately, however, had to give way
before the growing power of the Akkadians.

It was in the third map period, about 100,000 years ago, that the
Akkadians finally overthrew the Semite power. This 6th sub-race were a
much more law-abiding people than their predecessors. Traders and
sailors, they lived in settled communities, and naturally produced an
oligarchical form of government. A peculiarity of theirs, of which
Sparta is the only modern example, was the dual system of two kings
reigning in one city. As a result probably of their sea-going taste,
th