The ancient inhabitants of Samaria were a mixed people, composed of the remnant of Ephraim and Manasseh, and of Assyrian colonists introduced after the captivity of the Ten Tribes (721 B.C.). In the New Testament "The Samaritans" is used as the name of a religious community opposed to the Jews. They accepted only the Pentateuch, and maintained that the sanctuary of the divine choice was not Mount Zion, but Mount Gerizim (Shechem), where they had a temple destroyed by John Hyrcanus (128 B.C.). A few of the race and religion still exist.

The Albic word "cairn" or "carn," signifying a protuberance, a heap, is applied among archaeologists to the artificial heaps of unhewn stones found in England, Wales, Scotland and Brittany. Both burnt and un-burnt remains have been found in these cairns, indicating that they were used as family sepulchres. They vary in shape and size. One of the largest is the great chambered cairn of New Grange, near Droghede, with a diameter of three hundred and fifteen feet and a height of twenty feet. Its main chamber is about thirteen feet in diameter with side recesses of smaller size. The site of the cairn is surrounded by a circle of standing stones.

The Visigoths, or Western Goths, were the descendants of that branch of the Gothic race established by Aurelian in Dacia (270). The descendants of the other branch of the race, which remained in Southern Russia, were called Ostrogoths (Eastern Goths). On the death of Theodosius, the Visigoths, under Alaric, overran Greece (396) and Italy (400). After Al-aric's death (410) they established a kingdom at Toulouse (418) which eventually comprised the whole of Gaul south of the Loire and west of the Rhone, as well as Provence and the greater part of Spain. With the defeat (and death) of Alaric II. by Clovis, on the field of Vougle (or Vouille or Voclad) near Poitiers (507;, the kingdom of Toulouse came to an end, and the Visigoths abandoned to the conqueror all their territories north of the Pyrenees, with the exception of a small tract of country in Gaul, including the cities of Carcassone, Narbonne, and Nimes.

The Hittites were one of the most important tribes in the south of Canaan. They are mentioned in Gen. x. as the descendants of Heth, a son of Canaan. In the age of Abraham the Hittites inhabited Hebron and its neighborhood (Gen. xxiii.). The primitive seat of the Hittites was probably the Taurus mountains of Asia Minor, from whence, as indicated by the cuneiform records of Tel-el-Amarna, in the latter part of the eighteenth Egyptian dynasty, they invaded Syria, and later, in the reign of Rameses II., were settled at Kadesh, ultimately spreading to the south of Palestine. In race the Hittites were probably Turanian, and in their language allied to the Alarodian family. The peculiar hieroglyphic writings found on Hittite monuments in Syria, Asia Minor, etc., are beginning to be deciphered. In common with the Hyksos the deity of the Hittites was Seti, the Egyptian Typhon, and the local goddess of Kadesh, Anata, the Canaanitish goddess of war.

According to Greek tradition the Amazons were communities of women, who dwelt in Asia and Scythia, the most famous inhabiting Pontus. They are said to have built Ephesus. Of their queens, one, Hypolyta, was conquered by Hercules; another, Penthesilea, was killed by Achilles, when aiding the Trojans; a third, Thalestris, visited Alexander the Great. The name Amazon is derived from the Greek amazos, i.e., without a breast, from the removal of the right bosom to facilitate the use of the javelin and bow. The bodyguard of the King of Dahomey consists of women called Amazons.

The Walloons are the inhabitants of the south-eastern division of Belgium, their country comprising the provinces of Hainault, Namur, Liege, and Luxemburg, with part of Brabant. The Walloons are Romanized Gauls, lineal representatives of the ancient Belgae, distinguished from their Flemish (Teutonic) neighbors by their Romance language, their stronger physique, and their darker complexion. The Walloon language, however, a strongly marked dialect of Northern France (the Langued'Oil), is now merely a provincial patois, French being the written standard and official language of the whole kingdom.

The Vandals were one of the Teutonic peoples who overthrew the Roman Empire. They were first heard of as occupying Brandenburg and Pomerania. In 406 they crossed the Rhine and entered Gaul, and in 409 they crossed the Pyrenees and entered Spain, where they waged twenty years of bloody warfare with the imperial armies and with their fellow-barbarians, the Goths and Suevi. Under Genseric they invaded (429) and conquered Roman Africa, Carthage being taken in 439. Genseric formed a powerful fleet and took and plundered Rome (455). Ultimately (533-6) the Vandal kingdom in Africa was overthrown by Belisarius, the general of Justinian.

The Montenegrins belong to the Servian branch of the Slavs, who inhabit Montenegro, an independent principality on the eastern side of the Adriatic, between Dalmatia, Herzegovina, Bosnia, and Albania. In the fourteenth century Montenegro was a principality subject to the Servian empire, but when the Servian power was broken by the Turks at the battle of Kossovo (1389), it became the asylum of all who disdained to submit to the Turkish yoke; and since then the main business of the Montenegrins has been to fight the Turks. They joined Servia (1876) and Russia (1877-78) against the hereditary foe, with the result that they acquired an accession of territory in 1878 (Antivari, etc.), and again in 1880 (Dulcigno). There was temporary fighting between the Turks and the Montenegrins at Cetinje" (July 3-4, 1886).

The wearing of beards dates from an early period, the Assyrians being thus depicted in their sculptures. The Egyptians were shaven, or wore their beards cut square. By the Levitical law the Jews were forbidden to shave their beards. The Persians, the Greeks (until the time of Alexander the Great), and the Romans, were bearded; among the last named shaving was introduced about 296 b. c. In England beards were not in fashion from the Conquest to the thirteenth century, and at the time of Charles II. the beards were out of use. In 1851 the custom of wearing the beard was revived. Peter the Great caused all the Russians to shave. In France modern shaving is said to have come into force during the reigns of Louis XIII. and XIV. In the East the beard is regarded as a mark of dignity, and an insult offered to the beard is highly resented.

Of dwarf races of men, the most notable are the Bushmen, four feet seven inches high; the Akkas in Central Africa, about four feet ten inches high, with whom Emin's men identified the hordes of forest dwarfs ("a venomous, cowardly, and thievish race, and very expert with their arrows") by whom Stanley's march in 1888 was so harrassed; the Obongos, on the Gaboon, and the still smaller Batwas, four feet three inches; a tribe called M'Kabba, near Lake Ngami, reported as only four feet one inch; also the Andaman Islanders (under five feet), the Aetasin the Philippines, the Malayan Samangs, the Javan Kalangs. The Lapps, Ainos, Fuegians, and Veddahs are somewhat taller.

The Hyksos, or Shepherd Kings, were a race of Asiatic origin, possibly of Mongoloid type, whose nationality is a matter of dispute. Accompanied by a horde of Semites they invaded and occupied the northern part of Egypt about sixteen hundred years before Christ, overthrowing the Middle Empire, and holding possession of the country for six hundred and sixty-nine years. Ahmes, the founder of the eighteenth Egyptian dynasty, conquered the Hyksos, the more important part of whom were driven from Egypt. It was held, as stated by Eusebius - a view supported by many of the best Egyptologists - that Joseph ruled Egypt during the sway of the Hyksos dynasty. Important discoveries of the Hyksos dynasty have recently been made by M. Naville, at Bubastis, among these being mutilated twin statues of the Hykso King Apepi, probably contemporaneous with Joseph.