udent ought, however, to be
informed as to the course of a deeply interesting enquiry.

The civilisation of the Aryans was primitive enough. The following is
from Dr. Taylor:--

The undivided Aryans were a pastoral people, who wandered with
their herds as the Hebrew patriarchs wandered in Canaan. Dogs,
cattle, and sheep had been domesticated, but not the pig, the
horse, the goat, or the ass; and domestic poultry were unknown. The
fibres of certain plants were plaited into mats, but wool was not
woven, and the skins of beasts were scraped with stone knives, and
sewed together into garments with sinews by the aid of needles of
bone, wood, or stone.

Their food consisted of flesh and milk, which was not yet made into
cheese or butter. Mead, prepared from the honey of wild bees, was
the only intoxicating drink, both beer and wine being unknown. Salt
was unknown to the Asiatic branch of the Aryans, but its use had
spread rapidly among the European branches of the race. In winter
they lived in pits dug in the earth and roofed over with poles
covered with turf, or plastered with cow dung. In summer they lived
in rude waggons or in huts made of the branches of trees. Of
metals, native copper may have been beaten into ornaments, but
tools and weapons were mostly of stone. Bows were made of the wood
of the yew, ... trees were hollowed out for canoes by stone axes,
aided by the use of fire.

According to Hehn, the old or sick were killed, wives were obtained
by purchase or capture, infants were exposed or killed. After a
time, with tillage, came the possession of property, and
established custom grew slowly into law. Their religious ideas were
based on magic and superstitious terrors, the powers of nature had
as yet assumed no anthropomorphic forms, the great name of Dyaus,
which afterwards came to mean God, signified only the bright sky.
They counted on their fingers, but they had not attained to the
idea of any number higher than one hundred.[3]

[Footnote 3: _Origin of the Aryans_, p. 188.]

These sketches of the early Aryan certainly attest more vigour than
refinement; and it takes some effort to realise that those who lived
in this way had already made much progress, and that these early arts
and institutions were full of promise. Savage as the early Aryan is,
he is better than his neighbours, and has made a good start in the
way of civilisation. His family arr