The Mahrattas are a native Indian race which founded an empire in Central and Western India, 1674. After 1795, Scindia, Holkar and Berar became independent; the confederacy of Mahratta states came to an end in 1818, and all the chiefs became dependants of the British Crown.

In the Spanish province of Gerona a fairly pure type of the dwarf race of Morocco and the Atlas has been traced. These people average about 31/2 feet in height, and are otherwise characterized by a yellow skin, broad, square faces, Mongolian eyes and red hair of a woolly texture.

A people now frequently heard of are the Bechuanas, a powerful and warlike race of the Kaffir stock, inhabiting a large tract of South Africa, north of Cape Colony. They are engaged in agriculture and the rearing of cattle. The greater part of the territory is under British influence.

By the law of Gavelkind the land of the father was, at his decease, divided among the sons; if there were no sons, it was divided among the daughters. After the Norman Conquest Gavelkind gave place to the feudal law of primogeniture, and was only observed in Kent and Wales.

A Scotch or Gaelic tribe formed of members of one family and their descendants is called a clan. It is supposed to have arisen in Scotland about 1008. The chiefs exercised jurisdiction as the fathers of the clans, but their legal and heritable jurisdiction was abolished in 1747, after the rebellion.

The Romans used frequently to be at war with the Volsci, an ancient people of Latium. Their chief city was Coriole, from which Caius Mar-tius, who defeated them, obtained his name of Coriolanus (about 490 b. a). They were again utterly defeated (389 b. c.) by M. Furius Camillus, the conqueror of Veii, and finally (c. 338 b. c.) were incorporated with the Roman people.

Scythians were a nomad race of Asia known to the ancient writers. The name bore two significations, meaning (1) the Scythians proper or Scolots, (2) all the nomad tribes (Sacae, Sarmatians, Massagetae, Scolots) who dwelt in the steppes from what is now Hungary to the mountains of Turkestan.

The name Moors was first applied to the inhabitants of Mauritania; afterwards to the inhabitants of the whole of Africa north of the Sahara and west of Tripoli. Now it is given to the people of Morocco, but it is sometimes loosely used as synonymous with Arab, Saracen, or even Ma-hommedan.

The Basques are descendants of the ancient Iberi, who occupied Spain before the Celts. They occupy the provinces of Biscay, Guipuzcoa, and Alava in Spain, and the departments of the Upper and Lower Pyrenees, Ariege, and Upper Garonne, and retain their ancient language, manners, and customs.

The Fire Ordeal was an ancient form of trial for persons of high rank in England and Germany, in which the accused had to walk barefoot over nine red hot ploughshares, or over red-hot cinders, or to carry a red-hot iron in his hand for a certain distance. If he escaped unhurt he was considered innocent.

Shire is the Anglo-Saxon equivalent of the Norman county. The Earl was originally the head of the shire, but his duties were gradually carried out by the Shire-reeve, as the king's representative in the shire, who levied the various dues, fines, etc., in the king's name, and acted as his legal representative.

In the fourth century b. c. the Goths were found inhabiting the coasts of the Baltic, and later the shores of the Black Sea, and north of the Lower Danube. Defeated and killed the Roman emperor, Decius (251). Claudius (269) defeated the Goths with great slaughter. Dacia ceded to the Goths (272) by Aurelian.

According to the Bible the Midianites were the descendants of Midian, son of Abraham by Keturah, inhabiting the country between the Red Sea and the plains of Moab. They were powerful at one time, but, with their allies the Amalekites, were completely routed by Gideon, and are seldom heard of afterwards.

The Chaldeans or Akkadians are a non-Semitic race who came originally from the mountain country of Elam, and were formerly the dominant people of Babylonia. One of the four great cities of Shinar was Accad. The Babylonians were indebted to the Sumero-Akkadians for their cuneiform writing, religion, and mythology.

The ancient sea-rovers of Scandinavia (Denmark, Norway and Sweden), or Northmen, called themselves Vikings (sea-kings). Their ravages extended from the eighth to the thirteenth centuries, and they formed permanent settlements in England, Ireland, Northern France, and Southern Italy. In France the name was contracted into Normans.

Closely related to the Sabines were the Samnites, who were long formidable rivals of the Romans, and were only subdued after three sanguinary wars, waged with little interruption from 343 B.C. to 290 B.C. The Samnites took a prominent part in the social war (90 B. c), and espoused the cause of Marius against Sulla, by whom they were almost extirpated (82 b. c).

Fire worship was established by Zoroaster amongst the Persians, who worshipped the sun, and held that the sacred fires of their temples and the sun were the especial places of the divine habitation. Fire worship is also practised by the Parsees. Among the early Hindus the sun was worshipped under the simulacrum of the god Agni and represented in the Vedas as the god of Fire Worship.

In the third century the Saxons, a Teutonic race, made numerous settlements on the coasts of Normandy and Brittany, thence called the "Saxon Shore." In the fifth century they laid the foundations of the Saxon kingdoms in England. Those who remained in Germany, sometimes called old Saxons, spread south and east over Saxony. They were finally subdued by Charlemagne in 803.

Cromlech is a modern term formerly applied by archaeologists to a class of megalithic monuments, consisting of one flat stone supported on two or more upright stones, and forming a kind of open chamber with a roof. It is now generally recognized, however, that these are merely the denuded or uncovered chambers of cairns or barrows, for which another modern term, "dolmen," is now generally substituted.