conduct became obnoxious to them was absolute and unquestioned.
Doubtless, as we have seen, the government of Oman has undergone
a considerable degree of modification since the days of Cushite
splendor and supremacy; that, like all other nations which have
come in contact with the Aryan and Semitic races, the tendency
has been toward monarchial government; nevertheless, with its
practically free institutions, representing as they do, in a
measure, the political system of the grandest and oldest
civilizations of which we have any knowledge, it furnishes an
illustration of the degree of progress possible under gentile
organization, at the same time that it points to the source
whence has proceeded the fierce democratic spirit observed among
succeeding nations, notably the Greeks.
Modern writers agree in ascribing to the Touaricks, a people
inhabiting the Desert of Sahara, a considerable degree of
civilization. We are informed that in the Sahara, which, by the
way, is far less a barren waste than we have been taught to
suppose it, "the Touaricks have towns, cities, and an excellent
condition of agriculture"; that with them fruit is cultivated
with great success and skill. Their method of political
organization is democratic and similar in construction and
administration to the old Cushite municipalities. Baldwin,
quoting from Richardson, says: "Ghat, like all the Touarick
countries, is a republic; all the people govern. The woman of
the Touaricks is not the woman of the Moors and Mussulmans
generally. She has here great liberty, and takes an active part
in the affairs and transactions of life."[68]
[68] Prehistoric Nations, p. 341.
One who is disposed to search for it, will find no lack of
evidence going to prove that in an earlier age of the world,
prior to the written records of extant history, the human race
had attained to a stage of civilization equal in all and superior
in many respects to that of the present time.
That this remarkable stage of progress, the actual extent of
which has not yet been fully realized, was attained during a
period of pure Nature-worship, or while the earth and the sun
were venerated as emblems of the great creative energy throughout
the universe, is a proposition which, when viewed by the light of
more recently acquired facts, is perfectly reasonable, and
exactly what might be expected.
That this high stage of civilization was reached while women were
the recognized heads of families and of the gentes, and at a time
