"l^l^ei^Ii'' ill « .-V:i.<-H m 'f: '■' '■■Tl>»t'''''-f'> ■■■.■■' ■ t,rt.\:!;,-i.;.:^''i"t''-. ''-■''''- b ^ l-l vvlOSANCElfj> o I kavaan-^^ ^lllBRARYQ/r vvlOSANGElfj> ,>;,0FCAIIF0% ■^omm\^ MMMIWl - <: AWEUNIVERS-//) 1^1 i 8 -5 v/oiiMNnmv ^^ ^OFCAtlFOff^ ^^.UIVHSIl'lX'^'^ ^ ^, , \ME UNIVER5-//, \VlOSANCflfj> ' A\^tUNIVER5"/4 ^ — '■^ ' ^TiiJQNVSOl^ vAii]AiNn-3y\v ^OFCAIIFO/?^ .^jOFCAllFOMiA o "^^Aavaaivi^ AWEUNIVER^ v^lOSANCElfj> o ^^^Aavaaii-^^"^ o >;,OFCAIIFO% ,v<,OFCAllF0% ^TiiJONYsov^^ %a3AiNfi}WV^ ^6>Aavaan# "^(PAavnaii^ RESEARCHES INTO THE PHYSICAL HISTORY MANKIND. RESEARCHES INTO THE PHYSICAL HISTORY MANKIND. JAMES COWLES PRICHARD, M.D. F.R.S. M.R.I.A. CORRIJSPONDING MEJIBER OF THK NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF FRANCE, MEMBER OF THE AMERICAN PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY, HONORARV FELLOW OF THE KINGS AND OUEEV'S COLLEGE OF PHYSICIANS IN IRELAND, MEMBER OF THE ROVAL ACADEMY OF MEDICINE OP PARIS. THIRD EDITION. VOL. II. CONTAINING RESEARCHES INTO THE PHYSICAL ETHNOGRAPHY OF THE AFRICAN RACES. LONDON: SHERWOOD, GILBERT, AND PIPER, PATERNOSTKR ROW; AND J. AND A. ARCH, CORNHILL. 1837. JOSKPH RICKERRY, PRINTKR, SHKRBOURN-LANE. 23 ANALYSIS OF THE CONTENTS. INTRODUCTION. Page. General statement of the inquiries vvhicli form the subject of the following books 1 BOOK III. Researches into the physical ethnography of the AFRICAN races. CHAPTER I. Preliminary Survey of the Physical Geography of .Africa, and of the natural Sub-divisions of that Continent. Section I. General observations 7 Section 2. Atlantica, the elevated region of Nortiiern Africa 8 Section 3. Highlands of Central Africa II Section 4. Lowlands of Africa 13 CHAPTER IT. Of the original Inhabitants of Jltlautica. Section 1. History of the Atlantic nations, elucidated by researches into their language 15 965489 vi ANALYSIS OF THE CONTENTS. Page. Section 2. Different branches of the Berber race.— 1. Ber- bers of Atlas.— 2. Shuluh.— 3. Kabyles.— 4. Tuaryk 18 1. Berbers of the Northern Atlas 18 2. Shuluh 19 3. The Kabyles of Algiers and Tunis, and the Berber tribes in the central parts of Alantica 20 4. Tuaryk 21 Sections. Nations of the Sahara, Tuaryk, and Tibbo 21 Section 4. Of the population of the African coast, and the States of Barbary 25 Section 5. Physical characters of the Barbary Moors, and the Native tribes of Atlas and the Sahara. . 26 Section 6. Of the Tibbo 30 Section 7. Of the Guanches, or old inhabitants of the Canary Islands 32 Section 8. Of the proof of affinity, founded on resem- blance of language, between differentbranches of the Atlantic race — Inquiry into the pro- bable relations of this race with others in Africa and in Europe 37 CHAPTER III. General Survey of the Ethnography of Central Africa to the Northward of the Equator. Section 1. Geographical limitations — Land of Negroes — Ethiopia 43 Section 2. General survey of the physical and moral state of the native races in the interior of Africa. . 45 CHAPTER IV. Ethnography of Central Africa to the Northward of the Equator continued — Western division — Nations of Senega mbia and Guinea. Section 1. Section 2. Section 3. Outline of the physical geography of Sene- gambia 55 Of the Mandingos 53 Of the Bambarrans 65 Of the Fulahs qq ANALYSIS OF THE CONTENTS. Vll Page. Physical character of the Fulahs 09 Section 4. Of the inferior races inhabiting the region be- tween the Senegal and Cape Palmas 73 Paragraph A. Inhabitants of mountain- ous regions 74 1. Of the Jallonkas, or Jallunkan, and the Sokko 74 2. The Kissi 75 3. Sulima 75 4. Sangara 76 Paragraph B. Of the nations inhabiting the low countries between the Senegal and the Gambia 77 1. The lolofs 77 2. The Serreres 79 3. The SerawooUi or Saracolets . . 80 Paragraph C. Of the Negro states on the Gambia, and the native tribes between that river and Cape Palmas 80 1. The Feluppes 81 2. ThePapels 82 3. The Balantes . . 82 4. The Bissagos 82 5. The Biafares or lolas 83 6. The Basares and Naloubes .... 83 7. The Zapes 84 8. The Bulloms, Susus, Tim- manis and Bagoes 84 9. The Quojas — Folgias — People of Cape Monte, Sanguin, and Settra Kroo 85 10. The Kroos or Kroomen 86 Coast from Cape Palmas to the Gold Coast. Section 5. Of the nations inhabiting the Gold Coast and the countries in the interior 87 1. Inta race 87 Inta, Fanti, Ashanti 88 2. Acra race gO Section 6. Of the Foy race, including the Whidah, Papah, Dahomeh, and several other nations of the ANALYSIS OF THK CONTENTS. I'age. Section 7. Section 8. 91 Slave Coast, and the adjoining inland coun- try Natives of Benin and tlie countries adjacent on the Bights of Benin and Biafia — Races of Ibo, Binin, Moko 94 General observations on the physical characters of the nations mentioned in the foregoing chapter, and specimens of their languages. . 96 CHAPTER V. Ethnography of Central .Africa to the Northward of the Equator, continued — Middle Division — Interior of Africa. Section 1. Of the earliest accounts of Sudan 100 Information respecting Negroland, contained in the works of Arabian travellers, Edrisi, Ibn Batuta, and Leo Africanus 100 Section 2. Further observations on the history of the na- tions of Sudan . ^ 108 Paragraph 1. Of the nations and pro- vinces contained in Western Sudan.. 108 2, Eastern Sudan — OfHausa, and the nations speaking dialects of the Guberi or Hausa language 109 3. Empire of Bornu 110 Vocabulary of the languages of Sudan 1 ] 3 4. Of other Negro states no- minally or really dependent on the em- pire of Bornu, viz. Mobba or Bergu, Begharmeh and Borgho 114 Section 3. Of the people of Borgho and Yarriba 115 Physical characters of the natives of Borgho and Yarriba 119 Section 4. Notices of the physical characters of the native races of Sudan 120 Section 5. Of the Falatiya or Felatahs 121 Comparative vocabulary of languages of Wes- tern and Central Africa, northward of the Equator 127 ANALYSIS OF THE CONTENTS. IX Page. CHAPTER VI. Ethnography of Eastern Africa to the JVorthivard of the Equator — Abyssinian J\'ations. Section 1. Outline of the physical geography of Abys- sinia 128 Paragraph 1. General description .... 128 2. First level— Plain of the Baharnegash 129 3. Second level — Kingdom of Tigre 130 4. High Abyssinia — King- dom of Amhara 130 5. Eastern limits of Abyssinia 132 Section 2. Enumeration of the different races of people inhabiting the Abyssinian empire 132 Paragraph 1, Tigrani, or Abyssins of Tigre 133 2. Amharas 133 3. Agows 133 4. Falasha 134 5. Gafats 135 6. Gongas and Enareans .... 135 7. Cambas 136 Section 3. On the physical characters of the Abyssinian races 136 Section 4. Inquiry into the history of the Abyssins, and their different races and languages 143 Paragraph 1. Of the Gheez or Ethiopic, the Amharic, and other languages of Abyssinia . o 143 2. Of the introduction of Ju- daism into Abyssinia 146 3. Historical notices of Axum and the Abyssinians 148 4. Abyssinians, a colony from Arabia — Historical proofs — Inquiry into the history of the Hamyarite Arabs . . 150 5. Conclusion — Remarks on the physical characters of the Abyssinians 153 Numerals in the Abyssinian languages. . 155 X ANALYSIS OF THE CONTENTS. Page. CHAPTER VII. Of several Nations bordering on the Empire of Abyssinia towards the South and South-east. Section 1. Of the Gallas 156 Section 2. Of the Danakil and Adaiel, and the people of Hurrur 158 Paragraph 1. Account of the Danakil . . 158 2. Physical characters of the Danakil 159 3. People of Hurrur 159 Section 3, Of the Sumali, or Somauli 159 Paragraph 1. Comparative vocabulary of the Sumali, Galla and Danakil lan- guages 101 Section 4. Of the Shiho and Hazorta race Ui3 CHAPTER VIII. Of the Races of People bordering on Abyssinia, towards the J^orth and West. Section 1. Of the Shangalla 164 2. Of the Shiliikh and Fungi — People of Sennaar 105 ■ 3. Of the native races of Bertat, Fertit, Donga, Dar- kulla and other Negro countries lying to the southward of Darfur, Kordofan, and Sennaar 171 CHAPTER IX. Of the Races of People inhabiting Nubia and other countries between .Abyssinia and Egypt. Section 1. Of the Barabra, Berberins or modern Nubians 172 Vocabulary of the Barabra and Koldagi Nouba dialects 178 History of the Barabra nation 179 Section 2. Of the Furians and Fezzaners 183 Section 3. Of the eastern Nubians, or Bisharine or Be- jawy race ] 84 Paragraph 1. Of the Hadharebe 184 2. Of the Bishari 186 3. Of the Abubdeh 189 ANALYSIS OF THE CONTENTS. CHAPTER X. XI Page. On the History of the Ancient Egyptians, and of their Relation to other Races of Men. Section 1. General remarks on the history of the Egyp- tians, and other nations coeval and supposed to have been connected with them 192 Section 2. On the antiquity of the Indians and other Semi- tic nations 194 Section 3. On the antiquity of the Egyptians 198 Section 4. History of the Egyptian language and its dialects 200 Section 5. On the relations of the Egyptian language to other known idoms 207 Comparision of the Coptic with the Indo- European and Semitic languages — African system of languages 213 Section 6. Further considerations resulting from the con- tents of the preceding sections — On the di- versity of languages among ancient nations — Conclusion with respect to the relation of the Egyptians to other human races 217 CHAPTER XI. On the Physical History of the Egyptian Race. Section 1. General remarks on the physical characters of the Egyptians 227 Section 2. Description of the Egyptians left by ancient writers 228 3. Of Mummies 232 4. Remains of painting and sculpture 235 5. Of the Copts 237 6. Of the Ethiopians 239 7. On some peculiarities in the teeth and in the position of the meatus auditorius, in Egyp- tian heads 249 Paragraph 2. Position of the ears 250 Xii ANALYSIS OF THE CONTENTS. Page. CHAPTER XII. Of the Arabian Tribes dispersed through the Northern regions of Africa. Section 1. General observations 252 Section 2. Of the Arabian tribes inhabiting parts of At- lantica and of the Sahara 254 Section 3. Of the Arabian tribes in Egypt and Nubia. . 259 Paragraph 1. Egyptian Arabs 261 2. Nubian Arabs 262 CHAPTER XIII. Of the JSfative Races of Southern Africa, beyond the Tropic. Section I. Introductory remarks on the physical geogra- phy of Southern Africa 265 Paragraph 1. Of the extreme part of Southern Africa 265 2. Of the eastern parts of Africa, southward of the Equator.... 267 Section 2. Of the races of men inhabiting the ultra-tropi- cal parts of South Africa — Hottentots — Kafirs 270 Paragraph 1. Of the Quaiquoe, or Hot- tentot race — Tribes of Hottentots.... 270 2. Of the Kora Hottentots . . 273 3. Of the Namaaqu a Hottentots 274 ^ 4. Of the Saabs or Bushmen 275 5. Remarks on the physical characters of the Hottentots 277 Section 3. Of the Kafirs 280 Paragraph 1. General observations on the history of the Kafirs 280 2. Of the Amakosah and other Kafirs of the coast of Natal 282 3. Of the Bechuanas 282 4. The Damaras 285 5. Of the AmazuluhjZoolahs, or Vatwahs 286 6. General remarks on the moral characteristics of the Kafir nation 287 ANALYSIS OF THE CONTENTS. Xlil Page. Paragraph 7. Physical characters of the Kafirs and Bechuanas 289 8. Of the natives of the coun- try near Dalagoa Bay 2!»2 CHAPTER XIV. Of the Native Races of Southern Africa ivithin the Tropic. Section 1. General observations — Extension of the Kafir race in the inter-tropical parts of South Africa 294 Section 2. Of the Makua, or Makuana — the Suhaili, and other native races of the coasts of Mosam- bique and Zanzibar 290 {Section 3. Of the nations and countries in the interior of Southern Africa 300 Section 4. Of the races inhabiting the western parts of South Africa — Empire of Kongo 306 Paragraph 1. Outline of the physical geo- graphy of this region 307 2. States comprised in the Kongo empire to the northward of the Zaire 309 3. States to the southward of the Zaire 310 Section 5. Indications of affinity between the languages and races of people in various parts of Southern Africa 312 Skction 6. Physical characters of the nations of inter- tropical Africa, to the southward of the equator 32 1 Section 7. On certain anatomical peculiarities of the Hot- tentots 326 CHAPTER XV. Concluding Observations on the Physical Characters of the African Nations, on their relation to the Climate of Africa, and on their constancy or liability to Variations. Section 1. Inquiry into the relations between the pheno- mena of variety in the physical characters of the African races and climate and other ex- ternal conditions 331 xiv ANALYSIS OF THE CONTENTS. Page. Section 2. Examination of the question, whether the phy- sical characters of human races are in Africa permanent, or liable to variation — What in- stances of such deviation can be proved to have taken place 340 Section 3. General observations on the intellectual facul- ties of the African nations 346 Notes and Illustrations 357 REFERENCES TO THE PLATES. Plate 1. — The Frontispiece, representing the head of a bishop of Abyssinia, the description of which will be found in page 139 and 140. Plate 2. — An Edjow Galla, page 158. Plate 3. — Fig. 1. Portrait of a Sumaly, page 161. Fig. 2. Portrait of a Suakiny, page 186. Plate 4. — Portraits of female Hottentots, facing page 280, where they are described. Plate 5. — Portrait of a Kosali Kafir, page 291. Plate 6. — Portrait of a Negro from Mosambique, exemplifying the physical characters of the races described in pages 321 — 326. The engraving is taken from the Atlas of M. Peron's Voyage, aux Terres Australes. RESEARCHES INTO THE PHYSICAL HISTORY OF MANKIND. INTRODUCTION. General Statement of the Inquiries which form the Subject of the following Books. In the preceding part of this work I have endeavoured to derive arguments from many general facts in the history of organized beings that might tend to elucidate the relations of different human races to each other. These arguments were principally considerations founded on an extensive survey of analogies, and their evidence was partly nega- tive, and, in part, of a positive kind. I have endeavoured to show, that no remarkable instance of variety in organiza- tion exists among human races to which a parallel may not be found in many of the inferior tribes ; and, in the second place, that all human races coincide in regard to many parti- culars, in which tribes of animals, when specifically distinct, are always found to differ. How far I have been successful in illustrating these relations, and whether the facts which I have brought forward are sufficient to establish the conclu- sions which I have drawn, my readers have been enabled to determine. It now remains for me to investigate the nature of organic diversities in mankind in a different way ; and, by inquiring into the history of particular tribes, to ascertain? if possible, how far the characters of these tribes have been permanent, or in what respects they may have been subject to variations. If it should be found that, within the period of VOL. II. B -6 "JNTRODUCTIOK. time to wliicli historical testimony extends, the distinguishing characters of human races have been constant and undeviating, it would become a matter of great difficulty to reconcile this conclusion with the inferences already obtained from other considerations. A difficulty of this nature is indeed, if I mis- take not, experienced by many persons when they advert to the general question which I have undertaken to investigate. It is a very prevalent opinion, that the diversities of human races are permanent and subject to little, if any, change, and whatever reasons may present themselves in favour of the unity of species in mankind, their weight is overbalanced by that consideration. Such doubts cannot be cleared up unless it can be determined whether that opinion is well or ill-founded. In the hope of arriving at some conclusion on this question, I shall now enter on an investigation of the physical history of particular races of men or families of nations. I have already shown, that it is altogether hypothetical to divide mankind, as many have done, into a few particular classes or groupes of nations resembling each other in phy- sical character, and to assume that such groupes constitute races or lineages, the members of which are always allied to each other in descent more nearly than to tribes of diffigrent physical peculiarities. I shall avoid all attempts to distribute the human family into different departments upon any con- jectural principle, and shall proceed in a geographical arrange- ment to examine the phenomena which present themselves in the population of different regions of the world. This way of dividing the subject is the only one that is free from all objections on the ground of propriety already pointed out ; it has also another advantage of no slight importance. By ar- ranging the facts observed in a geographical order, we have an opportunity of more correctly marking the influence of phy- sical agencies in the developement of varieties in breeds, or in the origination of new or diversified races. But, in order to estimate the extent of these agencies, it is not enough to compare with each other the productions of different climates and the climates themselves, as measured simply by relative distances from the poles or from the equator. Many other elements must be taken into the calculation, if we would form INTRODUCTION. O a correct idea of the influence of merely physical conditions. Such conditions are often very different under the same lati- tudes. It was long ago proposed by Lacepede, in a memoir on the elevations and other local circumstances of different regions, to estimate the influence of these external agents on the nature of organized beings.* The problem appeared to him very complicated, but he undertook, in a w^ork in which he had long been employed, entitled, " Essai sur I'His- toire des principales Races de I'Espece Humaine," to demon- strate, that " various considerations suggested by him, in connexion with the inquiry above mentioned, are capable of throwing light on phenomena worthy of the closest attention of naturalists. "f It may be questioned whether, at the period when this work was announced, either the history of human races, or the physical geography of different countries, was sufficiently advanced to render such an inquiry practicable to any satisfactory result ; but much information has been ac- quired in both of these departments of knowledge since the time of Lacepede, and many questions have been elucidated which were, at that period, involved in doubt. I shall con- sider this subject nearly in the same points of view in which it was contemplated by the writer above mentioned ; and, as I investigate the natural history of different races of men, I shall endeavour to ascertain what are the most remarkable features in the physical geography of each region, and what relations the origin and developement of varieties in families or tribes may bear to all these local conditions. The inquiry above mentioned will comprise the whole range of physical causes and their effects. The inffuence of moral agencies upon human races is a distinct consideration ; these, however, will be found by their importance to deserve an equal degree of attention. It must be observed, that this investigation referring to the * " Des hauteurs et des positions correspondantes des principales montagnes du globe, et de I'influence de ces hauteurs et de ces positions sur les habitations des animaux, par Lacepede." Annales du Museum d'Histoire Naturelle, torn. ix. p. 303. -f- I have never heard that such a work actually made its appearance from the hands of M. Lacepede. B 2 4 INTRODUCTION, oiature of that influence which external circumstances and physical and moral causes exert in the production of varieties, and in modifying the organic qualities of different races of men, is an inquiry of secondary importance in refer- ence to the principal object of this part of my work. The primary question is, whether any and what deviations have actually taken place in the physical characters of particular tribes within the period of time to which the evidence of his- tory reaches back. I shall proceed, in the first instance, to survey the races of men which constitute the population of Africa, This is one of the most important and difficult parts of my subject, and will require the most careful and the fullest investigation. BOOK III. RESEARCHES INTO THE PHYSICAL ETHNOGRAPHY AFRICAN RACES. CHAPTER I. PRELIMINARY SURVEY OP THE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY OF AFRICA, AND OF THE NATURAL SUBDIVISIONS OF THAT CONTINENT. Section I. — GeJieral Observatiotis. Eratosthenes is said to have divided the whole ancient world into two parts, namely, Asia and Europe. He com- prised in one department Africa and Europe, to which day and ni2;ht return at the same hours and which are only separated from each other by a narrow sea. If we retain this distribution of the countries anciently known, and add to the two departments thus marked out a third great region including the whole of America, we shall have a triple division of the habitable world, each part of which will comprise all latitudes and climates from the arctic countries to the southern extremities of the three great continents, a distribution better adapted than any other to the purpose of affording an estimate, by a comparison of pheno- mena, of the influence of local conditions on the nature of organized beings. From Nova Zembla or Spitzbergen we may trace an almost unbroken line through Europe and Africa to a country beyond the southern tropic, and observe the gradations of temperature and their effects on the figure, colour and organization of human races and of various tribes of animals. A similar field of observation will be afforded by Asia, if we consider that division of the world as comprising all the countries which reach from the 8 ATLANTICA, THE HIGHLANDS Arctic Ocean and the Promontory of the Samoiedes to the extremity of Terra Austrahs. A third and similar comparison will be furnished in the regions of the new world, which extend from the American Polar Sea to the Land of Fire. The continent of Africa has been considered by some writers on physical geography as consisting of two great mountainous regions or table-lands of very unequal extent and including between them a vast intervening space of lower elevation, which has been compared to the sandy bottom of a wide ocean, laid dry by the retreat of its waters. The great Sahara extends across the whole continent of Africa from Egypt and from the Syrtes, or the low tracts on the Mediterranean which lie to the westward of the Cyre- naica, to the Atlantic shore. An ocean of sand, interspersed with green islands or oases, separates the region of Mount Atlas from the extensive highlands of central Africa, of which the mountains of the Moon form the northern border. The former of these regions is connected by many relations with the continent of Europe. By the narrow Mediterranean, across which the hills of Spain and of Sicily may be seen from the opposite coast, the Atlantic highlands are less completely separated from Europe than by the great Sahara from the central region of Africa. I shall take a brief survey of the principal geographical features of these three divisions of Africa. Section II. — Atlantica, the elevated region of Northern Africa. The oriental geographers, as Professor Ritter has observed, gave the designation of " lVester7i Island/' — Maghrab insula, — to the elevated countries which in the north-western part of that continent, or beyond the 30th degree of latitude, form the highlands of Northern Africa.* This region in reality * See the admirable work of Professor Ritter, " Die Erdkunde im Verhaltniss zur Natur und zur Geschichte der Menschen, oder allgemeine vergleichende Geo- graphie, als sichere Grundlage des Studiums und Unterrichts in physikalischen und moralischen Wissenschaften." — Berlin, 1832. A translation of the first volume of this Work has just been published, with additions, by M. M. E. Buret and Ed. Desor, Paris, 1836. OF NORTHERN AFRICA. if elevates itself like an island between the Mediterranean, the Atlantic, and the great ocean of sand which cuts it oft' towards the south and east. It is not a chain of mountains but a great continuous system of highlands, which, under the denomina- tion of Atlas, extend along the Mediterranean coast, occupy- ing all the interior of the countries of Tunis, Algiers, and Maroco, and reaching on the border of the Atlantic ocean as far southward as the province of Souse and the promontory of Ger. Taking its rise on the eastern side from the gulfs of the two Syrtes it becomes gradually elevated into the Tunisian plains, which, towards the Sahara, spread out into ranges of precipitous hills, but rise behind Maroco, and towards the shores of the Atlantic, into lofty plains, and throw up in the interior conical hills of prodigious height, corresponding with the opposite peaks of the Sierra Nevada, between Andalusia and Grenada. The whole of this high- land region separates itself from the rest of Africa, and ap- proximates in the form and structure, the height and arrange- ment of its elevated masses to the system of mountains in the Spanish Peninsula, of which, if the narrow strait of the Mediterranean were dried up, it would manifestly form a part. The Atlantic highlands, at their eastern extremity, decline, between the Syrtes and Tunis, into sandy plains. At Ras- Addar, or Cape Bon, the Promontorium Mercurii, the moun- tainous country reaches the coast, and approaches within sight of the heights of Sicily. The south-eastern limit of the pla- teau is formed by the mountain-chains of Ghouriano, and the Black Hariidje or Mons Ater, situated to the southward of Tripoli, branches of which, extending in ranges to the length of a four days' journey, reach into Fezzan, the country of the Garamantes. The principal subdivisions of this country, founded on its geographical features, iire, Jiist, the greater chain of Atlas, or the Mons Lamta of Edrisi, which, according to that geo- grapher, when traced from the westward, rises above Souse, not far from the Atlantic ocean, and extends eastward almost to the lesser Syrtis. At Souse, the southern province of Ma- roco, the western extremity of Atlas forms, on the coast of 10 REGION OF NORTHERN AFRICA. the ocean, Cape Ger, the Moiis Barca of Polybius, cutting off Lower Souse and Tarudant.* This part ofAtlantica is oc- cupied by warlike tribes of Shelahs, some of whom still preserve their independence. From the promontory of Ger, already known in the time of Hanno, begin the low, sandy plains of Sahara: the neighbouring gulf of Agadir is termed by the Arabs, Bab-Soudan, or the Gate of the Country of Blacks. Secondly, the lesser Atlas reaches, according to Strabo, from Cape Kotes, near Gibraltar, parallel to the coast as far as the Syrtis. The lower littoral chain, which is often described as the Lesser Atlas, is but a part of it. The higher lands of the interior, eastward of Algiers, bend towards the south from the chain of Jurjura, and form, in the interior of Tunis, the moun- tains of Wellad-Selim, of Auress, and of Tipasa. To this chain belongs Cape Ceuta, termed, by the Berbers, Jibbel-d'-Zatute, or the Mountain of Monkeys. Thirdly, the Middle Atlas, or the table-land, consists of highlands and ranges of hills in the interior, which run between, and parallel to the greater and lesser Atlantic chains. They form a wide, mountainous region, intersected by valleys and rivers, rising more and more in the form of terrasses towards the higher Atlas, and preserving a temperate climate, which Edrisi reckoned as the finest in the world by its fertility and the greatness of its population. The heights and valleys support vast forests of pine and oak, and the magnificent oleander. The vegetation of the Atlantic region in general bears a near relation to that of southern Europe. The maritime tract of the Algerine country displays nearly the same vegetable forms as the coast of Andalusia and Valencia. The olive, the orange-tree, the arborescent ricinus, the chamserops humilis, and the date- tree flourish on both sides of the Mediterranean ; and, when the warmer sun of northern Africa produces different species, they are gene- rally belonging to the same families as the European tribes.-f- * Ritter, Erdkunde, loc. cit. -f- Flora Atlantica de M. Desfontaines. Voyage dans la Regence d'Alger et De- scription du Pays, &c. Par M. Rozet, Capitaine, &c. Ingenieur-Geographe. Balbi, Abrege de Geographic. De CandoUe, Geographie Botanique, Diet, des Sciences Nat. Even further to the eastward, the hills of the Cyrenaica exhibit a similar ana- logy in their vegetation to the opposite coasts of the Mediterranean ; and, in HIGHLANDS OF CENTRAL AFRICA. 11 Section III. — Highlands of Central Africa. The mountainous region of central Africa to the southward of Sahara and the countries watered by the Niger still re- mains the " terra incognita" of the world. The vast space which intervenes between the Bight of Benin and the coast of Ajan is the only great track of the earth which has never yet been explored by the eyes of civilized men. In the failure of actual knowledge, some writers have endeavoured, by con- jectures drawn from other parts of the world in similar geo- graphical positions, and by the observation of phenomena discovered in the neighbouring lands, to form to themselves an idea of what exists in the unknown centre of Africa. Buffon imagined that region to contain great longitudinal chains of mountains, and conjectured their general course and elevation in accordance with his theory of the earth. Lacepede, with much greater pretension to accuracy, attempted to lay down even the number and the particular direction of these mountain- chains, and to ascertain the extent and limit of a great table- land, of which he supposed the interior of the African conti- nent to consist.* According to Lacepede, the high plateau ex- tends from the 20° of southern latitude to the 10° on this side of the equator ; its length is upwards of 660 leagues, or equal to the breadth of Europe from the port of Brest to the near- est land in Asia; it is supported by numerous ranges of hills, situated nearly in the direction of the axis of the plateau, which, inclined toward the west, forms, with the equator, an angle of nearly 60°; the outline of its configuration is traced by the great waters which descend from it on every side. In some parts it approaches the sea-coast ; in others, its bounda- ries are environed by vast deserts of sand. These wilder- Egypt, though possessing some peculiar plants, scientific travellers have been surprised at the want of any striking and characteristic physiognomy distinguish- ing the vegetable tribes of that country. See Ehrenberg &. Hemprich, Reisen in Aegypten, Lybien, Nubien, und Dongola, IB. 154 s. * Memoire si;r le Grand Plateau de I'lnterieure de I'Afrique- Annales du IMus. d'Hist. Naturelle. Tome vi. Par Lacepede. 12 HIGHLANDS OF CENTRAL AFRICA. nesses, which impede all approach to the centre of Africa, lying between the tropics, and so situated, that the east wind reaches them after traversing the burning plains of Ajan and Zanzibar, are, of all parts of the earth, scorched by the most intolerable heats ; by them the table-land is surrounded as by a sea of fire. The central region itself is not a regular con- vex, but a vast aggregate of mountains, consisting of nume- rous parallel chains, whence rivers escape by longitudinal valleys ; but the quantity of waters which flow through the channels of the Cuama and the Zaire is so small in propor- tion to a surface 200 leagues in breadth, as to afford strong- ground for an opinion, that the interior of Africa contains oreat lakes, or a mediterranean sea, which must be situated be- tween the equator and the 10° of southern latitude. With sin- gular precision, this author proceeds to trace out the direction of rays issuing on every side from the central nucleus ; they form nine chains, according to Lacepede, which proceed to- wards different quarters, and send forth the waters of the Zambesi, the rivers of Zanzibar, those which flow into the straits of Babelmandeb, the Nile, the Niger, the Camaoens, the Zaire, and the rivers of Loanda and Cape Negro. Malte-Brun, whose work is vast in details, but somewhat defective in generalisation, doubts the existence, or at least the continuity, of the system of central mountains, of which Lacepede attempted so ambitiously to describe the whole aggregate and the particular parts. A more accurate analysis of the facts really known, and an estimate of probabilities drawn from a careful comparison of these facts with the phe- nomena discoverable in other regions, led Professor Ritter to adopt a modification of Lacep^de's opinion. According to Ritter, central Africa is a highland region bounded on each side by chains of mountains. The form and structure ascribed to this region may, perhaps, be most easily understood, though Ritter has not happened to select this particular analogy, by comparing it to the Indian peninsula: the wide valley of the Niger and the low, marshy jjlains of Wangarra and Baghermi lie before the northern boundary of the plateau, as the valleys of the Jumna and the Ganges skirt the highlands of Hindustan on the same ([luuter, and chains of mountains extend on each LOWLANDS OF AFRICA. 13 side of Africa nearly parallel to the eastern and western coasts, along which they direct their course at various distances from the shore towards the southern extremity, as in India the eastern and the western Ghauts descending on each side of the Deccan from high Hindustan towards Cape Comorin, separate the low countries of Malabar and Coromandel from the high plain of the Mysore. It is remarked by Ritter, that the high table-land of Africa is traversed by no great river. The Nile and the Joliba are insignificant, when compared with the vast streams which descend from the steppes of central Asia. It must be inferred, either that snow and rain fall in but small quantities in the interior, or that the heights of the central region contain great lakes which absorb the running waters. If the former of these suppositions be cor- rect, it is plain that the elevation of the mountains in this continent must be much infeiior to the height of the great Himmalaya. Section IV. — Lowlands of Africa. The low countries of Africa, which extend along the north- ern margin of the central highlands and reach northward to the borders of Atlas, and, in some parts, to the Mediterranean coast, are partly fertile valleys or plains watered by streams falling from the mountains, and, in great part, a vast ocean of sand. The fertile plains are in the immediate vicinity of the mountain-chains, which supply them with rivers, the sources of vegetation. They are principally the extensive region watered by the Niger, and other streams in the same lati- tude, reaching from east to west across half the continent, and the Biledulgerid, or Land of Dates, which has been com- pared to a verdant zone extending along the southern border of the greater Atlas. Between these fertile tracts, which are its boundaries both on the north and south, the Sahara-bela-ma, or the great Dry Ocean of Africa, stretches from east to west. It is a vast region of sand, traversed by chains of rocky mountains, a sterile and desolate wilderness, interspersed however by innumerable oases, or islands of verdure, which 14 LOWLANDS OF AFRICA. exist wherever waters spring forth from the soil, and irrigate small surrounding tracts, shaded with groves of palm-trees, and affording places of refuge and safety to caravans, and often to travellers perishing with thirst. The area of this great desert, which is the most extensive, and, at the same time, the most ardent in the world, scorched by the vei'tical rays of the sun, has been supposed to be equal to the half of Eu- rope, or to twice the space occupied by the Mediterranean sea. The oases are various in extent ; sometimes they are arranged in groupes, or in chains ; and the larger ones become, like islands in the ocean, the abodes of fixed inhabitants, the cradles of tribes and races of men, which, springing from one or from a few original stocks, have acquired, in such insulated retreats, peculiarities of manners and language, and display, even in their physical conformation, the influence of external agencies to which they have been subjected during a long series of generations. In several instances, these distant spots have been places of refuge, where ancient tribes and languages have been preserved from remote periods of antiquity, and many of them keep the names by which they are recognised in the writings of the ancients. Fezzan, the Phazania of Pliny, the abode of the Garamantes, is one of the most con- siderable. Siwah, the oasis of the Ammonians, preserves the remains of the celebrated temple of Ammon. Tuat, Gualata, and Agades, are great oases situated in the remotest parts of the Sahara. 13 CHAPTER II. OF THE ORIGINAL INHABITANTS OF ATLANTICA. Section I. — History of the Atlantic Nations, elucidated hy researches into their Language. A RACE of people divided into many different tribes, and spread over a vast region in Northern Africa, has its principal, and had probably its most ancient abode, in the mountains of Atlas. The tribes of this race have different denomina- tions in various districts ; the most prevalent name is that of Berbers or Berebbers : from them the north of Africa appears to have received the designation of Barbary or Barbaria.* The term as applied to the country now so named is of modern date, for the Barbary or Berberia of the ancients was the eastern coast of Africa, including the shores of the Red Sea and the land of the Sumali, near the port of Bar- bara. The history of the Berber people, and the tribes allied to them in origin, has only been investigated in recent times, and since the value of philological researches has been known in tracing the origin and affinity of nations. The Berbers, and the tribes allied to them in different parts of Africa, are known by their peculiar language, which, notwith- standing the repeated conquests of Mauretania by foreign na- tions, has been preserved in remote mountainous tracts, as well as in the distant regions of the desert, and which is the only idiom known to the great mass of the people. This probably was the language, as it has been observed by Mr. Hodgson, which the " Tyria Bilingues" were obliged to learn in addi- tion to their own mother tongue, the Punic or Phoenician " On the import and origin of this name, and on the circumstances connected with its translation from one part of Africa to another, involving considerations of some importance in ethnography, the reader will find some remarks in a note at the end of this T5ook. 16 LANGUAGE OF THE ABORIGINES. speech. It was probably the language of all the northern parts of Africa, before the earliest colonies of the Phcenecians were settled on the coast, for we find no traces in history of any subsequent change of great extent in the popula- tion of that region, and although we ought not to place too much reliance on etymologies, which have led to so many absurd conclusions, it is impossible not to allow some weight of evidence to the very successful attempt which has been made to explain in the Berber language many names in the ancient African topography.* In the time of Leo, we have his assurance that it was the language of the north of Africa, and even of many Moorish cities, where it has since become disused, owing to the growing prevalence of the more culti- vated language which intercourse with the dominant race, and the influence of Islam must have rendered continually more prevalent. It is only within a few years that it has attracted much attention in Europe, though a dissertation was pub- lished upon it at the beginning of the last century, as an appendix to the Oratio Dominica of Chamberlayne, and a vocabulary of the dialect spoken by the Kabyles, a tribe of the same race in the mountainous country behind Tunis, appeared in the travels of Dr. Shaw. " This language," says M. Venture in a learned memoir which was published by the celebrated M. Langles, " is spoken from the mountains of Souse, which border the Atlantic Ocean, to those of the Olleletys, which rise above the plains of Kairoan in the kingdom of Tunis. The same idiom,, with a slight difference, is likewise spoken in the isle of Girbeh, at Monastyr, and in the greater number of the villages spread through the Sahara, and among others in those of the tribe • See I\Ir. Hodgson's excellent Memoir on the Berber l.iiiguage in the fourth volume of the Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, read October, 182J). In this paper, which contains much valuable information on other subjects connected with the history of the Berbers, it has been shown that a great number of local names have a most appropriate meaning in the idiom of that people. Among them are — Atlas, called by the Berbers merely Adhraar, a mountain ; Thala, the name of a place mentioned by Sallust and still so termed from Thala, a fountain ; Ampsaga, by Pliny and Mela, a river in a forest country, from Ani-sagar, vXto^ijr; Angela, from Agela, wealth; Tipasa, Thapsus, from Thefza, sandy. OF Tilt; ORIGINAL INUAinTANTS OF ATLANTIOA. 17 of the Beni Moz;\b, The tribes who speak this language have different names : those of the mountains belonging to Maroco are termed Shoulouhhs ;* those who inhabit the plains of that empire, dwelling under tents in the manner of the Arabs, are named Berbers ; and those of the mountains belonging to Algiers and Tunis call themselves Cabaylis or Gebalis." The latter names, according to M. Langlc^s, are properly Qabai'ly, meaning tribes, and Djebfxly, mountaineers. " Many travellers," continues M. Venture, " have already ./^^ ffirU^ given us some notices of this language, but these have not l^^^t^ ^ 'been sufficient to enable us to form a correct idea of its ex- / /-rv tent. Dr. Shaw, in his Travels in Barbary; M. Hoest, Danish Consul, in his Account of Maroco ; and Mr. Chenier, in his Researches concerning the Arabs, have made some vocabu- laries, which, for the want of correct information in the com- pilers, have been scanty and incorrect. " The basis of the Berber language is only the jargon of a savage people. It has no terms for expressing abstract ideas, and is obliged to borrow tliem from the Arabic. In their idiom, man is not said to be subject to sloth, to death ; he is slothful, he dies. They could not say that a ball has the quahty of rotundity, but only that it is round. Their language furnishes only concrete terms to express qualities as united to their subjects, and such an idiom is all that is requisite for men obhged by the devastation of the plain coun- tries to live always on mountains, and whom jealousy and interest keep in perpetual warfare with the neighbouring mountaineers. "The Berbers use no conjunctions; they denote their sensations by short and unconnected expressions. All words relatino; to arts and to religion are borrowed from the Arabic They give them a Berber form, by cutting off the initial al and prefixing a t, and putting another /, or the syllable nit at the end : thus they transform mar/as into temaqast or temoqasjiit." M. Venture adds, that no alphabetic characters have been discovered to be in use among them except the Arabic, but * Plural of Shilahh, by Mr. .Tezreel Jones written Shilha. VOL. 11. C 18 DIFFERENT BRANCHES OF THE BERBER RACE. that as the greater part of the mountainous region of Atlas has always been inaccessible to the conquerors of Africa, it would not be surprising if books should be found written in some peculiar alphabet, if it were possible to traverse, without danger, the recesses of their country. This con- jecture has been in part verified. Among the Tuaryk, who belong to the same race, it appears that the use of letters has long been known : they have a system of alphabetic writing of their own, of which an account was first given by Dr. Oudney in the Journal of Clapperton and Denham. M. Venture first published a tolerably copious specimen of the Berber language, with a grammatical analysis, for which I must refer to his memoir.* I shall add some further observations on the different branches of the Berber race. Section IT. — Different Branches of the Berber Race. — 1. Berbers of Atlas. — 2. Shuluh. — 3. Kabyles. — 4. Tuaryk. 1 . Berbers of the Northern Atlas. We have an account of these mountaineers from Mr. Jackson, who says that Atlas is inhabited by more than twenty different tribes, carrying on perpetual warfare against each other, tribe against tribe, and village against village. Hereditary feuds end only in the extermination of whole families. The tribes who live on the snowy mountains of Atlas dwell in caverns from November to April, and their exploits give origin to traditions and legends which terrify the people of the plains. They are very poor, and nuike plun- dering excursions in quest of the means of supporting life. They are a robust and active people. " Another more copious analysis of the Berber language, drawn up with the assistance of a native instructor, a taleb of the Bcni IJoojceah, has been published by I\Ir. Hodgson, in the memoir above cited, in the Transactions of the American Philosophical Society. There is also a very able treatise on that subject by Mr. W. F. Newman, late Fellow of Balliol, made by the author, without any as- sistance whatever, from a portion of St. Luke's Gospel, printed in Arabic letters by the Bible Society. Mr. Newman's Memoir is published in the West of England Literary and Scientific .Tournal, printed at Bristol. DIFFERENT HlfANClIES 01^ TILE BEKBElf RACE. 19 The Berbers of the higher Atlas arc described by Lem- pricre, who calls them Brebes, as a very athletic strong- featured people, patient and accustomed to hardship and fatigue. He says that they seldom remove far from the spot of their abode ; they shave the fore-part of their heads, but suffer the hair to grow from the crown as far behind as the neck. Their only covering is a woollen garment without sleeves, fastened round the waist by a belt. These people, adds Lempriere, differ entirely from the Arabs and Moors, being the aboriginal inhabitants of the country, and in a great measure independent in their own mountain villages, where they feed cattle and hunt wild beasts.* 2. Shuluh. The mountaineers in the southern parts of Maroco term themselves Schoulouh, the plural of Shelah. They live in villages of houses made of stones and mud, with slate roofs, occasionally in tents, and even in caves : they are chiefly huntsmen, but cultivate the ground and rear bees. Leo Africanus reckons them as a part of the same race with the Berbers of the northern Atlas, and, according to M. Venture, their idiom, which they term Amazich or Amazigh, meaning the noble language, is a cognate dialect of the Berber speech. By Mr. Jackson it was considered as totally different, but evidence has been adduced by Lieutenant Washington, in a memoir published in the Journals of the Royal Geographical Society, which seems to prove that M. Venture's opinion was well founded. The author has given a vocabulary collected by himself from the mouth of a native Shelah, who had passed his life in Mount Atlas, which he has compared with the collections of Venture and others. A part of this will be inserted in the following section collated with specimens of several other Atlantic dialects. • Lempriere's Tour to INIaroco, p. 171. c 2 20 DIFFERENT BRANCHES OF THE BERBER RACE. 3. The Kahyles of Algiers and Tunis, and the Berber Tribes in the ceiitral parts of Atlantica. The Berbers of the Tunisian and Algerine territories are termed by the inhabitants of the cities Kabyles or Qabaily : they occupy all the hills which form the lesser Atlas, the people of particular hills having the names of Beni-Sala or Beni-Meissera, &c. which mean Children of Sala or Meis- sera. They speak the Berber language, which is termed by them Showiah, and in the interior of the country are quite unacquainted with the Arabic. They live in. huts made of the branches of trees and covered vv'ith clay, which resemble the magalia of the old Numidians, spread in little groupes over the sides of the mountains, and preserve the grain, the legumes, and other fruits which are the produce of their husbandry, in matmoiires, or conical excavations in the ground. They are the most industrious inhabitants of the Barbary States, and besides tillage, work the mines contained in their mountains and obtain lead, iron, and copper.* Of the tribes in the interior behind Tunis in the country of the ancient Gsetuli we have some recent information from Mr. Hodgson, whose memoir has already been cited ; and in a late pubhcation by M. d'Avezac Avho has translated an itinerary of Hhaggy Ebn-el-Dyn, which he has published with notes and illustrations. f According to Hodgson, whose information was obtained from native travellers, and partly from Hhaggy Ebn-el-Dyn, the Berber tribes of the Gsetulian region are four, namely, the Mozabies, Biscaries, Wadreagans, and Wurgelans. The Mozabies inhabit an oasis of the Sahara 300 miles to the southward of Algiers : the Biscaries dwell about 200 miles to the south-east of Algiers : Tuggurt, the capital of Wadreag, is " Shaw's Travels in Barbary. Voyaj^e dans la Regence d'Alger, par M. Rozet, torn. ii. + Etudes de Geographie Crititjue sur unc Partie de Txifriquc Septentrionale, par M. d' Ave/ac. Paris, IJWO. DIFFERENT BRANCHES OF THE BERBER RACE. 21 about 100 miles to the south-east of the Biscaries and Wuroelah 30 leagues to the south-west of Tuggurt. The Berber lan- guage is the native idiom of the Mozahies, Wadreagans and Wurgelans. The Biscaries, though of Berber origin, now speak the Arabic language. The Mozabies, or people of the Wady-Mozab, who name themselves Aith-Emzab, equivalent to Beni-Emzab, are separated by a trackless desert from the other two tribes who speak the same language, and they are very distinct in moral and physical constitution. Their dialects are but slightly different in pronunciation, but the Aith-Emzab are remarkably white, while the other tribes are black. The people of Wadreag, or the Aith-Eregaiah and the Aith- Wurgelah,* are black, and have woolly hair, flat noses, and thick lips. When Mr. Hodgson first saw a native of Wad- reag, he was quite surprised to hear him speak Berber. In the city of Tuggurt, the capital of Wadreag, there is a sepa- rate tribe who speak only Arabic, and have light hair and a fair complexion. 4. Tuaryk. I have now to remark a fact of greater importance in the ethnography of Africa than the origin of any particular tribe of mountaineers. I allude to the extension of the same race through all the lowlands of Africa as far as the borders of Siidan, or the great valley of the Niger. The history of the Tuaryk belongs, however, to the next section of this chapter. Section III. — Nations of the Sahara, Tuaryk, and Tibbo. Leo divides the north of Africa into four regions, which, as he says, ran parallel to each other from east to west, as longitudinal bands, and extend from Egypt or the Nile to the Mediterranean. These four regions are termed Barbaria, • Ouerijelah, in the orthographj of i\I . d'Avezac. 22 UIFFERKNT BRANCHES OF THE BERBER RACE. Numidia, Lybia, and the Land of the Negroes. The second and tliird of these names arc applied in a sense quite different from that in which they were used by the ancients. Bar- baria is Barbary, parallel to the Mediterranean coast; Nu- midia is Biledulgerid, or the Land of Dates, extending to the southward of Barbary and of the chain of Atlas, from the borders of Egypt to the city of Nun upon the Atlantic ocean. The third region, or Lybia, is the Desert termed by the Arabs, Sahara: it extends from the kingdom of Gaoga on the east, to the land of Gualata which borders on the ocean. Beyond this is the Land of Negroes, the southern part of which, says Leo, is unknown to us, but the merchants who come thence continually to the kingdom of Tombutum, have sufficiently described the country to us. " This Land of the Negroes has a mighty river, which, taking the name of the region, is called Niger." The latter of these regions lies beyond the scope of our present observations : its inhabitants will be considered in a succeeding chapter. The native people of the three former divisions are termed by Leo, " gentes siihfusci coloris,'' or races of tawny complexion. He describes them as divided into several peoples or tribes, termed respectively Sanhagi, Musmudi, Zeneti, Haoari, and Guraeri. " The tribe of Musmudi inhabit the western part of Mount Atlas, from the province of Hea, to the river of Sernan, or Guadalhabit. They likewise dwell upon the south side of the mountains, and in all the interior plains of that region. The tribe of Gumeri possess certain momi- tains of Barbary, which lie over against the Mediterranean Sea. These two tribes have several habitations by them- selves ; the other three tribes are dispersed confusedly over all Africa; yet they are, as strangers, distinguished from one another by certain properties or tokens. In times past all the aforesaid people had their habitation in tents, or in the open fields ; the governors of the country attended their herds and flocks, and individuals employed themselves in manual labour and husbandry. The aforesaid five families, or nations, being divided into hundreds of tribes, use notwithstand- ing, all one kind of language, which is termed by them, Aquel- Amarig, i. e. the noble tongue. The Arabians who inhabit NATIONS OF THE SAHARA. 23 Africa, call it ' Lingua Barbara,' and this is the true and natural language of the Africans, although it has divers words common to it and the Arabic. Indeed all the Gumeri and most of the Haoari speak the Arabic, though corruptly, which, I suppose, first came to pass by the long- acquaintance and conversation of the natives with the Ara- bians." Leo proceeds to give an account of the entrance of Arabian tribes into Africa, where they supplanted the native, or Berber inhabitants, driving them out of Barbary, into the inland and comparatively desert regions of Lydia and Nu- midia. There they still continue to dwell or to wander as Nomades, distinguished from other nations by their manners as well as by their Berber language.* In another passage, Leo terms the five nations designated Gentes subfusci colons, the people of Zenaga, of Gan- ziga, of Terga, of Leuta, and of Bardeoa. He says they live all after the same manner, that is, without all law and civility ; he describes their mode of riding upon camels as singular. For beds they lie upon mats made of sedge and bulrushes. He then proceeds to describe their manner of living as one of incredible hardships. Though the different tribes of this people were so well known to Leo, the existence of the Tuaryk, widely as they are spread in northern Africa, must be considered as in modern times the discovery of M. Hornemann, and the identification of the race with the Berbers of Mount Atlas as that of Mr. Marsden. Previous to the travels of Hornemann it was not known that any other nomadic people existed in the great wilderness of north Africa, except tribes of Ara- bian origin. Hornemann describes two nomadic races dispersed over the vast reg-ions of the Sahara ; viz. the Tibbos and the Tuaryk. The Tibbos possess the greater parts of the desert, from the meridian of Fezzan eastward, and the Tuaryk, the more extensive region to the westward of the same limit, as well as some places nearer to Egypt. It was supposed by Vater and others that the Tibbos speak * J. Leonis Africa, lib. i. p. in the first edition. 24 NATIONS OF THE SAHARA. a dialect of the language of the Tuaiyk, but this opinion appears to be unfounded. A vocabulary collected by Capt. Lyon indicates their language to be entirely distinct. I shall have occasion to return to the consideration of this subject. The Tuaryk are a far more extensive and important nation. Tribes of this race have established themselves at Sokna, in the territory of Fezzan, and further to the eastward at Siwah and Augela, but their principal abode is in the western region of Sahara from Fezzan to Kashna and Sudan and to the At- lantic ocean. They are the Nomades of all the western parts of northern Africa, and possess all the oases and trading settlements between the states of Mauretania to the north- ward, and the Negro countries in the region of the Niger. They border towards the south on the Negro nations of Bornu, Hausa, Guber, and Tombuktu : the countries of the Moza- bies, Engousal, and Ghadames are their northern limits, beyond which they are never found. According to Captain Lyon, the Tuaryk term their lan- guage Ertana. Their designation Tuaryk, properly Tuerga, is the plural of terga, meaning tribe, or horde, as does qahdil in Arabic, whence Kabyles. Mr. Hodgson, who has collected much valuable and im- portant information respecting the Tuaryk and the whole Berber nation, assures us that the idiom of the Tuaryk is pure Berber, and that the only difference of speech between the highlanders of Atlas, and the inhabitants of the low countries of Sahara is merely a slight one of pronunciation. This fact has been verified by Mr. Hodgson by personal comunication with inhabitants of many oases and districts in northern Africa, particularly with the people of Dra, Tafilet, Fighiz, Tuat, Tegoraza, Tadeekels, Wurgelah, Ghadames, Djerbi, Gharian, among all of whom the Berber language is radically the same. Tlie j)hysical characters of different tribes of Tuaryk vary, but this part of their history will be considered in another section. POPULATION OF BARBARY. 25 Section IV. — Of the Population of the African Coast and the States of Barhary. It does not appear likely that the aboriginal population of northern Africa ever received such an admixture of foreign races as would be capable of effecting any material change in the physical constitution of the people. The early colonies of the Phcenicians appear to have been chiefly trading settlements or stations established for the purpose of facilitating commerce with the mother country. We are informed, that the Tyrians did not, like the Greeks of Cyrenaica, keep themselves separate from the aborigines, so as to preserve their race and nation unmixed, but intermarried and blended with the native Africans. This seems to imply comparative fewness of numbers, and that men were the prin- cipal settlers. The object of the Greeks was colonization, that of the Tyrians, as it is probable, only traffic. In one settlement, indeed, these strangers were so numerous as to preserve their language ; for the Punic, as we know from various consi- derations, and particularly from the well-known passage in Plautus, was nearly pure Phoenician or Hebrew.* Yet, even the people of Carthage appear to have still spoken, also, the native language of Africa; for I think it must be in a literal sense that Virgil calls them " Tyrios Bilingues." When Carthage was conquered, the Punic gave way to the Roman language. New Carthage was a Roman city, and had, doubtless, a population who spoke Latin in the time of Ter- tullian, Cyprian, and Augustin. Latin was, probably the language of the great towns down to the period of the con- quest of Africa by the Moslemin. The small population of Yemen could never have furnished very numerous armies. The zeal and fury of the invaders , • Notwitlisfanding the chimerical attempt of Vallancey to turn the Punic scene into Oaelic, I am sure '.hat no well-informed person can examine Bochart on this passage, without being convinced that the Pimic was pure Hebrew. See Bochart's Oeog. Sacra, j). 800 ; see also the Rev. W. D. Conybeare's strictures, in a very learned note appended to his admirable Theological Lectures. 26 PEOPLE OF BARBARY. made up for their want of numbers ; and, it is probable, that the greater part of the Arabs, who passed into Africa after the conquest, preferred maintaining their former habits of life, and wandering through the plains of Biledulgerid and the Sahara, rather than coop themselves up in towns, and change their manner of existence. This, indeed, appears to have been the case with the Arab tribes who migrated into Africa in the first centuries after the Hegira, as we shall have occasion to observe in a future section of this book. Through the ascendancy of the conquering people, and the influence of Islam, the constant reading of the Koran, and by intercourse with other countries, the Arabic language must soon have become spread much more extensively than the mixture of foreign population. In the time of Leo Afri- canus, as he informs us, all the cities on the African coast — a mari Mediterraneo ad Atlantem usque montem — spoke cor- rupt Arabic. He excepts the kingdom and the city of Maroco, as well as the Numidians of the inland country, viz. those who border on Mauretania and Csesarea. He seems, after- wards, to limit the use of Arabic to the people of Tunis and Tripoli, and the nearly adjoining districts. " Quare qui Tuneto regno et Tripolitano confines sunt Arabice loquuntur, sed corruptissime." The people of INIaroco spoke Berber in the time of Leo ; the Arabic language has since become the popular idiom there also ; not by any subsequent colonization, for there has been no change in the population of the country, but by the influence of other causes above suggested. We may, therefore, consider the population of Barbary as principally consisting of the descendants of the aboriginal Berber race. Section V. — Physical Characters of the Barbary Moors, and of the Native Tribes of Atlas and the Sahara. The general character of the people of Barbary is well known to Europe. Their figure and stature is nearly the same as those of the southern Europeans, and their com- PHYSICAL CUARACTEIIS. 27 plcxioii if darker, is only so in proportion to the higher tem- perature of" the countries which they inhabit. It dispkiys, as we shall see, great varieties. Mr. Jackson informs us that the men of Temsena and Showiah are of a strong, robust make, and of a copper colour. He adds, that the women are very beautiful. The women of Fez, according to the same writer, are as fair as European women, but their hair and eyes are always dark. He says that the women of Mequinas are very beau- tiful, and have the red and white complexion of English females. M. Rozet gives the following description of the Moors : " 1\ existe cependant encore un certain nombre de families, qui n'ont point contractc d 'alliances avec des ctrangers, et ciiez lesquelles on retrouve les caracteres de la race primitive. Les hommes sont d'une taille au dessus de la moyenne ; leur demarche est noble et grave ; ils ont les cheveux noirs ; la peau un peu basanee, mais plutot blanche que brune ; le visage plein, mais les traits en sont moins bien prononces que ceux des Arabes et des Berberes. Ils ont generalement le nez arronde, la bouche moyenne, les yeux tres ouverts mais peu vifs ; leurs muscles sont bien prononces, et ils ont le corps plutot gros que maigre. Les femmes sont constituees en proportion des hommes ; elles ont presque toutes les cheveux noirs et des yeux magnifiques; j'en ai vu defort jolies. Elles ne portent jamais de corsets, et comme I'embonpoint est une grande beaute aux yeux des Maures, et qu'elles font tous leurs efforts pour en avoir, elles ont le corps mal fait, et sur- tout extremement large de handles." The German travellers M. M. De Spix and Martins were struck by the singular mixture of races which they observed at Gibraltar, where northern and southern Europeans, as well as natives of Africa, are seen collected in crowds, and they have attempted to point out the distinguishing traits of each people. " Among the natives of northern Africa," they say, " a great many resort hither from Maroco, who sell fruit and fine leather manufactures in the streets. The fair and sanguine natives of the north, as well as the tawny southern European, distinguish themselves by strikingly dill'crent traits both in 28 PHYSICAL CHARACTERS the features of the countenance and in the structure of the body from these foreigners of oriental origin. The physiog- nomy of the Marocans and other Africans, who were seen here, is expressive of finiiness of mind and prudence, yet without that look of cunning — verschmiizheit — attributed commonly to the offspring of the Semitic race — rather blended with a pleasing frankness and mental tranquillity — seelenruhe. A high forehead, an oval countenance, large, sparkling — feu- rige — black eyes; shaded by arched, strong eyebrows; a thin, rather long, but not too pointed nose ; rather broad lips, meet- ing in an acute angle ; thick, smooth, black hair on the head and in the beard ; brownish-yellow complexions, a strong neck ; a powerful and firm structure, both bony and muscular, joined to a stature greater than the middle height, characterize the natives of northern Africa, as they are fre- quently seen in the streets of Gibraltar." M. Rozet informs us, that the Berbers or Kabyles of the Algerine territory are of middle stature ; their complexion is brown, and sometimes nearly black : " Les Berberes sont de taille moyenne ; ils ont le teint brun et quelquefois noiratre, les cheveux bruns et lisses, rarement blonds ; ils sont tous maigres, mais extremement robustes et nerveux ; leur corps grele est tres bien fait, et leur tournure a une elegance que Ton ne trouve plus que dans les statues antiques. lis ont la tete plus ronde que les Arabes, les traits du visage plus courts, mais aussi bien prononces ; ces beaux nez aquilins si communs chez ceux-ci sont rares chez les Berberes; I'expres- sion de leur figure a quelque chose de sauvage et meme de cruel; ils sont extremement actifs et fort inteliigens." The physical characters of the different nations in the em- pire of Maroco are described by Lieutenant Washington, who says, that the Arabs are a hardy race, but slightly made, and under the middle size ; the girls, when young, pretty ; but the women frightfully ugly, owing to exposure and hardships. Their language is the Koreish. The Moors are, generally, a fine-looking race of men; of the middle stature; disposed to become corpulent ; they have good teeth ; complexions of all shades, owing, as it is supposed, to intermixture with Negroes. " Wo remarked, that the darker the colour, the finer were or THE BERBER RACES. 29 the men, and of more determined characters." The Nearoes are not very numerous ; a fact which is rather against the supposition above hinted at. He describes the Shuluh or Shelahs in the mountains above Maroco, as lively, intelligent, well-formed, athletic men, not tall, without marked features, and with light complexions. A similar difference of complexion, in relation to tempe- rature, or, at least, to elevation of ground, was observed by Dr. Shaw among the Kabyles, of the Tunisian country. He says, that " the Kabyles, in general, are of a swarthy colour, with dark hair; but those who inhabit the mountains of Au- ress, or Mons Aurasius, though they speak the same language, are of a fair and ruddy complexion, and their hair is of a deep yellow." We shall have occasion to notice many facts exactly parallel to this, which may prevent any hesitation in admitting it, without resorting to the improbable and wholly gratuitous supposition that the xanthous Berbers of Mount Auress are the remains of the Vandals, who were conquered by Belisarius. I have already stated, from the testimony of Mr. Hodgson, that the tribes, who live seven hundred miles to the southward of Algiers, in the remote parts of Atlantica and towards the desert, differ in physical characters from the northern Berbers. The Aith-Eregaiah and Aith-Ouergelah are black, and have the features and hair of Negroes, though speaking the Berber language. The circumstances which might afford an explana- tion of these facts are unknown to us. The Tuaryk, spread through the Sahara, have been never fully described by travellers. The Tuaryk are said by Hornemann to be a fine, hand- some race of people, with European features. Horne- mann's personal observations were confined to the Tuaryk tribes or nations of Kollouvy and Hhagara. He observes that the western tribes are white, as far as their manner of life and exposure to the sun allows them to be. But the Kol- louvians are of different colours. Many are black, but they have not the features of Negroes. The Hhagara and the Matkara are yellowish, like the Arabs. Near Sondan there are tribes entirely black. Tt may be remarked, that, if this 30 TRIBES OF THE GREAT DESERT, blackness were owing to intermixture with Negroes, it would be accompanied by assimilation in other physical characters to the Negro race, which is expressly denied.* Captain Denham describes the Tuaryk as a lively people. *' The women," he says, " have a copper complexion; eyes large, black, and rolling ; noses plain." " Two or three had finely-shaped noses of the ancient Egyptians hape."-!- Hair long and shedded, not plaited like the Arab women, nor oiled. It seems, from these accounts, that the nations, whose his- tory we have traced in this chapter, present all varieties of com- plexion, and these variations appear, in some instances at least, to be nearly in relation to the temperature, whether de- pending on elevation of surface or the latitude of the regions in which they display themselves. Section VI. — Of the Tibho. This survey of the nations of northern Africa and of the Sahara would be incomplete without some further notices of the Tibbo. The Tibbos extend eastward of Fezzan, along the southern side of the Harudje and the desert of Augelah, to the vast desert which borders on Egypt to the westward. To the southward of the Tibbos are wandering Arab tribes who pos- sess the desert between them and Bornu, and to the west- ward are the Tuaryk of Arba, or Aghades, and of Tagaze. According to Hornemann, the following are the principal tribes of Tibbos : — 1st. Rechadeh, or Tibbos of the rocks, to the southward and south-east of Fezzan. The towns of Abo and Tibesty belong to them. 2nd. The Febabos, situated about ten days' journey to- wards the south-south-west of Augelah. 3rd. The tribe of Borgou, placed further southward, nearly on the parallel of the southern part of Fezzan. 4th. The tribe of Arno. 6th. The tribe of Bilma, which is the greatest tribe of the • Horneniann's Travels in Africa. Trad, de M. Langles, p. 152. f Clapperton and Denham's Travels in Africa, p. 52. TKIIJES OP TIBBO. 31 Tibbo nation, and occupies the country between Fezzan and Bornou. 6th. Nomadic Tibbos on the borders of the empire of Bornou. The Tibboos are described by Ilornemann, who says that they are " oiot quite black.''' He adds, that their growth is slender ; their hmbs are well-tinnied ; their walk is light and swift; their eyes are quick ; their lips thick ; their noses are not turned up or flattened, and not large ; their hair is less curled than that of the Negroes. The Tibbo appear to be a people of peculiar character, whose whole organization bears the impression of the exter- nal agencies under which they exist, and to which it seems harmoniously adapted. They are black, or of a dark colour, but have not the form of the head that belongs to Neo-roes. The following account of them is given by Captain Lyon : " The Tibbo females are light and elegant in form ; and their graceful costume, quite different from that of the Fez- zaners, is well put on. They have aquiline noses, fine teeth, and lips formed like those of Europeans : their eyes are ex- pressive, and their colour is of the brightest black ; there is something in their walk and erect manner of carrying them- selves, which is very striking. Their feet and ankles are de- licately formed, and are not loaded with a mass of brass or iron, but have merely a light anklet of polished silver or copper sufficient to show i\\e.\v jetty skin to more advantage. They also wear red slippers. Their hair is plaited on each side in such a manner as to hang down on the cheeks like a fan, or rather in the form of a large dog's ear." " The Tibbo women do not, like the Arabs, cover their faces. They retain their youthful appearance longer than the latter." * The principal region of Tibbo is Bilma, in latitude 18°, 19°, some hundred miles north of Lake Tschad, where they have been seen by the English travellers who visited Bornou. The Tibbo of this region are described by Clapperton and Den- ham. They say that " the women have very pleasing features. The pearly white of their regular teeth is beautifully con- trasted with the glossy blackness of their skin ; triangular • Capt. Lyon's Travels, p. 224—227. 32 TRIBES OF TIBBO. flaps of plaited hair hang down on each side of their faces, streaming with oil." The Gunda Tibboo, further southward, are " slender, well- made, with sharp, intelligent, copper-coloured faces, large prominent eyes, flat noses, large mouth and teeth, high fore- heads."* Section VII. — Of the Guanches, or old Inhabitants of the Canary Islands, It is supposed that the Guanches, the ancient inhabitants of the Canary Islands, were a branch of the great Lybian, or Atlantic stock. This once flourishing, and if we believe his- torical accounts, happy and innocent race of people, have long since perished, and have left no other remains than their skeletons, which are dispersed among the cabinets and mu- seums in Europe. It has often been conjectured, that the Canary Islands M^ere the j'j?o-ot MaKap^v of the ancients, and the site of the fabu- lous gardens of the Hesperides. They seem to be obscurely indicated in the traditions of the early Grecian mythology, but the first occasion in which they are mentioned in history, or in any account that approaches to authenticity, is in the report which was given to Sertorius, on the credit of which we are told by Plutarch that the Roman general was seized with a desire to return to them and live in peace and repose. It is said that when flying from the arms of Sylla, Sertorius met with some seamen but newly-arrived from the Atlantic Islands, which were said to be distant 10,000 furlongs from the coast of Africa. " They are called," says Plutarch, " the For- tunate Isles, llain only falls there, as it is said, in moderate showers: the seasons of the year are temperate: and gentle breezes abound, bringing with them soft dews which so enrich the soil, that it bears, untilled, plenty of delicious fruits, and supports its inhabitants, who enjoy an immunity from toil."* These islands and the neighbouring seas were explored by King Juba, of whose discoveries the younger Phny has • Lyons Travels, p. .'{)f. -f- Plutarch in Sylla. CANAIfY ISLANDS. 33 given us an account as it appears from Juba's own descrip- tion ; for this African prince was not only a navigator but a celebrated writer on geography.* The first island, according to Juba, was named Ombrion : it had no vestiges of human habitation, but contained a mountain lake : the second, and a small one adjoining, were termed Junonia: the next, called Capraria, abounded in lizards of great size ; Nivaria, doubtless Teneriffe, was famed for perpetual snow and fogs ; next to it was Canaria, so termed from its containing dogs of huge bulk, of which two were brought to Juba : here were found the remains of dwellings. All these islands abounded in fruits and groves of palm-trees bearing dates and filled with va- rious birds and beasts.f It would appear from this account that the Canary Islands were but partially, if at all, inhabited in the time of Juba, The modern history of the Canary Islands commences with their accidental discovery in consequence of the shipwreck of a French vessel on the coast between the years 1326 and 1334. Expeditions were afterw-ards made by the Spaniards for the sake of plunder and carrying off slaves, in one of which the king and queen of Lancerote, and seventy of the inha- bitants were taken captive. At the beginning of the fifteenth century a Norman baron, John de Betancourt, subdued several of the islands, but Teneriffe was not brought under the yoke till ninety-five years aftei-wards. Here the native people, who termed themselves " Guanches," made a valiant resistance. The most instructive accounts of the Guanches are to be found in the narratives of some old voyagers who visited the Canary Islands during the time when they were as yet but imperfectly conquered by the Spaniards, and among them we may distinguish the celebrated navigator, Cadamosto, who discovered the Cape de Verd Islands, and an Englishman named Scorey, whose report was printed by Purchas. In the " Juba is termed by Plutarch the best of all royal historians, and by Athenrcus aj'»/j) Tro\v^ta6i(TraToc. Besides his " Commentary on Africa," .Tuba wrote a Ro- man history, of which the first book is mentioned with commendation by Stepha- nas of Byzantium ; an account of Arabia, frequently cited by Pliny ; a work in two books on the ancient Assyrians, containinj; extracts from Berosus ; and several treatises on various subjects. He was the son of tlie Numidian kinj; who fought against Caesar. + Plinii Hist. Nat. lib. vi. c. 32. VOL. II. D 34 GUANCHES THE ABORIGINES time of Cadamosto, the population of Canaria Grande amounted to 9000, and that of TenerifFe to 5000 souls. The natives of the latter island are said to have been of great and even gigantic stature. They were people of very simple habits and possessed of few arts, were ignorant of the use of metals, and are said to have ploughed the land by means of the horns of bullocks. They believed in a future state, and worshipped a Supreme Being whom they termed Achuharahan, the author and preserver of all good things. They also be- lieved in a malignant being, termed Guayotta, and placed the abode of the wicked in the burning crater of Teneriffe. They had a solemn institution of marriage, and various moral and social observances.* The practice of embalming bodies and laying them up in mummy-caves or catacombs, in the sides of mountains, is the most curious circumstance in the history of the Guan- ches ; it is at least that which has attracted the greatest atten- tion. The mummies were placed erect upon their feet against the sides of the caves ; chiefs had a staff placed in their hands, and a vessel of milk standing by them. Nicol an English traveller, stated that he had seen 300 of these corpses toge- ther, of which he says that the flesh was dried up, and the bodies as light as parchment. Scorey was assured that in the sepulchre of the kings of Guimar, there was to be seen a skeleton measuring fifteen feet, the skull of which contained eighty teeth. Of late years we have obtained from Golberry, Blumenbach, and De Humboldt, more correct accounts of these • The extermination of this race of people is one of the many fearful tragedies which modern history, the history of Christian nations, presents. It is thus briefly sketched by the Baron De Humboldt. " The Archipelngo of the Canaries," he observes, " was divided into several small states, hostile to each other. Oftentimes the same island was subject to two inde- pendent princes. The trading nations of Europe, influenced by that hideous policy which they still exercise on the coast of Africa, kept up intestine warfare among the Guanches. One Guanche then became the property of another, who sold him to Europeans. Several who preferred death to slavery killed themselves and their children. What remained of the Guanches perished mostly in 1494, in the terrible pestilence called the IModorra, which was attributed to the quantity of dead bodies left exposed to the air by the Spaniards after the battle of I^a liaguna. The nation of the Guiinches was therefore extinct at the beginning of the sixteenth century. A few old men only were found at Candelariaand (Juimar." OF THE CANARY ISLANDS. 35 mummies, and of the mode employed in preparing them. The bodies were imbued with a sort of turpentine, and dried be- fore a slow fire or in the sun. Their desiccation was so com- plete, that the whole mummies were found to be remarkably light, and Blumenbach informs us that he possesses one which, with its integuments entire, weighs only seven and a half pounds, which is nearly one-third less than the weight of an entire skeleton of the same stature, recently stripped of the skin and muscular flesh. On opening these mummies, the lemains of aromatic plants are discovered, among which the Chenopodium Ambrosioides is said to be constantly present. The corpses are decorated with small laces, on which are hung little disks of baked earth. M. Golberry took much pains to collect information re- specting the mode used by the Guanches in preparing their mummies, and he has described a mummy in his possession, which he selected from among many others still remaining in his time in the mummy-caves in Teneriffe. Of this he says, the hair was long and black, the skin dry and flexible, of a dark brown colour, the hack and breast covered with hair, the belly and breast filled with a kind of grain resembling rice, the body wrapped in bandages of goats' skin. Blumenbach thought he discovered some resemblance in the style of ornament between the mummies of the Guanches and those of the Egyptians. Strings of coral beads are found in both. But this may be an accidental resemblance, and the use of goats' skin instead of cloth, and the mode of filling the body and drying it, and all other particulars, differ essen- tially. The incisores are worn down to truncated cones in the mummies of both nations. This may have arisen from their using similar food, or from both nations being in the prac- tice of eating hard grains. We shall find proof hereafter that it was not among the Egyptians, at least, a natural pe- culiarity. On the whole, proof is wanting of any connexion between the Guanches and the Egyptians. There seems to be suflicient evidence in what remains of the language of the Guanches to prove their descent from the Berbers of Atlantica. It is difficult to imagine how such a people as the Berbers or Shnluh, who are nut known to have u2 36 AFFINITY OF THE GUANCHES TO practised navigation, could find their way from Africa to the Canaries ; but many seas have been traversed by rude and even by savage people under circumstances apparently still more unfavourable : and the first population of many countries, not- withstanding all that has been said to the contrary by some late writers, has certainly been spread along the sea-coasts and across seas, for traversing which the races of men thus dis- persed appear to have been in general but ill provided. Of the analogies discovered in the languages of the Guanches and the Berbers, the following compendious table, given by Ritter, will be a sufficient example. '' ■ / " "" BERBER OR SHrJLUU. GUANCHES. Water Anam, Amen Aenum, Ahemon. Heaven Tigot, pi. Tigotan Tigot, pi. Titogan. God .M'Kum Acoran. Priest Saquair Faycayg. Temple Talmogaren Almogaren. Houses Tigamin Tamogitin. Place of punishment . . . Tagarer Tagarer. Captain Kabira Kabeheira. Mountain Aya, Dyrma, Athraar . . . . Aya, Dyrma, Thenar. Deep valley Douwaman Adeyhaman. Barley Tezezreat, Tomzeen Tezzezes, Temasen. ,,r, ^ ,rr -,- r- .V i> \ S Trissa in Lanzerote. W heat (Tnticum of the Romans.) J ^^.^^^^ .^^ Teneriffe. Palm-tree Taginast Taginaste. A rush basket Carian Carianas. Green fi^s Akermuse Archormase. Powdered bailey Ahoren Ahoren. Flour of barley in oil. . .Azamittan Azomotan. Goat Ara Ara. Sheep Thikhsi, Ana Tihaxan, Ana. Pig Tamouren Tamacen. ^^^^ ^"^^^ S Achemen in Gomera. For further information on the history of the Guanches, see Vater,Mithridates, 3. th. 1. abtheil, p. 59 ; Glass's History of the Canary Islands ; Golberry's Voyage en Afrique, tom. i.; Jackson's Account of Maroco ; Ritter's Erdkunde, Blumen- bach's Decad. Cranior 5 ; Hornemann's Travels j Lawrence's Lectures, p. 346 ; M. De Humboldt's Voy. aux Terr. Equin. tom. L; M. Bory de St. Vincent's Hist, des Has Fortunees. THE ATLANTIC RACE. 37 Section VIII, — Of the Proof of Affinity, founded 07i re- semblance of Language, between different Branches of the Atlantic Race. Inquiry into the probable Relations of this Race with others in Africa and in Europe. I shall, in this section, lay before my readers some speci- mens of the idioms of different Berber races, illustrative of the affinity discovered between their languages ; and to them I shall add, arranged in parallel columns in order to exhibit the whole in one view, similar collections of words from those idioms either in Africa or in Europe, in which it may seem most probable that resemblance will be found to the Berber speech. These are, in Europe, the Basque, which, according to historical testimony, was once spoken along the northern coast of the Mediterranean, from the Atlantic to Sicily; and in Africa, the Tibbo, the Coptic or Egyptian, the Barabra, Berberin or Nubian, and the Amhara or Western Abyssinian language. The languages above mentioned comprise all the African dialects now w ithin reach, to which it seems in any degree probable that the Berber may have been related. They are spoken either in the low cou)itries intervening between the great table-lands of Atlanlica and of central Africa, or in the northern and projecting borders of the latter country. In order to complete the series of bordering languages fiom east to west, it would be necessary to add specimens of the dialects of Sudan, or the northern tract of Negroland ; but it is hardly within probability, that any extensive relations of affinity will be discovered between the languages of absolute Negro tribes and the Berber idiom, and specimens of these Siidanian dialects will find their place in a succeeding chapter, so that the reader, who is desirous of doing so, will have an opportunity of collating them with the vocabularies in the present section. It is to be regretted, that several languages, formerly spoken on the coast of the Mediterranean and in the islands of that inland sea, have become extinct without leaving any vestiges. From these we might otherwise have detected proofs of the African origin of some European nations. As 38 AFFINITY OF THE ATLANTIC the Berbers found their way, in early times, to the Canary Islands, it is highly probable that they extended themselves also from the northern coast to the islands and European shore of the Mediterranean, which last, in some points, is visible from the coast of Africa. In fact, we have the testi- mony of ancient historians, that several of these islands derived their ancient population from Lybia. In Sardinia, for exam- ple, though that island was conquered at an early period by the Carthaginians, we are informed by ancient writers that the mountainous tracts in the interior remained in the posses- sion of a barbarous people, termed Balari, who were descended from a mixture of Lybians and Iberians. Pausanias, who seems to have taken much pains in investigating the origin of nations, says, that the first inhabitants of both Sardinia and Corsica were Lybians, who, according to an ancient mytho- logical account, arrived from Africa, under one Sardos, a son of the Lybian Hercules.* It seems very probable, that the Ligurians were an African people, for we have no proof of their affinity to any of the nations of Europe, and they are generally distinguished from the Celtic and other continental nations. There is an old account preserved by Thucydides, that the Iberians were driven out of a part of the coast which they had previously inhabited by the Ligurians, who afterwards possessed it.f Liguria was on the coast of the Mediterranean, to which a foreign people might arrive from Africa, and the name of Lly-gwyr, meaning in Celtic, " Men of the Sea-coast," seems to mark them out as a maritime tribe. The Iberians were a more extensive and numerous people, and very early inhabitants of Europe. There is less probability that they were of Lybian origin; but the subject deserves investigation, which, fortunately, there are the means of instituting, since the Iberian as well as the Lybian language is yet extant. I sliall not attempt to engage in this inquiry at length, but confine myself to a few short compa- rative specimens of languages. The first table contains the numerals in the idoms already mentioned. • Pausanias in Pliocicis. — Cluver. Germ. Antiq. p> 481. f ThucytUdcs, lib. vi. c. 2. RACE TO OTHER NATIONS. 39 < M O M pq c S cS /3 J5 OJ eS 1) es E 5 'c4 -S r3 U a s t: <1> JD.20S 04)iUc4C«)c8 a, ^ .rJ 2 <" 5 S 'S* S s o £ So «£ 5 S 2 ^ w -w n -wW2-x: OSes S «cs^ 0^eS^iSc« e s H ^ --= 13 . s -3 ,2 -^ B _ 4) E o) ;3 o c4 ffi !3 S .2. 4) tiD "tS fO O £ .« 3 ^ fc -7^ & . be 0) t*^ .3 O « "" c? ^ 4i 05 i= fi 23 * e s eS c8 ai S 2 2 -c £S ^ ,_H .I- % •fi o ii o -^ a o- ^ •^^ '13 cr' 3 01 41 c3 o 60 Sol (A .a o ^ c g I >i 5^ rJ H ?: pq rg U K -o * i :« S -5 ph .;; „=< o 9 O OS .^ o o O W ►-J M V ^li 43 CHAPTER III. GENERAL SURVEY OF THE ETHNOGRAPHY OF CENTRAL AFRICA TO THE NORTHWARD OF THE EQUATOR. Section I. — Geographical Liynitations — Land of Negroes ; Eihiopia. Central Africa is a name given, by Ritter and by some other physical geographers, to the mountainous regions situated beyond a line which traverses the African continent under the tenth degree of northern latitude. The region thus marked out is bounded towards the north by a chain of mountains supposed to reach from the neighbourhood of Cape Roxo on the Atlantic, to Cape Guardafui or the Straits of Babel Mandeb. But Central Africa, in an ethnographical sense, is more extensive than this limitation would represent it. It comprehends, to the northward of the line above de- scribed, a tract of country likewise traversing Africa from east to west, in some places five degrees, in other ten degrees in breadth, which is inhabited, not less than the re- gion further southward, by the Negro races, the native inha- bitants of this continent. This more northerly tract, which lies immediately beyond the great Sahara, comprises in the inland part comparatively low countries, valleys and plains, watered by the Niger and other rivers, which descend from the mountains to the southward. The midland region is termed Siidan ; it is occupied by various Negro empires or states of considerable extent. To the eastward and to the westward of it are the mountainous countries of Abyssinia on the one side, and of Senegambia on the other. These mountainous tracts are supposed to be connected with the Highlands of Central Africa, of which by Ritter they are considered as two great promontories or northward prolongations. 44 NEGRO AND ETHIOriAN The whole of the countries now described are sometimes termed Nigritia, or the Land of Negroes ; they have been likewise termed Ethiopia. The former of these names is more frequently given to the western, and the latter to the eastern parts, but there is no exact limitation between the countries so termed. The names are taken from the races of men inhabiting different countries, and these are interspersed and not separated by a particular line. Black and woolly- haired races, to which the term Negro is applied, are more pre- dominant in Western Africa; but there are also woolly- haired tribes in the east ; and races who resemble the Ethio- pians in their physical characters, are found likewise in the west. We cannot mark out geographical limits to these dif- ferent classes of nations, but it will be useful to remember the difference in physical characters which separates them. The Negroes are distinguished by their well-known traits, of which the most strongly marked is their woolly hair; but it is dif- ficult to point out any common property characteristic of the races termed Ethiopians, unless it is the negative one of want- ing the above-mentioned peculiarity of the Negro ; any other definition will apply only in general, and will be liable to ex- ceptions. The Ethiopian races have generally something in their physical character which is peculiarly African, though not reaching the degree in which it is displayed by the black people of Sudan, Their hair, though not woolly, is com- monly frizzled or strongly curled or crisp. Their complexion is sometimes black, at others of the colour of bronze or olive, or more frequently of a dark copper or red-brown, such as the Egyptian paintings display in human figures, though generally of a deeper shade. In some instances their hair, as well as their complexion, is somewhat brown or red. Their fea'tures are often full and rounded, not so acute and salient as those of the Arabs ; their noses are not flattened or depressed, but scarcely so prominent as those of Europeans ; their lips are generally thick or full, but seldom turned out like the lips of Negroes; their figure is slender and well-shaped, and often resembling that form of which the Egyptian paintings and statues afford the most generally known exemplification. These characters, though in some respects approaching RACES DISTINGUISHED. 45 towards those of the Negro, are perfectly distinct from the pecuharities of the Mulatto, or mixed breed. Most of these nations, both classes being equally included, are originally African. By this [ do not mean to imply that their first parents were created on the soil of Africa, but merely that they cannot be traced by historical proofs from any other part of the world, and that they appear to have grown into clans or tribes of peculiar physical and social character, or that their national existence had its commence- ment in that continent.* Section II. — General Survey of the Physical and Moral State of the Native Races in the Interior of Africa. The Negro nations of Africa differ widely as to their manner of life and their characters, both of mind and body, in different parts of that continent, according as they have existed under different moral and physical conditions. Foreign culture, though not of a high degree, has been introduced among the population of some regions, while from others it has been shut out by almost impenetrable barriers, beyond which the aboriginal people remain secluded amid their mountains and forests in a state of instinctive existence, a state from which history informs us that human races have hardly emerged, until moved by some impulse from without. Neither Phoenician nor Roman culture seems to have pene- trated into Africa beyond the Atlantic region and the desert. The activity and enthusiasm of the propagators of Islam have reached further. In the fertile low countries beyond the Sa- hara, watered by rivers which descend northward from the cen- tral highlands, Africa has contained for centuries several Negro empires, originally founded by Mohammedans. The Negroes of this part of Africa are people of a very different descrip- tion from the black pagan nations further towards the south. They have adopted many of the arts of civilized society, and have subjected themselves to governments and political • The proof and further developement of all that has been stated in this brief generalization will be found in the following chapters. 46 PHYSICAL AND MORAL institutions. They practise agriculture, and have learnt the necessary, and even some of the ornamental arts of life, and dwell in towns of considerable extent, many of which are said to contain 1 0,000, and even 30,000 inhabitants,* a cir- cumstance which implies a considerable advancement in in- dustry and the resources of subsistence. All these improve- ments were introduced into the interior of Africa three or four centuries ago, and we have historical testimony, 'l* that in the region where trade and agriculture now prevail, the population consisted, previous to the introduction of Islam, of savages as wild and fierce as the natives further toward the south, whither the missionaries of that religion have never penetrated. It hence appears that human society has not been in all parts of Africa stationary and unprogres- sive from age to age. The first impulse to civilization was late in reaching the interior of that continent, owing to local circumstances which are easily understood, but when it had once taken place, an improvement has resulted which is, • In Mr. Park's account of Sego, the capital of Bambara, which contains about 30,000 inhabitants, the houses have two stories and flat roofs : Mosques are seen in every quarter, and ferries conveying men and horses over the Niger. " The view of this extensive city," says IMr. Park, " the numerous canoes upon the river, the crowded population, and the cultivated state of the surrounding coun- try, formed altogether a prospect of civilization and magnificence which I little ex- pected to find in the bosom of Africa." To the eastward he passed a large town called Kabba, situated, as he says, in the middle of a beautiful and highly culti- vated country, bearing a greater resemblance to the centre of England than to what he should have supposed to exist in the middle of Africa. — See Park's Travels, chap. 2. + Leo Africanus describes the condition of the Pagan Negro countries in the midst of Sudan as very similar in his time to the present state of the people fur- ther southward, where idolatry and absolute barbarism still subsist. This appears to have been the universal condition of the black tribes of Africa shortly before the age of Leo. I shall cite the words of this celebrated traveller : " Nigritarum regionis maxima incolarum copia beluinam prorsus ducunt vitam, nullum neque regem, neque principem, nullamque adeo rempublicam habent, vix agriculiuram noverunt, pellibus quibusdam vestiuntur, proprias vero mulieres non habent : interdiu pecus cogunt ; sub noctem in tuguriolis quibusdam deni aut duodeni tani viri quam foemina; conveniunt, pelltbus lecti vice utunlur, sibique earn sumit quiscjuc mulierem, qu;c niagis arridet. Nulli bellum inferunt, riec extra limifes aliud regnum qua;runt. Ilorum nonnulli solem simul atque exortus est, summe veneiantur ; alii igncni adorant, cujusniodi sunt Gualatac populi." STATE OV THE NEGRO RACES. 47 })erhaps, proportional to the early progress of human culture in otlier more favoured regions of the world. The chief barrier which has set a limit to the progress of Mohammedan conquest and the introduction of foreign cul- ture into the more remote, and as yet unknown, parts of Africa, is supposed to be a chain of almost impassable moun- tains, which forms the northern border of a highland region or table-land of great extent, and runs nearly across the con- tinent, from east to west, about the 10° of northern latitude. In the eastern part, it passes to the southward of the Alps of Abyssinia, The western parts of this chain join, in like manner, the high mountains of Senegambia, where the Senegal and Gambia take their rise. They termi- nate in the Kong, the long range of hills behind Dahome and the Gold Coast. In the interior, the central chain rises above the low plains of Siidan, Bornu, and Begharmi. It separates the comparatively civilized region, containing the Mohammedan states or empires of Africa, from the vast and unknown wilderness to the southward, from which camels and caravans, the ships and fleets of the desert, are excluded, and where even the twilight of Islam has never penetrated the darkness of African barbarism. To Pliny and the ancient geographers, the Mountains of the Moon were known by name, and they have been but little better known in modern times. Recent travellers have, however, approached the feet of these mountains, and have ac- quired more correct information respecting some parts of them. In the late expedition of Clapperton and Denham to the empire of Bornu, the latter of these travellers obtained a near view of a chain of hills, which bear the name of Jebel Kumra. He visited the valley of Mandara, to the southward of Lake Tschad, and at the southern margin of the level re- gion of Africa. This valley is overhung by mountains, whose recesses contain the abodes of numerous and barba- rous races, comprehended under the general name of Kerdeis or Pagans. Their dwellings were everywhere seen in clus- ters on the sides and even on the tops of the hills, which im- mediately overlook Mandara. " The fires," says Major 48 PHYSICAL AND MORAL Denham, " which were nightly visible in the different nests of these unfortunate beings, threw a glare upon the bold peaks and blunt promontories of granite rock by which they were surrounded, and produced a picturesque and awful appear- ance." The mountains immediately adjoining INIandara were not more than 2500 feet in height, but others were seen at a distance to the south, which were of much greater elevation, and had a more alpine character. They were asserted to ex- tend southward a journey of two months, and, in some places, to be ten times as high as those which rise above the plains of Mandara. The only communication with the region lying further towards the south is by means of a few adven- turous freed slaves, who penetrate into the interior of the mountainous tracts with beads and other articles of traffic from Sudan, slaves and skins being given in exchange. The nations who inhabit this wilderness are very numerous. They generally paint and stain their bodies of different colours, and live in common, without any regard to relationship. Large lakes are frequently met with in their country, plentifully supplied with fish. Mangoes, wild figs, and ground-nuts are found in the valleys. " On penetrating a short distance in this direction, with some people from Mandara, we saw," says Denham, " the inhabitants run up the mountains, quite naked, with ape-like agility. On another occasion, a com- pany of savages were sent from a Kerdy or Pagan village, termed Musgow, as a peace-offering, to deprecate the sultan, who was on the eve of making a kidnapping expedition into their country. On entering his palace, they threw themselves upon the ground, pouring sand upon their heads, and utter- ing the most piteous cries. On their heads, which were covered with long, woolly, or rather bristly, hair, coming quite over their eyes, they wore a cap of the skin of a goat, or some animal like a fox ; round their arms and in their ears were rings of what appeared to be bone, and around the necks of each were from one to six strings of the teeth of the enemies they had slain in battle ; teeth and pieces of bone were also ])endant from the clotted locks of their hair ; their bodies were marked in different places with red patches, and STATE OP THE NEGRO UACES. 49 their teeth were stained of the same colour. Their whole appearance is said to have been strikingly wild and truly savajre. Endeavours to set on foot intercourse with them were in vain ; they would hold no communication ; but, hav- ing obtained leave, carried off the carcass of a horse to the mountains, where the fires that blazed during the night, and the savage yells which reached the valley, proved that they were celebrating their brutal feast." When we examine more particularly the geography of this region, and the accounts transmitted by the few travellers who have obtained information respecting it, we find that, to the eastward of Bornu, the rivers which rise in the moun- tainous region to the soutlnvard still flow toward the west, and discharge their waters into Lake Tschad. This agrees with the account obtained by Brown, who learnt that all the rivers which rise to the left hand of the Balir-el-Abiad or Greater Nile, flow towards the interior or to the westward. Mr. Bruce terms Bornu the Spina Mundi, where the land rises between the regions of the Niger and the Nile.* To the northward of the mountainous country supposed to conceal the sources of the Abiad, or Western Nile, are three Mohammedan states, nearly parallel in latitude, and occupy- ing the level tracts below the central highlands; they are, Darfur, Kordofan, and Sennaar. These countries are bounded towards the south by lofty and precipitous hills, covered by primeval forests, which appear to be in continuity with the chain of mountains stretching across the whole breadth of Africa.f The great countries of Bertut and Fertit are situ- ated to the southward of Sennaar; they are inhabited by idolatrous Negro nations, who live in small detached vil- lages, without any political association or government, and even without the attempt to confederate for mutual defence asainst the murderous inroads of more civilized and active assailants from the north, who are continually making ag- gressions upon them for the sake of carrying off" slaves. The late expedition of the Turkish army, under the son of • Putter, Erdkunde + Rlippell, Cailliaud. VOL. 11. ' E 50 PHYSICAL AND MORAL the Egyptian despot, was particularly disastrous to these un- fortunate people. Their mountain villages were destroyed with the utmost barbarity, and those whose resistance pre- vented their being dragged into slavery were cruelly murdered. According to M. Cailliaud, who accompanied this expedition, more than 40,000 slaves were carried off by the marauders who formed the army of Ismayl Bey. Disastrous was this expedition to the natives, but it has contributed greatly to extend our knowledge of the interior of Africa. From M. Cailliaud we have interesting details of the Negro coun- tries to the southward of Sennaar, and Dr. Rlippell, who resided some years in Nubia, has made us acquainted with the nations near Kordofan. The natives of Bertat are, according to Cailliaud, well made and vigorous; their hair is crisp, and like cotton; their lips are thick ; but their features are less strongly and less uniformly marked with the characteristics of Negroes than those of the western tribes; they are warlike and indocile ; different hordes have different objects of religious worship ; some adore the sun, some the moon ; they have the superstition of fetishes so prevalent in Western Africa. The men are entirely naked ; they have no knowledge of writing or system of arithmetic, but count with difficulty with the aid of their fingers and toes. " Their languages often differ as we pass from one moun- tain to another, the natives of neighbouring hamlets holding no communication with each other." A similar description applies to the natives of extensive regions southward of the countries traversed by the Nile.* The Negroes in the mountainous country to the southward of Obeid in Kordofan have'been fully described by Dr. Rlippell. These mountains are supposed by Rlippell to be volcanic; be- yond them, in some tracts at least, there are primitive hills of gneiss and mica slate. The Negroes of the mountainous re- gion of Kordofan are not altogether so destitute of the arts of hfe as the people of Mandara ; they have learnt the use of iron, and even make tools of the red oxyde with which their hills abound: but they live without social bonds, in sepa- " Voyage d Meroe et au Fleuve Blanc. Par I\I. F. Cailliaud. Paris. 182G. torn. iii. p. 20. STATE OF THE NEGROES. 51 rate hordes or companies, each of whicli occupies the top of a particular mountain ; their dialects are very numerous, but are capable of reference to four principal languages ; one of which, that of Koldagi, is, according to Dr. Riippell, cognate with the idiom of Obeid, and even with the dialects of the Barabras. The inhabitants of one mountain are perpetually engaged in attempts to capture the children from other hordes, whom they keep as servants, or sell to slave-dealers. Hence arises a constant feeling of insecurity and enmity against their neighbours.* The chain of hills which run to the southward of Kordofan are continued towards the east by the high ridge of Fazoclo, which forms, according to Ritter, the most northern terrass or shelf of the mountainous region, the lowest level of the highlands, and the last barrier which the great rivers descending from them have to traverse before they enter the northern plains. It is termed, by Hitter, the Terrass of Cataracts. This border of the wilderness is covei'ed with forests, and contains nume- rous mines of gold, which are worked in a rude manner by the natives. The chain of Fazoclo is divided in two prin- cipal places by the passage of the Abiad or White River, and that of the Azrec or Blue Nile of Abyssinia. To the eastward of the last, the country begins to be under the influ- ence of the sovereign of Habesh. The black tribes who inha- bit the borders of this empire are termed Shangalla by the Abyssinians, a name synonymous with that of Negro savages. Mr. Bruce has described, in a striking and characteristic manner, the Shangalla, or pagan Negroes, who inhabit wild and uncultivated tracts on the borders of Abyssinia, These people have ever been hunted down and oppressed by the Abyssinians; they have no intercourse with strangers, and hence they retain unaltered their primeval manners, and dis- play a strongly-marked example of the moral character of the unimproved Negro races. Their territory, as Mr. Bruce informs us, is full of wood and of mountains not joined in ridges, but standing each on its particular base. Great rivers, falling from the high country, form, in the valleys, im- * Reisen in Nubien und Kordofan, von Dr. Edward Riippell. Frankfurt am Main. 1829. E 2 52 PHYSICAL AND MORAL mense ponds, vvliich are covered with large shady trees whose leaves never fall, and which become the resort of elephants and rhinoceroses, as well as of the black savages, termed Shan- galla. The latter, until the rainy season arrives, dwell under trees, and prepare their food for the approaching winter, when they retire into caves in the mountains, and pass the incle- ment season in confinement, but in security. " The Shangalla," says Mr. Bruce, " were formerly a very numerous people, divided into distinct tribes or nations, each living separately in districts of their own. Their most consi- derable settlement is between the Mareb and the Tacazze. They are accurately described by Ptolemy, who classifies them by the varieties of their food ; there are still among them Rhizophagi, Elephantophagi, Acridophagi, Struthio- phagi, and Agriophagi, people who live upon roots, upon elephants, locusts, ostriches, and other wild animals, among which is a beautiful species of lizard. During the fair half of the year, when the Shangalla live under the shade of trees, they bend the branches downwards, and cover them with skins of beasts. Every tree is then a house, under which dwell a multitude of black inhabitants till the tropical rains begin. It is then they hunt the elephant, which they kill by various devices, as well as the rhinoceros and other large creatures. Where water and the river-horse abound, they kill them with the same industry. — " Where the trees are thickest, and the water in the largest pools, there the most populous nations live, who have often defeated the royal army of Abyssinia. The Dobenah are the most powerful of the Shangalla ; they live near to the Tacazze, and feed upon the elephant and the rhinoceros ; in other districts, their food is more promiscuous ; it is the flesh of buffaloes, deer, boars lions, and serpents ; in the valley of Waldubba is a tribe, who live upon the crocodiles, the river-horse, and on fish, and in the summer on locusts, which they boil and keep dry in baskets. Ostriches, which abound upon the Mareb, as well as lizards, are the food of the eastern Shangalla. These peo- ple are pagans, and those tribes who are near the river wor- ship it and a certain tree. They are woolly-headed, and of the deepest black, very tall and strong, and'better made in their STATE OF THE NEGKOES. 53 limbs than other Negroes ; their foreheads are narrow, their cheek-bones higli, and their noses flat, with wide mouths and small eyes. They have an air of gaiety which renders them agreeable, and the women sell at a greater price than other blacks." It thus appears, that through nearly the whole breadth of the African continent, to the southward of the more level coun- tries watered by the great rivers and occupied by Mohamme- dan states, there are chains or masses of high mountains, the sides of which, as well as the adjacent valleys, abound- ing with the luxuriant vegetation of intertropical climates, and covered with vast forests, furnish an abode to numerous tribes of woolly-headed blacks, who are mostly in the lowest stage of barbarism. The nature of the country favours the division of these people into petty hordes or insulated companies, and their state of existence, which is that of perpetual conflicts against their neighbours for captivity or mutual extermina- tion. We shall observe, in a more exact survey of particular countries, that where the mountains of intertropical Africa rise or are continued into high plains, or into steppes of con- siderable elevation, the physical characters of the inhabit- ants are generally those which are termed Ethiopian, and the continuity of surface being favourable to a nomadic life, such nations, as for example the mountaineers of Caffa and Enarea and the hordes termed Galla, approximate, in their habits and manner of life, to the pastoral tribes of northern Asia. In the Negro countries, properly so termed, the na- tives of higher districts are observed to be physically superior to those of low and swampy valleys ; and there is, perhaps, an equal difference in their manifestation of intellect and mental vigour. In some inland countries, indeed, in Western Africa, as in Dahome, Ashanti, and Sulimana, where the people are still heathens, they possess so much skill in hus- bandry and in some of the useful arts, but especially in those of war, though still displaying all the ferocity of pagans and savages, that many persons have been disposed to attribute these indications of partial improvement to some external but now scarcely discoverable source. Similar phenomena are observed, even on a greater scale, among the tribes to the 54 NEGRO NATIONS. southward of the equator, and especially in parts approach- ing the southern tropic, where we are accustomed to distin- guish the woolly-haired races by the appellation of Kafirs. But the natives of southern Africa will be described as a separate division of African ethnography. At present, I con- fine my survey to the regions of Negroland lying northward of the equator. In the following chapter, I proceed to the native population of Senegambia and Guinea, where the mountain-chains and the highlands of Central Africa advance towards the north-west, and appear to project towards the Atlantic ocean. I sliall then survey the inland region or the empires of Sudan or Mohammedan Nigritia, and afterwards the countries bordering on Abyssinia and the Nile and the Indian ocean, which are sometimes comprehended under the vague designation of Ethiopia. bb CHAPTER IV. ETHNOGRAPHY OF CENTRAL AFRICA TO THE NORTHWARD OP THE EQUATOR CONTINUED WESTERN DIVISION NATIONS OF SENEGAMBIA AND GUINEA. Section L — Outline of the Physical Geography of Sene- gamhia. The mountainous region in which the Senegal and the Gambia take their rise, reaching from the 8th to the 14th degree of northern latitude, forms an appendage to the central high- land of Africa, from which it projects northwards, like a vast promontory, into the great Sahara. It has been observed by Ritter, that mountains, which, in the intertropical climate, are capable of giving origin to such rivers as the Niger and the Senegal, must have a very considerable elevation. In Africa, indeed, as well as in Asia, rivers, which convey great masses of water into low countries, are never known to descend from a single chain of hills ; they have always for their nurseries high plains, which can alone afford a constant supply of abundant streams. It may, therefore, be inferred, that the great region of Africa which lies to the northward of the coast of Guinea, and between it and the Sahara, consists, in great part, of a high table-land. It contains the sources of many rivers, ,which descend from it on every side. The Senegal, the Gambia, the Rio Grande, the Mesurado, the Rio Nunez, the Sherbro, and other channels, collect tlie waters of num- berless contributary streams ; some of which, as the Faleme,* the Bafing, the Cocora, the WooUima, and the Nerico, are themselves rivers of considerable width, while the waters which flow from the same highland towards the east discharge themselves into the Joliba or Niger. The mountains from which the western rivers descend form a semicircular range from 8 to 10 degrees in extent. At the Cape of Sierra Leone, this * See I\I. Durand's description of the Faleme. Voy. au Senegal, torn. ii. c. 7- 56 OUTLINE OF THE PHYSICAL western border approaches within sight of the sea-coast, and there forms the celebrated Sierra of the same name. From that Sierra a great chain of mountains runs towards the north intersected transversely by vast ravines, through which the Gambia and other rivers descend to take their course through the low countries, and discharge their waters into the Atlantic. The Gambia traverses this chain, and forms the cataracts of Barraconda, after receiving the waters of the Nerico, and it then enters into the wide plains of Pisania.* The Rio Grande penetrates the same barrier a league to the northward of that route which was followed by Watt and Winterbottom, in their journey from Sierra Leone to the high plains of Timbu ; it forms a cataract one hundred and twenty feet in breadth. Five other navigable rivers between the Rio Grande and the Sierra take their rise from the western decli- vity of the same elevated country. The line formed by this bordering chain of momitains sepa- rates the table-land of Senegambia from the low plain near the sea-coast. Above it, but still on the Avestern side, is the high terrass or mountain-plain of Timbu, the abode of the principal body of the widely-dispersed raceof Fiilahs. The most elevated part of this region has never been traversed; towards the south- east it is supposed to be continuous with the chain of the Kong, and by it to be connected with the high central moun- tains of Africa. Beyond and above the Fulahs are the desert countries of the Jallonka, termed Jallonkadu. The Fulahs themselves occupy the western margin or high lateral region of the table-land of Senegambia which faces the Atlantic, and the Mandingos inhabit the northern border, which is. turned towards the desert of Sahara. The high region occupied by the Mandingos is better known than that of the Fulahs. The information furnished by Mr. Park, and by Mollien and Durand, together with a few no- tices obtained from othei- sources, has enabled Professor Ritter to point out the situation and probable limits of a long tract of hill-country of two or three different levels, which occupy the northern slope or border of the table-land * Park's Travels; Durand's ^'■oy. au Senegal, torn. i. p. 1 Hi, &c. ; Ritter, Erdkaiide. t Hitter. Krdkunde. Durand, t. i. p. 242. GEOGRAPHY OF SENEG AMBI A. 57 above described. The boundaries of the highest of these levels are more or less distinctly indicated in Mr. Park's ac- count of his return. As he advanced towards the west, from the interior of Africa, while still in the broad valley of the Nicer he perceived, on arriving at Taffara and Jabbi, the first chains of hills belonging to the mountainous region. It is here that the language of the Mandingos was first heard; the people to the eastward of Jabbi speak the Kalam-Sudan ; the idiom of western Sudan and Tonibuktii. Further to the westward, at Bammakoo, the Niger issues from the lowest border of the mountainous country which gives it birth, pre- cipitating its mighty waters over a rocky basin, and hastening to traverse the vast plain of Lower Sudan. Thence the defile of Kamalia leads upwards and westwards into the country of the Mandingos, who cultivate the high tract of fertile land reaching as far towards the west as Worombana, between the high waters of the Niger and the Senegal. This, according to historical tradition, is the proper and immemorial abode of the Mandingo race. Above them, towards the south and the west, rise the mountains of Jallonkadu, traversed by nume- rous rivers, which descend from the heights through valleys and ravines, taking a parallel direction from south to north. The desert of the Jallonka has been described by Park. It reaches westward to the river Faleme and to the defiles by which the Gambia makes its descent into the lower plains. This high region of Jallonkadu gives origin to the great rivers of Senegambia near the 10° and 11° of northern lati- tude. The northern slope of Senegambia, if it were prolonged eastward, would fall, as Ritter has observed, nearly in a line with the northern border of Higher Abyssinia. Another tract of lower elevation than that above described as the primitive country of the Mandingos, but still high above the low plains of Africa, and consisting of hilly coun- tries which surround the alpine tracts, forms the intermediate level of Park and his commentator. Major Rennell. It be- gins in the west, with the Negro states of Neola and Tende, comprehends Satadou and Bondou, Bambouk, Kajaaga, and Kasson, descending north-eastward into the more even coun- tries of Kaarta and Bandjiirra. From Woollih, near the 58 ETHNOGRAPHY OF SENEGAMBIA. cataracts of Barraconda, the hills which rise into this terrass are covered with woods and villages. Bondou, a mountain- ous country to the eastward, divides the waters of the Gambia and the Faleme. Thence to the Senegal is the country of Kajaaga, called by the French colonists, Galam. Eastward of Senegal is the kingdom of Kasson. Bambouk, the Land of Gold, is in the midst of this tract ; gold is also found in the country of the Mandingos, by whom, as they have de- scended from time to time out of the higher region, the in- termediate districts now described have been, as we shall afterwards observe, either conquered or in part repeopled. Section II. — Of the Mandingos. The Mandingos are a very numerous and powerful race ; they are remarkable among the nations of Africa for their industry and energy of character ; and, of genuine Negro tribes, they have, perhaps, manifested the greatest aptitude for mental improvement. The Mandingos are the most zeal- ous and rigid Mohammedans in Africa ; they observe all the precepts of Islam, and drink no intoxicating liquors. The mer- chants of this nation, many of whom are marabouts or priests, are men of great enterprize and intelligence: they are often persons of great influence in Northern Africa, and carry on the principal trade in that part of the world. " The Mandingos are said to be active and shrewd merchants, laborious and indus- trious agriculturists, keeping their ground well cultivated, and breeding a good stock of cattle, oxen, sheep, and goats, but no hogs. They are a kind and hospitable people." Such is the description of this nation drawn by the old voyagers, Jobson and Moore, who visited them soon after they first became known to Europeans, and it has been fully confirmed by Golberry, Park, and other recent travellers.* * See Jobson and INfoore's Voyages, in Astle's Collection of Voyages, vol. ii. p. 2Go, et seq. I have been assured by Mr. F. Rankin, whose good sense and acute- ness of observation leave no doubt in my mind of the entire correctness of his assertion, that no person, who has been in the habit of personal intercourse with Mandingos, can entertain the slightest doubt of the equality of intellect between white and black men. OF THE MANDINGOS. 59 The colour of the Mandingos is black, with a mixture of yellow.* Jannequin says, that they are as remarkable for the thickness of their lips and the flatness of their noses as are the lolofs and F{dahs for handsome features ;-f- but M. Golberry declares that the Mandingos resemble, in their features, the blacks of India more than those of Africa in general. He says, " their features are regular, their charac- ter generous and open, and their manners gentle." j Their hair is quite woolly; and, according to Mr. Park, they have more of the Negro character in their countenances than the lolofs, who are said to be the most beautiful, and, at the same time, the blackest people in Africa. Major Laing says, " the appearance of the Mandingos is engaging ; their fea- tures are regular and open ; their persons well formed and comely, averaging a height rather above the common." M. Durand has given a description of the Mandingos of the kingdom of Barra, which coincides fully with that of Major Laing and M. Golberry, § and other recent travellers. The Mandingos exercise, by their trade and colonies, a powerful influence over all the neighbouring countries. " In the states on the Senegal," as we are informed by M. Durand, " com- merce and government are in their hands ; the chiefs and men in authority are all Mandingos : they are the only persons possessed of information ; all, or nearly all of them can write; they have public schools, in which their marabouts teach the children to read the Koran ; their lessons are written on small, whitened boards. In all large towns they have an hereditary alkaid, who maintains public order, and a council of old men. They are more polished than other Negro na- tions, of a mild character, sensible, and benevolent, the result of their predilection for commerce, and of the long journeys in which they pass much of their time. The careful cultiva- tion of their land proves them to be industrious ; their fields are ornamented with palms, bananas, fig-trees ; they keep few horses, but numerous asses, on which they are accustomed to perform their journeys." Mr. Park says, " Few people work harder, when occasion requires it, than the Mandingos; * Golberry, i. 73. -f Jannequin 's Voyage in Libya. J Golberry, i. 7^. § Durand's Voyage au Senegal. 60 ETHNOGRAPHY OF SENEGAMBIA. their wants are supplied, not by the spontaneous productions of nature, but by their own exertions ; the labours of the field give them pretty full employment during the rains, and, in the dry season, in the neighbourhood of rivers, they are occupied in fishing. While the men are employed in these pursuits, the women are very diligent in manufacturing cotton cloth, which is coloured with a dye of indigo, mixed with a lye of wood-ashes. The weaving is performed by the men. There are among the Mandingos manufactures of leather and iron. They tan the leather with great skill, and dye it of a red or yellow colour. The iron is obtained from ore reduced in smeltino- furnaces. The women have the manao-ement of domestic affairs ; the Negro women are very cheerful and frank in their behaviour ; but they are by no means given to intrigue, and instances of conjugal infidelity are of rare oc- currence." Long before the interior of Senegambia had been explored by Park, Mollien, and other travellers, it had been remarked, that the native region of the Mandingos must be an extensive and populous country. This inference was drawn from the extent of their conquests and of their connexions in the in- terior of Africa to the northward of the line. " From their mountains," says M. Golberry, '' the Mandingos descended in numerous tribes, and conquered and colonised Bambouk and the banks of the Gambia, from its sources as far as the sea. On the right bank of the river, these colonies have grown into kingdoms, the most celebrated of which are those of Barra, Kollar, Badibou, and upper and lower Yani : on the left bank, the Mandingo settlements are less numerous and powerful." M. Golberry has given an account of these conquests, collected from the traditions of the Mandingos, which throws some light upon the history of the African nations. The kingdoms of Barra, of Kollar, and of Badibou, were founded by the first of those Mandingo colonies, which de- scended from the sources of the river, and established them- selves towards its mouth. The Mandingos of the Gambia have preserved the tradition of this event, and relate it in the foUov/ino; manner : OF THE MANDINGOS. 61 " About the commencement of the tenth (five hun- dredth?) year of the Hegira, Amari-Sonko, a celebrated Man- dingo warrior, descended from the interior of Africa at the head of more than twenty thousand armed men, and, followed by a great number of women and marabouts, ravaged all the northern coast of the Gambia, and arrived towards the mouth of that river, where he fought many battles with the king of Salum; he finally remained conqueror of the territories of Barra, Kollar, and Badibou." This founder of the earliest Mandingo colonies, which established themselves on the banks of the Gambia, was at once an intrepid warrior, a good politician, and an able mer- chant. He rendered himself formidable to the lolofs, and the Bur-Salum, and compelled this prince to grant him, irre- vocably, the possession of his conquests, which, at his death, he divided between his three sons. The kingdom of Barra was given to the eldest, whose descendants still hold the regal power. The family of the eldest son of Amari-Sonko is divided into five branches ; and the eldest of each branch reigns successively. " At the time when I was at Albreda," says M. Golberry, " the presumptive heir was a Negro named Sonko-Ari, a cousin of the reigning monarch. The king be- ing an idiot, Ali Sonko, his uncle, was declared regent of the kingdom of Barra, which, in 1 786, he had governed for seven years, with the wisdom, energy, and prudence of an enlight- ened European. He was then sixty-five years of age, tall, upright, and of majestic stature; his physiognomy was regu- lar and agreeable, and beamed with intelligence and reflec- tion, the expression which in general distinguishes the Man- dingo nation. His countenance was unfurrowed with wrinkles; his eyes were large and lively; his mouth, well-formed, was still ornamented with the finest teeth ; his character was re- plete with benevolence and energy; in short, everything in this Negro prince displayed superior wisdom. His deportment was always grave and serious, but still interesting, and even sometimes lively; he loved Frenchmen, and was sensible to generous conduct, and disposed to friendship. Extremely pure in his manners, and a scrupulous observer of the Mo- hammedan religion, the first rays of the morning sun 62 ETHNOGRAPHY OF SENEG AMBTA. found him every day prostrate in his garden, with his face turned towards the east, surrounded by his women, his chil- dren and his slaves, celebrating, with great devotion, the morning prayer." The following is the account which the Mandingo traditions give of the conquest of Bambouk. M. Golberry says, these traditions are uniformly consistent. Towards the end of the fifth century of the Hegira, or the year 1100 of our era, a Manding warrior, named Abba-Manko, animated by the love of conquest, and zealous for the propa- gation of Islam, quitted his country, attended by 10,000 warriors, and a numerous retinue of marabouts. He ravaged all the countries on the right bank of the Gambia, marched towards Bambouk, whose gold mines were then known, mas- sacred a part of the inhabitants, and compelled the remain- der to adopt the Mohammedan religion, and submit to his authority. This conquering apostle reigned despotically for thirty years, and, previously to his death, divided his king- dom between his three sons. The eldest had Bambouk and its rich mines; the second, Satadou ; and the third, Konkou- dou. The siratik of Bambouk is still highest in rank amongf the three monarchs ; the royal power, as in all the Mandingo states, is limited; the principal affairs of the country are managed by a kind of parliament or national assembly, which is held at the house of the siratik of Bambouk. The Man- dingo states are federal republics. The heads of particular villages have the denomination of Farim, and are almost in- dependent chiefs. The Bamboukian traditions also record an attempt of the Portuguese to conquer their country : these people committed dreadful massacres ; at length, owing to their own imprudence, they were destroyed or finally expelled. A third celebrated epoch in the history of Bambouk is an attempt of the marabouts, or Mohammedan priests, to render themselves masters of the country. This terminated in the complete expulsion of the marabouts, of whom, at present, none are suffered to reside in Bambouk. The people, accord- ing to M. Golberry, have become more ignorant and depraved than the other Mandingos, owing, as he thinks, to the want OF THE MANDINGOS. 63 of their priests. The Mandingo marabouts, he says, are very strong-minded men. They are subtle, cunning, and artful; they have in general great influence over the Negroes in Africa. The language of Bambouk is, according to M. Golberry, a corrupt Mandingo, in which a mixture of Fulah, lolof, and even of Moorish and Portuguese words is perceptible. Other writers have drawn a very similar description of the Mandingo nation, and have given corresponding accounts of their history, though not so accurate and particular as those obtained by M. Golberry. Major Laing, who visited the Mandingo state, in the Soosoo country, near Sierra Leone, of which Fouricaria is the chief town, describes them as a very shrewd and intelligent people, superior to any who inhabit the extent of Western Africa, from the boundaries of Ma- roco to the southward. He says, that they are not of ancient residence in the country where he found them, having emi- grated not more than a century since from Manding, a powerful state, near Sego, about seven hundred miles east- ward of the coast, where abundance of gold is found. The first emigrants settled in the countries near the Gambia, but detached parties found their way gradually farther northward and southward ; for they are of migratory habits, and traverse Africa for trade or war from Tangiers to Cape Mesurado. Some of the Mandingo colonies must, as it would appear, have been of much older date than the period supposed by Laing, and must even have preceded the conversion of the people to Islam ; for there are several nations speaking dia- lects of the Mandingo language, and therefore belonging probably to the same race, and originally emigrants from the same region, who are still pagans, and almost savages. These tribes must have separated from the great body of the Man- dingo nation before Islam and civilization were introduced. The Koorankos furnish one instance of this remark. Though speaking a language closely cognate, and though probably of the same race with the Mandingos,the Koorankos are, as Major Laing assures us, still pagans, and bear in their manners a nearer resemblance to the uncultivated Timmani than to the civilized Mandingo. The K,ooranko country is of great ex- tent, divided into numerous states, lying between the Bullom, 64 ETHNOGRAPHY OF SENEG AM BI A. Tiramani, and Limba countries on the west, and the river Niger and the Kissi territory on the east, in which direction it like- wise extends to an unknown distance towards the Kong mountains, and in the interior behind the Negro states of the Guinea coast.* The people are probably Mandingo tribes, who descended from the high countries of Senegambia, at a remote period, towards the south. They have nearly the same dress as the Mohammedan Mandingos, and their language is the same, except in a few words, yet they are by no means so handsome or so intelligent a race. They have the barba- rous custom, so common among the pagan savages of Africa, of filing their teeth to a point, and of tattooing their breasts and backs. They comb their hair or wool into large balls over each temple. In many of their customs, they closely resemble the Timmanis and other nations of the most uncul- tivated class of Africans. t • The territory of Kooranko, according to ]\Iajor Laing, reaches so far towards the east that the natives of the western level have no notion of its termination, but merely estimate it as beyond the journey of a month. ■f This comparison is, perhaps, a sufficient proof that the decided superiority of the Mandingo nation is not owing to any original difference from other African tribes, but to the circumstance that they have been long civilized, so far as civili- zation is implied by the profession of Islam, and the zealous observation of its precepts, and adoption of customs wliich it brings with it. Not far from the Kooranko country, Major Laing entered a village of 3Iohammedan Mandingos accidentally settled there. The difference between this people and their pagan neighbours is very remarkable. He says, on entering New Ma-boom the eye is immediately struck by the conspicuous change ; the small, miserable, dirty huts are supplied by large, circular, conical edifices, studded with ornaments, and sur- rounded by clean, stockaded yards. " I entered the town about sun-set ; the inhabitants were returning from their daily labours, every individual bearing about him proofs of his industrious occupation : some had been engaged in preparing fields for crops, which the approaching rains were to mature ; others were penning up a few cattle, whose appearance denoted rich pasturage ; the last clink of the blacksmith's hammer was sounding ; the weaver was measuring the quantity of clotla he had woven during tlie day, and the gaiiraiige or worker in leather, was tying up his neatly-stained pouches, shoes, knife-scabbards, the work of his handicraft, in a large koiakoo or bag, while the crier of the mosque, with the melancholy call of ' Allah Akbar,' uttered at measured intervals, summoned the decorous Mos- lemin to their evening devotions." It may be proper to add, that Major Laing had experience among these people of the vices as well as the virtues of Moham- medanism: bigotry, fraud, and cruelty were as usual displayed towards a Kafir ; with him the followers of the Prophet keep no faith, nor do they observe towards him the common precepts of humanity. OF THE BAMBARRANS. 65 Of the Bamharrans. The people of Bambarra, perhaps, afford another example, in addition to that of the Koorankos, of a tribe of the Mandingo race not yet emerged, at least in part, from the condition of savages, and partaking in a similar manner of the physical as well as moral inferiority generally connected with that state of existence. The people of Bambarra are reckoned by M. Golberry as a fourth race in constituting the population of the French government of the Senegal; the lolofs, Fulahs, and Man- dingos being the three former. Bambarra is an extensive country, situated under the 14° north latitude, about one hun- dred leagues above and to the eastward of Galam. It reaches for a great space along the Niger or Joliba; its capi- tal is Sego. Mungo Park says, that, after a little practice, he was able to understand and speak the idiom of Bambarra, by its affinity to the Mandingo. But, in the eastern parts of Bambarra, he found that a different language prevailed, and the Mandingo dialect was no longer understood. This appears to be the language of Tombuktu. It is probable, that the people of Bambarra are partly of Mandingo origin, and in part belonging to the race of Western Sudan, here- after to be described. M. Golberry says, that he has had frequent opportunities of becoming acquainted with the Bambarrans, because the greater number of the slaves brought to the French factories of Sene- gal and Gambia come from Bambarra. According to the description of them afforded by this writer, these blacks of the interior, who, however, are not to be considered as all Bambarrans, have, in a high degree, all the characters as- cribed to the Negro race. " Their colour is not a fine black ; their heads are round ; their hair woolly and crisped ; their countenances heavy and dull; their noses flat, and cheek- bones prominent; their lips very thick ; and their legs crooked. They are stupid, very superstitious, fatalists beyond all con- ception, indolent, but gay and perfectly good-tempered : their language is rude and barbarous." VOL. II. F 66 ETJJNOGRAPHY OF SENEGAMBIA. Section III. — Of the Fidahs. On the border of the highland of Senegambia, about the sources of the Rio Grande, and on the slope, or terrass, which looks towards the setting sun, and is cooled by the higher currents of air flowing from the Atlantic,* are the elevated plains inhabited by the Fulahs. Tiuibu, their capital, like ancient Rome a military station or centre of conquests, con- tains 9000 inhabitants. It is surrounded, in part, by dry and rocky deserts, and partly by mountain pastures, which feed numerous flocks of sheep and goats, and herds of oxeu and horses, unknown in the lower regions. The inhabitants of this alpine country, who differ physically from the natives of the lower region, cultivate their soil with industry ; but such has been their seclusion from the rest of mankind, that the use of the plough is to them still unknown ; they forge iron and silver, work skilfully with leather and wood, and fabricate cloth ; they have clean and commodious dwellings, and have had mosques and schools in their towns since Islam was introduced among them by marabouts from the Man- dino;os. Their armies are victorious over the neio-hbouring nations, and are said to have extended the dominion of Timbu over forty geographical miles from south to north, and seventy-eight from east to west. The sovereign or the Alma- my of the Fulahs reigns at Timbu. His country, Fouta- diallo, contains other considerable towns, Temby and Laby, the capital of Cacoundy, a district well-cultivated, and pro- ducing abundantly rice, oranges, and maize. Fouta-diallo, or Fouta-jallo, is, however, but a part of the territory now occupied by the Fulahs in Africa. They are spread in various tribes over the countries between the Sene- gal and Gambia rivers, and in the region further towards the * At the 10° of north latitude, Watt and Winterbottom found the mornings and evenings cool, the nights cold. The thermometer fell to 11° and to 9° of Fah- renheit, proving a very considerable elevation. It is said, however, that the coldest nights happen when the wind blows from the east The winds from the Atlantic are of more even temperature. Thus the plain of the Fulahs is pro- tected on both sides from the heats of a tropical climate. OF THE Fl^LAHS. 67 south. According- to M. Golberry, they constitute the most numerous part of the population from the 4° of northern latitude to the Senegal. One of the principal Fulali states, and that in which they became known from the earliest period to Europeans, is the kingdom of the Siratik, or Fulah sul- tan, on the Senegal, which includes an extensive territory on that river, reaching from the borders of Galam to Fort Podhor and the lake of Cayor.* In this country, the Fiili or Pholeys were visited by Jobson, Le Maire, and the Sieur de Brde, in the seventeenth century, when the court of the Siratik is said to have displayed much barbaric magnificence. The fertile country of Bondou, near the sources of the Nerico, though subject to the conquering Mandingos, is likewise chiefly inhabited by Fulahs. The same people occupy a great part of Brouka to the eastward of Bambouk, as well as Wasselah, on the higher course of the Niger.f In the high countries, on the eastern part of Senegambia, there is a mountainous tract near the source of the Senegal, which bears the name of Fouladou, or Wilderness of the Fulahs. The inhabitants of that country are a wild and savage people. The name which their territory bears would seem to imply, that it is looked upon as the original or proper habitation of the Fulah race. Major Laing, when in the country of Sulimana, a warlike Negro state, bordering on Fouta-jallo, was informed by the bards or jellemen of the king, from whom he took much pains to collect the traditions of the country, that the acqui- sition of Fouta-jallo by the Fulahs is an event of not very remote times. The country where Timbu is situated formed, as he was told, a part of Jallonkadou, or the desert of the Jallonkas. The Fulahs obtained, about the beginning of the last century, or soon after the year 1700, permission to settle in it from the king of the Siilimas, who was then a very * Durand's Voyage au Senegal, torn. ii. p. 69. M. Durand says, " I;e roy- aume des Foules ou Poules, qui vient apres celui de Howal, commence a I'lle a Morfil, sur laquelle est situe le fort de Podor. II est gouverne par un jjrince nomme Siratick. Le pays est tres peuple ; la terre y est bonne et bien cultivee ; les recoltes y sont abondantes." ■f Ritter's Erdkunde ; Park's Appendix, p. 89. f2 68 ETHNOGRAPHY OF SENEG AMBI A. powerful prince. They are said to have come from the north- ward, which may mean either from Fouladou or Fouta-torro, with the design of propagating Islam, and, having settled in a part of Jallonkadou, to have given it the name of Fouta- jallo : they have there become numerous, and have extended their power over the neighbouring countries. This account is difficult to reconcile with the statements of De Barros, who pointed out the mountainous tracts near the source of the Rio Grande as the kingdom of Temala, sovereign of the Foilli. Temala reigned there in 1534, and carried on war with Mandi- Mansa, who was, at that time, king of the Mandingos. The statements obtained by M. Golberry coincide with this rela- tion. He says, that the Fulahs have spread themselves from the 4° north latitude to the southern banks of the Senegal, and have founded many colonies, which have arisen into kingdoms. He adds, that, on the northern bank of the Mesu- rado, these Negroes are known under the name of Foules or that of Sousous. They are to be found also under the same name on the mountains in the vicinity of Sierra Leone, on the Sherbro, the Rio Sestos, at Cape Monte, and even at Cape Palmas. To the northward, there is a colony of these Fulahs, which, on the borders of the Senegal, have founded a kingdom of Negroes known under the appellation of Foules or Peuls, and who inhabit the banks of the river along an extent of one hundred and thirty leagues. " But the principal body of the nation," says M. Golberry, " under the proper name of Fulahs, possess an extensive territory towards the sources of the Rio Grande, under the 10° north latitude, and between the 5° and 12° east longitude, from the Isle of Ferro."* In the present state of our information, it cannot be ascer- tained whether the original abode of the Fulah race was in Fuladu, on the northern part of the high region of Senegam- bia, or further southward in the mountainous tracts near the Rio Grande. We only know, that they have been settled for some centuries in various tribes in many parts of the ele- vated country to the southward of the Senegal. From thence hordes of the same race have descended from time to time * Golberry, vol. i. p. Jl- PHYSICAL CHARACTERS OF THE FULAHS. 69 into the lower region towards the west, where they wander in the forests of the Bourba-Iolof, and likewise towards the east into the interior of Africa, where they have become powerful under the designation of Felatahs or Falatiya. Physical CJiaracters of the Fulahs. The Fulahs have generally been termed Negroes or Blacks; but it has been occasionally intimated that they are of lighter colour than the neighbouring races. According to Park, the Fulahs rank themselves among white people, and look upon the other nations as their inferiors. Mr. Park distinguishes four kinds of people in the countries which he traversed in his first journey in Africa, namely, Mandingos, Feloops, lolofs, and Fulahs. He says, that the two former have most of what is termed the Negro character. The lolofs, on the other hand, though in colour jet black, have features like those of Europeans. And the Fulahs have small features, and soft, silky hair, without either the thick lips or the crisp wool common to Negroes. He adds, that they are not black, but of a tawny colour, which is lighter and more yellow in some states than in others. Dr. Winterbottom, who was physician to the colony of Sierra Leone, assures us that, though the Fulahs are less black than some of their neighbours, their complexion can only be regarded as an intermediate shade between that of the darkest African and the Moor. He thinks Major Ren- nell's conjecture, that the Fulahs were the Leucsethiopes, or White Fthiopians, placed by Pliny and Ptolemy in North Africa, scarcely probable. The idea of a nation of white Negroes in Africa most probably arose from the accidental observation of Albinos among the black races, which also suggested to the learned Haller the same opinion. Haller says, in his Elements of Physiology, " sunt in sestuosis illis terris integrse nationes albse." As a further proof that the Fulahs are not so white as it has been supposed. Dr. Winter- bottom alludes to the fact, that Mr. Watt and his brother, the celebrated travellers to Timbu, found that a mulatto had 70 ETHNOGRAPHY OF SENEGAMBIA. resided some years at that town who pretended to the Fulahs that he was a white man.* M. Golberry, a very inteUigent French traveller, who has communicated much original information respecting the na- tions near the Senegal and Gambia, has given the following description of the Fulahs : " The genuine Fulahs," meaning the Fulahs of Timbii and Fouta-jallo, " are very fine men, robust and courageous. They have a strong mind, and are mysterious and prudent; they understand commerce, and travel, in the capacity of merchants, even to the extent of the Gulf of Guinea : they are formidable to their neighbours. Their women are hand- some and sprightly. The colour of their skin is a kind of reddish black ; their countenances are regular, and their hair is longer and not so woolly as that of the common Negroes; their language is altogether different from that of the nations by whom they are surrounded — it is more elegant and sono- rous." " The tribe of Fulahs, which, under the name of Foules or Peuls have peopled the borders of the Senegal between Podhor and Galam, are black, with a tinge of red or copper colour ; they are, in general, handsome and well made ; the women are handsome, but proud and indolent." " All the Foules of the border of the Senegal are zealous Mohammedans. They are intelligent and industrious ; but, from their habitual commerce with the Moors of Sahara, they have become savage and cruel, and the French convoys from Galam have more than once experienced their perfidy."-!- It would appear from this account, tliat there is much differ- ence between the different tribes of Fulahs, and that some are of a redder hue, and more remote from the Negro characters than others. The genuine Fulahs, who are of a dark-red colour, and of handsome and almost European features, are the natives of Fouta-jallo, in the high region around Timbu. The Peuls of the Senegal are a degenerated race, but they are still distin- guished from Negroes by their traits, and particularly by their • Winterbottom's Account of the Native Africans in the Neighbourhood of Sierra Iveone, vol. i. p. 185. -|- Golberry, vol. i. p. 7^- PHYSICAL CHARACTERS OF THE FULAHS, 71 hair, which is not woolly. These are the people described by Park. I shall add one other account of this people from M. Durand, one of the best informed of African travellers: " Les Foules ont la peau d'un noir pen fonce ; ils ne sont ni aussi beaux, ni aussi grands, ni aussi bien faits, que les lolofs. " Les Foulahs ont les cheveux soyeux, les traits petits et agreables ; leurs mosurs sont douces et faciles ; ils aiment la vie pastorale et agricole. lis se sont repandus dans plusieurs royaumes de la cote sur la riviere de Gamble, pour y etre bergers et laboureurs ; ils paient un tribut au souverain du pays Oil ils se sont etablis et oii ils cultivent les terres. " Ils sont originaires du royaume de Bondou, situe entre les rivieres de Gambie et du Senegal, pres de Bambouk. Comme nos Auvergnats et nos Limousins, ils sortent par bandes de leur pays, portent leur Industrie dans des contrees lointaines, font fortune, et rentrent chez eux pour y jouij- du fruit de leurs travaux." M. Mollien reports, that the genuine Fulahs, or Poules as he terms them, are of a red or copper colour. He thinks the black Fulahs, who, as he says, are now by far the most nu- merous, a mixed race, or mulattoes, originating from inter- marriages of the red Poules with Negroes. His description of these black Poules does not coincide with such an hypo- thesis, since it appears that the black Poules make no approximation, except in the shade of their complexion, to the characteristics of the Negro races. M. Mollien has related, that a tradition is prevalent on the Senegal, according to which both the Fulahs and the lolofs formerly dwelt in the north of Africa. In that region they were neighbours, as they are now in Senegambia. Both na- tions were expelled from their country by the Moors, and obliged to cross the desert, and seek refuge on the southern bank of the Senegal, in countries previously occupied by the Serreres, which they seized and divided between them. The Serreres, according to M. Mollien, are the aboriginal inhabitants of all this part of Africa. Their language is ex- tremely rude, and their manners display a primitive simplicity. 72 ETHNOGRAPHY OF SEMEGAMBIA. They now possess only some remote districts of the country which belonged to them before the invasion of the Fulahs and lolofs. He thinks the original Fulahs were red, and that the present Poules are a mixed people, descended from intermarria2:es with the Neo;ro nations bordering on the Fulah states,* The lolofs, whose history is by this relation connected with that of the Fulahs, are a race of jet-black Negroes. We shall perceive, in a future section, that there are tolerably good grounds for concluding them to be a cognate people with the Serreres. We cannot, therefore, easily admit that they are a race originating from a remote part of the African continent, and from a region where no Negro nations exist. The Fulahs themselves have been known, from the first dis- covery of the Senegal, among the most numerous settled in- habitants of the countries lying to the southward of that river. In 1697, when the Sieur de Brlie sailed up the Sanaga^ he visited Gumel, the capital of the Siratik, situated ten leagues from the river, w^here he was surprised by the magnificence of the Fulah sovereign. The people at that period were proba- bly as dark in complexion as the race termed Black Poules are at the present day, since we find them always termed Ne- groes, though it is occasionally intimated that they were fairer than the neighbouring tribes. The queen of Gumel was, according to the Sieur de Brlie, of an olive complexion, but had handsome featui'es. All the old writers describe the Fulahs, who were the subjects of the Siratik, just as their descendants are described by Mollien, Park, and Durand. Of the people of King Temala, in the mountainous country near the sources of the Rio Grande, we have no very particu- lar description, but there is no reason to believe that they differed from the present Fulahs of Fonta-jallo. On reviewing all the historical information that we can col- lect respecting the Fulahs, we find that there is no ground for the opinion that they emigrated with the lolofs from north- ern Africa. Both lolofs and Fulahs appear to have been " Mollien, Voyages en A frique, torn. i. pp. 329, 272; torn. ii. pp. 1C6, 113, 170, 185. INFERIOR RACES. 73 very ancient inhabitants of the countries beyond the Sene- gal, the Fulahs of the high mountain-plains, and the lolofs of the low countries near the sea-coast. Like many other moun- tain tribes in Africa, the Fulahs are of much lighter colour than the Negro nations, and have, in other respects, different physical characters : they are more civilized than any other neighbouring nation, with the exception of the Mandingos. We have no knowledge of any fact connected with the his- tory of the Fulahs which indicates them to be of more recent origin in the region which they inhabit than any other African race ; their language is peculiar to themselves, but it may probably be ranked among African languages.* It ap- pears, that some tribes of Fulahs are of much lighter colour than others, but the blacker tribes, or the Black Poules, as Mollien terms them, are very difi'erent from Negroes ; they have straight hair, and peculiar features ; they do not, there- fore, appear to be even the mixed offspring of a Negro stock. It seems that the red or copper-coloured Fulahs, as those of Fouta-jallo, are natives of more elevated districts than those families or tribes of the same race who are of a darker com- plexion. Section IV. — Of the inferior Races inhabiting the region between the Senegal and Cape Palmas. The region of Africa above defined, including both Sene- gambia and Western Guinea, contains many other races of people besides the Mandingos and Fidahs, some of which are scarcely known except by name. I shall not attempt to make a complete enumeration of them, but shall mention the most remarkable, with the addition of such notices re- specting their history as I can collect, and think worthy of " By referring to the table of numerals at the end of this chapter, and comparing it with the numerals of the nations of the interior of Africa, in the following chapter, the reader may observe, that the numbers up to ten appear to be in some of the African idioms original and distmct words, while other nations have only repeated the term for five, adding one, two, three, and four, in order to express the higher numbers. These last are generally the least cultivated races ; the Mandin- gos, the people of Tombuktu and Hausa, belong to the other class. The Fulahs and Felatahs, however, coincide in this particular with the most barbarous. 74 MOUNTAINEERS OF SENEG AMBI A. presenting to my readers. I commence with some nations of the mountainous country in the interior. Paragraph A. — Inhabitants of Mountainous Regions. 1. Of the Jallonkas, or Jallunkan, and the Sokko. The highest part of Senegambia above and behind the western border of that mountainous region occupied by the Fulahs, and equally above the northern border, which is the country of the Mandingos, is Jallonkadou, or the Wilderness of the Jallonkas. The Jallonkas appear to be more nearly connected with the Mandingos than with any other known people of Africa. Mr. Park, who traversed the country of the Jallonkas, and visited one of their towns termed Manna, has afforded some brief notices of them. He has likewise given us the nume- rals of the language spoken at Manna, which, as he says, prevails over all the extensive and hilly country termed Jal- lonkadou. These numerals are all nearly identical with those of the Mandingos. Park observes, that some of the words of the Manna speech have a great affinity with the Mandingo, though the nations themselves consider the two languages as distinct. The excellent missionary, Oldendorp, whom I have frequently cited in the first volume of this work, says, that he has conversed with two Mandingos, who described their own country as very extensive, and mentioned among their neighbours the Fulah and the Jallunkan ; the latter, a peo- ple of kindred race with the Mandingos themselves,* but having a different language. Oldendorp has given, in his vocabulary, thirteen words, besides ten numerals, of the Jal- lunkan language, nearly all of which are Mandingo words, with some trifling corruption. From these facts it appears probable, that the Jallonkas are a tribe of the Mandingo race, having a peculiar dialect, which, as it has happened in many other similar instances, has been regarded as a distinct idiom. It would appear probable that tribes of the Jallonkas, or other nations of language equally related to that of the • Ein mil iliiien vcrwaiultes Volk. jallonka: sulimas. 75 Mandiiigos, and in part pagans, extend eastwards from Jal- lonkadou, perhaps along the chain of the Kong mountains, to the countries behind the Gold Coast. We have from Olden- dorp some accounts of the Sokko or Asokko, a nation bor- dering on the Amina, in the country near that coast. Olden- dorp was acquainted with three individuals of the tribe, who stated that their country was a seven-weeks' journey dis- tant from the sea-shore. Their sovereign, who had many subordinate kings under him, was termed Mansa. They carry on defensive wars against the Amina, who make kid- napping incursions into their territory. The language of the Asokko, as far as we can judge from a vocabulary of it given by Oldendorp, compared with another specimen of the idiom of the Jallunkan, or Jallonka, bears to the latter a close affi- nity, as do both of them to the Mandingo.* 2. The Kissi. The Kissi are a people of whom we know nothing, except that they inhabit the country about the sources of the Niger, to the southward of Sulimana and Sangara. 3. Sulima. The Sulimas, made known by Major Laing, who visited their capital town in 1822, are a warlike and powerful Negro race, inhabiting a mountainous country to the southward of Fouta-jallo, and around the sources of the Rokelle. They are among the most civilized of the pagan nations of Africa, and have, probably, derived improvement from their inter- course with Mohammedans, particularly with the Fulahs, with whom they were long closely united, but now wage per- petual hostilities. For information respecting the Siihmas, I must refer my readers to Major Laing, who has drawn a parallel between them and the ancient Romans, and has col- lected particulars relating to their history from the latter part of the seventeenth century, or the reign of Gesma Fondo, in 1690, who was powerful in higher Senegambia, and waged wars with the Kissi and Limba people for the captivation of slaves, which were sold to Mandingo slave-dealers. In the time of his successor, according to INlajor Laing's informants, " See Oldemlorps (ieschichte der I\Iission der Evangelischen Briider, p. 281, 2!)1, 333; and Vaier, Mithridat. theil iii. p. 169. 76 SULIMAS: SANGAIIAS. the Fulahs settled in a part of Jallonkadou, wliich they termed Fouta-jallo. The general characters of the Sulimas are ably described by Major Laing, Their physical structure fits them for enduring the hardships of war, and to support fatigue and privation. They are short and muscular in stature; in average height from five feet six to five feet eight inches. They have been a warlike people from the earliest period of their traditionary history, and preserve the memory of their exploits in martial songs. They trade with the Sangaras on the one side, and the Mandingos on the other. The Mandingos bring cloth, powder, and beads from the water-side, and the Sangaras slaves from the interior. In domestic occupations, the men and women appear to have changed sexes ; the cares of husbandry, except sowing and reaping, are left entirely to the females ; the men look after the dairy and milk the cows, while the women build houses and plaster walls ; the women act as barbers and sur- geons, while the men sew and wash clothes. Both sexes dress like the Mandingos. When young, the women are often exceedingly beautiful ; but hard labour after marriage soon renders them otherwise. Like other Afiicans, they are passionately fond of music and dancing. They follow their dead to the grave, and commit them to the ground in perfect silence. 4. Sangara. The Sangaras are separated from the Sulimas by the higher course of the Niger, supposed here to flow from south to north. They resemble the Sulimas in many respects, and are, perhaps, a tribe of the same race. Like them, they are a bold and active race of mountaineers, and display that superiority which the inhabitants of high countries in Africa generally exhibit in comparison with dwellers in low valleys or plains. Their country is extensive, and rich in pastures and corn and rice-fields. They are divided into petty tribes. They are taller and better-looking men than the Sulimas, whom they resemble in costume ; are famous for the manu- facture of cloth, which is exchanged near Sego for gold. They are armed with bows and spears. PEOPLE OF THE PLAINS: lOLOFS. 77 I now proceed to the nations of the lower countries, begin- ning from the borderers of the Senegal, and proceeding southwards. Paragraph B. — Of the Nations inhabiting the Low Countries between the Senegal and the Gambia. The native tribes, who inhabit the low countries in the neighbourhood of the Senegal, differ much both in physical and moral characteristics from the mountain races whose history has already come under our view. The most con- siderable of these nations of the low countries are the lolof, lalof, or Whalof. They have been well known as the most northerly of all the Negro nations, since the era of the first discoveries of the Portuguese on the west coast of Africa. 1. The lolofs. The lolofs, when they first became known to the Portu- guese voyagers, occupied the country where they are now found, and were its principal inhabitants. Prince Henry of Portugal, early in the fifteenth century, is said to have ob- tained from travellers some information respecting the Assan- hagi* of the kingdom of lolof, on the borders of Guinea ; and Denis Fernandez, about 1446, previously to his discovery of Cape Verd, passed the country of the lolofs, who were separated from the Assanhagi by the SenegaLf The Assan- hagi are, doubtless, the Sanhagii of Leo Africanus, mentioned by that traveller as one of the five divisions of the great Berber nation. These people were, therefore, the Tuaryk of the northern bank of the Senegal, which is still occupied by tribes of that nation interspersed among, or intermixed with Arabs. In the reign of King John, an lolof prince, Bemoi, arrived at Lisbon in great state, where he was received mag- nificently, was baptized, and did homage to the Portuguese monarch.^ The province of lolof was, at that time, said to comprehend the country between the Senegal, or rather the Rio Grande, and the Gambia. The maritime district of the lolof region is the country of * Portuguese Voyages to the East Indies, Astle's Collection, vol. i. p. 11. t Ibid, p. 13. + Ibid, p. 19. 78 LOW COUNTRIES OF SENEGAMBIA. Cayor, formerly part of the dominion of the Bom'ba-Iolof, or lolof emperor, but now a separate state. All the lolofs were formerly united in one nation, and governed by one chieftain. Different parts of this empire have been dismem- bered, but the lolof empire yet exists, and some degree of respect is still attached to the ancient title, and the Bourba- lolof reigns, though obscurely, in the interior, over a con- siderable extent of country little visited by Europeans. From the dismemberment of the empire rose the states of the Sira- tik, which is that of the Fulahs or Peuls, Owal or Brak, Bondou, Cayor, Damel, the kingdoms of the Baol, Sin or Barbe-Sin, and Salum or Bur-Salum.* The lolof nation still occupies, according to M. Golberry, all the country com- prised between the Atlantic and the river Faleme, the west- ern boundary of Bambouk. This limitation comprises a vast region. Mungo Park, who describes the lolofs as a power- ful, active, warlike people, says, that they occupy the districts southward of the Senegal as far as the Mandingo states bor- dering on the Gambia. These petty kingdoms now occupy all the maritime country between the mouth of the Senegal and the neighbourhood of the Gambia, where the Mandingo states begin. The lolofs, according to M. Mollien, are tall, have regu- lar features, and an air of dignity. M. Golberry says, that they are remarkable for an air of haughtiness, originating in pride on account of the superiority of their race. They are disposed to social habits and civilization, and are very hospi- table. The probity and kindness of their character identifies them, as M. Golberry thinks, with the " blameless Ethiopians" of Homer. " They are always well made," Golberry afiirms, " their features are regular, and like those of Europeans, except that their nose is rather round, and their lips thick. They are said to be remarkably handsome, their women beautiful. The complexion of the race is a fine, transparent, deep black ; * Golberry's Travels in Africa, English Translation, vol. i. p. 259. M. Du- rand gives the same account, more in detail, of the dismemberment of the empire of the Bourbayolof. See Durand's Voyage au Senegal, tom. i. p. 94, and the Journey of M. Rabault in the Yolof Countries, related in the same work, tom. ii. p. 139, et seq. lOLOFS : SERRERES. 79 their hair is crisp and woolly. They are cheerful and indo- lent, when they are not roused by necessity to exertion." The fact that the lolofs, at a distance from the equator, and nearly under the tropic, are of a deep-black colour, has drawn the following observation from M. Golberry : " This race of Negroes, the most handsome and the finest black of all those dependent upon the government of the Senegal, proves that the deepest colour does not arise solely from the heat of the climate, nor the being more subjected to the ver- tical rays of the sun, but results from other causes. For the lolofs are to the north of Nigritia, and the further you re- cede from them, and approach towards the line, the black colour of the Negroes becomes less and less strong and un- mingled." * 2. Of the Serreres. The tradition, which represents the Fulahs and lolofs as foreign invaders of the country southward of the Senegal, and the Serreres as its original inhabitants, can only be established or disproved by a comparison of the languages of these races. The Serreres are a people of very simple habits, who wander about with their flocks in the neighbourhood of Cape Verd, and in the borders of countries occupied by the lolofs, with whom they formerly carried on perpetual hostilities. Verdun de la Crenne has described them, and has given a vocabulary of their language, of which Professor Vater has extracted a specimen. f In this there appears to be quite sufficient re- semblance to the idiom of the lolofs to prove an affinity in the two races. The following words are closely allied : lolof Words. Serreres' Words Brother Quiamegne Quiamenne. Sister Guigiiienne Quieguienesse. Ear Noppe NofFe. Tongue Lammegue Delemme. * In another passage, M. Golberry marks out the limits of lolof more precisely. It is bounded, he says, by the ocean, the banks of the Senegal as far as Podor, the northern limits of the Fiilah-Peuls, the western banks of the River Faleme, and a line from the sources of that river, following the northern banks of the Gambia for twenty leagues to the sources of the river of Sulima. -f- See specimens of the lolof and Serreres language from Verdun de la Crenne, in Vater's IMithridates, th. iii. p. 1(50. 80 lOLOPS : SERRERES : SARACOLETS. lolof Words. Serreres' Words. Heart Col Cod. Skin Derre Dole. Gold Vourousse Vourousse. Silver Caline Caline. Ox Nague Naque. Cow Nagguer Naque reve Bull Jacque Goch. Cock Sec Sich. Old Al aquiette Nagoyie. If the language of the lolofs is, as it would appear, a dialect cognate with that of the Serreres, the probable infer- ence is, that the former people did not originate from a distant part of Africa. The lolofs and Serreres were, proba- bly, tribes of the same stock ; both of them ancient inhabit- ants of the country where they w^ere found nearly three cen- turies ago by the Portuguese navigators. 3. Of the Serawoolli or Saracolets. The people termed Saracolets by French writers, but who name themselves, according to M. Golberry, Serawoolli, in- habit the country of Galam or Kajaaga. Their language is understood in the kingdoms of Kasson, Kaarta, Ludamar, and the northern part of Bambarra. Park, who makes this observation, describes them as Negroes of a dark brown or bright black complexion. Golberry says, that they are divided into a number of tribes ; the independent princes of which have formed among themselves a sort of federal repub- lic for mutual protection, under the king of Galam, who is the chief.* Galam is a place of great resort, and the seat of a principal slave-market in the interior. Their language is said to be very guttural ; and it would seem, from Park's cursory observations, to be a peculiar one, though some of the numerals are Mandingo.-|- Paragraph C. — Of the Negro States on the Gambia, and the Native Tribes between that River and Cape Palmas. The lolof countries are cut off to the southward by the river Gambia, the banks of which are divided from its mouth Golberry, i. 272. -}■ Vater, in Mithridates. TRIBES ON THE GAMBIA. 81 to the cataracts of Barraconda where it descends from the highlands, a space of two hundred and fifty leagues, into a great number of petty states or kingdoms, partly belonging to Mandingo colonies from the upper countries, and partly to native tribes. M. Durand enumerates eight of these king- doms on each shore of the river, bordering immediately on its banks, and there are several others a little further removed from them. On the northern, or right bank of the Gambia, are the states of Barre or Barra, a Mandingo kingdom, reaching also northward along the sea-coast, Guiocanda, Badisson or Badibou, Salum already mentioned, Gniania, Couhan, Gniani, and Ouli ; behind these are the Mandingo states, already mentioned, of Kollar, Lower and Upper Yani, Bambouk, and, higher up the river than Barraconda, Tenda and Neola. To the southward of the Gambia are the king- dom of Combo, the empire of Foigni, Gereges, Kiam, Geagra, Gnamena, Kiaconda, Toumana, and Cantor.* We have no exact information respecting the tribes which, besides the Mandingos, constitute respectively the popula- tion of all these states. The inhabitants may be reckoned among civilized Negroes, having been improved more or less by adopting the customs of the Mohammedan Mandingos, and partly by trade and agriculture. Among the savage tribes of people on the southern side of the Gambia, and from thence to Cape Palmas, the following may be enumerated as the most remarkable : 1. The Feluppes or Feloups. The Feloups are a savage nation, who inhabit forests near the banks of the Casamanca, and the upper course of the Vintain, a river which falls into the Gambia from the south ; their chief town or village has the name of Vintain. Golberry informs us, that their horde consists of sixty or seventy villages, situated in woods, from which these savages scarcely ever emerge ; their number is computed to be about 50,000 persons. The Feloups have a language of their own, which is said to be very barbarous. f They are indolent, sul- len, and vindictive, their enmities being transmitted to gene- " DuraiuVs Voy. au Senegal, torn. i. c. 6. -f- Golberry. VOL. II. G 82 NEGRO TRIBES rations; they are likewise grateful and affectionate towards their friends and benefactors.* They go nearly naked, and scarify their faces and bodies: they carry quivers full of poi- soned arrows. In stature they are small and short, but they are strong and agile. Their hair is woolly and curled, but not so short as that of many Negro tribes ; they gather it on the top of the head in a knot or tuft, which grows five or six inches long, and their beards project many inches from their chins. Their colour is a deep black, and their skins are rough. Their features are regular, and more like those of Hindoos than of Negroes in general.f 2. To the southward of the Feloups are the habitations of the Papels, who dwell in the country between the river of St. Domingo and the Rio Geba, behind the Portuguese colony of Cacheo. The Papels are a nation of savages who are always at war with their neighbours and with the Portuguese : they are fierce, cruel, and vindictive ; are pagans, and sacrifice dogs to an idol or fetiss, which they term Chine.J They are said to have dull, gross countenances, and a ferocious appearance.§ The natives of the isle of Bissao, southward of the river of St. Catherine, resemble the Papels, and are probably a branch of that tribe. These people are described by M. Brue, who visited the island. It is divided into nine governments under the Negro king. The people sacrifice dogs, cocks, and fat- tened oxen to their Chine or fetiss. || 3. Southward of the Papels, the isle of Bassi, and the coast opposite, is inhabited by the Balantes, a tribe of fero- cious savages, who exceed the Papels in ugliness : their lan- guage is said to be entirely different from the idioms of their neighbours. They eat rats, which they consider a great deli- cacy.^ 4. The archipelago of the Bissagos is inhabited by Negroes, • Durand, torn. i. p. 133. f Park's Travels, p. 63. Golberry, torn. ii. p. 295. :J: Durand, torn. i. p. 109. § Golberry, torn. i. p. ^^. INIollien, torn. ii. p. 259. II Durand, torn. 1. p. 212. m Mollien, torn. ii. p. 25!». Durand, torn. i. p. 187- NEAR THE GAMBIA. 83 who are described as pagans, naturally cruel and ferocious. Each island has an independent chief. The Bissagos are tall, strong, and robust; they feed on fish and the oil and the kernels of the palm ; they sell to Europeans the rice and legumes which they collect for brandy, of which they are so greedy, that parents sell their children, and children their aged parents into slavery, in order to obtain the means of in- toxication : suicide is frequent among them. These remarks apply to the natives of all the islands : the people of each have some peculiarities; they are described by M. Brue, particularly the natives of Cazegat, of whom the following account is given by M. Durand: " Les femmes et les filles de Cazegat n'ont pour habit qu'une grande ceinture d'une espece de frange faite de jonc, et ex- trcmement epaisse. Elles portent des bracelets de cuivre et d'etain aux bras et aux jambes, et ne raanquent jamais de frotter leur cheveux avec I'huile de palme, afin de les rendre roux, gras, et doux, ce qui est chez elles la plus grande ele- gance. En general les hommes et les femmes sont de belle taille; ils ont la peau d'un noir si beau qu'elle semble lus- tree. Les traits de leurs visages sont agreables ; ils n'ont ni le nez ecrase ni les levres grosses, qui semblent caracteristiques en Afrique; ils ont de I'esprit, de I'adresse, et se rendraient habiles dans les arts s'ils etaient moins paresseux, et qu'on put cultiver leurs heureuses dispositions. Leur caractere, na- turellement fier, leur rend I'esclavage insupportable, surtout hors de leur pays ; il n'y a rien qu'ils n'entreprennent pour en sortir. On ne peut trop prendre de precautions pour eviter qu'ils ne se revoltent quand on les a embarques : les femmes sont aussi redoubtables que les hommes ; si les blancs negli- gent la plus petite mesure de surete, ils savent en profiter ; ils les egorgent, s'emparent du batiment, le dirigent vers la c6te> oil ils echouent ordinairement, et se sauvent a la nage." 5. On the bank of the Geba, opposite Bissao, dwell the Biafares or lolas, who are the finest race of people on this coast ; their territory reaches in the interior as far as Koli. 6. This place is the frontier of the Basares, a nation who are considered as cannibals. In the same vicinity are the Naloubes, who are separated by the Rio Grande from the Biafares. g2 84 TRIBES BETWEEN THE GAMBIA 7. Between the river Nunez and that of Sierra Leone, there are four other navigable streams, the banks of which are in- habited by tribes of Zapes, Foulis, Cocolis, and Nalez. The Zapes are divided into hordes, which bear different names; these tribes are idolaters, acknowledging one supreme Being, to whom they offer no sort of worship.* 8. The savage tribes of the coast, who are extremely ugly, with coarse and harsh features, with flat noses, and a dirty, livid colour, are said to be here succeeded by tribes of a different character. " The Bulloms, Tymaneys, and Bagoes," as M. Golberry states, " are handsome, and the females beautiful." After these, he says that the ugly tribes re-appear on the sea-coast.i- These nations, of finer growth and better features, would appear to be emigrants from the interior. According to informa- tion obtained by Dr. Winterbottom during his residence in Africa, the whole coast, from Rio Nunez to the island of Sher- bro, was formerly inhabited by two races, the Bagoes to the northern part, and the Bulloms to the southward. The Ba- goes were expelled from a great part of their country by the Soosoos; and the Bulloms, a people of mild character, were likewise driven out by the Timmanis, a warlike nation from the interior. Still the BuUom language is spoken along the coast as far as Shebar. These four nations have, according to Winterbottom, entirely distinct languages. These nations are all idolaters,;]: and worship wooden penates or fetisses.§ M. Durand says, that the " Soosoos or Suzees, as well as the Mandingos, settled in these parts, acknowledge, nominally, the supremacy of the king of the Foolhs, as po- tentate of a great empire, extending from the Gambia to Cape Monte. The Bulloms, Timmanis, and Bagoes, admit only the authority of their chiefs. The Purrah, a singular institution, the nature of which is explained by Durand and by Major Laing, prevails in the countries bordering on the Roquelle aud the Sherbro. " Les Bulloms, les Timmanis, etles Bagoes sont forts, de bonne mine, et d'un beau noir: leurs * Durand, torn i. p. 243. -j- Golberry, torn. i. p. ^^. J ^^'inte^bottom's Account of the Colony of Sierra Leone, vol. i. § Durand, tom. i. p. 319. AND CAPE PALMAS, 8o membres sont droits et nerveux, leurs traits agreables, et leur taille au dessus de la moyenne. On distingue en particulier les Tommanies a leur contenance Tranche et ingenue ; leurs femmes sont generalement belles. " Les Suzees ont le teint jaune ; leur figure et leur taille sont inferieures a celles des Tommanies ; ils ont les levres epaisses, et le nez plus ecrase." M. Durand observes, that there is so great a difference be- tween the free black people in these countries and the slaves, in their features, that even an inexperienced eye distinguishes these classes of people immediately. " La dignite et une fierte noble respirent dans toute la personne du noir libre ; son regard est confiant et assure; il sent et il annonce ce qu'il vaut. L'esclave au contraire, fletri par la malheur de sa situa- tion, a la demarche servile : il ne parle et ne chemine que les yeux baisses." Major Laing and Mr. Rankin, who travelled through a part of their country, represent the Timmanis as a fine, hand- some people, endowed with excellent natural capabilities.* Their territory extends in length ninety miles, and reaches towards the interior to the limits of the Kooranko. It is divided between four chiefs, and contains towns holding 2500 inhabitants, the women being to the males as three to one.f " The men are stout, able-bodied, and good-looking, capable of great fatigue, but timid and cowardly; the women are said to be uncommonly handsome in their persons, and pleasing in their address." 9. The coast extending from the Sherbro to Cape Palmas is termed the Grain or Pepper Coast. The country behind this coast is occupied by the Quojas ; but this name seems to be used indefinitely, and to include more than one nation. The Vy-berkoma are said to be the remains of the ancient inhabitants of Cape Monte. These are probably the nation termed Foy or Puy, whose language is spoken on the coast to the eastward of the Sherbro. ;|: * Laing's Travels. Rankin's White Man's Grave. -|- The names of the towns have the prefix 3Ia, those of chiefs Bii, as Ma-boon, Ba-Simera. Does not this betray some connexion with the south Africans ? X Barbot's Account of Guinea. Winterbottom, uhi supra. Vater, Rlith. th. iii. 86 TRIBES NEAR CAI'E PALMAS. The Quoja-berkoma are the true Quo) as, who are said to have come from the interior. They border towards the north and east on the Konde-Quojas, or High Quojas, who speak a different language, and also on the Galas, the Hondo, the Curvas, and the Folgias. To this last nation the Quojas are tributary, as the Folgias themselves are dependent on the empire of Manou in the interior.* The country on the coast near the Sherbro and Cape Palmas, contains, according to Hutton, three kingdoms. Immediately after the mouth of the Sherbro is the kingdom of Cape Monte, which extends about one hundred and sixty miles from west to east, and reaches one hundred miles into the interior. Its capital is Couseca, a city which is said to be as large as Ashanti, and to contain 15,000 inhabitants. The kingdom of Sanguin succeeds to that of Cape Monte, and reaches about fifty miles along the coast. To the eastward of Sanguin, near Cape Palmas, is Settra Kroo, the capital of the people called Kroomen.-f- 10. The Kroos or Kroomen live on the coast near to Cape Palmas ; they have a guttural language ; are remarkably robust and muscular: they pass their time much in the water, and feed on flesh and rice. Coast from Cape Palmas to the Gold Coast. Between Cape Palmas and Cape Tres Puntas, or Three Points, is the Ivory or Tooth Coast. The principal nation in this district are the Quaquas, who have a barbarous, inarticu- late language. The Quaqua blacks are, for the most part, tall, stout, well-shaped men. They file their teeth, which are irregular and crooked, as sharp as awls. They let their nails grow, and wear their hair long and plaited, daubed with palm- oil and red earth. On meeting, they greet each other with the exclamation, Qua-qua ! whence the name given them by Europeans.:}: Behind the Ivory Coast, stretching to the north-west of Ashanti, is a great and powerful nation, called the Buntakoos.^ * Barbot, book ii. -f Hutton's Account of the Gold Coast, &c. J Barbot, ubi supra. % Hutton, uhi supra. NATIONS OF THE GOLD COAST. 87 Section V. — Of the Nations inhabiting the Gold Coast, and the Countries in the interior. The western boundary of the Gold Coast is either the Cape Tres Puntas, or it is the River Assini, which falls into the sea about twenty-five miles west of Apollonia, or thirty west of the river Ancobra. The Gold Coast extends thence to the Rio Volta, its eastern boundary, and is about one hun- dred and eighty miles in length. Until a very recent period, the most correct accounts of this country and its inhabitants were to be found in the works of missionaries, principally Danes.* Mr. Bowdich's journey to Ashanti has furnished some additions to our previous knowledge. The country behind the Gold Coast, to a remote distance in the interior, is divided into a number of j)etty states, which are often at war with each other; at other times subjected to the transient predominance of some fortunate chieftain. The king of Ashanti is at present the most powerful sovereign in these parts. 1. Inta race. One language, divided into a variety of dia- lects, is the mother tongue of most of these nations. The dialect prevalent on the coast is the Fetii or Fanti. This is also called the Amina, from a numerous people in the interior, whose vernacular speech it is said to bcf The Fanti lan- guage was formerly supposed to be distinct from the Ashanti, but they are now known to be cognate dialects.;]: " The Ashantee," says Mr. Bowdich, " the Fantee, Warsaw, Akim, Assim, and Aquapim languages, are indisputably dialects of the same root." Part of the Ahanta nation belong to the same stock, and the whole of these people class themselves, without any regard to their modern national distinctions, into twelve tribes or families, which are now indiscriminately mixed under different sovereigns.§ According to Mr. Bow- dich, there is a large town in the interior termed Inta, further • Professor Vater has collected the statements of Romer, Isert, Oldendorp, and Protten, in the third volume of the Mithridates. + Romer's Nachrichten von der Kiiste Guinea, Copenhag. 1767, cited by Vater. X Bowdich, Hutton, § Bowdich. 88 NEGROES OF THE GOLD COAST. fVom the coast tlian Ashanti, towards the north-east, whence the whole of these nations report traditionally that they emi- grated. Inta has hitherto been thought, but erroneously, to be identical with Ashanti. Inta is the most remote place from which the diffusion of the Ashanti language can be traced.* It may therefore be concluded, that all the nations on the Gold Coast which have been enumerated are of one race, which may be termed, for the sake of distinction, the Inta race; that name including the Inta, Fanti, Ashanti, and all those tribes who speak dialects of the same language. The Negroes of this coast are thus described by Barbot: " The blacks in this part of Guinea are generally well- limbed and proportioned, being neither of the biggest nor of the lowest size and stature; they have good oval faces, spark- ling eyes, small ears, and their eyebrows lofty and thick ; their mouths not too large ; curious, clean, white, and well- ranged teeth ; fresh, red lips, not so thick and hanging down as those of Angola, nor their noses so broad. For the most part they have lojig curled hair, sometimes reaching cloivn to their shoulders, and not so very coarse as theirs at Angola ; and very little beards before they are thirty years of age. The elderly men wear their beards pretty long. They have com- monly broad shoulders, and have large arms, thick hands, long fingers, as are their nails, and hooked ; small bellies, long legs, broad large feet with long toes ; strong waists, and very little hair about their bodies. Their skin, though but indifferent black, is always sleek and smooth. Their stomach is naturally hot, capable of digesting the hardest meat, and even raw entrails of fowls, which many of them will eat very greedily. They take particular care to w^ash their whole bodies morning and evening; and anoint them all over with palm-oil, which they reckon wholesome, and that it preserves them from vermin, which they are naturally apt to breed. * Ibid. Rbmer, however, places a nation of Crepees contiguous to the Ashantis, and separated from them by the Rio Volta, and these he supposes to extend behind the Slave country in the interior. The reader will find these statements respecting the languages of the Gold Coast nations fully established by the vocabularies at the end of Bowdich's Mission to Ashanti, by Huttons Mission to the same place, and by the authorities cited by Professor Vater. RACE OF INTA. 89 111 short, they are, for the most part, well-set, handsome men in their outward appearance, but inwardly veiy vicious. " As for their natural parts, they are, for the most part, men of sense and wit enough; of a sharp, ready apprehen- sion, and an excellent memory, beyond what is easy to ima- gine ; for, though they can neither read nor write, they are always regular in the greatest hurry of business and trade, and seldom in confiision. On the other hand, they are ex- tremely slothful, and idle to such a degree, that nothing but the utmost necessity can induce them to take pains; very little concerned in misfortunes, so that it is hard to per- ceive any change in them, either in prosperity or adversity, which, among Europeans, is reckoned magnanimity ; but among them some will have it pass for stupidity."* " The black women are straight and of moderate stature, pretty plump ; having small round heads ; sparkling eyes for the most part high noses, somewhat hooked, long curling hair, little mouths, very fine, well-set, white teeth, full necks, and handsome breasts. They are very sharp and witty, and very talkative." "f* This description is evidently intended to apply to the nations of the Fetu or Fanti race, who are the general inhabitants of the Gold Coast. The Ashantis are said to be distinguishable from them in their persons as well as in their carriage. They are of blacker hue, more agile than the Negroes of the coast, and generally of better make.J Mr. Bowdich says, " The men of Ashantee are very well made, but not so muscular as the Fantees ; their countenances are frequently aquiline. The women also are generally hand- somer than those of Fantee, but it is only among the higher orders that beauty is to be found, and among them, free from all labour or hardship, I have not only seen the finest figures, but in many instances regular Grecian features, with bril- liant eyes, set rather obliquely in the head." He adds, that the features in this class of females appeared to be Indian rather than African. They are selected from the handsomest slaves or captives.§ * Barbot, book iii. chap. 18. -f Ibid. i Isert apud Mithridat. p. 228, § Bowdich, p. 318. 90 RACE OF INTA : OF AGRA. Mr. Hutton has given nearly the same comparative estimate of the persons of the Fantis and Ashantis. 2. Acra race. The people of Acra, near Christianburf^, though surrounded by tribes of the Inta nation, are a dis- tinct race, having a language of tlieir own and peculiar man- ners. Acra vi^as a powerful state until it was conquered by the people of Aquambo, when many of them fled to Little Popo, and founded a new state on the Slave Coast. The Mountain Negroes of Adampi speak the language of Acra. The people of Acra practise circumcision — utriusque sexus — which is elsewhere, in these countries, unknown. The pe- culiar language and customs of these people, their situation on the coast, surrounded by people of the Inta race, indicate them to be the remains of a more ancient people, who probably possessed these countries before the Fantis emi- grated from the interior. The following is a description of the persons of these Ne- groes, chiefly, as it seems, applicable to the race of Acra, by Isert, the Danish traveller : " Almost all the Negroes are of a good stature, and the Acra Negroes have remarkably fine features. The contour of the face, indeed, among the generality of these people, is differ- ent from that of Europeans ; but, at the same time, faces are found among them, which, excepting the black colour, would in Europe be considered as beautiful. Commonly, however, they have something apish. The cheek-bones and chin pro- ject very much, and the bones of the nose are smaller than among Europeans. This last circumstance has probably given rise to the assertion, that the Negro women flatten the noses of their children as soon as they are born. But noses may be seen among some of them as much elevated and as regular as those of Europeans. Their hair is woolly, curled, and black ; but sometimes red. When continually combed, it may be brought to the length of half a yard ; but it never can be kept smooth." * • P. E. Isert, Reis na Guinea; Dordrecht, 1790: translated in Philos. Mag. vol. iii. p. 144. RACE OF FOY, OR DAHOMEH. 91 Section VI. — Of the Foy Race, including the Whidah, Pa- pah, Dahomeh, and several other Nations of the Slave Coast, and the adjoining inland Country. That part of Guinea which hes to the eastward of the Gold Coast and the Rio Volta is termed the Slave Coast. It is of indefinite extent towards the east. It obviously derives its name from the fact, that this part of Guinea was long the prin- cipal seat of that diabolical traffic which our legislature, after maintaining for centuries its lawfulness, has, through the growing influence of Christianity on public opinion, at length proscribed. A long tract of this coast, reaching from the mouth of the Volta to the neighbourhood of Badagry, as well as a wide country in the interior, is inhabited by several nations, who belong to one race, and speak, for the most part, dialects of the same language, and resemble each other in person, manners, and habits. They occupy nearly the whole country which extends from the Volta to the narrow strip of land belonging to the inland kingdom of Yarriba, and reach- ing down to the sea at Badagry. The people of Koto, near the limits of the Gold Coast, speak the language of Acra, which is different from that of the Slave Coast, as do likewise the people of Little Popo or Papaw, which was founded by fugitives from Acra, driven out of their country by the Aquamboes in 1680. These are to be considered as foreign colonies on the Slave Coast. The most powerful nation on the Slave Coast was formerly the people of Great Ardrah, and, it is said, that the other states were tributary to them ; their principal rivals were the Whidahs, a warlike nation on the coast, whose country was celebrated by all voyagers for its beauty and fertility, and the great number of its villages and inhabitants. Great Popo, to the westward of Whidah, was another flourishing state, until all these countries were depopulated by the Dahomans, a people farther in the interior, who speak a dialect of the language of Great Ardrah ; the Mahas are another nation to the westward of Dahomeh, who have also the same speech. The Dahomans were formerly called Foys, and inhabited a 92 KACE OF FOy, country called Fouin, on the north-eastern part of their pre- sent country. Their conquests began about the year 1625, and early in the last century they overran and depopulated Ardrah and Whidah, and possessed themselves of the whole region. Until that period they were unknown to Europeans. Dahomch is reckoned by the people of Yarriba, together with Maha and Badagry, among the provinces dependant upon or tributary to the king of Eyeo or Katunga, who is sovereign of Yarriba.*' Whether this subjection is nominal, or more than pretended, it seems ihat the king of Dahomeh is a despot over the people of his own country. It has been observed that the Dahomans present a singular mixture of barba- rism and civilization, of cruelty and of noble sentiments. They are grave, dignified, generous, and hospitable towards strangers. Their firmness and magnanimity has been com- pared to that of the old Spartans, but what the law was in La- cedaemon such is the will of the sovereign in Dahomeh. For him they live, for him they die in battle ; his orders are obeyed w ith a blind and fanatical obedience. All newly-born children belong to the king, as the offspring of a flock to the proprietary of the soil. Children are taken from their parents and receive a kind of public education. The natives of Dahomeh recognise in their chief a divine right to dispose of their persons and lives according to his unrestrained will. Yearly, he sprinkles with human blood the tombs of his an- cestors. It is treason to pretend that the king of Dahomeh is mortal like other men; that he eats, drinks, and sleeps. The king has a monopoly of all the women of his empire : a subject can only obtain a wife by the bounty of his sovereign, to conciliate which he must make a largess of 20,000 cowries, and, in conformity with the ancient African custom, must be- sides roll himself in the dust before the gate of the royal palace. The fetiss or tutelar god of the Dahomans is a tiger : to the Europeans who questioned them on the reason of this choice, they replied, " we must be content with him : that bet- ter God who has given so many good things to the w'hite men has not yet revealed himself to us." During the first half of the last century the Dahomans were a brave and w'ar- * Clapperton's Journey to Soccatoo, &c. Lander's Travels. OR DAHOMEH. 93 like people. Their king was accompanied by a guard of Ama- zons as valiant as the men. Gouadja-Troudo, the great Da- homan conqueror, overran Whidah, Ardrah, Torri, Didouma, and Ajirah. His name is consecrated, his subjects swear by it. He died in 1731 : his descendants have sunk into obscurity.* The specimens of the languages spoken in this part of Africa, as yet obtained, are very scanty and imperfect; and, with respect to the affinity of some of the nations, we are obliged to rely on the statements of travellers. We have the testimony of Norris, a well-informed writer, that the lan- guage of the kingdom of Dahomeh, is the dialect of the former kingdom of Great Ardrah, which extended from the Rio Volta to Lagos,-^!" and it has been shown by Vater to be extremely probable, and next to certain, from the relation of Des Marchais in the Allgemeine Historic der Reisen, that the idiom of Ardrah was identical with that of Whidah. :{: These may be considered as the five principal countries of the slave coast. The missionary Oldendorp has given some notices of two nations, termed Atje and Watje, who have nearly the same language, inhabiting the interior, and having for neighbours the Sokko, the Kassenti, and the Amina. Their dialects, in the specimens given by 01dendorp,§ have a great affinity with that of the Papaas mentioned by the same writer. All these have been compared by Vater with a short vocabulary of the Whidah language given by Labat ; and there seems to be no room for doubt that they belong to one speech. The Papaas, according to Oldendorp, are the people likewise termed Popos, and these indications of their affinity with the Whidahs are confirmed by the fact that, in the West Indies, slaves from Whidah, who are distinguished everywhere by their tallness of stature, and their activity, are generally termed Papaws.|| To the kingdom of Papaa, Oldendorp was informed that the tribe called Fong or Aifong belong, as well as the Apas- * Leyden's Historical Account of Discoveries in Africa, enlarged by Murray, Edinburgh, 1817- Ritter, Erdkunde, th. i. Hochafrika, 4 absch. §. 15. Dalzel's Hist, of an Expedition to Dahomey. + Dalzel, uhi .supra. :{: Mithridates, th. iii. § Oldendorp, Geschichte der Missionen. Vater, Mithrid. th. iii. 205. II Mithridates, th. iii. 94 RACE OF DAIIOMEH. su, Nagoo, and Arrada, whom the Feng have subdued. The Feng of Oldendorp appear to be the Foy or Fouin of Dalzel, names which, according to that writer, belong to the Daho- man people, and to their ancient country.* Dalzel informs us, that there is another powerful nation to the north-eastward of Dahomeh, who have occasionally over- run that country with numerous armies of cavalry. They are termed, according to him, Ayoes or Okyou. He conjectures them to be the Gago of Leo Africanus. Eyeo or Yan'iba is well known to lie in the same direction with respect to Da- homeh. Its inhabitants are probably the Ayoes of Dalzel. In their persons the Whidahs are described, and the de- scription seems to apply equally to all the nations of this race, as generally tall, well-made, straight, and robust. Their complexion is black, but not so jet and glossy as that of the people on the Gold Coast, and still less so than that of the Negroes on the Senegal and Gambia. They excel all other Negroes in industry and vigilance."'!' The whole coast of Guinea is remarkably flat and low, and the country continues to have little elevation to a great dis- tance in the interior. At the meridian of Whidah the flat and sandy plain, intersected only by rivers and morasses, displays no perceptible character for the space of one hun- dred and fifty miles from the shore of the Bight of Benin. Norris could obtain no account of chains of hills even beyond that region : the surface of the land consisted everywhere of vast savannahs, interspersed with groupes of palm-trees : the soil is fertile and well cultivated.^ Section VII. — Natives of Benin, and the countries adja- cent on the Bights of Benin and Biafra. Races of Ibo, Binin, Moko. We have less information respecting the native people of Benin and the extensive line of coast from the river Benin or Formosa to the rivers of Calabar, and thence southward to the mouth of the Gaboon, than respecting the inhabitants of most other parts of the African coast. • Oldendorp, p. 282. -)• Modern Universal History. X Ritter, Erdkunde Hochafrika. IBOS, MOKOS, BININ. 95 This coast is everywhere low, and confined either by sandy deserts or morasses ; the interior is in many places elevated. In the 4° of northern latitude, between the river Camarones and the Rio del Rey, a highland region, termed by the Spaniards Alta Tierra de Ambosi, has been compared, by voyagers, in respect to height, to the mountain of TenerifFe. The hilly country from which the river Gaboon issues, at the distance of a few days' journey from the sea-coast, is sup- posed by Ritter to be a part of the same highland tract. Behind Calabar the country is inhabited by a stout hardy race of Negroes, termed, as Barbot says, the Hackhous Blacks. The slaves sold at Calabar, brought from the inland coun- tries, are, according to the same writer, in general tall men, but weak and faint by reason of their ill food, which is yams at best. " Great numbers are exported from that river, ten ships sometimes loading at a time." Barbot gives a tragical account of the fate of these unfortunate beings. He says, " whoever carries slaves from New Calabar river to the West Indies had need to pray for a good passage. All the ships that loaded slaves with the Albion frigate, lost, some half, others two-thirds of them before they reached Barbadoes ; and such as were then alive died there as soon as landed, or else turned to a very bad market ; which, as he concludes, in the tone of a slave-dealer, occasioned a loss of above 60 per cent, of the capital. The evil was chiefly occasioned by the want of proper food and water to subsist the slaves, as well as other ill-management." The inland country above the coast is inhabited by the Eboes or Ibos, a people well known by name in the Eng- lish colonies. The territory of the Eboes is more elevated than the maritime tracts, but is thickly wooded. They have been described by Mr. Oldfield, in a late memoir on the diseases of the natives of the banks of the Niger. He says " that they are a fine race of people, and very superior to their neighbours who occupy the country of lower level, which borders on the sea." They are tall and robust, cap- able of enduring great fatigue, frequently paddling large canoes for forty-eight hours without taking food. Their diet 9G RACES OF IBO, MOKO, BININ. is better than tliat of the natives of the lower country, con- sisting of the flesh of bullocks of a small breed, fine goats, fowls, and an abundance of yams, the root of the dioscorea bulbifera. In colour the Eboes are much fairer than the neighbouring people of the coast, many of them being of a light copper colour. Their physiognomy is that of the Ne- gro, with retreating foreheads, flat noses, and thick lips.* Mr. Edwards, in his history of the West Indies, says, that all the slaves brought from Calabar and Benin to the colo- nies are termed Eboes, except a particular class distinguished by the name of Mokos. In complexion they are much yel- lower than the Gold Coast and Whidah Negroes ; but their colour is said to be a sickly hue, and their eyes to appear as if suffused with bile, even when they are in perfect health. Mr. Edwards adds, " I cannot help observing, that the con- formation of the face, in a great majority of them, very much resen\bles that of the baboon, the lower jaw being more elon- gated among the Eboes than in any other Africans." I have examined the skull of an Ibo in the collection of Mr. W. Coates, of Clifton, which displays the Negro charac- ter ; but not in an exaggerated degree. In weight and den- sity it resembles the majority of European skulls, and it is very much lighter than the cranium of a Gipsey in the same collection. The forehead is as much expanded as in many European heads, but the jaws are prominent, though not in so great a degree as in the cranium of Philip Bernard, figured in the first volume of this work. The temporal bone is fully separated on the side of the head from the frontal bone, by an extensive juncture of the parietal with the sphenoidal, contrary to the fact observed in the skull of an Ashanti, re- presented in the plate to which I have already referred. Section VIII. — General observations on the physical cha- racters of the nations mentioned in the foregoing chapter^ and specimens of their languages. It would be premature to attempt in this place any exten- * Oldfield in Lond. Med. and Surg. Jo., Oct. 1835. NATIONS OF WESTERN AFRICA. 97 sive generalization, but it may be interesting to my readers to trace some instances in which the physical characters of the races already described, bear a reference to particular conditions. 1. On reviewing the descriptions of all the races enume- rated, we may observe a relation between their physical character and their moral condition. Tribes having what is termed the Negro character in the most striking degree are the least civilized. The Papels, Bisagos, I.bos, who are in the greatest degree remarkable for deformed countenances, projecting jaws, flat foreheads, and for other Negro pecu- liarities, are the most savage and morally degraded of the nations hitherto described. The converse of this remark is applicable to all the most civilized races. The Fulahs, Mandingos, and some of the Dahomeh and Inta nations have, as far as form is concerned, nearly European counte- nances and a corresponding configuration of the head. 2. In general the tribes inhabiting elevated countries in the interior are very superior to those who dwell on low tracts on the sea-coast, and this superiority is manifest both in mental and bodily qualities. Not only the Mandingos and Fulahs, but all the other races yet described, who are abori- gines of mountainous regions, are more intelligent than the maritime tribes, as well as physically superior to them. The lolofs, who are one of the most beautiful human races in Africa, may appear, in one respect, an exception to this re- mark ; but the lolofs are, in great part, an inland people. 3. In the region of Western Africa, surveyed in this chap- ter, we do not perceive any relation between latitude and the colours of human races. But the extent of country is only from the tropic to the equator. The Fidahs, who are of a red colour in the highest and coldest parts of Senegambia, furnish one instance to which we shall hereafter find many that are parallel. The Fulahs are as much fairer than other African tribes as are the Kabyles of Mount Auress com- pared to the other Berbers and Tuaryk. The ten numerals will afford a specimen of the relation be- tween the languages mentioned in the preceding chapter. I have given in the first place those of the lolof which bear little VOL. II. H 98 JilATlONS OF WESTERN Al'UICA. or no ulliuity to any other. The Fiilah are nearly identical with those belonging to the idiom of the Felatah in the in- terior of Africa. The Mandingo, the Jallunkan or Jallonka, the Sokko, and the Susu evidently belong to one system of numeration : the idioms of the four last mentioned nations are more or less connected with the Mandingo, with which they probably form one family of languages. Kissi, the Timmani, the Bullom and the Kru, appear to be all peculiar and totally unlike any other language. The Ashanti, Fanti, Amina, Akripon, and Akkim, are varieties of one form: they exem- plify the relation between the dialects of the Inta race. The Whidah and Papah are dialects of the race of Foy, behind the Slave Coast. The Ibo, Binin, and Moko, are the idioms of nations further eastward : they appear to be related among themselves.* Some further specimens of the same languages will be found in a table at the end of the fifth chapter. * These specimens are chiefly taken from Oldendorp's Geschichte der Blission der Evangelischen Briider ; and some of them from Mrs. Kilham's Specimens of African Languages. K 99 e £ M CL, &, C 3 = c4 O ns rt 5 .^ ^ ^ S .« ■" -a •= -s -^ ^ ^ 3 3 S -5 C 3 e« Ei .S -c •rr> -^ A 3 5 S S '« .s •-■ o ^? A A bC (U «3 2 c -a S £ 3 3 3 cr' 5 o 3 2 •I I ? -s - ^ 1 .A ^ ■ H 3 >- JL /^ _1 C ' — Kr be i «J H .S "> 33 " § 6 ^ •3 C 3 -3 -r .A .A S; ^a> 75 ;3 .s .2 3 > ^ c -a c £ .s .-. -Y :3 ■? -r -2 ;g ^ .S ^ ^ ^ '3 £33 3 £ £ 3 £ c _ i c 2 <* C I C (U E -* — was a place of great note in the time of that traveller, and the metropolis of the whole country. :[: So says Leo, but Mense or 3Iansi Suleiman was sultan of Mali, at the time when Ibn Batiita was in Africa, about one hundred and forty years later than the date assigned to him by Leo. There may, however, have been more than one prince of the same name. Mansi Soleiman, sultan of 3Iali, in Ibn Batuta's time, accord- ing to that traveller a most worthless man, governed Tombuktu by a black de- puty. The inhabitants were chiefly merchants from lyiitham, a district of Mali. It is but briefly mentioned as a commercial city, but not as one of the first importance- INTERIOR OF AFRICA. 105 inhabitants are very rich, and the present king has married both his daughters to rich merchants. There are many wells of sweet water, conveyed by sluices into the town : corn, cattle, milk, and butter are abundant, but salt is scarce, being brought from a place five hundred miles distant." " When I was there," says Leo, *' I saw one camel's load of salt sold for eighty pieces of gold. The king has a splendid and magnifi- cent court; he rides upon a camel, and his soldiers upon horses ; whoever addresses him must first fall down at his feet, and, taking up earth, must sprinkle it upon his head and shoulders."* The exchange of Tombutum is unstamped gold. " In lesser exchanges," says Leo, " they use small shells, brought from Persia, four hundred of which are worth a piece of gold. The inhabitants are of a mild and placid dis- position, and spend a great part of the night in singing and dancing. They have a great number of slaves ; their city is very liable to take fire : at my second coming thither, half the city had been reduced to ashes." " Cabra is a small unwalled town resembling a village; si- tuated about twelve miles from Tombutum, on the river Niger. It is a great emporium of the Negroes, subject to Tombutum. I am well acquainted with Abubakir, surnamed Bargama, the king's brother; a man very black in com- plexion, but most fair and kind in disposition." 5. Gago. " Gago is a great unwalled town, distant from Tombutum almost four hundred miles toward the south-east. The houses are said to be mean, but the country fertile, and enriched by traffic. These are the five nations who speak the language termed Sungai." * This custom was observed by Denham to be yet practised by tlie wild Ne- groes of Mandara, near the 3Iountains of the Moon. Such humiliating expressions of abject servility to their chiefs have long been noted as characteristic of the manners of Negroes. Ibn Batiita says, " Of all people the blacks debase themselves most in the presence of their king, for when any one of them is called to appear before him, he puts ofiFhis usual clothing, and puts on a worn-out dress, with a dirty cap, and enters the presence like a beggar, with his clothes lifted up to the middle of his legs : he will then beat the ground with both his elbows, and remain in a prostrate attitude. M''hen the sultan addresses one, he will take the garment off" his back, and throw dust upon his head." p. 240. I0(j leg's description of the II. The following nations belong to one class, and all of them speak the language of Guber : 1. " Guber is a kingdom surrounded by high mountains, abounding in cattle of small breeds, and containing villages inhabited by herdsmen A great part of it is overflowed by the Niger. It is situated to the eastward of Gago, separated from it by a vast and wide desert. This country was subdued in my time by Ischia, king of Tombutum." 2. " Agades is a town inhabited by a people who are the fairest of all the Negroes. The inhabitants are merchants and artisans ; althovigh Negroes, they are described by Leo as a nomadic people, and very similar to the Arabians in manners." 3. " The great province of Kano is situated five hundred miles eastward of the river Niger, abounding in corn, rice and cotton, and also containing many deserts and mountainous tracts. The king was formerly powerful, and had numerous troops of horsemen ; but has lately been tributary to the kings of Zegzeg and Kasena : he was afterwards conquered by Ischia, king of Tombutum." 4. " Kasena borders to the eastward on Kano. It is very mountainous, but produces barley and millet. The people are thus described by Leo. * Colore omnes sunt nigerrimi, maxirae nasuti, labra autem prominentiora habent, villissi- mis quibusdam tuguriolis atque casulis se continent.' The king was slain by Ischia, and the kingdom made tributary to Tombutum." 5. " Zegzeg borders upon Kano towards the south-east. In this country are many high mountains, where the temperature is so cold that the people sleep with fires in their houses. Part of the land is a watery plain, very fertile." 6. " Zanfara borders to the westward upon Zegzeg." The people are termed by Leo, " vilissimi atque rusticitati addic- tissimi." "The country abounds in corn, millet, rice, and cotton. The inhabitants are tall in stature, very black in colour; their disposition is said to be ' prorsus belluinum.' Both Zegzeg and Zanfara were conquered by Ischia." 7. " Guangara to the south-eastward joins Zanfara. The people are numerous, have a king of their own, but are un- INTERIOR OF AFRICA. 107 fortunately situated between Ischia and the king of Bornu." " When I was in Bornu," says Leo, " King Abraham, having levied a great army, determined to expel the prince of Guan- gara out of his kingdom, but he was hindered by Omar, the prince of Gaoga, who invaded Bornu, and obliged the king to return into his own country, and give over the conquest of Guangara." III. " Bornu is to the westward of Guangara, and is distant from the sources of the Nile one hundred and fifty miles," The people are said by Leo to go nearly naked in the sum- mer, and in the winter to be clothed with skins. They have no religion, and lead most brutish lives. Their prince was very powerful, and descended from the Lybian people of Bardoa. " His army of 3000 cavalry carries on war with a nation who inhabit beyond the desert of Sen, and who once invaded Bornu, on which occasion the prince of Bornu pro- cured horses from the merchants of Barbary in exchange for slaves, and first mounted his troops." "Gaoga is to the eastward of Bornu, and reaches to the con- fines of Nubia. The inhabitants are very rude, especially the mountaineers, and are almost naked. They inhabit huts composed of the branches of trees and leaves, and have nu- merous flocks. The prince of this country has formed an alliance with the Soldan of Cairo." Leo says, that he was himself in the house of this king when he saw him receive splendid gifts from Egypt. Nubia borders on the above-men- tioned region towards the east, and reaches thence to the river Nile. It is bounded on the south by the desert of Goran, and on the north by the confines of Egypt. The chief town is Dangela. Leo adds a number of particulars respecting the relations of Dangela with Suachin. He says, " the language of the people has great affinity with the idiom of those who inhabit Suachin, or that part of Ethiopia subject to Prester John. The name of this people is Bagiha. These," says Leo, " are the principal things which I have to relate con- cerning the land of the Negroes, and the fifteen kingdoms above mentioned, which are now subject to four princes." 108 GEOGRAPHY OF SUDAN. Section IT. — Further observations on the History of the N^ations of Sudan. Of the four races of Negroes, as distinguished by their languages and enumerated by Leo, three will come under our survey in connexion with the present division of African ethnography. The remainder, namely the Nubian nations, belong to the department of Ethiopian races inhabiting the countries bordering on Egypt and Abyssinia, which will be mentioned in the following chapter. The three principal races of the interior of Sudan, distin- guished in Leo's description by their separate languages, may still be recognised in the accounts of modern travellers. The language of Tombuktii termed by Leo, Sangai,* is spoken in the countries termed Western Sudan, though perhaps en- croached upon and limited in its extent by the Tuaryk on the north, and the Mandingos towards the west. The language of Guber is the idiom which travellers have termed the Hausa speech ; and the region in which this idiom prevails has been termed Eastern Sudan. The dialect of Bornii is now, as for- merly, a third distinct idiom. These three languages, in some of w^hich are included several dialects, appear to be so many mother tongues entirely separate from each other. ^ 1. Of the nations and provinces contained in Western Sudan. Among the countries inhabited by Negro nations speaking the language of Tombutum, Leo mentions Melli, a great region lying to the southward of Ginea. The real situation of Melli is unknown, but if Jinea is Jenne on the Niger, that province must lie to the southward of Bambarra and in the country now belonging to the Mandingos. The Felatahs in • Tombuktu is termed by lieo, Tombutum. The name of this place is spelt differently by European writers. Kosegarten WTites it Tumbuktu, but without any authority mentioned for so doing. Burckhardt wrote it Timbuctoo, as he heard it pronounced by the Arabs. Professor Lee writes it Tambactu from the manuscripts of Ibn Batuta, which have it pointed thus ^aXaaj Tanbaktu. See Professor Lee's Translation of Ibn Batuta, p. 237- WESTERN SUDAN. 109 Sudan profess, as Clapperton was informed, to derive their origin from a region termed Melli, to the westward of Tom- biiktu, and it is not improbable that they may have been en- croached upon and driven towards the east. The Mandingo language has apparently gained ground upon the Sungai on the western side. The Mandingos conquered Bambarra, and Mungo Park declared that the language of that province is a sort of corrupted Mandingo, which after a little practice he soon learnt, and could readily speak. But on arriving at Silla, a large town upon the Niger, he found that the ma- jority of the inhabitants spoke a different language from that of the western parts of Bambarra. He was informed that in his progress eastward the Mandingo-Bambarra tongue would be little understood, and that when he should reach the po- pulous city of Jenne, he would find that the majority of the inhabitants spoke a different language, which is termed by the Negroes, Jenne Kammo, and Kalam Sudan by the Moors. This Kalam Sudan is doubtless the Sungai of Leo, which is said by that traveller to have been the language of Ginea, Melli, and Tombutum. It appears that the language of Tom- buktu is still spoken at Sansangdi,* though that place is to the westward of Silla. A specimen of this language is af- forded by a vocabulary taken from the mouths of two Ne- groes, one of whom was brought up at Tombuktu, and the other a native of Sansangdi or Sansanding. This vocabulary was published in the Annals of Oriental Literature. By comparing it with the Mandingo dialects and with vocabu- laries of the other principal languages of Sudan, we shall be convinced that the idiom of Sungai or Sansangdi is a dis- tinct mother tongue. ■[J 2. Eastern Sudan. — Of Hausa and the nations speaking dialects of the Guberi or Hausa language. In the time of Leo the extensive regions intervening be- tween the empires of Tombuktu and Bornu were occupied, as we have observed, by nations who are said to have spoken • See a specimen of the language of Tonibukti'i and Sansangdi, given from a native of Bambarra, in Annals of Oriental Literature. 1 10 EASTERN SUDAN. dialects of the Giiberi language. In the times uhicii preceded tlie late conquests of the Felatahs in Sudan, these nations had become reduced under one Negro sovereign, or liad coalesced into one kingdom, which was that of Ilausa, so named from Haiisa the predominant state. The inhabitants spoke a dialect of the common language of the whole nation. According to Abdallah, an intelligent native of Guber, whose testimony has been cited by the learned author of a memoir on the geography of Africa,* the Guberi language differs from that of Kashna nearly in the same degree in which the Arabic of Barbary differs from that of Syria.-f- It appears from a vocabulary of the dialect of Hausa, collected by Lander, that the idiom of that province is nearly allied to the dialects of Guber and Kashna. The Haiisa language is the term now given to the common speech of this nation ; who ap- pear to be the second great Negro race of Leo, speaking the Guberi. The provinces of Kano, Kashna, and other former depen- dances of Hausa, have been traversed and described by Cap- tain Clapperton in his last journey, and by Mr. Lander.;]: These states, as well as Zanfara and Zegzeg, described above in the extracts from Leo, have been completely conquered or successfully invaded and overrun by the Felatahs. The most recent accounts of the interior states of Sudan confirm re- markably the accuracy of Leo's information. 5[ 3. Empire of Bornu. The empire of Bornii occupies the central region of Negro- land to the northward of the equator, and the Mountains of the * Annals of Oriental Literature. -f The reader will find parts of these vocabularies at the end of this section, ex- emplifying the relations of the principal languages of Sudan. 4: Guari, which is a place of considerable importance, appears to be the prin- cipal town in Kashna, as is Zaria, in Zegzeg. These countries are said by Blr. Lander to be very fertile and beautiful. Lander's Travels, vol. i. p. 196. Alorie, Rake, and other towns in the same province, built or inhabited by Felatahs, are more populous than those belonging to the Negroes. IMr. Lander says, that the Felatahs keep their race distinct from others, and retain the language and manners of their ancestors. Lander's Second Voyage, v. i. p. 208. EMPIRE OF BORNL^ 111 Moon. This appears to be a mucli more ancient empire than those of Hausa and Tombuktu, since the last of these was estabHshed shortly before the age of Leo Africanus ; and the empire of Hausa, subsequently to the time of that traveller, appears to have been raised on the subjugation of Guber, Kasena, and other provinces mentioned by Leo as independ- ent, or as tributary to the Negro conqueror of Tombutum. Bornu is described by Leo, in whose account we recognise some of the traits lately brought to our notice by Clapperton and Denham. According to Leo, the king of Bornu was in his time a powerful prince, and had a considerable army of cavalry, and splendid accoutrements. The people were destitute of religion : they had not at that time embraced Islam. Although Leo represents the kingdom of Bornu as a powerful state, it does not appear from his account that its dominion then extended so widely as it has done in after times. The people of Bornu are now Moslemin, but tribes of the same race still retain paganism, and the savage manners that belonged to them in the time of Leo. They are termed Bedees, and live in the mountainous districts. Their lan- guage is the same as that of the Bornoui, who are compa- ratively civilized.* The African traveller, Lucas, was informed that thirty dis- tinct languages were spoken in the empire of Bornu. These are the idioms not of the Bornoui themselves, but of tribes nominally or actually dependent on the Sultan of Bornu. The people of Gaoga are said by Leo to have spoken the same language as the Bornoui. Gaoga may perhaps be Eyeo, one of the names of the kingdom of Yarriba, to the southward of Borgo, among the dependencies of Bornu. According to some traditions which will be mentioned in a following sec- tion, the people of Yarriba are emigrants from Bornu, or of Bornouy origin.f If Gaoga is Eyeo, these traditions coincide with Leo's evidence, but this and other subjects connected * Clapperton and Denham's Travels in the Interior of Africa. •f- Nachrichten von dem Negerlande IMobha und einigen Nachbarlandern, Von U. J. Seetzcn, in Kahira, 1808. 112 EMPIRE OF BORNU. with the ethnography of Sudan, can only be elucidated satis- factorily by more extensive information concerning the lan- guages of the nations in the interior of Africa. I shall here subjoin the numerals in the dialects of the three principal languages of Sudan, and must refer my reader to a short vocabulary containing some other words in those lan- guages, and in those of Guinea and Senegambia, which will be found at the end of the present chapter. VOCABULARIES. 113 -« S- .r^ -^ ;= -^ Sdo 2 -a -C '2 m S3 £ 1^ r- ® S ^ '--» or ic g; -g bc-^ aj ^ e-i 22 c fi "S lo a, ^ -^ ^ a^ 'S 2 ^ i£ = := o 'C "53 3 S ^ 'o 'C 'o .^ ji 5; -^ a> S. -a .a < O • ^ •• > - 'cS o 0/ 'rt £ a s3 ^ ^ £ 0) ,5 £ 3 c -^ c ■ t-* < m > ■CI .n ••^ '^ ^ c4 tS ^ ^ ^ C3 t3 ' r*^ >^ C3 CS 03 ^ & .^ (N Ot -f .0 ^f ri M C5 O — (N © o — < ^ — !M O VOL. II. 114 OTHER STATES IN TflE ^ 4. Of other Negro states nominally or really dependent on the empire of Bornu, viz. Mobba or Bergu, Begharmeh, and Borgho. Several states in the interior of Africa of considerable ex- tent are said to be dependent on Bornu, and the people of some of them are reported to be colonies of Bomoui. To the eastward of Bornu is the region of Mobba, termed also Bergii or Dar Szaleih : to the south-eastward of Lake Tschad is Begharmeh : to the south-westward of Bornu and due southward of Hausa is the chister of states termed Borgho. All of these are said to have owed allegiance to Bornu. Burckhardt and Seetzen have contributed information re- specting Mobba and Begharmeh. • 1. " Bergu," says Burckhardt, " is the most important country next to Darfur and Bornii, in Eastern Sudan. It is divided into many provinces. Wara is the capital, or perhaps the principal state, the sultan of w hich has rendered himself master of many neighbouring countries, among which is Baghermeh or Baghirmah." A more detailed account of the region of Mobba was obtained by Dr. Seetzen from some intelligent natives of that country, with whom he conversed at Cairo. This was published by Baron Von Zach, in the Monathliche Correspondenz, from which I shall extract a few particulars. Seetzen obtained his information from two natives of Mobba, named Hassan and Abdallah. According to these persons, Mobba, termed by the Arabs Dar Szaleih, and by the inhabitants of Darfur, Bergu, is governed by a sultan, who is subject to the more powerful sul- tan of Bornu. Boi-nu is distant from Mobba a journey of sixty days. Three days' journey westward of Mobba is a great river, broader than the Nile, which flows from south to north. Hassan described the course of pilgrimage from Mob- ba towards Mecca ; mentioned deserts of fifteen days, termed Dar Kuh, which he traversed before arriving at Kordofan, the sultan of which resided in the town of Ibbejid (Obeid,) Thence he passed the Bahr-el-Abiad in small boats kept by the Negro Shiliikh, who are naked and pagan savages. Mobba or Dar Szaleih lies to the south-eastward of Bornu. INTERIOR OF AFRICA. 115 Hassan gave a particular account of the plants, animals, and mineral productions of Mobba. The inhabitants, according to him, are chiefly Negroes, who are all Moslemin : there are likewise many Arabs. The language of which Hassan gave Dr. Seetzen a specimen is spoken through the whole country : there are besides, other languages, of which the following are the names: Kadschenjah, Upderrak, Alih, Mingon, Mara- rit, Massalit, Szongor, Kuka, Dadschu, Bandalah, Masmajah, Njorga, Dembe, Malanga, Mimi, Kornboih, Dschellaba, Go- nuk, Kabka and Gurranguk. Hassan likewise gave an account of the conquest of Begharmeh, by the sultan of Mobba, who was incited to the undertaking by the sovereign of Bornu.* 2. Begharmeh is a country of considerable extent, subject to the sultan of Wara and Mobba. Its inhabitants are said to be the cotton-manufacturers of Sudan. Several different languages are spoken in this kingdom. 3. Borgho or Borgoo is a confederacy or cluster of states to the southwestward of Bornu. We might be tempted to imagine that this reduplication of almost the same name among the dependencies of Bornii has arisen from inaccuracy in the accounts obtained by travellers ; but if this be the fact we have no means of correcting the error. The western Bor- gho has been traversed by Clapperton, and was twice visited by Lander. The eastern is only known from the preceding accounts given by native Africans. Section III. — Of the People of Borgho and Yarriba. To the southward of Hausa, and between that country and the mountains of Kong, is the empire so termed, or the assem- blage of Negro states distinguished by the name of Borgho. By Clapperton we are informed that the chain of Kong rises in the Borgho country, which is behind Ashanti and Dahomeh, and runs thence in a direction E. S. E. through Borgho, Yarriba, and Laboo, into Benin, the chain being about eighty miles in breadth^ and in altitude two thousand five hundred feet. Another mountain-chain, which is perhaps a branch of the Kong, passes through Yarriba, Yuri, Zamfra, Guari, and Zegzeg. * Monathliche Corresp. Februar. 1810. BORGHO ANIJ Borgho is said to be bounded on tlie south by Yarriba, and on the north by a large country termed Gourma, which the natives of Borgho assert to be inhabited by naked savages; but the Mohammedans, by civibzed people. Borgho is di- vided into petty states ; Niki, Khiama, Wawa, and Boussa, the last situated on the Niger. The people have few cattle but plenty of corn, yams and other esculent plants. Their re- ligion i. Paganism, but they ofler no human sacrifices. The people of Boussa eat monkies, dogs, cats, rats, fish and mut- ton ;* the latter only after sacrifices. The towns in Borgho are populous. Niki is said to be the superior state in the empire, though this dignity appears to be disputed, and is sometimes claimed by Boussa. Khiama, the capital of an in- ferior province, may contain, as Clapperton informs us ac- cording to a moderate estimate, 30,000 people. Wawa is sup- posed to contain 20,000. The kingdom of Yarriba or Eyeo, supposed by some to be the Gaiio of Leo Africanus, is situated to the southward of Borgho.f It extends from about the 10th degree of north latitude to within a short distance of the sea-coast, occupy- ing a space between Dahomeh and Benin, from which last country it is separated by the Niger or Quorra. Dahomeh, Maha, and Badagry are considered as tributaries to Yarriba, of which Eyeo, or Katunga, is the principal town.± Captain Clapperton repeatedly assures us, that the people of Yarriba speak the same language as the natives of Borgho.§ We thus trace a connexion between the great empires in * Clapperton says, that he was with the sultan of Boussa, when his breakfast was brought in, which consisted of a large water-rat with the skin on, rice, &c. •f Eyeo or Yarriba in situation agrees nearly with the Gago of Leo, which is placed by that writer four hundred miles to the southward of Tombuktu. But Leo reckons Gago among the countries where the language of Tombuktu is spoken, while Kano, which lies between these two countries belongs to the Gubery family of nations. The language of Yarriba has no affinity to either of the Sudanian idioms. t Clapperton's Second Exped. p. 56. § Clapperton, p. 95. In p. 105 he says, " The language of the people of Boussa is the same as that of the other states of Borgoo, and appears to be a dia- lect of the Yarriba, but the Houssa language is understood by all classes, even by the Cumbrie." At the end of this chapter the reader will find a vocabulary con- taining specimens of the three principal languages of Sudan, viz. Tombuktu, Guber, and Bornu, compared with each other and with the idiom of Borgho and Yarriba, and with that of J^Iobba or Bergii, which are all entirely distinct. YARRIBA : STATES OF BORGHO. 117 the interior of" Africa or Sudan, with the countries on the coast. For Borgho is considered as an ancient dependency of" Bornu, and Yarriba extends to Badagry, which borders on the sea of" Benin. According to Lander, tlie king of Niki is styled, by way of distinction or eminence, the sultan of Borgho. His empire includes the following states : Niki, Bury, Khiama, Sandero, Kingka, Korokoo, Loogoo, and Funda. Boussa and Wawa are said by Lander to be no part of the empire of Borgho, but to form a separate country, where a different language is spoken and different manners prevail. It seems, on the whole, that the domain termed Borgho, is one of very uncertain ex- tent, and the relations of the tribes inhabiting this and the neighbouring countries are very little known. We have to regret the negligence so common among English travellers in collecting vocabularies, in aid of researches into ethno- graphy. It seems that the Niger or Quorra forms the eastern boun- dary of Borgho and the country supposed to be connected with it. On the opposite side of this river are the several states of Youri, Nyffe or Tappa, Jacoba and Funda. The inhabitants of these countries appear to be Negroes similar in description to those of Borgho and Yarriba. Clapper- ton assures us, that the language of the people of Coulfu, which is the principal town in Nyffe, is a dialect of the Yarribean language.* It is therefore highly probable that the people of Nyffe, and perhaps of other countries to the eastward of the Quorra, are, as well as the Yarribean people, of the same race as the natives of Borgho. The people of Nyffe are in part Pagans, of the same reli- gion as the Yarribeans. The figures on their houses are the same, viz. the lizard, crocodile, tortoise and boa serpent. They sacrifice once a-year a black bull, a black dog, and a black sheep, on a hill in one of the southern provinces. Many of the people of Nyffe, and a great proportion of those of Borgho, have embraced Islam. We are informed by Lander, that the people of Boussa, which he terms the principal state of Borgho, together with " Clapperton, p. 142. 118 C'UMBlil : NATIVE PEOPLE OF those of its sister provinces, Youri, Wawa, and Khiama, de- live their origin from Bornu. Lander says that the natives of these states preserve a tradition that the whole country was colonized originally from Bornu, which opinion all classes implicitly believe. He adds that, like the Carthaginians of old, the people of Borgho send annually presents by way of acknowledgment to their ancient country. This account is in some degree confirmed by the fact no- ticed both by Clapperton and Lander, that the Borgho peo- ple are not the aborigines of the country which they now inhabit. Remains of the ancient inhabitants are the Cumbrie people, a race of outcasts who are now driven into the moun- tains and forests, or have taken refuge in the islands of the Nile. The Cumbrie are described by Lander as a harmless, stupid race, of simple habits, who are treated with contempt by their neighbours and sold into slavery. Clapperton was informed by the sultan of Boussa, that the first people who inhabited that country were the Cumbrie ; that his ancestors and the people of Boussa and Niki, came into Borgho a long time ago from Bornu ; and that the sul- tans of Niki, Yarriba, Khiama, Wawa and Youri, pay tribute to Bornu.* He says, that the language of Boussa and the Borgho states differs only as a dialect from that of Yarriba. He thus describes the Cumbrie : " They are a lazy, harmless race of Negroes, inhabiting the villages in tlie woods near the Quorra in the states Boussa, Youii, and Wawa. They plant corn and yams, and keep a few sheep and goats. They are nearly naked, rather tall, more stupid-looking than wild. Their language difl^ers from that of the surrounding inhabit- ants." Li the province of Katongkora in Youri, the people of Wazo and Rajadawa, walled towns containing from six thousand to seven thousand inhabitants, are all Pagan Cumbrie. Clap- perton says, they are a fine, active, clean-looking people ; and in this part of the country the men and women are gaily dressed. It does not appear that they differ in physical cha- racters from the other inhabitants of Borgho, although it is * Clapperton, p. 103. BORGHO AND YARRIBA. 119 evident that they form a distinct, and in many respects, a pecuUar race. Several Negro states are mentioned by late travellers in the countries bordering on Borgho and Yarriba, and to the northward of Benin, as Jacoba andAdamowa; but whether tlie inhabitants are of the Yarribean and Borgho race or be- long to distinct nations we are not informed. Physical Characters of the Natives of Borgho and Yarriba. The people of Borgho and Yarriba speak the same lan- guage, though with some differences of dialect ; they may therefore be considered as forming one race. Clapperton assures us, that the general appearance of the Yarribeans had less of the characteristic features of the Negro than any other African people he had seen : their lips are less thick, and their noses more inclined to the aquiline shape than those of other Negroes. The same writer describes the sultan of Boussa as a finely-formed man, with a high forehead, large eyes, Roman nose ; his chin covered with about an inch and a half of beard. Lander says, that his features were more like the European than those of a Negro. He was struck with the regularity of features, elegance of form, and impressive dignity of manners and appearance in the sable monarch Khiama.* The men of Wawa are, according to Lander, in most in- stances, tall and well-formed, and the women handsome, having far greater pretensions to beauty than the natives of Yarriba or Khiama. The same writer informs us, in the account of his second journey, that many of the women of Larro, in Yarriba, are of a bright copper-colour, and that great numbers of the popu- lation of that town are fairer than mulattoes. Mr. Lander says that the people of Borgho are more cleanly than their neighbours of Yarriba, and would be more hand- some if they had not weak eyes. That part which in the eyes of others is perfectly white, is in theirs of a smoky yel- low. Clapperton makes the same observation of the people of * C'lapperton's Second Expcd. p. 57. 120 PHYSICAL CHARACTERS NyfFe. Lander says, when a Borgho man approaches the king, he stretches himself on the earth, and lies kissing the ground, and covering his head with sand or dust. This is exactly what Leo Africanus related that he had seen done by some of the natives of Sudan. Section IV. — Notices of the Physical Characters of the native Races of Sudan. We have but few and imperfect accounts of the physical characteristics of the different Negro nations in the interior of the African continent. The people of Bornu are described in the notices collected by Hornemann, whose account has been confirmed by late writers, as Negroes of a coarse and stout make. The men in Bornu, as in some of the eastern countries of the same great region of the world, prefer for their wives the largest females. The race of Bornv'i is of blacker colour and of Negro features more strongly characterised than that of Hausa or Afnu. The Gubery or Hausa race are described by travellers as much more handsome in their features than the people of Bornu. Hornemann informs us that they are " Negroes, but not quite black : they are the most intelligent nation in the interior of Africa : they are distinguished by an interesting countenance ; their noses are small and not flattened ; and their figure is not so disagreeable as that of the Negroes of Guinea : they are much devoted to pleasure, to dancing and singing." Abdallah, a native of Guber, whose account of his country and other parts of Africa, is cited by the author of a memoir already alluded to, is described as having the true Negro features and colour, but a very intelligent, prepossessing coun- tenance.* Mr. Jackson informs us, that the people of Hausa are acute, intelligent and industrious. " They possess a peculiarly open and noble countenance, having prominent noses and expres- sive black eyes." He adds, that " a young girl of Hausa, of • Annals of Oriental Literature, p. 537. OF THE NATIVES OF SUDAN. 121 exquisite beauty, was sold at Marocco when he was there for four hundred ducats, the usual price of a female Negro being one hundred.* According to the same writer the people of Wangara have very large mouths, thick lips, broad flat noses, and heavy eyes. Wangara or Guangara is described in the extracts from Leo Africanus. It adjoins Bormi, and it is probable that the people belong rather to the Bornouy than the Hausarace. Dr. Seetzen derived his information respecting Mobba from two natives of that country named Abdallah and Hassan, whose persons he has described. Abdallah had a broad flat nose and an uneven complexion, perhaps from small-pox, which often rages severely among the Negroes. In his mental faculties he appeared to be by no means inferior to Europeans. Hassan, who was Abdallah's countryman, was a man of very mild and gentle disposition, and displayed great sincerity and love of truth. His colour was black, but not quite of so dark a shade as in many Negroes, his nose less broad and flat, and his lips not so much turned out. He was of middle stature, and thin, and had a scanty and short beard. He had left his home with thirty-two of his countrymen, for the pilgrim- age of Mecca and Medina, without a para of money, with only a garment of white cotton cloth manufacture of his own country, and a knapsack on his head.f Section V. — Of the Falatiya or Felatahs. Scattered hordes of a race different in many respects from the genuine Negroes, have long been spread through many countries, very far to the northward and eastward of the " Jackson, uhi supra. ]M. Rozet declares that there are many Negresses in the Algerine country, whither they have been doubtless brought from the inte- rior of Sudan, and very probably from Hausa, who are of a jet-black colour, but with truly Roman countenances : " Elles ont le nez aquilin, les levres peu pronon- c6es, les yeux grands, et le front decouvert." He adds, that he has seen several men of exactly simUar features. See M. Rozet's Voyage dans la Regence d'Alger, tom. ii. p. 140. + Seetzen's Nachrichten v. d. Negerlande, in F. Von. Zach's Monathl. Corresp. 1810. p. 141. 122 HISTORY OF THE FELATAH Fulah states, living for the most part in forests and desert places, in small companies, and feeding flocks and dwelling in temporary huts. These people are partly Moslemin and in part Pagans : the former term themselves Phalatiya Arabs. They are, however, not Arabs, but a race of peculiar lan- guage and features. The discovery that they are a great ra- mification of the Fulah race, was made by the celebrated phi- lologer, Professor Abater. The indefatigable Seetzen is well known, during his abode in Cairo, to have made it his busi- ness to collect specimens of the languages of Africa from the pilgrims who passed through that city in their way to the holy places in Yemen, as well as from slaves and other persons, together with whatever notices he could obtain of countries in the interior. The communications of Seetzen with Baron Von Zach were partly published by that distinguished person in his periodical work, entitled * Monathliche Correspondenz,' and partly put into the hands of Professor Vater. Among the specimens of languages collected by Seetzen, was a vocabulary given to him by a native of Ader, a country of the Felatahs, in which Soccatoo is situated. On com- paring this with the vocabulary of the Fulah language in Barbot's Description of Guinea, Vater discovered with sur- prise that the two vocabularies belong to the same language. Professor Vater published Seetzen's collection of Felatah words, which amounted to a considerable vocabulary, in the first number of the "Konigsberger Archivs fiir Philosophie, Theologie, Sprachkunde, und Geschichte." Several years afterwards Captain Clapperton's journey to Soccutoo, the capital of the Felatah sultan, afforded full and satisfactory assurance of the facts which Vater had so long before asserted. Clapperton collected, during his last and unfortunate jour- ney, notices which throw much light on the history of the Felatah race. According to information obtained by this in- telligent and enterprising traveller, the Felatahs wandered out originally from the country of Melli,* under which term * It is an interesting fact that Melli is the name of one of the kingdoms men- tioned by Leo Africanub. RACE IN SUDAN. ' 123 they include the Fulah states in Senegambia, Foota-Torro, Foota-Bonda or Bondou, and Foota-Diallo. The wandering Felatahs, like the Fulah hordes in the borders of the lolofs, lived, as we have observed, in forests, and fed cattle. They dispersed themselves over the greater part of Sudan, and being everywhere disregarded and despised, their numbers were unknown. Many hordes still continued to be Pagans, but those who had embraced Islam became devotees and zealots for their religion : they performed the pilgrimage to Mecca ; many also visited the cities in Barbary. They increased in intelligence, but never formed themselves into a nation, until a revolution took place in their habits and character, parallel in many respects to the change induced among the Arabs at the first outbreaking of the Mohammedan enthusiasm. The author of this revolution was a Felatah Shiek, named Othman, commonly termed Danfodio, who acquired all the learning of the Arabs in Africa, and suc- ceeded in persuading his countrymen that he was a prophet. Having laid this foundation of his power he came out of the woods of Adei' or Tadela, and built a town in the province of Guber, where the Felatahs gathered round him. Being ex- pelled by the people of Guber, Danfodio with his Felatah followers returned to Ader, and built a town which they called Soccatoo. To the people of his race, who flocked to him from different countries, he gave different chiefs, telling them to go and conquer in the name of God and the prophet, who had given the Felatahs the lands and all the riches of the Kafirs. Each chief bore a white flag : the Felatahs were to wear white robes, emblems of their purity; and their war- cry was to be Allah Akbar. Their confidence in the super- natural power of their chief inspired them with valour. They conquered Kano without a blow, overran Guber, and killed the sultan : they subdued afterwards the whole of Hausa with Cubbe, Youri, and a partof Nyffe : they attacked Bornu on the east, and Yarriba on the west, of which they con- quered a part, and once entered the capital city Eyeo or Katunga. Danfodio was an object of terror among all the Negro nations in the interior. Some years before his death, Danfodio became religiously mad ; but until that time his 124 PHYSICAL CHARACTERS government was well regulated. At his death, in tlie year of the Hegira, 1232, (1816,) Guber, Zamf'ra, a part of Kashna, and Zegzeg threw off the yoke of the Felatahs ; but the present chieftain of Soccatoo, Mohammed Bello, has suc- ceeded in reducing a great part of the country under his dominion. Similar accounts of the progress of the Felatahs were given to Mr. Lander, who, in his passage through different Negro states, has collected many additional particulars relative to the conquests and dispersion of that people. He says that the Felatahs in former times never resided in towns, but wan- dered with their flocks and herds, in small companies. " They stole into Hausa" imperceptibly, and were at length so nu- merous in that country as to be enabled to form a powerful combination for its conquest, and the establishment of their own empire of Soccatoo.* Most of the Felatahs are Moslemin, but many hordes are still Pagans : both Clapperton and Lander declare that these are precisely the same people in other respects, that they have exactly the same language, and the same features and complexion. Lander says that they have been dispersed over the Borgho territory from time immemorial. The Felatahs in Borgho maintain no inter- course with people of their own kindred in Haiisa, where they are the dominant race, nor have they the slightest idea or tradition of their origin. They are generally termed Fou- lanie, and speak, as Lander says, the same language, and follow the same pursuits as the Fulahs near Sierra Leone. We have not obtained much additional information as to the physical history of the Felatah or Fulah race from the English travellers who have met with them in the interior of Sudan. Captain Clapperton says merely, that all the Fe- latah hordes which he met with between Boussa and the sea, had the same featm-es and colour. " Their complexion is as fair as that of the lower class of Portuguese and Spa- niards." All variations from this he attributes to intermix- ture of race with the Negroes. If we were to form our opi- nion from this account, we should suppose the principal body * Lander's First Journey, vol. i. p. 25. OF THE FELATAHS IN SUDAN. 125 of the Felatali nation to be merely a tribe of Mulattoes. But they are very differently described by other writers who have had opportunities of observing them. By Mr. Lander they are said to bear a near resemblance to the red or cop- per-coloured Kafirs of Southern Africa ; a resemblance so strong, that on it the writer, who had previously been amongst the Kafirs near Graham's Town, was led to found an opinion which he confidently expresses, that the Kafirs and the Felatahs are the same race.* The description given by M. M. Golberry and MoUien, of the Red Poules, is the most accurate account that we have yet ob- tained of the physical characters of this race. On reference to this description there seems to be no doubt that the Fulah or Felatah race may be reckoned with propriety among the African tribes whose physical character differs from the European as well as from the Negro, and constitutes them a third class of nations distinct from both. To this class we shall have occasion to refer many of the native races of Ethio- pia or Eastern Africa. I shall conclude this chapter and the survey of the nations of the Western and Middle divisions of Africa, with a short comparative vocabulary of the principal families of languages already mentioned ; the materials of which are taken from the collections of Oldendorp, Seetzen, Vater, Mrs. Kilham, Clapperton, Lander, and the vocabularies given in the An- nals of Oriental Literature. The five first families of lan- guages, the idioms of Senegambia and Guinea, are nearly the same as those of which the numerals were inserted at the end of the fourth chapter, and the analogy in other parts of the vocabulary bears out the relation there observed between the numerals in the seveial dialects. The five languages of the interior are those belonging to the nations mentioned in the present chapter. It may be seen that they are all perfectly distinct. Thus we may infer that the races of men inhabit- ing the three principal divisions of Sudan, as well as those * He describes the Felatahs of Borgho as difFering little either in features or colour from the Negroes, but as having much longer hair, which they weave on both sides of the head into queus, and tie under the chin. 126 TABLE OF LANGUAGES. of Mobba or Bergu, and the Western Borgho and Yarriba are distinct, and constitute so many separate families of na- tions. The vocabulary marked Eyeo, is taken from a small publi- cation on that language by the Rev, J. Raban, published by the Church Missionary Society. This language is apparently identical with the Yarribean, of which the vocabulary is from Clapperton. 127 1-1-1 (U cS _ aj cs rt Tl ta -O "S-o"^ X M e c3 .QTZXi '"^ ■'^ CO cd G 4) c3 0) a C^ ^ 'm in S ^"^^ '•-, 1 EC tn .„. .r^ ...I .M rt to .- C .-i .i S £ o ca ^ fe s ^ c^ cd 5>, l^ 50 K »., 'C s o J3 ly u "V-- - 1^ .J. c3 aj « cs - "7 '*^'3 i "P"P .Z c 42 ^ o o c s c „^ 03 bO--; c ? S O ^ „ S c P 1 3 . kavas kusse sing itjeng san-ji 3 C 2 cli ^ 1 • ^N 13 D faJDiS 1 •^ CO hor hot- kuu ikk kun ^2.- e3 -;: tn "c e8 cJ c3 i §-5 cS be 'c i 1 3 « ._ cS 3 c S.S C C C s 3 C 3 . XI ,^ ^ ^ Cd Cd ^ 3 Ja be >^. 3 cd -S O _;^ 3^ 3 « .- £ .i 0) -Q -C C T3 ed 5 'n = 5 cd O ? 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General description. 1 HAVE observed that an elevated region containing the sources of the Niger and the Senegal extends in the western part of Africa to the northward of that line which traverses the continent from east to west, and separates the mountainous wilderness of the centre from the level countries of Sahara and Sudan. A similar phenomenon displays itself in the eastern side of the same continent : around the source of the great eastern branch of the Nile, a high country, which has been compared by Humboldt to the lofty plain of Quito, ad- vances many degrees to the northward of the same traversing chain. Abyssinia, according to Tellez, is called by its inha- bitants " Jlberegran/'' or the Lofty Plain, by which epithet they contrast it with the low countries surrounding it on al- most every side. It is compared by the Abyssins to the flower of the " dengtielet,'' which displays a magnificent corolla, en- vironed by thorns, an allusion to the many barbarous tribes who inhabit the circumjacent vallies and low plains. To the southward of the country thus described, the high plain of Narea, or Enarea, reaches still further in the same direction, and serves like a stem to connect Habesh itself with the still more lofty mountains of Kaff'a, and the great elevated region of Central Africa. The high country, continuous with the plains of Narea, reaches, according to the information ob- tained by Tellez and by Brown, nearly seven degrees in breadth, from the sources of the Bahr-el-Abiad to those of the river Zebi, supposed to be the original stream of the Qui- limance, a river flowing southward into the Indian Ocean. DESCRIPTION OF ABYSSINIA. 129 On the northern border of Narea is Gonea, the residence of the bonero or sultan. On the lofty mountains of Kaffa, the native country of the Coffee-tree, snow is said to lie; the inhabitants, according to Mr. Bruce, are fairer in complexion than the natives of Sicily and Naples. " The kingdom of Narea," says Mr. Bruce, " stands like a fortified place in the midst of a plain. The people of Narea, as well as those of Kaffa, are Christians : they are surrounded on every side by hordes of Galla and other pagan savages, who wage against them perpetual conflicts. The highlands of Abyssinia, properly so termed, reach from the southern provinces of Shoa or Efat which are not far distant from Enarea under the ninth degree, to Tscherkin and Wal- dubba under the fifteenth of northern latitude, where they make a sudden and often precipitous descent into the low forests occupied by Shangalla Negroes. From east to west they extend over nine degrees of longitude. Rising at the steep border or terrass of Taranta from the low tract along the Arabian Gulf, they reach to the mountains of Fazoclo, Dyre and Touggoula, which overhang the low, sandy deserts of Sennaar and the valleys of Kordofan.* By a minute and elaborate analysis of the information gained by Tellez and other Jesuits, and by MM. Bruce and Salt, Professor Ritter has shown that the high country of Habesh consists of three terrasses, or distinct table-lands, which rise one above another, and of which the several grades or ascents offer themselves in succession to the traveller who advances from the shore of the Red Sea. ^ 2. 1*^ Level. Plain of the Baharnegash. After traversing the low and arid plain of Samhara, inha- bited by the black Danakil and Dumboeta, the traveller ascends the heights of Taranta and enters upon the first of these terrasses, which is the country of the Baharnegash, the negush or sultan of the maritime part of Habesh. Here the aspect of nature is observed to change. The acacias and mi- • Ritter, Erdkunde, 1 Theil. s. 168. 3r. Abschnitt, Nordrand von Hochafrika auf der Ostseite. VOL. II. K 130 t)UTLINE Ol' THE PHYSICAL mosas, characteristic of the burning sands of Nubia and the shores of the Red Sea, disappear, and give place to forests of tamarinds, which cover a surface diversified by hills. The herds of elephants, and the antelopes and numerous mon- keys which abound in the woods below these heights, are no longer seen in the plains above, where the singular kolquall, reaching the height of forty feet, reddens the forests with its crimson fruit, and, together with the thorny kantouffa, gives a new character to the still arid region. Here Mr. Salt found, in the month of March, the air of the plain hot and dry, and the beds of the rivers without water. In this plain is situated Dixam. ^ 3. 2nd Level. Kingdom of TigrL Above the country which submits to the Baharnegash, an- other ascent leads into the plains of Tigre, which formerly contained the kingdom of Axum. Tigre abounds in pasturage, yields in the year two harvests of wheat, of teff, and of raais, produces cotton, of which the people of Adowa make their dress ; and here the orange, the citron, and the banana imported by the Portuguese flourish only in gardens. At a somewhat greater height, but situated within this region, are the plains of Enderta and of Giralta, containing Chelicut and Antalow, principal cities of Abyssinia. The kingdom of Tigre comprehends the provinces of Abyssinia westward of the Ta- cazze, of which the principal are Tigre and Shire towards the north, Woggerat and Enderta, and the mountainous regions of Lasta and Samen towards the south. ^ 4. High Abyssinia. Kingdom of Amhara. The lofty hill of Lamalmon was supposed by the Portu- guese to be higher than the Alps and Pyrenees, but from it the mountains of Samen appear more elevated. These moun- tains, of which Amba-Hai appears to be the highest summit, form with Lamalmon and the mountains of Lasta, a long but not continuous chain, running from north-east to south-west, and separating the high land of Tigre from the still more elevated or Alpine country of the higher Habesh or the king- GEOGRAPHY OF ABYSSINIA. 131 dom of Amhara. The mountains of Lasta afford an almost impenetrable barrier. There are only two passes across them which are practicable,* The deep valley of the Tacazze, the ancient boundary of Tigre, flows along the feet of these mountains on the north-eastern side.i- Amhara is a name now given to the whole kingdom of which Gondar is the capital, and where the Amharic lan- guage is spoken, eastward of the Tacazze. Proper Amhara is a mountainous province of that name, to the south-east, in the centre of which was Tegulat, the ancient capital of the empire and at one period the centre of the civilization of Abyssinia. This province is now in the possession of the Galla, a barbarous people, who have overcome all the south- ern parts of Habesh. The present kingdom of Amhara is the heart of Abyssinia, the abode of the emperor or negush. It contains the upper course of the Nile, the valley of Dembea and Lake Tzana, near which is the royal city of Gondar, and likewise the high region of Gojam, which is stated by Bruce to be at least two miles above the level of the sea.;|: To the kingdom of Am- hara belong the provinces of Begemder, Menna, Belassen, Dembea, Gojam, and Damot. Those of Shoa and Effat, which lie further towards the south, were long ago dismembered from the empire of the Negush. This highest region of Habesh abounds with Alpine pas- turages and well cultivated plains, and is watered by abund- ant rivulets. The climate is an almost perpetual spring, inter- rupted only by tropical rains, which fall tempestuously : wintry snows as well as the droughts of summer are almost unknown. Mr. Bruce says that it never snows in Abyssinia. Mr. Gobat, the missionary, found snow in the higher regions, but it probably does not remain on the ground, and must be of rare occurrence. The mean elevation of this plain is esti- mated at eight thousand feet. The country is said to be ex- tremely healthy, and Ludolf declares, on the testimony of Abbas Gregorius, that the natives often exceed their hun- dredth year. Little, as Ritter observes, is known of the * Salt's Travels in Abyssinia. f Ritter, 1 Th. 3. Abschn. + See Lord Valentia's Travels, vol. iii. p. G42. 652. 712. k2 132 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. Alpine vegetation of Habesh, for most of the plants consi- dered as constituting the Abyssinian Flora belong to the lower regions. The oranges and citrons, and the sugar-canes of which Ludolf speaks as abounding in Abyssinia, are not found in the highlands, where, on the other hand, wheat and tefF produce rich harvests. The most characteristic plant of the higher region is the ensete, a palmiform plant, the banana of Abyssinia. The plains afford pasturage to numerous herds of oxen and horses. The open tracts are infested by innumer- able troops of hyaenas, which venture even into the streets of Gondar. ^ 5. Eastern Limits of Abyssinia. The high region of Amhara, or rather the province of Dem- bea breaks off towards the north-east, by a mountainous de- scent into the plains of Sennaar and Lower Ethiopia. Several precipitous defiles lead the traveller into the lower country. In the two principal of these, Tscherkin and Girana are the limits beyond which camels never ascend towards the heights. On the outskirts of the highlands and at their feet, are the vast forests of Waldubba and of Walkayt, abounding with troops of monkeys, elephants, buffaloes, and wild boars. The human inhabitants of these tracts and of the adjoining forests and likewise of the valleys of the Tacazze and the Angrab, are Shangalla Negroes, who in several parts environ the hill- country of Abyssinia.* Section II. — Enumeration of the different Races of People inhabiting the Abyssinian Empire. Several different races inhabit the old empire of the ne- gush, or Abyssinian sovereign, who are commonly included • Ritter, ul'i sitpra. See Bruce's striking and graphical description of this coun- try and its productions, in the fourth volume of his Travels. Bruce, returning through Sennaar, descended the hill-country by way of the defile of Tscherkin. M. Poncet entered Abyssinia from Sennaar, and ascended by the pass of Girana. See Ritter's Erdkunde, theil i. on Africa. The preceding outline is chiefly a short abstract from Ritter's elaborate account of the physical geography of this part of Africa. ABYSSINIAN RACES. 133 under the name of Habesh or Abyssins. They are clearly distinguished from each other by their languages, but resem- ble more or less both in manners and in physical character. There are other races different from the Abyssins in these respects, who inhabit the borders and outskirts of the em- pire, connected with its history, and sometimes partly sub- jected to its dominion. 1 shall now enumerate the former, and shall, in a future section, proceed to the latter class. If 1. Tigrani, or Abyssins of Tigre. These are the inhabitants of the kingdom of Tigre already described, or Abyssinia to the eastward of the Tacazze or As- taboras. They speak a language which has been termed by Tellez and Ludolf 'lingua Tigrana,' The kingdom of Tigre nearly coincides in extent with the old kingdom of Axum; on the history of which, and of the Geez or old Ethiopic language, I shall, in the sequel, make some remarks. % 2. The Amharas. The Amharas have been for ages the dominant people in Abyssinia ; the genuine Amhara are considered as a higher and nobler caste, as the military and royal tribe. Their ori- ginal country is supposed to be the province of Amhara, to- wards the south-east of Abyssinia: here at least was the capital of the empire, when the sceptre of the negush passed from Axum to the remote Shoa. The Amharic language, however, now extends over all the eastern parts of Abys- sinia, including various provinces, some of which appear to have had vernacular languages of their own. ^ 3. Agows. There are two tribes bearing this appellation who speak different languages, and inhabit different parts of Abyssinia : they are the Agows of Damot, one of the most extensive of the southern provinces, where they are settled upon the sources and banks of the Nile ; and the Agows of Lasta or Tchera, who, according to Mr. Bruce, are Troglodytes, living in caverns, and paying the same adoration to the Tacazze 134 RACES OF PEOPLE which those of Damot pay to the Nile. According to Bruce their appelation is Ag-oha, or Shepherds of the River ; and the fact of their bearing the same name is no proof of kin- dred origin. Mr. Salt terms the last-mentioned tribe Agows of the Tacazze. He says that the country inhabited by them extends from Lasta to the borders of Shire; from which it appears that they reach nearly through the whole of Abys- sinia, occupying the banks of the river, and dwelling between Tigre and Amhara. From a vocabulary of their language which Mr. Salt has given, we discover that they are a dis- tinct race from the Tigrani, as well as from the Amhara. They scarcely differ from the other Abyssinians in physical character, except that the Agows are, according to Salt, " on the whole a stouter race, and in general not so active in their habits." Mr. Salt says, that they were converted to Christi- anity in the seventeenth century, and are very strict in their devotions. The people of each village assemble before the doors of their chiefs at the earliest dawn, and recite their prayers in a rude chorus. U 4. The Falasha. The Falasha are a people whose present condition suggests many curious inquiries, and the investigation of whose his- tory may hereafter throw light on that of the Abyssinians and of their literature and ecclesiastical antiquities. Bruce has given an account of their traditions which are evidently in a great measure fabulous. They are all Jews as to reli- gion, and probably were such before the era of the conver- sion of the Abyssins to Christianity ; and the fact that they have in use among them the Gheez version of the Old Tes- tament affords, in Mr. Bruce 's opinion, a strong argument that that version existed in Abyssinia before the time of Fru- mentius, who is believed by Ludolf to have been the author of it as well as of the version of the New Testament in use among the Abyssins.* The Falasha derive their origin * Ludolf says that they have among them the Hebrew Bible, but he weak- ens his testimony, or rather that of his informant, probably Gregorius, by add- ing that they use among themselves a corrupt Talmudic dialect. The Falasha language, of which Mr. Bruce has given specimens, and in which he brought with INHABITING ABYSSINIA. 135 from Palestine, but their language, which is said to have no affinity with the Hebrew, seems fully to refute this -preten- sion.* According to Bruce the Falasha were very powerful at the era of the conversion of the Abyssins to Christianity. They were formerly a caste of potters and tile-makers in the low country of Dembea, until, owing to religious animosities, and becoming weakened in long wars, they were driven out thence, and took refuge in rugged and almost inaccessible rocks, in the high ridge called the mountains of Samen, where they live under princes of their own, bearing Hebrew names, and pay tribute to the negush. Mr. Bruce found, on his return from Gondar, a detached tribe of the Falasha, termed Kimmout, who had been con- verted to Christianity, but retained the customs and language of their kindred.-)* They lived separately in a hill country to the north-east of Gondar. It is probable that the Falasha and Agows were at one period the principal inhabitants of the south-eastern parts of Abyssinia. % 5. Gafats. The Gafats are another tribe of people in Abyssinia, having a language of their own, and living on the southern banks of the Nile, near Damot. According to Mr. Bruce, they have always been pagans, if their own tradition is correct, and partakers with their neighbours, the Agows, in the worship of the Nile.+ 51 6. Gongas and Enareans. The people of the province of Gonga, according to Ludolf, constitute a sixth Abyssinian nation. They have a language distinct from all those above enumerated, but the same with that spoken by the people of Narea or Enarea, to the south- ward of Habesh. The Enareans have long been Christians. him a version of the Canticles, is now well known to be quite alien from the He- brew language. See Ludolf's Histor. jEthiop. lib. i. c. 14. * Vater, Mithridates, th. iii. -j- Bruce's Travels, vol. iv. :{: Bruce's Travels, vol. i. p. 402. 136 RACES OF PEOPLE. This country, according to Ludolf, was conquered by the negush, Melek Seglied, and the king was converted.* They resemble the Abyssins, and were reported by Gregorius to be the finest race of people as well as the most virtuous among them, or in their vicinity. 7. Ludolf enumerates the people of Camba, a kingdom or province to the eastward of Narea, among the natives of Abyssinia who have peculiar languages. He says that there are eight principal tongues in the empire of Habesh, but among them he mentions those of the Galla and the Shan- kala or Shangalla, who do not properly belong to the number of genuine Abyssinian races. We do not as yet know whether all the above-mentioned idioms are really distinct languages, or, what is more proba- ble, only dialectic varieties of a much smaller number of mother-tongues. We are assured by Ludolf, that the king- doms or provinces near to Arahara have languages which are akin to the Amharic but differ widely as dialects. Be- gember has a peculiar dialect. lu Angot, Efat, Gojam, and Shoa, one and the same dialect prevails. Ludolf seems to suppose the language of Gafat to be a very remote dialect of the Amharic, but he says that the idiom of Dembea is entirely a distinct language, both from the Amharic and Tigrana. It may be the language of the Falasha, who were formerly very numerous in Dembea. In a following section I shall make some remarks on the relations of the Abyssinian languages to each other and to the old Gheez or Ethiopic. Section III. - On the Physical Characters of the Abyssinian Races. The principal nations of Abyssinia, namely, those who in- habit the highlands, the Shangalla tribes who live in the low forest countries and chiefly beyond the limits of the empire being obviously excluded, bear a general resemblance to each other in physical characters, and may be said to have, in common, a national physiognomy. Considerable varieties of features and complexion have been remarked between in- ♦ Hist. Abyss, lib. i. c. 3. PHYSICAL CHARACTERS OF THE ABYSSINS. 137 dividuals, and in particular families ; but no traveller in Abys- sinia has reported that the people of Tigre are distinguished by any remarkable traits from the natives of Amhara, and we are expressly assm-ed by Mr. Salt, that the Agows very much resemble the other Abyssinians, under which name he evidently comprises both the races above mentioned, attri- buting to them a common character. By this national character of conformation the Abyssins are associated with that class of African nations which I have proposed to denominate by the term Ethiopian, as dis- tinguishing them from Negroes. The distinction has indeed already been established by Baron Larrey, Dr. Riippell, M. de Chabrol, and others. Some of these writers include in the same department the Abyssinians, the native Egyptians, and the Barabra, separating them by a broad line from the Negroes, and by almost as broad a line from the Arabs and Europeans. The Egyptians, or Copts, who form one branch of this stock, have, according to Larrey, a " yellow dusky complexion, like that of the Abyssins. Their countenance is full without being puffed ; their eyes are beautiful, clear, almond-shaped, languishing ; their cheek-bones are project- ing; their noses nearly straight, rounded at the point; their nostrils dilated ; mouth of moderate size ; their lips thick ; their teeth white, regular, and scarcely projecting; their beard and hair black and crisp."* In all these characters the Egyptians, according to Larrey, agree with the Abys- sins, and are distinguished from the Negroes. " En effet les Negres Africains ont les dents plus larges, plus avan- cees, les arcades alveolaires plus etendues et plus prononcees, les l^vres plus epaisses, renversees, et la bouche plus fendue : ils ont aussi les pommettes moins saillantes, les joues plus petites, et les yeux plus ternes et plus ronds, et leurs cheveux sont lanugineux." With this description he contrasts that of the Abyssins, who are distinguished by large eyes and a " " Les Qobtes ont un ton de peau jauniitre et fumeux comme les Abyssins ; leur visage est plein, sans etre boufFe ; leurs yeux sont beaux, limpides, coupes en amande, et d'un regard langulssant : les pommettes sont saillantes ; le nez esl presque droit, arrondi a son sommet ; les narines sont dilatees ; la bouche moyenne ; les levies epaisses ; les dents blanches, symmetriques, et peu saillantes ; la barbe et les cheveux noirs et crepus." — Description de I'Egypte. 138 PHYSICAL CHARACTERS fine expression of countenance, the inner corner of the eye displaying a slight curve ; the cheek-bones are more promi- nent, and form, with the marked and acute angle of the jaw and the corner of the mouth, a more regular triangle ;* the lips are thick without being turned out, as in the Negroes ; and the teeth are well formed, regular and less projecting ; the alveolar edges are less extensive : the complexion of Abyssins is the colour of copper. " These characters," says M. Larrey, " are common, with slight shades of difference, to the Abyssinians and the Copts. They are likewise re- cognised in the statues of the ancient Egyptians, and above all in the Sphinx, as well as several of the Egyptian mum-, mies. " Pour verifier ces faits," he continues : " j'ai recueilli un certain nombre de cranes dans plusieurs cimetieres des Qobtes, dont la demolition avoit ete necesite par les travaux publics. 'f- Je les ai compares avec ceux des autres races, sur- tout avec ceux de quelques Abyssins et Ethiopiens, et je me suis convaincu que ces deux especes de cranes presen- tent a peu-pres les memes formes." He says, that the mum- ray-heads found at Saqqarah, displayed precisely the same character, viz. the prominence of the cheek-bones, and of the zygomatic arches, the peculiar shape of the nasal fossae, and the comparatively slight projection in the alveolar edges, when compared with the corresponding structure in the Negro skull. M. de Chabrol in describing the Copts, says that they have decidedly an African character of physiognomy, which, as he thinks, establishes the conclusion that they are indi- genous inhabitants of Egypt, and identifies them with the ancient inhabitants. " On peut admettre que leur race a su se conserver pure de tout melange avec les Grecs, puisqu'ils n'ont entre eux aucun trait de ressemblance.";]: This African * " Les joiies forment avec les angles prononces de la machoire et de la bouche un triangle plus regulier." -|- Notice sur la contbrmation physique des Egyptiens, et des difFerentes races qui habitent I'Egypte, par M. le Baron Larrey. Description de I'Egypte, Etat IModerne, torn. ii. J Essai sur les moeurs des habitans modernes de I'Egypte, par J\L de Chabrol. Description de I'Egypte. Etat Moderne, torn. ii. part. 2, p. 361. OF THE ABYSSINIANS. 139 physiognomy is evidently the character of countenance termed Ethiopian, and not that of the Negro. Dr. Ruppell has Hkewise described the Ethiopian charac- ter of countenance and bodily conformation as peculiar and distinct from the type both of the Arabian and the Negro. He describes this character as more especially belonging to the Barabra or Berberins, among whom he resided ; but he says, that it is common to them with the Ababdeh and the Bishari, and in part with the Abyssinians. This type, accord- ing to Dr. Rlippell, bears a striking resemblance to tlie cha- racter of the ancient Egyptians and Nubians, as displayed by statues and sculptures in the temples and sepulchral excava- tions along the course of the Nile.* I shall have occasion to €ite Dr. Ruppell's observations on this subject more fully when I proceed to describe the Barabra. In the former edition of this work I selected the portrait of the learned Abyssinian monk. Abbas Gregorius, the friend and instructor of Ludolf, which was drawn from the life by Van Sand, and engraved by Heiss, in 1691, and which had been alluded to by Blumenbach in his " Beytraege," as a spe- cimen of the Abyssinian physiognomy.f Ludolf informs us, that Gregorius was of a genuine Amharic family, of the race of Abyssinian nobility, born in a town in the province of Amhara.;|; He says, " justse staturse et subnigri coloris erat ; capillos crispos ut cseteri jEthiopes, sed vultum liberaliorem habebat." There is something of the African type in the countenance of Gregorius, though scarcely approaching the Negro character. But the portrait of the Abyssinian bishop, engraved in the second tome of the modern division of the splendid French work on Egypt, affords a better exemplifi- cation of the Ethiopian physiognomy. A copy of it forms the frontispiece of the present volume. In this may be ob- * Reissen in Nabein Kordofan, &c. Von Dr. Edward Ruppell. -f- Beytrage zen Naturgeschichte, p. 87. J Gregorius said of himself — " Genus meum, 6 dilecte mi ! ne videatur tibi ex hominibus hmnilibus (esse) sed ex domo Amliara (est) prosapia nobilium, qui rectores sunt populi jEthiopici, Principes, Duces, Prassides, et consiliarii Regis Regum yEthiopiae, qui ad ofRcia promovent et inde deponunt, et im2)eiant nomine Regis." Jobi Ludolfi Commentar. ad prooem. Hist. jEthiop. 140 PHYSICAL CHARACTERS served the full anterior projection of the cheek-bone and the tliick lips, and somewhat puffed features described by Larrey. There is little hair or beard, but what there is is crisp in ap- pearance, and resembles that of Gregorius. Ludolf mentions the hair of Gregorius as if it were the woolly hair of the Negro, but he probably meant to describe that kind of tor- tuous and frizzled hair which is nearly intermediate between the straight and flowing hair of many Europeans and Asiatics, and the wool, so termed, of the genuine Negro, and which is found so frequently among some of the South Sea islanders and the natives of Madagascar. The portrait, however, repre- sents something very like wool ; and we are assured by Na- thaniel Pearce, the companion of Mr. Salt, who knew the Abyssinians well, that some of them have hair almost woolly. Mr. Salt himself, in describing the Abyssinians whom he first saw at Massowah, on his journey to Tigre, says that they were stout, robust people, with short, and almost woolly hair.* The complexion of the Abyssinian varies considerably. Mr. Pearce thus describes Tecla Georgis, the negush or emperor of Habesh, the descendant and representative of the ancient imperial race. " He has large eyes, a Roman nose, not much beard, and a very manly and expressive countenance, though he is a great coward. He has a dark shining skin, which is very sin- gular, as his father and mother were very fair for Abyssi- nians : his brother also was very fair, while he, the youngest son, is as dark as mahogany. The ras, Welleta Selasse, used to remark, * Black without and black within.' "f Pearce particularly describes the Abyssinians. He says " they vary much in their colour, some being very black, with nearly straight hair, others copper-coloured, with hair not so straight, some much fairer, with almost woolly hair, and some of the same complexion, but straight-haired." • Salt's Narrative, in Lord Valentia's Travels, vol. ii. p. 460. \ It is singular that such an expression should be used among such a people as the Abyssinians. Abbas Gregorius, on the contrary, reported that the Abyssinians admire their blackness, and consider it the most beautiful complexion. Ludolf adds, " Sunt qui scribunt Dlaholum ab ^Ethiojiibus albiun 2)iiigi." OP TJJE ABYS8INIANS. 141 Pearse was under the same impression as many other travel- lers, who attribute all varieties to mixture of breed ; and he says that " in the towns of Abyssinia you may find women, the mothers of five, six, or more children, the father of one having been an Amhara, of another an Agow, of another a Tigran, and of a fourth a Galla." But this affords no expla- nation of the phenomenon, unless it could be shown that the races who thus intermixed display, when separately consi- dered, some remarkable differences of physical character. The Agows, the Amhara, and the Tigrans are all similar races, and we shall find that the Galla do not belong to a different family of mankind. Intermixtures with Shangalla or real Negroes seem here out of the question, since all tra- vellers declare that they are a separate people, and in no de- gree intermixed with the Abyssinians. It would appear then that the diversities which display themselves are in a great measure simple variations in the breed, originating among the Abyssinian, as similar variations, but in somewhat less degree, are continually springing up in other countries where the external agencies of climate, temperature and situation are more uniform than they are in Abyssinia. The Abyssins, in a general point of view, are reckoned among black races. Niebuhr thus classified them, and even the Arabians so consider them. It is observed by the editor of Pearce's Travels, that in the History of Arabia Felix, collected from various Arabian authors, by Schultens, there are several accounts of the conquest of that country by the Abyssinians, and the epithets applied to them are — /. ,^^5-w- — Blacks, which Schultens translates " iEthiopes," and " Peo- ple with crisp hair" — crispa tortilique com&. One of their princes also, suing to the emperor of Persia, entreats him to drive out " those crows" who are hateful to his countrymen. Ludolf says that he was informed by Gregorius, that the children of the Abyssins were not born black, but very red ; and that in a short time they turn black. Burckhardt says, that the Abyssinian women are the most beautiful of all black women. The Jesuit Tellez, says of them, " As cores ordina- rias sam preta, ba§a, azeytonada, he a que ellos mays esti- mam : outros sayem vermelhos, alguns sam brancos, mas he 142 PHYSICAL CHARACTERS. hum branco exangue y sem nenhuna graga." Their ordi- nary colours are black, brown, and olive, and this is what they most esteem. Others are red — vermillion ! Others white, but their whiteness is exsangueous and without any beauty." A question which here presents itself is, whether diffe- rences of complexion exist among the Abyssinians bearing any relation to climate or the elevation of countries. The low and hot tracts which extend round Abyssinia to the west and north-west, covered with forests, and containing the plants and animals of tropical climates, are inhabited, as we have already observed, by Shangalla Negroes. To the eastward the low countries are occupied by Hazorta or Shiho, who are almost equally black, though not woolly-haired like the Negroes. The physical characters of these races will be described in a following section. Dixan, although situated at a considerable elevation above the coast, is a comparatively low region, governed by the Baharnegash. Mr. Salt informs us that the people here are of very dark hue, few of them having any claim to the term of copper-coloured, which Mr. Bruce bestowed on them. This remark Mr. Salt expressly applies to the inhabitants of all the lower parts of Abyssinia which he had traversed pre- viously to his arrival at Dixan.* Father Tellez reported that the natives of the high region of Narea or Enarea are allowed by the Abyssinians them- selves to excel all the other people of the empire, as well in physical as in moral qualities.^ Mr. Bruce declares " that the Nareans of the high country are the lightest in com- plexion of any people in Abyssinia." He adds, that " those who live by the borders of the marshes below are perfect blacks, and have the features and wool of Negroes, whereas all the people in the high country of Narea, and still more so in the stupendous mountains of Kaffa, are not so dark as Neapolitans or Sicilians.""!" Bruce makes a parallel observa- tion respecting the tribes of Galla, who will be described in the sequel. " Lord Valentia's Travels, vol. ii. + P. Tellez, cited by liudolf. X Hrucc's Travels, vol. ii. p. 'MW. NATIONS AND LANGUAGES 143 I shall leave my readers to draw their own inferences from these facts. Section IV. — Observations on the History of the Ahys- sinians, and their different Races and Languages. ^ 1. Of the Gheez, or Ethiopic, the Amharic and the other languages of Abyssinia. It is well known that the Gheez or Ethiopic language, the idiom of the so termed Ethiopic version of the Scriptures, and the other books which constitute the literature of Abys- sinia, is a Semitic dialect akin to the Arabic and Hebrew. There is no reason to doubt, that the people for whose use these books were written, and whose vernacular language was the Gheez, were a Semitic race. How, and at what era the highlands of Abyssinia came to be inhabited by a Semitic people, and what relation the modern Abyssinians bear to the family of nations, of which that people were a branch, are questions of too much importance in African ethnography to be passed by without examination. Gheez was the language of Axum, and the subjects of the Axumite sovereign at the period of their conversion to Chris- tianity. Frumentius, the apostle of Abyssinia, was consecrated bishop by Athanasius of Alexandria, and began the work of converting the Abyssins to the Christian faith soon after the 335th year of our era. It may be concluded that there was at that period a flourishing and powerful kingdom in Habesh, the people being of Semitic origin. The genuine Gheez is now extant merely as a dead lan- guage, consecrated to literature and religious uses ; it is no longer the national idiom of Abyssinia; the revolution in consequence of which it ceased to be such, is clearly traced in the annals of the empire, which up to that period, and perhaps for some time beyond it, are generally thought wor- thy of credit. The old royal family which reigned at Axum, at the era of the conversion of the people, was, several hundred years 144 HISTORY OF ABYSSINIA. after that event, supplanted by a new dynasty of princes, who in the historical books are termed the Zagean family. At the period of this revolution, one infant of the ancient race is said to have been preserved from the massacre which destroyed the rest. This child, conveyed to the distant province of Xoa or Shoa preserved the lineage of the ancient emperors. When the Zagean house failed at Axum, the government of the em- pire was removed to Shoa, about A. D. 1300, where the de- scendants of the old emperors are said to have been restored to their full sovereignty, and there the first Portuguese mission- aries at their arrival found the seat of the Abyssinian mo- narchy. Shoa is a southern province in the Amharic country, and the Amharic language thenceforward became the " Lesan Negush" or royal idiom of Abyssinia.*' The government being no longer in Tigre, Gheez, which was the ancient ver- nacular tongue of that province ceased to be cultivated ; it was from that period preserved only in books and used for ecclesiastical purposes. •!* The modern language of Tigre has thus been for five cen- turies a merely oral dialect. It could not fail to be modified by time and accidents. We are, however, informed by Ludolf, that the Gheez was formerly the vernacular language of Ti- gre, and that, although the dialect of that province has un- dergone corruptions in the lapse of time, yet the common idiom of the inhabitants is still near to the ancient speech. Ludolf assures us that the people of other districts in Abys- sinia consider the Tigrani as speaking the Gheez language ; and that, when they have any doubt about the meaning of a word in their Ethiopic books, they always have recourse to a man of Tigre for explanation as if the Gheez was his native and peculiar idiom.;j: * Ludolf, Prefat. Grammaticse Ling- Amharica;, item Ludolf, Hist. jEthiop. See also Brace's Abyssinian Annals. + Some writers have considered this supposed preservation of the old royal fa- mily of Abyssinia as a fable, and the revolution which occasioned the removal of the government to Shoa, as a real conquest of the Axumite empire by the Amharas. The result in either case was a change of the seat of government, whence ensued the adoption of a new national language and the abandonment of the old one, and the subsequent predominance of a new race. J liudolf, Comment, in Hist. vEth. AMHARIC LANGUAGE. • 145 The Aniharic, or modern Abyssinian, has been the language of the conrt and nobles of the empire since the period above noted. It is spoken through a great part of Abyssinia. The Amharic is not a dialect of the Gheez or Ethiopic, as some have imagined, but a language fundamentally distinct. Of this any person may be convinced who examines the grammar and dictionary of the Amharic compiled by Ludolf with the assistance of Gregorius, and appended to the dictionary and grammar of the Ethiopic* It is immediately evident that the Amharic has adopted from the Gheez a great num- ber of words, especially such as are connected with religion and the advancement of arts and civilization. A great num- ber of grammatical forms, as a part of the verbal inflections and of the pronominal suffixes connected with them, have likewise been adopted by the Amharas from the dialect of the more improved Axumites, and the state of the Amharic language might almost be compared in this respect to that of the Algerine Berber or Showiah, which, as Mr. Newman has proved, in an admirable and elaborate analysis of that idiom, to be so engrafted with grammatical forms borrowed from the Arabic, that it might easily be mistaken, as it has indeed been, for a Semitic dialect. The Berber, as M. Venture and Mr. iS'ewman have fully proved, is essentially and in the most original part of its vocabulary an idiom entirely distinct and devoid of any relation to the Semitic or any other known language. This last remark may be applied with equal truth to the Amharic. It is probably an ancient African language, and the original idiom of the inhabitants of the south-eastern provinces of Abyssinia.-f Agatharchides, in his account of countries bordering on the Red Sea, terms the idiom of the Troglodytes of Ethiopia — rrjc Ka/j.apag Xi^ig — the language of Camara, or as some read, Ka^apa Xe^ig, the Camara language. The people who spoke that language were, according to Agatharchides, Grammatica Linguae Amharics, quee vernacula est Habessinorum, autore Jobo Ludolfo, Fransofurt. ad Moen. 1698, and Lexicon Amharico-Latinum ab eo- dem. The same observation as to the distinctness of the Amharic from the Ethiopic was made by Vater. See Ulithrid. Th. iii. T Agatharchides de Kubro IVIari. VOL. II. r 146 ABYSSINIAN LANGUAGES. absolute savages. It is said that they Uved in caves, upon a coagulated mixture of blood and milk. They practised cir- cumcision, like the Egyptians. It is probable, that they were the ancestors of the more civilized Amhara.* The dialects of the Agows, according to Bruce, have some affinity to that of the Falashas. The comparisons of these languages which have as yet been made, leave this assertion subject to some doubt. There are, however, some slight indi- cations of resemblance in a short vocabulary of the idio'm of the Gafats, the Falasha, the Agows of Tchera and those of Damot, collected by Professor Vater.f These nations are perhaps the original inhabitants of the south-western parts of Abyssinia. The people of Gonga, who speak the language of Enarea, belong to the region still further towards the south. The Falasha probably became civilized and were converted to Judaism at an early period. Though their name is said to mean " Exiles" in the Amharic, it does not appear that they ever inhabited, since the period when they formed a distinct nation or clan, any country beyond the limits of Abyssinia. The languages of all these nations are essentially distinct from the Gheez and every other Semitic dialect. Therefore any inquiries that may be set on foot respecting the affinity of the Abyssinians with nations of Semitic origin, have reference only to the people of Tigre, or the ancient kingdom of Axum. ^ 2. Of the introduction of Judaism into Abyssinia. By some writers the early diffusion of Judaism in Abys- sinia and the neighbouring countries has been considered as an important circumstance in the history of that empire, and it has been connected with the introduction of a Semitic lan- guage into the kingdom of Axum. There seems, however, to be no relation between the two events, as the following con- siderations will render sufficiently manifest. Judaism appears to have been spread extensively in Arabia and the adjoining countries, before the introduction of Chris- tianity, and from that era till the propagation of Islam. The people of Yemen, including the Homerites or the tribe of Ham- yar, were divided between the religion of the Sabians and Ju- * Hudson, Geog. M in. i. p. 46. t Mithridat. Th. iii. JUDAISM OF ABYSSINIA. 147 daism in the age of Mohammed, and it would appear that many of the Arabian tribes had entirely adopted the faith and ordi- nances of the Hebrews. Judaism seems also to have reached Abyssinia and to have taken a deep root in that country ; for we cannot otherwise account for its extension over remote provinces, where it still subsists. The introduction of Judaism must have been previous to the conversion of the people by Frumentius ; for Christianity, when once planted, soon flourished, and it had so wide and early an extension, that in the time of Cosmas Indico-pleustes, Abyssinia, or at least the kingdom of Axum, was filled with churches and monasteries. But it cannot have been by the spread of Jews and Judaism that the Semitic race and language gained their reception and prevalence in Tigre. It was indeed among the southern or western people of Abyssinia, that the religion of the Hebrews is chiefly known to have prevailed. It was preserved long by the Falashas, about Lake Dembea and in the mountains of Samen, where, on the Jews' Rock, so termed, princes named Gideon and Esther still govern a tribe of people who profess Judaism. The Falasha, as I have already said, have a distinct idiom of their own, unconnected with the Semitic languages, and they have always been a separate race from the Agaazi, or the people of the Axumite kingdom. Moreover we have proofs to which I shall presently refer, that Judaism did not prevail in Tigre, or was not at least the religion of Axum at the era of the introduction of Christianity. The Axumites appear to have been at that period Gentiles, and to have worshipped the gods of the Greeks and Egyptians. It is very probable that Judaism was introduced into Abys- sinia, particularly the western provinces, through the medium of Ethiopia and the kingdom of Meroe and Napata. That country, for some time before and after the Christian era, is said to have been governed by queens who bore the name of Candace. A princess of this name is mentioned in the time of Augustus, whose armies subdued her territory. Another Candace, if not the same, is named in the Acts of the Apos- tles ; and it appears that among her subjects Judaism was not unknown. We learn from various sources of information, l2 148 HISTORY OF AXUM that the arts and polytheism of the Egyptians were also spread through the kingdom of Candace. Egypt at that time contained a great number of Jews, and it is probable that both Judaism and the Egyptian idolatry were spread from thence by way of Ethiopia and the Nile into the differ- ent provinces of Abyssinia. Perhaps the latter was predo- minant at Axura, while Judaism prevailed chiefly in the west. If 3. Historical notices of Axum and the Abyssinians. Few notices are to be found of Axum and the Abyssinians previous to the conversion of the people by Frumentius. Strabo has given us the sum of the information collected by Agatharchides and Artemidorus respecting Ethiopia and the neighbouring countries.* These writers were well acquainted with the kingdom of Mero'e, but give no account of the empire of Axum. The Axumite kingdom is for the first time distinctly mentioned in the Periplus of the Erythrean Sea, which was composed, according to Dr. Vincent's opinion, about the tenth year of Nero. In this work " Axomite" is termed a metropolis and royal city, and is said to have been a principal place in the transport of ivory to the Red Sea. The sovereign of the neighbouring country was, according to the Periplus, named Zoskales : he is said to have been a wise prince, and ac- quainted with the Greek language. A considerable trade with Egypt and with Aduli, was carried on in his domi- nions, which appear to have been very extensive.f After this period we find occasional and not very infrequent notices of the Axumite kingdom.]: Ptolemy, in his fourth book, mentions Meroe, which as he says forms an island, being bounded to the westward by the Nile, and toward the east by the Astaboras, or Atbara, which forms a confluence with the Astapus or Mareb. He afterwards proceeds to enumerate the inland cities remote • Strabon. Geog. lib. 17. Diodor. Bibliothec. lib. 'S. f Arriani. Peripl. Mar. Eryth. apiid Hudson, torn. i. t Vopiscus, in the life of Aurelian, mentions Axumites among the barbarian captives who followed his triumph. AND THE ABYSSINIANS. 1.49 from the rivers, and among these names Auxoume, in which he says there is a palace or royal residence.* Stephanus of Byzantium likewise mentions " Axuraites :" so he terms the metropolis of the Ethiopians.f The most authentic document relatino- to the kinodom of Abyssinia in early times, is the inscription discovered by Mr. Salt, on an obelisk at Axum. It is in Greek, and was made, doubtless, by Greek or Egyptian artists. It bears the name of Aeizana, a sovereign of Abyssinia, during whose reign, but at a later period, it is supposed that Christianity was introduced. It appears from this inscription that the kings of Axum claimed in that age an extensive sovereignty over many nations, among whom are mentioned the Home- rites or the Arabs of Hamyar. It appears also that the reli- gion of Axum was the Gentilism of the Greeks, and not Judaism. Aeizana is styled the son of Mars, and gifts are mentioned as devoted to the God of War. We have little information on which reliance can be placed respecting the Abyssinian or Axumite kingdom in earlier times. The chronicle of Axum, or the Tank Negushti, con- tains in the Gheez or Ethiopic language the history of a long series of kings said to have reigned at Axum from a period of remote antiquity. It begins with a mythical Serpent "Arwe," from whom the first dynasty descended. They were followed by a new line descended from Solomon and the queen of Sheba. This document is evidently, in the early parts, a mere monkish legend. It is proved to be unworthy of credit by the discovery of Mr. Salt, that the princes of Axum were previously to their conversion to Christianity, not Jews as the chronicle declares, but worshippers of Mars and the Gentile gods of Egypt. Beyond the above-mentioned period, researches into the antiquity of Abyssinia have uncertain results. The circum- stances which o-ave rise to the establishment of a Semitic colony, of a people so far civilized and possessing the arts of sculpture and architecture, acquainted with the use of letters and the Greek language, and worshipping the gods of clas- • Claud. Plolem. Geog. lib. iv. cap. 8. f Steph. Byzant. voce. Axuiniies. 150 ABYSSINIANS DESCENDED sical mythology amid the Troglodytes of Ethiopia, are likely to remain enveloped in obscurity. ^ 5. Abyssinians, a colony from Arabia. — Historical proofs. — Inquiry into the History of the Hamyarite Arabs. It was supposed by Ludolf and by Professor Murray, that the kingdom of Abyssinia was founded by a colony of Ara- bians. This opinion receives some support from a passage of Uranius, an ancient writer on the geography of Arabia, who has been cited by Eustathius, by Stephanus of Byzantium, and by Tzetzes. Uranius placed a people whom he termed ACao-rji'oi or Abaseni on the coast of Arabia next to the Sabeans, and reported that in their country myrrh and frank- incense were produced.* The supposition that the Abyssins are a people of Ara- bian origin has been strongly opposed by Mr. Salt, whose opinion has been adopted by a writer of no less authority than Professor Ritter. Mr. Salt has pointed out a variety of par- ticulars in the customs and habits of the Abyssins, which display a nearer resemblance to the manners of the ancient Hebrews than to those of the modern Arabs. The Abys- sinians appear to retain, in many respects, the ancient character of the Israelitish people and even recal the state of society which existed among the nations of Palestine, before their primitive and nomadic habits had become modi- fied by conquest or by the institutions of the Mosaic law. On this argument, supported by many striking facts, it has been contended by Mr. Salt, that the Abvssinians are an an- cient people of Ethiopia, of kindred origin with the Arabs as well as with the Hebrews, but not immediately derived from the population of Yemen or of anv part of the Arabian peninsula. If we allow their full weight to all the arguments brought forward by Mr. Salt and others in opposition to the opinion of Ludolf, they afford no proof that Abyssinia was not colo- nized from Arabia, which indeed affords the only possible way of ingress to a Semitic people into this part of Africa. Although the Abyssins may resemble the ancient Hebrews in many particulars more nearly than the Arabs of mo- * Stephan. Byzant. voce AQaffi'ivoi. FROM THE RAMYARITE ARABS. 151 dern times, it may still be supposed that in all these respects their manners and customs are equally like those of the an- cient Arabs, the children of Midian or of Amalek, or the sons of the East in the time of Job. If we were better acquainted with the history and character of the Homerites, or the Arabs of Hamyar, some centuries before the Christian era, it is ex- tremely probable that we should discover among them proofs of near affinity to the Axumites. Hamyar, in the southern region of the Yemen, is nearly in the situation where Ura- nius placed the Abaseni. It has the nearest local relations to Abyssinia. The Homerites are mentioned in the inscription of Axum, among the nations subdued by the sovereign of that city ; but this must have been by subsequent conquest or in- vasions made by the Axumites in the land of their proge- nitors. Ptolemy places the Homerites in the southern part of Arabia, between the promontory of Posidium forming the narrow strait of the Red Sea — ra arha T7]q spvOpaq Ba\aaar]<: — and the " Regio Adramitarum" or Hadramaut,* and men- tions in their coast a place termed " Arabise emporium," sup- posed to be Aden. The capital of the Hamyarites, accord- ing to M. Marcel, was Difar, near Sana'a, the ancient capital of Yemen. t They profess to derive their name and descent from Hemyar, son of Saba, great grandson of Kahtan,;}; the Joktau of the Toldoth Beni Noach. The Kahtanite Arabs are, as this learned writer observes, a distinct race from the Koreish, who are descended from Ishmael. He says, that they were at first Pagans or Sabeans, then became Jews, after- wards Christians, and lastly, Mohammedans. These two Arabian nations are said to have had different languages, but it is most probable that the diversity in their idioms amounted only to variation of dialect. According to Sale, the Hamya- ritic dialect spoken by the Kahtanite Arabs approached more nearly to the Syriac than the idiom of the Koreish or Ish- " Claud. Ptolem. Geograph. lib. vi. p. 153. + Memoire sur les Inscriptions Koufiques recueillies en Egypte, par J. J. fliarcel. Descr. de I'Egypte. Etat Moderne, torn. i. p. 525. % Marcel uU supra. See also the genealogical tables of the Arabs in the Pre- face to Sale's Koran. Hemyar stands in the genealogy of Kahtan, as the son of Abd Shems, surnamed Saba. 152 ABYSSINJANS J)ESCENDED muclites : these Arabs say, that until the time of their patrrarch Yaarab the language of" the family was pure Syriac* It was observed by Jiudolf, that the Gheez, or l^thiopic, has a near affinity to the older dialects of the Semitic language, and that even the roots of many Hebrew words which are lost in Hebrew and the other cognate dialects, are still ex- tant in the Gheez ; and Professor Murray, who, since tlie time of Ludolf, has devoted perhaps more study to the Gheez than any other European scholar, considered that language to be a very ancient Arabian dialect, approaching much moie nearly to the Hebrew than the Arabic of the Koran.-j- It is possible that an inquiry into the art of writing prac- tised by the Arabs of Hamyar and the forms of their alpha- betic character may throw some light on their connexion with the Abyssinians. Jt is admitted on all hands, that the Hamyarites were acquainted with the use of letters many centuries before the time of Mohammed. Their characters, which were termed " Al Mosnad," are said to be preserved on ancient monuments still existing : they were perfectly dis- tinct from the Kufic letters which were invented not long be- fore the time of Mohammed, in a city of Irak, and in which the Koran was for a long time written. But little or nothing- more is known respecting these Hamyaritic characters. Sale says that they were not separately written, but M. Marcel is of opinion that they were distinct letters, and supposes that they resembled the characters found in the Persepolitan in- scriptions, and consequently those of the Babylonian bricks. These opinions appear to be merely conjectural : the description would rather agree with the Samaritan or Phoenician letters, which may have been communicated to the Hamyarites at an early period by the Phoenicians who are well known to have carried on the traffic of the East, and to have made their con- stant resort to the havens of Yemen. It has been commonly * Salt. Prelim. Disc. p. 33. ■|- At the end of this section the reader will find a table of numerals in the He- brew, Arabic, Gheez, or Old P^thiopic, the Tigran, or modem dialect of the Axu- mite kingdom, in the Amharic, the Agow, and in the language of Arkeeko and Harrur, which, though spoken beyond the present boundaries of Abyssinia, are analogous with respect to the numerals to the languages of that empire, modified as they are by the Geez. FROM THE HAMYARITE ARABS. 153 supposed by modern writers, though Bruce would not admit that supposition, that the Gheez alphabet was unknown to the Abyssins previously to their conversion to Christianity ; that it was invented for the purpose of introducing among them the knowledge of the Scriptures. But no person who considers the complex and incondite system of the Gheez alphabet can for a moment entertain the idea that it was in- vented by Frumentius or by any individual acquainted with Roman or Greek, or even Coptic letters. The comparison of the Gheez alphabet with the different forms of the Samaritan and Phoenician letters, seems to decide this question : so many of the Ethiopic letters coincide in shape with the cha- racters of those alphabets as to leave no room for doubt as to their real origin ; and it is most probable, that the alphabetic system used by the Abyssins, was obtained by them through the medium of the Hamyarites. If the use of letters had been introduced immediately by Jews, the arrangement of the Hebrew alphabet would most probably have been ob- served. If, on the other hand, letters had been invented for the Ethiopians by Frumentius or his followers, they would, as I have before hinted, have contrived them on a simpler plan, and on one formed on the model of the more cultivated languages, ^ 5. Conclusion. Remarks on the physical characters of the Abyssinians. It seems on the whole most probable that the Abaseni whom Uranius placed on the Asiatic side of the Arabian Gulf, in the neighbourhood of the Arabs of Hamyar, were originally a branch of that people, the reputed descendants of Kahtan, who, at a period not to be ascertained, but pro- bably preceding by some ages the Christian era, passed the straits of Babel-mandeb into Africa, and gained possession of the kingdom of Axum. There, throuoh intercourse with more cultivated nations, and particularly with the people of Egypt and of the Ethiopian cities on the Nile, they acquired some knowledge of arts, and even of the Greek language and ar- chitecture. The kings of Axum embraced the polytheism of Egypt, abandoning the Sabaism of their forefathers ; they sub- 154 ORIGIN OF THE ABYSSINIANS. dued the neighbouring nations, who from being barbarous Troglodytes became partially civilized. Even the savage Am- haras adopted, in their southern provinces, much of the cul- ture of Axum, and in the course of ages became more power- ful and subverted the throne of the negush, which they trans- planted to Shoa and afterwards to Gondar. The phenomenon of a tribe of Arabian origin, transplanted at an early period, which we may date with great probabi- lity at some centuries before the Christian era, into an inland region of Africa, is interesting in a physiological point of view. The natives of Tigre, though Arabs by remote descent, having yet for their vernacular speech an idiom which may be con- sidered as a Semitic dialect, have become assimilated in their complexion and physical characters to the native Abyssins. It is an obvious conjecture that the resemblance of these races in the present day may have resulted from intermix- ture of stock or frequent intermarriages ; but it is perhaps more probable that the change which has taken place in the Asiatic people who originally founded the kingdom of the Axumites has been the effect of their abode in an African climate. In countries situated as are Tigre and Amhara, near together indeed, but separated by barriers with difficulty passed, such as the lofty mountains of Samen, and the deep valley of the Tacazze, itself occupied by a particular tribe distinct from both races, the masses of population could hardly have been intermixed in such a manner as to have become completely blended, and to have given origin to a third stock of intermediate physical character. Intermar- riages take place among nations living in juxta-position and under one government, and mixed families are formed ; but in some parts at least of either country the original type of each stock can hardly fail to be preserved. That the two races are not in fact thus intimately blended is proved by the difference of their languages, which is still preserved, and we may conclude, that if no other influence had interfered, the Arabian colony in Tigre would have preserved their Asiatic character of person with as much constancy as they have maintained the purity, or at least the distinctness of their speech. ABYSSINIAN LANGUAGES. 155 e s Z! ^ >, 1) ;5 ^ ~ i3 es u "> 3 5 -c S ^ g a .2 -^ s ■*: ^ -g j= ■— I *" 3 3 es s 1 ,c "« "X* W -S 8S S ii iJ * ^ c^ CO >o so eo o ® S «■ o o o •-I Ccriez et si fort dangereux que personne n'y ose passer, si ce n'est en caravanne." Hisioriale Description de I'Ethiopie. Anvers. 1558. Mr. Salt's Travels, p. 275. Mr. Salt has given various particulars relative to the history of the Shangalla tribes ill many of the countries round Abyssinia. See Salt's Travels, p. liTS, &c. HISTORY OF THE SHILUKH OR FUNGI. 165 hell. Two gaps or spaces, made, for the sake of commerce in this belt, the one at Tchelga, the other Ras-el-Feel, have been settled and possessed by strangers, to keep these Shangallas in awe, and here the custom-houses were placed for the mutual interest of both kingdoms, before all intercourse was inter- rupted by the impolitic expedition of Yasous against Sennaar. Ras-el-Feel divides this nation of woolly-headed blacks into two, the one west below Sennaar, and bordering on Fazuclo, part of the kingdom of Sennaar, as also on the country of Agows. These are the Shangalla that traffic in gold, which they find in the earth where torrents have fallen from the mountains : for there is no such thing as mines in any part of their country, nor any way of collecting gold but this. The other nation, on the frontiers of Sennaar, has Ras-el-Feel on the east, about three days' journey from the Sacamoot. The natives are called Ganjar; a very numerous and formidable nation of hunters, consisting of several thousand horse. The origin of these is said to have been, that when the Fungi or black nation now occupying Sennaar dispossessed the Arabs from that part of the country, the black slaves that were in service among these Arabs all fled, and took possession of the districts they now hold ; where they have greatly increased in numbers, and continue independent to this day. They are the natural enemies of Ras-el-Feel, and much blood has been shed between them, while making inroads one upon another, mur- dering the men, and carrying the women into slavery." Section II. — Of the Shilukh and the Fungi^ or People of Sennaar. The Abiad or White River, after cutting its channel through the mountainous border which runs westward from Fazoclo, passes among the hills and forests of Dyre and Touggoula and enters a vast plain. There it receives the waters of a great number of rivers never yet seen by Europeans, but of which the names are given by Dr. Seetzen, from information col- lected Irom Negro pilgrims.*' Here it also receives the waters of the Maleb, which descends, according to Bruce, from the ' Motmthliche Corresponclenz. Fcbruar. 1810. 166 HISTORY OP THE SHILUKH highlands of Enarea, more remote than the sources of the Abyssinian Nile.* After entering the plain of Sennaar, which is supposed by Rennell and Humboldt to be four thousand feet above the level of the sea,f the Abiad forms a great number of islands, many of which serve for a retreat to the Shilukh, a tribe of war- like and savage Negroes who infest the neighbouring country with their marauding attacks. The Shilukhs collect tolls in their country for the passage of the Abiad, in which river they gather honey and hunt the hippopotamus. These people were described to Dr. Seetzen by Hassan, an intelligent Ne- gro pilgrim of Mobba who had passed through their territory in his w^ay to Mecca.:|: The Shilukhs are completely naked ; they are pagans, and worship either trees or unhewn upright stones, like the maen-hirion of the ancient Britons. They are separated from Darfur by the .Bahr-el-Ada.§ We have some notices of the same people from M. Linant, in an account of his voyage on the Bahr-el-Abiad, published by the Geo- graphical Society, which agree with the accounts collected by Dr. Seetzen. It seems that the Shilukh have a permanent station or town near Aleis on the Abiad, but their capital, or the residence of their king, is at a place called Damah, much further towards the south. Some later accounts of the Shilukh given by European tra- vellers, confirm these statements of the Negro pilgrim Hassan. According to M. Linant, this people have a permanent station or town near Aleis on the Bahr-el-Abiad, but their capital or the residence of their king, is at a place called Damah further to the northward. They are described more particularly by Lord Prudhoe, who says that they are a people of enormous size. " Ibrahim Caschief, a man of five feet ten inches high, said he did not measure higher than their breasts. Men and women went perfectly naked : they possessed neither camels nor horses, and the cattle which they had was probably plun- der, the sickness after rains destroying both men and beasts. Their food was chiefly fish and dhourra. They had numerous canoes, some containing sixty persons : they are armed with * Bruce's Travels. Ritter's Erdkunde, Theil. i. t Ritter's Erdkunde. X Monathliche Correspondenz, nhisupia. % Mithridat. T. iii. s. 237. OB FUNGI, AND OF SENNAAR. 167 spears, bows, arrows, and clubs." " When Courschied Bey received some of the principal Shilukhs, they made him swear by the sun to do them no harm." It seems that they 'are true Negroes. It is stated in this narrative that the Shiltikhs are the first black people with woolly hair and Negro character on the Bahr-el-Abiad. The following account of them was given to Lord Prudhoe by Baady the late mek or king of Sennaar. " The Shelooks live in the islands of the Bahr-el-Abiad, above Waddi Shallice. Their great sheik resides in the island of Abba, and is named Arwegga. They have numerous canoes, which they manage with great skill, and are men of immense size and great courage. They wear no covering, and worship the sun and moon. The Denka live on the east bank of the Bahr-el-Abiad, part of their country being parallel (in the same latitude) with the Shelooks, and a part extending beyond them. The capital town is Damah, and their shiek's name Akone. They bury their dead in an upright position, and make of wood the head of a bull which they worship. At the age of puberty both sexes have a tooth drawn from the upper jaw. Among the Shelooks, Mariam is not an unusual name for the women. Originally the Denka and Shelooks were the same nation, but they are now quite separate and constantly at war. Both possess cattle in quantity, and are armed with long spears, w^hich they do not throw, but crouching behind their shields, wait the near approach of the enemy." It appears from further information obtained by Dr. Riippell, that the stations above noticed on the lower course of the Bahr-el-Abiad are not the ancient abode of the race of Shi- liikh and Denka. We are assured by that intelligent travel- ler, that the Shiliikh Negroes are a numerous and widely spread people in the country of Bertat, bordering on Fertit, and to the southward of Kordofan, beyond the tenth degree of southern latitude, whence they have dispersed themselves towards the east and north, along the course of the Bahr-el- Abiad.* The family of the Melek Baady, the sovereign of * Dr. Riippell's Reisen in Kordufan, &c. s. 133. c. 168 TRIBES OR CASTES the Fungi, who are a branch of the Shilukh, is said to have been originally from Teysafaam, a country in Sudan.*' It seems that the Fungi, the Negro nation who about three centuries ago are known to have made themselves mas- ters of Sennaar, were a tribe of this race of Shilukh. These invaders expelled the former inhabitants and took possession of their country, assuming the title of Fungi, which means conquerors.-f- The subjugation of Sennaar by the Fimgi took place in 1501, and from that period till the time the coun- try was visited by Bruce, twenty sovereigns had ruled over them. They had become Mahommedans, and had adopted the manners of the neighbouring countries, and they had ex- tended their dominion over the surrounding states. Kordofan and even Dongola were subjected to their empire, and these coimtries continued to pay them tribute till the late invasion of Nubia by Ismayl the son of Mehemet Ali. The people of Sennaar are no longer Negroes. Whether an abode of three centuries in the plain of Sennaar and a total chansre of the manner of life have been the cause of this alteration in their physical character, or whether it is to be attributed to intermixture of race, I shall not pretend to de- termine. Such mixtures have taken place, but, according to M. Cailliaud, they have given origin to particular castes which are distinguishable from the general community. I shall cite the account given by this traveller of Sennaar and its inhabitants, which appears to be the most accurate that has been obtained. He had better opportunities than his pre- decessors of acquiring information. " Tradition reports," says M. Cailliaud, or his editor, M. Jomard, " that Sennar was the abode of the old Macrobii who were conquered by Cambyses, over whom twelve queens and ten kings reigned: that afterwards came the Foungi who gave their name to a part of Bouroum, the country below Fazoclo, termed now Jebel Foungi. The Foungi are said to have come from Soudan ; they crossed the White River, and ar- • Journal of It. liw^. Soc. vol. v. j). 4!). t Bruce's Travels, vol. iv. ; C'ailliaud's Voyages, lorn. i. INHABITING SENNAAR. 169 rived at Arbagny." It would from this appear that the Shilukh of the islands, and the banks of the Abiad near Aleis are only a small tribe left by the main body of the emigrant horde on their way to Sennaar, after crossing Fa- zoclo from Bertat. At Arbagny the Foungi fought a great battle which rendered them masters of the country. These idolaters partially embraced Islam. This account was procured from the learned men of Sen- naar, by M. Cailliaud, who accompanied the army of Ismayl Bey. Cailliaud has given a chronological table which he warrants to be more accurate than that of Mr. Bruce. Ac- cording to it Sennaar was built by the Foungi in heg. 890 (a. d. 1484.) Twenty-nine kings have reigned over it 335 years, till Baady, the present king, all the kings having that name, was conquered by Ismayl in 1821. The Foungi con- quered Fazoclo about a. d. 1700. Fazocio and Bouroum are now tributary to Sennaar. M. Cailliaud gives the following account of the physical characters of the nations of Sennaar in general. " Les indigenes du Sennar ont le teint d'un brun cuivre ; leurs cheveux, quoique crepus, different de ceux des vrais Negres : ils n'ont point, comme ceux-ci, le nez, les levres, et les joues saillantes : I'ensemble de leur physiognomie est agreable et regulier." The same traveller observes, that among the inhabitants of the kingdom of Sennaar and the adjoining countries to the south, the results of mixture of race in the intermarriages of Soudanians, Ethiopians, and Arabs were frequently to be traced. He says that six distinct castes are well known in that countrry, the names and descriptions of which are as follows. 1. El-Asfar. The yellow people. "Les moins colores ; cheveux plats." These are nomadic Arabs who keep their race quite distinct. Their customs and habits are distinct. This race is from the Hedjaz: they speak pure Arabic. 2. El Akmar. " Les Rouges. Ceux-ci ont le teint rouge, les cheveux rougeatres et crt-pus, les yeux rougeatres aussi. Cctte race tient peut-etre des originaires de Soudan (meaning 170 CASTES IN SENNAAR. the Negro country) sa nuance caracteristique ; elle est la moins nombreuse." The red caste are evidently persons of the xanthous com- plexion. I have often alluded to the origination of this variety among the African nations as a phenomenon of not very rare occurrence, and I have noticed this particular in- stance, 3. El Soudan-Azraq : " Les Bleus. Leur couleur est cuivre ; ce sont les Foungis. 4. El Ahcdar. " Les Verts."—" Hair, like the Foungi"— It is plain that the general description of the " Indigenes du Sennar," above cited, is intended to apply to the Foungi. Features nearly Negro. 5. El Kat-Fatelobera. Partly of the first and partly of the fourth, that is, partly yellow and partly green. " lis ont les cheveux plats, parfois au peu crepus : le sang qui domi- ne en eux est celui des Ethiopiens, peuples agricoles, dont la couleur ressemble a celle des Abyssins, et qui doit tirer son origine de la race la plus nombreuse des hommes qui compo- saient la population de I'ancienne Egypte." M. Cailliaud in this instance, if he does not directly intend to describe the Barabras, seems to have formed his ideal de- finition of a common Ethiopian and Egyptian stock from that people. I beg to refer the reader to the account of the Barabra which he will find in the succeeding section. 6. Ahbits, Ahbd or Nouba. Ce sont des peuplades Negres venues de I'ouest, et qui habi- tant les montagnes de Bertat ou ils vivent isoles. lis ont les cheveux cotonneux, generalement noirs, un peu rouos : iis ont les nez moins plats, les levres moins epaisses et les joues moins procminentes que les Negres de I'Afrique Meridionale. Quelqu'uns ont la figure regulierement belle. I shall have occasion to cite some further accounts of the people here termed Nouba in the following section. I may here remark that the variety of physical traits generally noticed among these Negroes in this part of Africa, may ren- der it less diflicult to conceive that the Foungi are the real offspring of a tribe which three centuries ago resembled the Nouba of Bertat. TRIBES NEAK THE ABIAD. 171 Section III. — Of the Native Races of Bertdt, Fertitf Donga, Darkulla and other Negro countries to the southward of Darfur, Kordofan and Sennaar. These countries have never been visited by Europeans, M. Cailliaud is the only traveller who has been in the country of Bertat, and he was only at Qamamyl on the northern border of that region. I have already cited his description of the natives. Bertat is the region whence the Nouba slaves are principally brought. I have already quoted from Burckhardt, Dr. Riippell, and others an account of their physical charac- ters. Darkulla is a mountainous tract in the same great division of Africa. According to Mr. Brown the traders of Darfur and Borgho sometimes resort thither to buy slaves in exchange for salt, which they carry with them. The people are Pagans ; they are remarkable for honesty and cleanliness ; they are partly Negroes, and partly people of a reddish or copper colour. Brown says, that the slaves brought from Darkulla are of a red colour ; he places it to the south-west of Darfur. Probably it is beyond Begharme, and in the empire of Bornii. Donga and Fertit are the names of countries frequently mentioned by African travellers. Little is known of them. They are described as mountainous regions, covered with forests, near the sources of the Bahr-el-Abiad. Fertit is said to contain rich mines of copper.* * Caillaud, Voyages a Meroe et au Fleuve Blanc. See also Balbi, Abrege de Geographie. 172 HISTORY OF THE RACE CHAPTER IX. OF THE RACES OF PEOPLE INHABITING NUBIA AND OTHER COUNTRIES BETWEEN ABYSSINIA AND EGYPT. Section \.— Of the Barabra or Berherins.* The people who inhabit the valley of the Nile above Egypt, and from that country to Sennaar, give themselves the appel- lation of Berberi f By the Arabs they are termed Nuba. The same people in Egypt, where they are well known, are called Berberins. Their general character and habits are well described by M. Costaz, a member of the Egyptian Commis- sion, who was at Philaj in 1799J: * I have already made some observations on the name of Barabra in speaking of the Berbers of Atlantica. Many writers have identified these nations, deceived by the resemblance of their names. The Barabra were first distinguished as a particular race by M. Costaz in 1799, and afterwards described by Denon, Costaz, Hamilton, Legh, Waddington, and Burckhardt. Dr. Seetzen wrote a memoir on this race inserted in the " Mines de rOrient." He supposed them to be Berbers. Vater compared a considerable num- ber of words in the languages of the Berbers and the Barabra, and found only three which bear any resemblance, they are the following : Neck, in Berber, arguh ; in Barabra, gummurk Year esoughas szuaga Water aman amanga See Mithridates, iii. p. 129. Professor Ritter has made by far the most extensive researches into the history of the Barabra, and he has collected a great mass of information respecting them, chiefly from Arabian writers. Ritter not only attempts to identify the Barabra with the Berbers, but ascribes to them both an Indian origin. He supports this hypothesis with vast learning and extent of research. It still has the appearance of a paradox, and since Dr. Riippell discovered the root or stock of the Barabra in the Nouba of Kordofan, cannot be maintained with the least appearance of proba- bility. The last treatise on the Barabra is a learned and able paper in the sixtieth volume of the Edinburgh Review, I shall have occasion to refer to most of these works in the following pages. -)- Reisen in Nubien, Kordufan und dem Petriiischen Arabien, vorziiglich in (ieographisch-statischer Hinsicht, von D. Edward Riippell. Frankfurt am Main. 1829, p. 32. J 3Iem. sur la Nubic el les Barabras, par fli. Costaz. Description de I'Egyple. Etat Moderne, torn. i. p 399. OF BARABRA OR BERBERINS. 173 " The Nubians are neither Arabs, Negroes, nor Egyptians ; tliey form a distinct race with a peculiar physiognomy and colour, and speak a language peculiar to themselves, in which they are called Barabras. Wherever there is any soil on the banks of the Nile, they plant date-trees, establish their wheels for irrigation, and sow a kind of millet called dhourra, and also some leguminous plants. Their trade consists chiefly in cloth, which they buy at Esne, giving in exchange dry dates. The Barabras were, in 1779, under the nominal domi- nion of the Turks, and paid an annual tribute of dates and black slaves, which latter they procured from the caravans of Sennaar. They are in the habit of coming down into Egypt in search of employ, and are known at Cairo, under the name of Berberins. They are much prized for their honesty, in which they differ much from the Arabs their neighbours." Denon has thus described them : he says, " their skin is of a shining and jet-black, exactly similar to that of antique bronzes. They have not the smallest resemblance to the Ne- groes in the western parts of Africa. Their eyes are deep set, and sparkling, with the brows hanging over, the nose pointed ; the nostrils are large, the mouth wide, the lips of moderate thickness, and the hair and beard in small quantity, and hanging in little locks. Being wrinkled betimes and retain- ing their agility to the last, the only indication of old age among them, is the whiteness of their beard ; every part of the body remaining slender and muscular as in their youth."* We may observe here, that although Denon terms the complexion of the Barabras, a jet black, other travellers have described them as of a much redder hue, and it seems as if their colour varied from a copper tint to a dark shade. The accurate English traveller, Mr. Brown, observes, that the Nubian race commences at Assouan or Syene. In the island of Elephantine, the people are black, but in the opposite town of Assouan, " they are," he says, " of a red colour, and have the features of the Nubians or Barabras, whose lan- guage they readily speak." The following account of their physical character is given by M. Costaz: — * Denon, Voy. Egypte, i. p. 48. Aikin's Translation. 174 HISTORY OF THE RACE " La couleui- des Barabras tient en quelque sorte le milieu entie le noir d'eb^ne des habitans de Sennaar et le teint basane des Egyptiens du Sayd. EUe est exactement sem- blable a celle de I'acajou poli fonce. Les Barabras se preva- lent de cette nuance, pour se ranger parmi les blancs." Les traits des Barabras se rapprochent efFectivement plus de ceux des Europeens que de ceux des Negres : leur peau est d'un tissu extremement fin: sa couleur ne produit point un effet desagreable ; la nuance rouge qui y est melee, leur donne un air de sante et de vie. " lis different des Negres par leurs cheveux, qui sont longs et legerement crepus sans etre laineux. J'ai remarque plu- sieurs enfans dont le cheveleure etait melangee de touffes noirs et de touffes blonds : mais la nuance de ce blond n'est pas la menie que celles des Europeens : elle se rapproche beau- coup de la couleur de cheveax roussees par le feu : rien n'an- nonce cependant qu'elle ait ete produite artificiellement." It appears from the vocabularies collected by Burckhardt that the tribes termed Kenous and Nuba speak different dia- lects, but evidently belonging to the same idiom ; and M. Cailliaud assures us, that the people of Succot and Mahas understand the natives of Lower Nubia, or the districts near to Egypt. The Dongolawi also speak the same language, and it is the prevalent idiom, except among the Arabs, who are everywhere a distinct people from the Barabra, as far as Dar Shakie, or the country of the Shegya. Dr. Riippell gives a full account of the races inhabiting the province of Dongola; from it I shall translate some particulars which are very remarkable. " The inhabitants of Dar Dongola," he says, " are divided mto two principal classes, namely the Barabra, or the de- scendants of the old Ethiopian natives of the country, and the races of Arabs who have emigrated from the Hedjaz. The ancestors of the Barabra, who in the course of centuries have been repeatedly conquered by hostile tribes, must have undergone some intermixture with people of foreign blood ; yet an attentive inquiry will still enable us to distinguish among them the old national physiognomy, which their fore- fathers have marked upon colossal statues, and the bas- OF BARABKA OR BERBERINS. 176 reliefs of temples and sepulchres. A long oval countenance, a beautifully curved nose, somewhat rounded tov^ards the top, proportionately thick lips, but not protruding exces- sively, a retreating chin, scanty beard, lively eyes, strongly frizzled but never woolly hair, a remarkably beautiful figure generally of middle size, and a bronze colour, are the charac- teristics of the genuine Dongolawi.* These same traits of phy- siognomy are generally found among the Ababdi, the Bisheri, a part of the inhabitants of the province of Schendi, and partly also among the Abyssinians. I had not the opportu- nity of inquiring what relation the languages of these different races have among each other ; but the Barabra language, which is spoken from Gebel Deka to Wadi Ibrim and throughout the whole of Wadi Kenus, is to be looked upon as a Nuba or Negro tongue, from its words consisting of few syllables, and nearly all ending in vowels, and from its har- monious and soft modulation, a conclusion which is con- firmed by the fact that some words in the Barabra language, and in the Kordofan idiom of Haraza, Gebel Atgiau, and Koldagi are identical. Perhaps this affinity of languages is partly the reason why the Arabs settled in the country desig- nate the proper inhabitants of the province of Dongola, and especially the natives southward of Assuan, whose mother- tongue is the Barabra, by the general name of Nuba. This term the Barabra never use themselves, but it is the national name by which the free Negroes of Kordofan are charac- terised, as I know from various information. I will explain more fully the ideas to which this supposed alliance of lan- guage between the Nuba Negroes and the Barabra have given rise." " Many Barabra speak the Arabic, but very few free Arabs consider it worthy of them to learn the Barabra : both races * In other parts of the Nubian valley, as at Mahas and Succot, where the po- pulation is really intermixed or principally of Arab origin, Dr. Riippell informs us that " the handsome countenance of the genuine Dongolawi is no more to be found :" " Here," he says, " almost every profile varies, an indication of the mixture of different races : the majority approach to the long and coarse physiognomy of the Arab-Fellahs." Riippell, p. fJ.3. 176 HISTORY OF THE RACE keep themselves separated, and marriage connexions between them are, in the present time, of very rare occurrence."* It is not easy to conceive in what manner Dr. Rlippell re- conciles the notion that the Barabra are descended from the old Ethiopians with the opinion which he repeatedly expresses, that they are nearly allied to the people of Kordofan, unless he supposed that country and the valley of the Nile to have been originally inhabited by the same race. This was pro- bably his hypothesis, though, as we shall see, by no means supported by historical facts. In reality the proofs afforded by ancient historians are very strong in support of the con- clusion that the Barabra derived their origin from a country westward of the Nile, and not far from the situation of Kor- dofan. Dr. Riippell's argument, however, is of a different kind : it turns upon the affinity of language between the pre- sent Barabra and the people of Kordofan, a fact which was discovered by himself. " Kordofan is the term given by the Arabs and Egyptians to a tract of hilly country, which stretches out in a south- ward direction from the parallel of Haraza to the 10th degree of north latitude, extending about four degrees from east to west, measured westward from the Bahr-el-Abiad. The north- ern and western boundaries of this land, are uninhabited steppes ; in the south lie the forests, which are inhabited by the Fertit and Shilukh Negroes, the latter of whom have spread themselves to the eastward along the shore of the Bahr-el-Abiad, where they border on the districts ruled by different races of the Bedouin Arabs : namely the Mehamu- die, Hassanie, Beni Gerar and Kababisch Arabs." " Kordofan is properly the name of a little group of hills, situated half a day's journey to the south-east of Obeid, where the free Nuba dwell. The word Kordu signifies in the Koldagi language used here, Man ; the etymology of the word Fan is unknown to me. Whether the tract of land in- habited by the Nuba, which is designated by the Arabs and Egyptian merchants by the name of Kordofan, whose boun- daries I have just marked out, was ever united by a political * Kiippell, Physiognomik und Sprache der Bewohner der Provinz Dongola. Reisen, §. 5. OF BARABRA OR BERBERINS, 177 bond is an undecided question. So much is certain, that when the dominion of the kings of Sennaar extended over the re- gion of the Nile to the 20th degree of latitude, they kept under their protection a tributary chief in the plain country around Obeid, who exercised an indirect influence over the contests of the surrounding Negro republics. It appears that even in the middle of the former century, the princes of Darfiir raised a quarrel between this chief and the kings of Sennaar; for about twenty-five years ago the Fourian general, Melek Nakdum- el-Musallem, entirely dispossessed Melek-el-Hatshina, who was in alliance with Sennaar. Mussallem then resided in Obeid, and governed in the name of the sultan of Darfur, Me- hemet Ibn Fatel, until the year 1820, when he was beaten and killed in a battle at Bara by Mehemet Beg Tefterdar. Since that time the Turks have become masters of the country." " The population of Kordofan consists of three different races, who are distinct and speak different languages. They are 1 . Bedouin Arabs from the Hedjaz. 2. Colonists from Dongola. 3. The original natives of the country who are Nouba or Ne- groes." These last are again subdivided by Rlippell into two classes, the free Pagan Nouba who inhabit the hill-country southward of Obeid, and the conquered Mohammedan Nouba in the plain-country near Obeid and to the northward, who cultivate the land. The latter affect the Arabic language, though they also speak their native dialect. This native dia- lect is nearly identical with the language of Haraza and Koldagi. In Kadgikeel and many other villages to the south- ward of Obeid the Koldagi language is alone understood. Both the Nouba of the hill-country and those of the plain are Negroes and have woolly hair and projecting mouths, though the latter by the variation of their features sometimes give a suspicion of intermixture in their race. Dr. Rlippell has given a short vocabulary of the Koldagi language collated with several other Negro dialects, which last have no affinity with each other. On comparing the words of the Koldagi with Burckhardt's vocabularies of the Barabra dialects I find the following instances of resemblance, which allowing for the different orthography of the individuals who wrote the vocabularies, the uncertainty with which the VOL. II. N 178 HISTORY OF THE RACE words of oral languages are taken down, and the effect which a separation of some centuries cannot fail to have produced on the speech of unlettered nations, are strong indications of an original identity of language and of race between the Koldagi Nouba and the Barubra or Nubians of the Nile. Numerah.* Nouba OF the Nile. Dongolawy. werka Koldagi. 1. bera 2. ora todje kenju tessu tarschu fellad eddu iieddu 10. buri^ 11. bereberku 12. oure-to-je-ku Kensy. warum owum tosk kemsou didjou govdjou kolodou iddou iskodou dimnou dimiiidewaru dimin-tosk-ou ouogha toskoga kenisoga didja gordjoga kolodga iddouoga oskoda diniaga dime-tosko ouera ouoga towsko dika gorgo koloda idduo dimega A few other words follow. English. Koldagi. Kensy. Fire eka yk Head oar ork Mouth aul agiik Teeth gehl nelky Ear uilge uluk Day onial ougresk Night qualal ougouk Sun es masilk Moon nundo noogy Star ondou woussik Rain aveh anessik Wind irschu tourouk Horse chotg koky Ass andu hanoub Cow teh tyj? Dog boal welk Butter tes desk Shoe quare koresk Knife gnadu kandyg Man kordu ogedj Woman eadou ing Boy tondu tot lliver ser eesig Tree sahleg saleyg Bird Fowls i koker kowerta. Nouba of the Nile. eeeka ourka akka nyta okiga aly awaka mashakka norga windjega oniorka touga mortyga kadja tyga mokka noyga derka kandyga itga idenga tota amanga kowertyga Dongolawy. ik ourka chundeka okuga aouoka mashake ounatega kirgniata Olid vara monka senuga idingga cssigga galc'uela. okera (Scha- bun)-j- * The Kensy and Nouba are Barabra dialects, the specimens of which are taken from Burckhardt. The Nouba Barabra must not be confounded with the Negro Nouba. Though perhaps originally allied these races are now distinct. The Dongolawy is a third Barabra dialect : the specimen is from Cailliaud and from Seetzen. The Koldagi is a Nouba or Negro dialect spoken in the mountains southward of Kordofan. The only specimen of this language as 3'et obtained is in Dr. Rvlppell's work. -|- The S^^cliabun is another Nouba or Negro dialect. OF BARABUA OR BERBERINS. 179 The testimony of ancient writers, as far as it extends, affords support to the opinion thus maintained respecting the origin of the Barabra. In the time of Eratosthenes, nearly three centuries before the Christian era, the Nuba} were a distinct and powerful race ; they inhabited the left bank of the Nile from Meroe, the Atbara of modern geography, to the — ny/cwveg — elbows or angular windings of the Nile.* It is scarcely probable that a rude people, separated so long ago as this account would imply from the great body of their African kindred, could re- tain an oral language with such constancy that its resem- blance to the dialect of the Nouba or Koldagi could still be recognised ; but we have proof that subsequent emigrations were made from the countries in the southern desert. Proco- pius states, that when the emperor Diocletian visited Ethi- opia, finding that the country above Egypt yielded a scanty revenue, and was not worth the trouble of defending, he gave up a territory of seven days' journey in extent to the Nobatse. The whole region from Auxomis~Axum~to Elephantine, which an expeditious traveller might traverse in thirty days, was, at that time, principally inhabited by two nations, the Nobatse and the Blemmyes, the latter of whom harassed the Roman frontier. The Blemmyes dwelt in the inland parts at a distance from the Nile. The Nobatse were brought by Diocletian from their former abode, the city of Oasis, and were induced to settle in the valley of the Nile immediately above Elephantine. The Blemmyes, as we shall find, were the ancestors of the Bishari, and there can be no doubt that the Nobatse are the Nouba so called by the Arabs, or the Barabra. f It has been conjec- tured that the Oasis here described as the original country of the Nobatse may have been Abu Haraza, where the Koldagi language and people are still predominant, or even Kordofan itself. + The difference of names between Nubse and Nobatse is probably the result of accident. § The descent of the modern Nubians or the Barabra from * Strabon, Geograph. lib. xvii. ■f Procop. Cresar. Persic, cap. xix ; Legh's Travels in Egypt and Nubia. X Edinburgh Review, vol. Ix. p. 301. § See also Waddington's Journal of a Visit to some parts of Ethiopia, Appen- dix 3. n2 180 BARABRA DESCENDED the Nouba of the hill-country of Kordofan, seems to be as well established as very many facts which are regarded as certain by writers on ethnography. But the Barabra are not Negroes ; their hair, though frizzled and crisp, is not woolly. That a race of Negroes has become in the course of some centuries so far changed in their physical character is a fact which requires proof and consideration before it can be admitted. It may be worth while in the first place to advert to the account which travellers give us of the Nouba or Negro tribes of this part of Africa. We shall see that they in fact approximate in their native countries to the character of the Barabra and other Nubians, or at least resemble them much more than do the Negroes of the coast. Burckhardt says, "the name of Nouba is given to all the blacks coming from the slave-countries to the south of Sen- naar." He adds that the Nouba distinguish themselves from Negroes, amono- other circumstances, bv the softness of their skin, which is smooth, while the palm of the hand in the true Negro feels like w ood. He says, " their noses are less flat than those of the Negroes ; their lips are less thick, and their cheek-bones not so prominent. Their hair is generally simi- lar to that of Europeans, but stronger, and always curled ; sometimes it is woolly. Their colour is less dark than that of the Negro, and has a coppery tinge."* The mountainous country to the southward of Sennaar whence the Nouba slaves are brought is Bertat. Qamamyl, a district watered by the Toumat, which intersects the coun- try between the Abiad and the Abyssinian Nile, is a part of Bertat. This place was visited by M. Cailliaud, who has col- lected a vocabulary of the language, and has described the people of Bertat generally. His account agrees with that of Burckhardt. He says that the Negroes of Bertat are vigorous and well-made, and that their features, though African, are less strongly marked than those of the Western Negroes. He adds, however, that they have generally woolly hair, but that it is sometimes only curled and crisp.f • Burckhardt.— Nubia, p. .'}04. T Voyage a Aleroe et au Fleuve Blanc, par I\I. Cailliaud. Paris, 1826. FROM THE KOLDAGI NEGROES. 181 The Nubian race, from which the Barabra originate, were partly settled fifteen centuries ago on the banks of the Nile, where they have become partially civilized. Has the change which has taken place in their physical character (for their physical characters are changed, though they still have some resemblance to their primitive stock) arisen from an abode during so many ages in a climate different from that of their native wilderness, aided by the modifying influence of civiliza- tion and the habits of a settled and agricultural life, or is it to be ascribed to intermixture of race ? Those who are fully persuaded to regard all the varieties of physical structure which distinguish human races as permanent characters, will immediately decide in favour of the latter alternative ; but if we regard that point as still undetermined, and form our opinion from the circumstances and probabilities of the par- ticular case in question, we shall adopt, unless I am mistaken, a different inference. It may be observed in relation to this inquiry, that it is not easy to conceive how the abode of Arab hordes in dif- ferent parts of Nubia could produce a general modification in the physical character of the whole Barabra race. Occa- sional intermarriages have doubtless taken place, and the result has been manifest in individuals, but these inci- dental crossings of breed could hardly modify the whole nation. It is known that the impression of one such mixture is lost in a few generations. In order that the blending of families belonging to different stocks may produce a third tribe of intermediate character, it is requisite that the two parent races should be mixed in nearly equal propor- tions ; since when a few families of one stock are from time to time blended with a large population belonging to another the impression is speedily effaced, and the off"- spring becomes assimilated to the greater number. Hence intermixtures of whole nations or of considerable num- bers or masses can hardly take place in such a way as to give rise to an uniform intermediate stock. The result is always that in one locality one physical character, and in another a different type predominates. It is perhaps for this reason more probable that the uniform and general change of phy- 182 BARABRA DESCENDED sical character which the Nubian nation has undergone since their removal from Kordofan to the Nile has arisen from a different cause ; and this supposition seems to be confirmed by all that we can learn respecting the past and present cir- cumstances and relations of the two races of people who are supposed to have become intermixed. According to Burckhardt, Nubia was conquered or overrun, after the reduction of Egypt, by several Arab tribes, among whom the principal were the Djowabere and El Gharbye, who for some centuries waged continued warfare with each other.* In the meantime the Barabra, as we learn from many authorities, remained a separate people, and maintained the Christian religion, to which they had been converted in the sixth century.f Selim El Assouany, whose description of Nubia and Ethiopia is largely cited by Macrizi, says that the Nubians of his day were Jacobite Christians ; and he declares them to be a people of superior intelligence to the neighbour- ing nations. Salamoum king of Dongola, according to the information collected by Burckhardt, was a powerful Christian prince at the end of the thirteenth century. Ibn Batuta, who travelled in their country, found the Nubians a Christian people about the middle of the fourteenth century. The present inhabitants are Moslemin, and they pretend, like other Mo- hammedan nations, to be of Arabian origin, but Macrizi says, that the greater number of genealogists state them to be the descendants of Ham, by which it was meant that they were a genuine African people. :]: It would seem that in former times a total difference of reli- gion and manners must have prevented the Barabra and their Arab conquerors from becoming mixed. In modern times we are assured the two races remain quite distinct, and that intermarriages between the Arabs and the Berberins are very rare occurrences. This is the testimony of Dr. Riippell, whose information is to be depended upon. § The habits of * Burckhardt's Travels in Nubia, p. 113. -j- See Gibbon, vol. viii. ^ Extracts from JMacrizi; Burckhardt, Appendix, p. 497. § Beide Volkstiimme halten sich von einander abgesondert, und elieliche Ver- bindungen zwischen ibnen sind licut zu Tage sehr selten." Riippell, p. 33. He repeats this observation in p. CG. Eheliche Verbindungen zwischen beide Nati- FROM THE KOLDAGI NEGROES. 183 the two races are totally different. The Barabra are hus- bandmen, who live together in small villages on the banks of the Nile, and occupy themselves in tilling the land. The free Arabs hold them in contempt, and think it beneath them to speak the language of the Barabras. Section II. — Of the Fourians and the Fezxaners. Two other nations remain to be mentioned among the Nubian tribes, or the Black races inhabiting the eastern por- tion of Africa beyond Bornu. These are the Fourians, or people of Dar Fur and the natives of Fezzan who, though inhabiting an oasis, may probably have descended from some part of the high country of eastern Africa. The nearest Negro country to Kordofan is Dar Fur. Burck- hardt supposed the Fourians to be of the same race as the Kordofaners : he says that the latter speak a dialect of the language of Four. But the specimen given by Riippell of the Koldagi betrays little affinity to the Fourian speech. The Fourians themselves are Moslemin, and are in that state of semibarbarous society to which the introduction of Islam has everywhere given rise in Africa; in it the faculties are awakened from the brutal sloth of savage life, the intellects are sharpened, but the moral affections are rendered more malignant rather than improved. The people of Dar Fur seem to have formed wandering tribes previously to their conversion to Islam, and were in no respect distinguished from the pagan races who still possess the neighbouring countries.* They now dwell in towns, and resemble in manners the natives of Sennaar, Shendy, Dongola, and similar places ; their language has a great mixture of Arabic. " In their persons they differ from onen haben nicht Statt, und obgleich im uebrigen nach unsern Begriffen nicht stolz, betitelt doch der freie Araber mit einer gewissen Verachtung den Dongolawi mit seinem wahrscheinlichen Urvolksnamen " Nuba." Matrimonial connexions between the two nations never take place, and although not proud according to our ideas, yet the free Arab gives to the Dongolawi, with a certain degree of con- tempt, the title of Nuba, the probable original appellation of his ancestors. * Brown's Journey to Darfiir. 184 FOURIANS AND FEZZANKKS. the Negroes of the Coast of Guinea ; their hair is generally short and woolly, though some are seen with it of the length of eight or ten inches, which they esteem. Their complexion is for the most part perfectly black." The Fezzaners are thus described by Captain Lyon. " The general appearance of the men is plain, and their complexion black ; the women are of the same colour, and ugly in the extreme. Neither sex is remarkable for figure, height, strength, vigour, or activity. They have a very peculiar cast of counte- nance, which distinguishes them from other blacks; their cheek- bones are higher and more prominent, their faces flatter, and their noses less depressed and more pointed at the top than those of other Negroes. Their eyes are generally small, and their mouths of an immense width, but their teeth are gene- rally good ; their hair is woolly, though not completely friz- zled.'' They are a dull, phlegmatic people. The females bear children at twelve and thirteen years of age, and at fifteen or sixteen assume the appearance of old women. Their lan- guage is Arabic." Section III. — Of the Eastern Nubians, or Bisharine or Bejawy Race. To the northward of the country occupied by the Hazorta nation in the neighbourhood of Massowah, and through all the eastern deserts of Nubia and the mountainous country lying eastward of Egypt, different tribes and nations are spread belonging to one race, which is one of the most widely extended in Ethiopia. The Bishari are the more pow- erful of these nations. The Hadharebe, to the southward of the Bishari, and the Ababdeh, to the northward, belong, as it appears, to the same stock. 11 1. Of the Hadharebe. We are informed by Mr. Salt, that " the tribes of people who inhabit the country near Souakin on the Red Sea, though di- vided into numerous hordes, are all subject to one chief, styled Sultaun Mohammed, who resides at Uddukud: the particular EASTERN NUBIANS IIADIIAREBE. 185 tribes are Arteda, Betmala, Karub, Bartooni, Adamar, Sabde- rat, Harekab, Arandoah, Bishareen, and Umraa-ra. All these tribes bear the general appellation of Adareb. The Bartoom reside near Shendy, have many towns, and towards the south border on the Barea, a tribe of Shangalla, who are accustomed to make incursions into Walkayt. The Adareb are con- nected with the Hallinga Taka, and reside near the confluence of the Nile and the Tacazze. Most of these nations change their habitations according to the season. They are nominally attached to the Mohammedan religion." The Hadharebe or Adareb, as they are termed by Mr. Salt, are identified by their language with the Bishari. Mr. Salt has given a vocabulary of the idiom of the Adareb, which he terms the Adareb and Bishari lanmiase, and Burckhardt collected a vocabulary of the Bishari : these vocabularies, though in a different orthography, and written with occa- sional inaccuracies on the part of one of the collectors, belong manifestly to the same language. Suakin is the principal settlement of the Hadharebe. We have from Burckhardt an ample account of this place and its inhabitants. At Suakin, as in other places in Africa inhabited by Mo- hammedans, the principal people affect an Arabian origin ; and it is to the supposed settlers from Hadramaut, as Burck- hardt believes, or to their descendants, that the name of Had- harebe properly belongs.* The etymology of the name ap- pears fanciful, but Burckhardt says that "the principal families claim this appellation exclusively, while by strangers it is given generally to the whole people as well as to the neighbouring tribes. The supposed descendants from Arabian patriarchs are, however, at present in no respect distinguished from the rest of the population : they have all the same African fea- tures and manners. The Suakiny or indigenous people are principally from the tribes of Hadendoa, Amarer and Bisha- rein." The Hadendoa themselves are, as we shall see, a Bi- sharine tribe. * He derives Hadhereme — of which Hadharebe is supposed to be a corruption ill the singular, Hadhramy — from Hadhar-el-Mout — cJIj^^J ! r-^i-^^^meaning in Arabic ' Come death ! ' which Europeans have corrupted into Hadhramaut. 186 EASTERN NUBIANS. It would appear from this account that Burckhardt sup- posed the Hadharebe, Adareb, or rather the Suakiiiy to be, not a distinct tribe of the Bisharine race, but a people mixed up from different branches of that stock, and deriving their name from a few Arabian settlers who had soon become assi- milated to the great body of the population. He says " that they have exactly the same features, language and dress as the Nubian Bedouins :* their favourite dress leaves the upper part of the body almost naked. If to it be added a hand- some pair of sandals, two or three large amulets hanging over the left elbow, a sword and korbadj in the hands, the thick and bushy hair white with grease, and a large wooden skewer sticking in it, to scratch the head with, the whole will afford a tolerable picture of a Suakiny Bedouin. " The Suakiny have in general," as Burckhardt says, " handsome and expressive features, with thin and very short beards. Their colour is of the darkest brown, approaching to black, but they have nothing of the Negro character of coun- tenance. They are a remarkably stout and muscular race."t If 2. The Bishari. The country of the Bishari reaches from the northern frontier of Abyssinia, along the course of the river Mareb, which flows through the northern forests of the Shangalla, abounding with elephants, to the Belad-el-Taka and At- bara, where dwell the Hadendoa and the Hammadab, said to be the strongest tribes of the Bisharine race.j; Tribes of the Bishari reach northward as far as Gebel-el-Ottaby in the latitude of Derr, where the Nile, after its great western bend turns back towards the Red Sea ; they occupy all the hilly country upon the Nile from Sennaar to Dar Berber and to the • The Bishari are Beclouhis, i. e. Nomadic tribes of Nubia. I suppose these are meant. -f- Burckhardt's Travels in Nubia, p. 439. I have inserted the figure of a Suak- iny Bedouin from a drawing of JMr. Salt's, given in Lord Valentia's Travels, agree- ing exactly with the above description by Burckhardt. It will serve for a speci- men of the physical characters of the Bisharine race. X Ritter's Erdkunde. — Burckhardt's Nubia, 3C!). Burckhardt says, " the Haden- doa Bedouins, the only inhabitants of Taka seen by me, evidently belong to the same nation as the Bisharcin and all the Eastern Nubians, with whom they have the same features, language and characteristic manners." IIADIIAREBE AND BISIIARI. 187 Red Sea ; consequently the territory of the ancient Blem- myes.* The possession of many tracts of this mountainous country is disputed with them by the Ababdeh, their neigh- bours towards the north, with whom they are allied by lan- guage and descent, as they are with the Adareb towards the south. The mountain of OfFa, at fifteen days' journey from Assouan, is, according to Burckhaidt, the chief seat of the Bishari, where ruins are said to exist. The Bishari are described by Burckhardt : " The inhospit- able character of the Bisharein would alone prove them to be a true African race, were this not put beyond all doubt by their language." They are divided into a great number of small tribes. They rarelv descend from their mountains into the valley of the Nile. They winter among the moun- tains near the Red Sea, for the sake of pastures for their flocks of sheep and camels, which are all their riches. They sometimes make plundering expeditions as far as Sennaarand Dongola. Their chief occupation is collecting the leaves of senna, and hunting ostriches in the desert. The physical character of the Bishari, according to Riippell, resembles that of the Barabra. Burckhardt says "the Bisha- rein of Atbara, like their brethren, are a handsome and bold race of people ; they go constantly armed, and are seldom free from quarrels. Their dress, or rather undress, was everywhere the same, consisting only of a dammour shirt, worn by both men and women. I thought the latter remark- ably handsome ; they vt^ere of a dark brown complexion, with beautiful eyes and fine teeth ; their persons were slender and elegant." The Bishari were likewise described by Hamilton, who visited a tribe of them in the country above Egypt, where they are the guides across the wilderness, and among moun- tains : " the better sort ride on dromedaries ; they are a shrewd, intelligent people, active, of small stature, and pre- possessing countenance : some with a cast of the Negro • others with a very fine profile." This sort of variety in phy- siognomy is observed by aluiost every traveller among the * Strabon. lib. 17- c. i. Memoire sur les Blemycs, Quatrcmere. INIem. sur FEgyptc, Kilter's Erdkuiide. 188 EASTERN NUBIANS. African people in the eastern parts of the continent, from Kaffirland to Nubia and Egypt. '' Their complexion is nearly black : their women are reported to be handsome. When we asked them if they were accustomed to eat live flesh, they denied it, but spoke with pleasure of the luxury of opening the veins of a dromedary or a sheep and drinking the warm blood." The author suggests the idea that a si- milar practice, prevalent among the ancient Hebrews, was the object of a prohibition in Deuteronomy, ch. xii. ver. 23. According to Macrizi, the Bishari and the Ababdeh occupy the country of the Bejas or Boujas, who were a powerful and numerous people in the middle ages, when they were at least partially converted to Christianity. The Bejas were a nomadic people, who were in possession of the gold, silver, and emerald mines of the Desert. Macrizi described the Bejas as living under tents of hair: he says, " their colour is darker than that of the Habesh : they have the manners of Arabs: they have no towns, no villages, no fields. Their provisions are carried to them from Egypt and Habesh, and Nouba. They were formerly idolatrous, and then took the Islam. They are hospitable and charitable people ; they are divided into tribes and branches, every one of which has its chief. They are pastors, and live entirely on flesh and milk."* The Bishari and Ababdeh are descended, according to Ma- crizi, from the Bejas, intermixed with Arabs. The Bishari however, as well as the Ababdeh, appear from their general character and languages to be a genuine African race, and if there is any mixture of Arabian blood in their stock, it is pro- bably in small proportion. The Arabian language, which has so generally diffused itself among the barbarous nations who have adopted Islam, has produced little or no effect on the speech of the Bishari. The name of Bejas was unknown to the ancients, but a peo- ple termed Blemmyes are described by Strabo, Dionysius Peri- egetes, and Stephanus, as occupying the country of the Bejas. By Vopiscus they are mentioned as a powerful nation in the • Extracts from fllacrizi, by Burckhardt. BEJAS — ABABDEH. 189 reign of Ptolemy, whose army advanced into their territory and brought captives to Rome. They were afterwards so troublesome to the Romans that Diocletian, as we have seen from Procopius, engaged the Nobatae of Libya, to abandon their own country and settle on the Nile, in the country of the Barabra, for the protection of the Roman frontier. M. Quatremere and Professor Ritter have collected all that the ancient writers have recorded respecting the Blemmyes, and leave no room for doubt that they are the same race afterwards termed Bejas, and more recently known as Bi- shari and Ababdeh.f 3. The Ababdeh. The Ababdeh occupy the country to the northward of the Bishari, viz. from the parallel of Deir to the frontiers of Egypt, and in the eastern desert as far northward as Kosseir. They were scarcely known previously to the French expedi- tion to Egypt. They conduct the caravans to Sennaar, as they formerly led those from Kenne to Kosseir until they were dispossessed by the Maazgou and Ataouy Arabs. Their habits resemble those of the Bishari, whose language they are said to speak. They are all Bedouins and are described as very cruel and perfidious. They wander about and carry out of their country as traders, its native productions, natron, alum, gums, and senna, on their dromedaries. On the bor- ders of Egypt they have been confounded with Arabs. The earliest description of the Ababdeh was given by M. Du Bois- Ayme a member of Napoleon's Egyptian Commission : " Les Ababdeh sont un tribu nomade qui habite les mon- tagnes situees a I'orient du Nil au sud de la vallee de Qoceyr. " Les Ababdeh different entierement par leurs moeurs, leur langage, leur costume, leur constitution physique des tribus Arabes qui, comme eux, occupent les deserts qui environnent I'Egypte. Les Arabes sont blancs, se rasent la tete, sont vetus. Les Ababdeh sont noirs, mais leurs traits ont beau- coup de ressemblance avec ceux des Europeens. lis ont les * See M. Quatremere's excellent work on Coptic Literature, and Professor Ritter's Erdkunde. 190 EASTERN NUBIANS. cheveux naturellement boucUs, mais point laineux. lis les portent longs et ne se couvrent jamais la tete. lis n'ont pour tout vetement qu'un morceau de toile, qu'ils attachent au- dessus des handles, et qui ne passe pas le milieu du corps, lis enduissent tout le corps de graisse.*" The Ababdeh were described by Belzoni, who visited one of their tribes in the Eastern Desert. He says, " They extend from the neighbourhood of Suez to the country inhabited by the Bisharein, on the coast of the Red Sea, below the latitude of 23°. They live among solitary rocks and deserts, and feed chiefly on dhourra. They are all nearly naked, badly made, and of small stature. They have fine eyes, particularly the women, as far as we could see, of those that came to the wells. The married women are covered, the rest uncovered. Their head-dresses are very curious. Some are proud of having their hair long enough to reach below their ears, and then formed into curls, which are so entangled and matted with grease that it cannot be combed." He adds, that " as their hair is very crisp, their heads remain dressed for a long time ; and that they may not derange their coefFure, when their heads itch, they have a piece of wood, something like a pack- ing-needle, with which they scratch themselves with great ease without disordering their head-dress." " Their com- plexions are naturally of a dark chocolate ; their hair c[uite black ; their teeth fine and white, protuberant and very large." Some additional notices were given of the Ababdeh in the Memoirs of the Geographical Society ,f by Mr. Wilkinson. The author distinguishes the Ababdeh from the Maazy, whom he terms Arabs, bordering on them to the northward. The Ababdeh are said to be much more powerful and numerous, " Some of them have moved northward into this desert, be- yond Gebel Dokhan, with their families and flocks: but they seem a very quiet people, and have more simplicity of raan- • Blemoire sur les ville de Qo^eyr et les environs, et sur les peuples Nomades qui habitant cette partie de lancienne Troglodytique, par M. Du Bois-Ayme, Membrc de la Commission des Sciences et des Arts de I'Egypte. Description de rp]gypte. Etiit Moderne, torn. i. p. 193. t Vol. ii. p. 37, on the Eastern Desert of Upper Egypt. ABABDEH. 191 ners than their northern neighbours ; their arms are chiefly spears, long knives, swords, and some guns ; with these last, however, the Maazy being much better furnished. They have long bushy hair like the Nubians, which forms a most dis- tinguishing mark between the two tribes ; the others wear the cap and turban." 192 HISTORY OF THE EGYPTIANS. CHAPTER X. HISTORY OF THE ANCIENT EGYPTIANS, INQUIRY INTO THEIR RELATION TO OTHER RACES OF MEN. Section I. — General Remarks on the History of the Egyp- tians and other Nations coeval and siipposed to have been connected with them. The banks and estuaries of rivers affording secure havens on the sea, and the means of communication with inland coun- tries, have been at all times the principal centres of popula- tion. The cradles or nurseries of the first nations appear to have been extensive plains or valleys traversed by navigable channels and irrigated by perennial and fertiUzing streams. Three such regions were scenes of the most ancient cultiva- tion of the human race, of the first foundation of cities, of the earliest political institutions, and of the invention of arts which embellish human life. In one of these, the Semitic nations exchanged the simple habits of wandering shepherds for the splendour and luxury of Nineveh and Babylon. In another an Indo-European or Japetic people brought to its perfection the most elaborate of human dialects, destined to become in later ages under different modifications the mother- tongue of the nations of Europe. In a third, the land of Ham, watered by the Nile, were invented hieroglyphic litera- ture and the arts for which Egypt was celebrated in the ear- liest ages of history. Two of these nations, widely separated from each other by an ocean which was scarcely navigated in early times, and, on the continent, by the whole region occupied by the Se- mitic tribes, are yet found to display numerous and striking- phenomena of resemblance in their manners, their supersti- tions, and in the entire system of their social and political institutions. The Egyptians and Indians have often been com- HISTORY OF THE EGYPTIANS. 193 pared. The same religious and philosophical dogmas were common to both nations. Both believed the emanation of souls which animate men, animals, planets, rivers, all parts of the universe from a primitive source, their predestined trans- migration through various orders of being and their ultimate refusion into the divinity. Both nations adorned and exhibited these common principles in a similar manner and under similar emblematical representations. The system of religious ob- servances, the superstitious veneration of animals, of the elements of material nature and of the heavenly bodies, cor- responded among both nations. Social regulations, the divi- sions and subdivisions of hereditary castes, the distribution of offices among them, the privileges and restrictions of different orders in the community bore, in both regions, a striking and even surprising analogy. Human nature as- sumes similar aspects under similar conditions, and this un- doubted fact will sufficiently account for broad outlines of resemblance between nations which have existed without in- tercourse in countries situated alike with respect to climate and local circumstances. But no person who fully considers the intimate relation and almost exact parallelism that has been traced between the Egyptians and the Hindoos, will be perfectly satisfied with such a solution in that particular exam- ple. So many arbitrary combinations and arrangements as the social and political institutions of Egypt and of India display, so remarkable a congruity in nearly all the philoso- phical or speculative dogmas and in the external representa- tions and superstitious observances adopted by these two nations, can hardly be imagined to have resulted fiom the mere influence of external conditions in any two regions of the earth, or to have existed, otherwise than as the conse- quence of intercourse or commvniication. We cannot refuse to admit a commmiity of origin to the mental culture of the Indians and Egyptians, but there are various considerations which render this concession more difficult than on first adverting to the subject it appears to be, and which oblige us in admitting it to carry back our view to very remote ages. In order to perceive the truth and all tlie bearings of this observation, it will be requisite to consi- VOL. II. O 194 ANTIQUITY OF THE INDIAN der what period of antiquity history allows to the three great nations above enumerated, and to what age we must refer the origin of that resemblance and parallelism which the comparison of two of them displays. Section II. — Of the Antiquity of the Indian and the Semitic Nations. It was known to the ancients that a learned caste among; the Indians devoted themselves to philosophical pursuits, and that the system of nature formed in part the subject of their specu- lations.* When, in modern times, the European conquerors of India began to obtain some knowledge of the literature of the Brahmans, it was understood that the latter were in pos- session of ancient works on astronomy, containing a series of observations which reached back into very remote periods of antiquity, and by means of which, connected with the events of Indian history, the existence of the Hindoos as a civilized and learned people could be traced by authentic records in ages long preceding the earliest dates from which the chronology of other nations is supposed to commence, f These pre- tensions, until their real extent and nature were better known, obtained some distinguished patrons among European philo- sophers. The celebrated M. Bailly entertained a favourable opinion of them, and Professor Playfair was their persevering- advocate. But the real bearings of the question were not well understood until Mr. Bentley's Analysis of the Hindu System of Astronomy appeared in the Asiatic Researches. By this writer the principles were explained on which the calcula- tions contained in the Indian works on astronomy were ac- tually formed, and the cloud which had overhung the ancient history of the East was eflfectually dispelled. The great astro- nomical work on which the claims of the Hindoos were sup- posed in Europe to have their principal support, was the celebrated treatise, entitled Surya Siddhanta. This book, ac- * Strabon. Geog. lib. xv. p. 71^- •)- On the Hindi'i Systems of Astronomy, and their connexion with History in ancient and modern tiines, by T. Bentley, P^sq. Asiatic Researches, vol. viii. AND SEMITIC NATIONS. 195 cording to the notions of the Brahmans, was dictated by- divine inspiration more than 2,164,899 years ago. The astro- nomical system contained in it is entitled the Varaha Calpa. It is, according to Mr. Bentley, the newest of three similar compilations, now generally known in India. It has been clearly demonstrated by the same writer, that the Surya Siddhanta was composed between seven and eight centuries ago. The most ancient of the three systems above mentioned, termed the Brahma Calpa was invented by Brahma Gupta, nearly thirteen centuries from the present time. But the origin of astronomical science and of chronology among the Hindoos is not reduced by Mr. Bentley within so re- cent a date as the period assigned for the invention of these sys- tems. He admits that they have preserved astronomical works more ancient than the three treatises above mentioned. Among these is the compilation of Parasara, who by the position of the colures recorded by him, is ascertained to have lived about 1200 years before the Christian era. In the time of Para- sara, however, Indian astronomers had very imperfect know- ledge; they could not determine the times of conjunctions and oppositions of the sun and moon for six years together with correctness, owing to their erroneous estimate of the lunation, nor is any mention made in their works of the days of the week or of the twelve signs, which seem to have been introduced into the Indian astronomy at a much later period. By a careful examination of the older systems of chronology, and a comparison of them with the poetical his- tory contained in the Puranas, it has been proved by Mr. Bentley that the earliest period from which the history of the Hindoos, as deduced entirely from their own literature, may be considered to commence, is about twenty-two centuries before the Christian era.* This conclusion is obtained in part from two of the most ancient Hindoo systems now known, which in early times were applied to purposes of chronology ; they are contained in the astronomical work entitled Graha Munjari. In the first of the two systems mentioned in this work the Calpa or " annus magnus," a con- * See Remarks on the principal eras and dates of the ancient Hindus. Asiatic Researches, vol. v. o2 196 ANTIQUITY OF THE INDIAN jectural period adopted by astronomers to facilitate their method of calculation, is subdivided into a given number of yugs or ages in such a manner that the Cali Yug of the cycle* last completed, ended 707 years before the historical era of Vicramaditya, or 764 years before Christ. Therefore The satya yug or golden age, began before Christ 3164 The treta yug, or silver age 2204 The dwapar yug, or brazen age 1484 The cali yug, or iron age 1004 And ended 764 Making in all 2400 years. " During the first period of 960 years, called the golden age, the Hindus had no real history, the whole being fabulous except what relates to the flood, which is allegorically re- presented by the fish incarnation." "With the second period, or silver age, the Hindu em- pire commences under the Solar and Lunar dynasties ; and from Budha, the son of Soma, the first of the lunar line, they reckon about fifty reigns down to the end of the Dwapar, which make, at an average, twenty-four years to a reign." It therefore appears that the heroic age of India, the period at which the children of the Sun and Moon are said to have begun to reign over mortal men, commenced, according to the Indian history, about twenty-two centuries before the Christian era. The famous war of the Mahabharat is dated eleven centuries before the same epoch. This calculation of the antiquity of the Hindoos, founded on the remains of their astronomy, coincides with the most satisfactory conclusions respecting the date of their sacred books, and the oldest relics of Hindoo literature. In the admirable analysis of the Vedas, inserted by Mr. Colebrooke in the eighth volume of the Asiatic Researches, we are informed that the different portions of these ancient Indian scriptures were composed at different times. The exact period at which they were compiled, or that in which * The present Cali Yug is the fourth age of the sixty-seventh l\Iaha Yug of the seventh Manwantara, contained in the Calpa of 2,400,000, which consists of four- -tccn Manw;intaras=2,;{I)0,040-|-(l satya yug=!JGO years.) AND SEMITIC NATIONS. 197 the greater part was actually written, cannot be determined from any date yet obtained, but Mr. Colebrooke is of opinion that some parts of these writings, and those especially which contain prayers recited at the ceremonies termed Yajnya are as old as the calendar, which purports to have been framed for the regulation of such rites. This calendar from the posi- tions of the solstitial points indicated by it, is proved, accord- ing to the same eminent writer, to have been constructed in the fourteenth century before the Christian era. It has like- wise been shown from another passage of the Vedas, that the correspondence of seasons with months as there stated agrees with the same position of the cardinal points. These data afford the means of estimating the real anti- quity of the Sanskrit language and literature. The ancient dialect of the Vedas, and especially that of the three first of these books is, according to Mr. Colebrooke, extremely diffi- cult and obscure. It is rather to be considered as the parent of the more polished and refined idiom, the classical Sans- krit, than the same language properly so termed.* It is unnecessary to go into any details in regard to the antiquity of the Semitic nations, but it will be worth while to remark a circumstance which brings the history of these nations in the earliest times into near relation with that of the Hindoos. We have observed that the chronology of India commences like the mythical history of the Egyptians and many other nations, with dynasties said to have been the im- mediate offspring of the Sun and Moon. The Solar and Lunar races, the first mortal rulers, began their reign according to the old Hindoo chronology of Parasara, in the treta yug or silver age. From the preceding period of 960 years, the golden age of the Hindoos, by them called the satya yug, the only record that exists is the remarkable history of the flood, allegorically represented by the fable of Satyavrata and the incarnation of Vishnu in the Fish Avatar. In the ancient • It would be very interesting to know whether this ancient Indian dialect, the idiom of the Vedas, displays many nearer analogies to the sister languages, the Mreso-gothic, Greek and Latin, than the later Sanskrit. A remarkable instance has been noticed by M. A. W. de Schlegel in his preface to Mr. Haymann's Ger- man translation of my work on Egyptian Mythology. 198 ANTIQUITY OF TiJE historical fragments of the Assyrian or Babylonian history belonging to the Semitic race, the Hindoo fable has a close parallel in the story of Xisuthrus and his flood, and the fish- god Oannes. I am aware that some critics, and particularly Eichhorn, have considered the fragments of Berosus pre- served by Josephus, Abydenus and Alexander Polyhistor to be spurious,* but it is highly improbable that such a coin- cidence should arise from chance, and the Purana gives strong testimony to the genuineness of the Chaldean story, which approaches somewhat more nearly to the Scriptural account of the Noachian deluo;e. This agreement is sufficient to con- nect without the least mixture of doubt the history of the Semitic and Indian jaces, both of which commence or rather recommence with these remarkable accounts of the same event. Both of these nations deduce their origin, according to ancient historical accounts preserved separately among them, and handed down through totally different channels of tradition, from parents who are said to have survived an other- wise universal destruction. The circumstance that the Semitic nations, as well as the most anciently civilized of the Indo-European race, commence their history or genealogy with this narrative common to both in its leading facts as well as in its fabulous embellishments, is the more important as the languages of the two races are distinct and belong to two great branches of human idioms. To this consideration I shall again have occasion to advert. Section III. — Of the Antiquity of the Egyptians. The records of the Egyptians carry us back nearly to the same period as do those of the Hindoos when reduced to their original state, for the commencement of monarchy and the origin of historical documents. Previously to the reigns of kings, as recorded in the beginning of the Egyptian annals, we find the reigns of Vulcan and the Sun, and other elements of material nature personified. To these succeeded heroes and * Eichhorn, Einleitung in das Alte Testament, Theil. i. EGYPTIAN MONARCHY, 199 demigods, who were their offspring, as among the Hindoos, and they are followed by kings of mortal birth, the reign of the first king being evidently the initial period of all his- tory. But this era has been variously stated. The Egyptian annals of Manetho appear to assume a period of prodigious antiquity for the commencement of his series of thirty dy- nasties. The hypothesis that Egypt contained many inde- pendent kingdoms, and that several of these dynasties ruled simultaneously over different states, assumed hypothetically by Marsham and others for the sake of reducing the dura- tion of the Egyptian state, is contrary to all historical tradi- tion respecting this country ; but I have endeavoured to show that Manetho's Chronicle was constructed, perhaps by mis- take, from the combination into one whole of many different records or tables of kings, which, though apparently succes- sive, can be shown by internal evidence to contain repetitions of the same series. By a comparison of Manetho's work with the Theban table of Eratosthenes, we find satisfactory data for fixing the origin of the Egyptian monarchy as de- duced from these documents in the twenty-fourth century before our era. It would be too far from my present subject of inquiry to recapitulate the arguments from which this con- clusion has been deduced, and I must refer my readers, if any of thera should wish to examine it, to my analysis of the remains of Egyptian chronology. We thus trace, nearly to the same period, the existence of two nations, bearing in their moral characteristics, and in the fact that they have similar religions and civil institutions, marks of an ancient relationship which can hardly be mis- taken. Many circumstances would lead us to presume that an early affinity or connexion in origin and descent existed between the Egyptians and the Indians. Before we can pro- ceed further into this inquiry, it will be necessary to advert to the history of the Egyptian language. 200 HISTORY OF Tllli EGYPTIAN Section IV. — History of the Egyptian Language and its Dialects. It would be superfluous to enter into long details on the Egyptian language, but the history of this language is so asso- ciated witli that of the race and with their relations to other families of mankind, that I must not pass it by without touch- ing upon some of the principal questions which have refer- ence to it. Doubts have been thrown out in former times respecting the antiquity of the Coptic and its relation to the idiom of the old Egyptians. Vossius and Hardouin regarded the Coptic as a corrupt mixture of Greek, Arabic and other lan- guages, having little in common with the idiom spoken by the subjects of the Pharaohs. These doubts, which arose from ignorance of the subject, were refuted by Renaudot, and Jablonski. M. Quatremere, in his learned work on the history of Coptic literature, has observed, that although Greek was the idiom of Alexandria and of foreigners residing in Egypt during the Ptolemaic age, it is yet proved by the triliteral inscription of Rosetta and by the testimony of Plu- tarch, that the native population of Egypt continued for the most part ignorant of Greek, and still preserved their native speech. That this was likewise the case under the Roman domination, and even after the conversion of the people to Christianity, might be inferred from the circumstance that it was found necessary to form the Coptic and Sahidic versions of the Sacred Scriptures. The fact is otherwise placed be- yond all doubt, by various testimonies contained in the lives of saints and famous ecclesiastics of the Egyptian church, who are expressly said to have been ignorant of the Greek language, though devoted to study and religion, and some of them versed in theological controversies.* * Many of these testimonies have been cited by M. Quatremere : among others that relating to Macarius, an Egyptian bishop, who accompanied Dioscorus, patriarch of Alexandria, to the council of Chalcedon. The patriarch was asked what he meant to do with his dumb companion, with whom, as he could only speak the Egyptian language, the heretics could hold no converse. This statement has been cited by M. Quatremeie from a Coptic MS. in the Vatican, LANGUAGE AND ITS DIALECTS. 201 The native Copts who have written grammars of their lan- guage in Arabic, among whom Athanasius, bishop of Kus, is particularly mentioned, distinguish three Egyptian dialects which they term respectively the Bahiric c Sr—tr^ meaning the Memphitic or that commonly termed Coptic, the Sahidic — c ^ .^j— a — x^a — and the Bashmuric, — C__5/^*^V — The last is said, by the writers above mentioned, to have little or nothing in common with the two former, but to be per- fectly distinct from them, even in the roots of verbs and nouns. The learned Father Gecrgi, who has written a his- tory of Egyptian dialects, observes, that the Memphitic was the dialect first, and for a long time only, known to European scholars.f It is the idiom commonly termed Coptic, though that epithet properly includes all the cognate dialects, + The first work printed in this idiom was a single sheet containing the three first chapters of St. Matthew's gospel, edited at Ox- ford, by Thomas Marshall, in 1689. The Upper Egyptian or Sahidic dialect was so little known even to Wilkins, that in the preface to his edition of the Memphitic New Testament he termed it " lingua prorsus ignota" By means of Lacroze, Scholtz, Tuki, and particularly through the numerous Sahi- dic fragments of the NanianandBorgian Libraries, the Sahidic dialect, in which the greater part both of the Old and the New Testament is still extant, in various fragments, became better known in Europe. Various opinions have been main- tained by learned men as to the relative antiquity of the Mem- phitic and Sahidic dialects. Georgi considers the Memphitic containing an eulogium on 3Iacaiius by Dioscorus. It appears also that the Acts of the Martyrs published by Father Combefis, were originally written in the Egyp- tian, and translated into the Greek language. Quatremere, p. 14. * J. D. Michaelis Neue Orientalische und Exegetische Bibliothek. Achter Theil. s. 215. ■\ Fragment Evangelii, S. Johann. Grffico-Coptico-Thebaicum sasculi iv. Addi- tamentum ex vetustissimis membranis lectionum evangelicarum divinae Missas, &c. ex Veliterno IMuseo Borgiano— opera et studio F. Aug. Anton. Georgii, Erem. Aug.— Rom. 1780. X The term Coptic is equivalent to Egyptian. The etymology of this name is uncertain. Some derive it from Coptos, though there is nothing to connect the de- i-ignation of the Egyptian race with that city. Others think it a corrupt contrac- tion of Aigyptos. A more probable etymology than this derives it from Jaco- bites— laicwfirai. The Egyptians were so termed as belonging to the Jacobite heresy. 202 HISTORY OF THE EGYPTIAN to be the most ancient, chiefly because the old Egyptian names of gods, men, and cities, preserved by Herodotus, Manetho, and others, have a Memphitic rather than a Sahidic ter- mination. Such are the names of Osiris, Busiris, Memphis. Even in Thebes ttj^wjuic; appears to have been the Egyp- tian term for a man ;* this is in Coptic pi-romi. The ending in I (for the sigma is a Greek addition) is pecuhar to the Memphitic dialect : in the Sahidic it would be in e. In the charted imipyracecE likewise of the Borgian Museum, which were probably written in the third century, and which have oeen illustrated by M. M. Schow, all the terminations of names are Memphitic. The Theban or Sahidic dialect appears, ac- cording to Georgi, to have been formed at a later period than the time of Herodotus. There is no trace of it in antiquity, ex- cept perhaps an inscription on the pillar of Memnon, made in the fifteenth year of the Emperor Hadrian's reign, which gives the name of the month " Kota/c^" in Sahidic, instead of the Memphitic word yoiaK. This dialect was much softer than the Memphitic, had none of the harder aspirations, and was more intermixed with Greek words, a very remarkable circumstance, as Michaelis has observed, since it would have appeared pro- bable that in Lower Egypt, near Alexandria, a greater pro- portion of Greek would have passed into the language of the native population, and because Eutychius and others declare that Greek was little known in Upper Egypt and, since the schism of the Monophysites, had been scarcely used even in religious rites. Michaelis explains the fact, that the Sahidic contains more of Greek than the Memphitic dialect, from a consideration very satisfactory, but such as would not occur to superficial thinkers. The Memphitic dialect, even before the Grecian conquest and the powerful influence of the Grecian language upon the Coptic, had become far more cultivated and developed than the Theban dialect, and therefore required less augmentation from the idiom of foreigners ; and the Theban dialect being both poorer, and having been at a later period reduced to writing, was likely to require and receive a more ample interpolation of Greek words. The same circumstances account for the softer pronuii- " Herodotus, lib. ii, c. 144, iiiul Larcher s note. LANGUAGE AND ITS DIALECTS. 203 elation of this dialect, which is destitute of the harsh sounds corresponding with the Hebrew cheth.* It is only of late that any knowledge has been obtained of a third Egyptian dialect, of which a relic is preserved in a curious fragment of a version of the New Testament contained in the Borgian Museum. This fragment comprises a part of the First Epistle to the Corinthians, in a dialect which has many pecuharities distinguishing it from both the others. A comparison of the three dialects has been made with accuracy by Georgi. The newly-discovered idiom is intermediate be- tween the Sahidic and the Memphitic, but more nearly allied by the greater softness of its pronunciation to the latter. Like the Sahidic it changes the Memphitic chei into an h, the w and o into a ; and the ^ into A, writing TriXw^it for the Mem- phitic Tripujfii, a man. There is no doubt that this variety of the Egyptian speech is a peculiar dialect, and it is worthy of observation that the version of the New Testament, of which parts are extant in it, were made, as Michaelis has proved from internal evidence, not from the Sahidic, but immediately from the Greek. To the inquiry, what was the native country of this newly- discovered dialect ? where was it spoken ? Georgi has given an ingenious, though by no means a satisfactory reply. He thinks with Cardinal Borgia, the learned proprietor of the Museum where it was preserved, that the biblical fragment which has led to so curious a discovery is in the language of the Ammonians, who, according to Herodotus,f were a min- gled colony of Egyptians and Ethiopians, and spoke a dialect mixed up from the idioms of both these nations. The Egyp- tian part of this language was the Memphitic, according to Georgi, which, as he thinks, was the only dialect spoken in Egypt in the time of Herodotus : he conjectures that the Ethiopian part was the Sahidic, understanding by Ethiopian not the dialects of the modern nations near Egypt, but the old Ethiopian which, as he infers, though incorrectly, from an observation of the same historian,|' bore a near affinity to the Egyptian language. It is, however, very improbable that the * Michaelis, uM supra. -j- Lib_ jj, ^ 49. t Herod, lib. iii. c. 19. Herodotus only says that some of the Ichthyophagi of Elephantine understood the Ethiopian language. 204 HISTORY OF THE EGYPTIAN old Ethiopian language was so closely allied to the Egyptian as is the Sahidic dialect to the Coptic ; this however is Georgi's hypothesis. The Ammonians of Herodotus were the inha- bitants of the Oasis of Augila, containing the temple of Jupiter Ammon, who under Justinian were, as Procopius asserts, converted from the worship of Ammon and of Alexander to the Christian religion, and obtained a bishop, who was present at the great assembly of the Christian church in 553, in Constantinople. Since the new converts must have stood in need of a version of the Scriptures into their language, it is probable that one was actually made, and the third Egyptian version, which is a translation indepen- dent of the others, and taken immediately from the Greek original, may have been that of which the fragments have come to light. M. Georgi is less specious in his attempt to show that this so termed Ammonian dialect is the same as the Psamyrian or the Bashmuric of the Coptic writers. There is, indeed, a city of Bashmur mentioned by Abulfeda in the lesser Delta, but this seems here to be out of the question. Indeed the accurate D'Anville writes the name Bashmout. This name ratlier agrees with the Coptic 7r-3. BECHUANA KAFIR TRIBES. 285 with the Damaras on the western coast of Africa, and it is probable that their neighbours towards the north-east, the Seketay, Bamangwatu, and Mahalasely, mantain a commer- cial intercourse with the empire of Monomotapa. From various statements derived from the reports of natives, and other information collated, it is concluded by Mr. Cooley, that the most civilized nations of South Africa are situated at no great distance from Dalagoa Bay. On the route from Kur- richane,* the capital of the Murutsi, eastward to Dalagoa Bay, seven large towns occur in a journey of eight days, viz. seventy or eighty miles. He conjectures the population of the country southward of the Bazaruto Islands, and reaching to the limits of the Cape colony, to be not less than two mil- lions. " But these limits," he observes, " are not to be con- sidered as the boundaries of the race, language, or commerce of the tribes belonging to the Kafirian stock, which, in fact, extend across the whole continent, from one ocean to the other, and towards the north far beyond the Zambesi River."*f ^ 4. The Damaras. The Damaras are a people of the Kafir race, who inhabit the coast of the Atlantic northward of Great Namaaqualand. They are separated from the Bechuana tribes to the eastward by an extensive, arid desert. They speak a dialect similar to that of the Bechuanas, and might perhaps be considered as a part of that nation. They live in villages like the Bechuanas : the clans nearest to the colony are named Ghoup, Nevis, Gamaqua, and Kurars, which are not their native appellations. They cultivate their country, which is fertile, with millet and beans, have numerous flocks, abundance of wild animals in their forests, and manu- facture the native copper-ore of their country. A large river, which discharges itself into the Atlantic in latitude twenty- two, is supposed to flow through their land.;|; * The chief town of the Murutsi is Kurrichane, two hundred and fifty miles from Litaku, according to 3Ir. Campbell, who visited it. f Geograph. Journal, ibid. + Thompson, vol. ii. p. 74. 286 KAFIR TRIBES: AMAZULUH. ^ 5. Of the Amazuluh, Zoolahs, or Vatwahs. The Zoolahs are a warlike people of Kafir race who have lately conquered and extirpated the former inhabitants of the country southward of Dalagoa Bay, as far as Hambona. They have formed a barbaric kingdom of great extent, strik- ingly contrasted with the patriarchal sway prevalent among other tribes of the same race.* The Zoolahs, or Vatwahs, issued originally from the country adjoining the Mapoota River, and the mountains westward of English River, which falls from the west into Dalagoa Bay. According to Captain Owen, they are the people formerly termed Abutua or Butwah, who are represented in some maps of Africa as occupying an extensive country in the in- terior. They are a bold and warlike people, of noble carriage, and are distinguished by having large holes cut in the flaps of their ears, in which they suspend ornaments. They have the finest figures of any of the nations yet discovered in this country. The devastations of the Vatwahs have been like those of a swarm of locusts : they have expelled the natives from the whole country from Mamalong, or King George's River, to Port Natal. The Vatwahs, like all the tribes of the interior from thir- teen degrees of south latitude to the borders of the colony, are well acquainted with the use of iron. It is said that tribes in the interior manufacture the implements of agriculture used on the coast, even by the Portuguese. The Vatwahs are said to clothe themselves with skins, and to live much on animal food. In war they bear shields of bullock's hide, and six or eight assagais, and a spear. They have a manly openness of charac- ter ; and the oppressors of the weaker tribes are said never to attack an enemy without sending previous notice of their ap- proach. The armed force of the Zoolah nation is said to amount to nearly one hundred thousand men. The Zoolahs have overcome the countries southward of the Mapoota River to the coast of Natal. From the frontier of the Amaponda, or Hambona Kafirs, on the south-west, as • Thompson, vol. ii. p. 356. REMARKS ON THE KAFIRS. 287 far as the river Mapoota and Dalagoa Bay on the north, and as far into the interior, at least, as the great ridge of moun- tains, in whose western sides the Gariep, or Orange River, has its principal sources, the whole country is now under the for- midable sway of a military clan consisting of Zoolah war- riors. In many parts of the country they are said to have extirpated the native tribes. The Zoolahs, as I have before observed, are a fine, hand- some people, having the features of the Kafir race. They are described by Owen, who terms them Zoolos and Hollon- tontes, as ^^Jine Negroes, tall, robust and warlike in their persons, open, frank, and pleasing in their manners, with a certain appearance of independence in their carriage, infi- nitely above the natives with whom the party had hitherto communicated . "* ^ 6. General Remarks on the Moral Characteristics of the Kafir Nations. The Kafirs in general, even the most barbarous of their tribes, hold a decided superiority, when compared with the destitute savages who occupy the insulated hamlets of cen- tral Negroland. It is yet unknown from what quarter they have derived the rudiments of art which exist among them, and the improvements of moral and intellectual character which they have obtained. One trait certainly directs us to a foreign source — they practise universally the rite of circum- cision, though they have given no account of the origin of this custom. It is scarcely within probability that they borrowed it from nations who profess Islam, or we should find among them other proofs of intercourse with people of that class. It is more probable that this practice is a relic of ancient African customs, of which the Egyptians, as it is well known, partook in remote ages. The Kafirs are associated together in large communities under chiefs or kings, differing in this respect from the most * Narrative of Voyages to explore the Shores of Africa, Arabia, and Madagascar, under the direction of Captain W. F. W. Owen, R. N. by command of the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty, vol. i. p. 95. 288 REMARKS ON THE KAFIRS. savage class of African nations, who live in insulated hamlets without intercourse with each other. They are semi-nomadic, moving occasionally their towns, which resemble camps. Their clothing is scanty, and made of tanned skins. They practise polygamy. They have considerable herds of cattle. They are acquainted with the use of iron, and have the art of working this metal, common to them and to many other pagan nations of Africa, especially in the eastern part of the continent. They are likewise acquainted with the use of copper, and some of their tiibes, particularly the Damaras, work the ore of that metal and manufacture with it various ornaments. The Kafirs practise agriculture, have fields and gardens fenced with thorny shrubs, cultivate maize, millet, kidney- beans, and water-melons, make bread and beer, manufacture earthenware of sand and clay baked in fire. They wear mantles, and the females a more complete covering of sotened skins : they live in towns of considerable size and population. Old Litakii was thought by an intelligent traveller to be capable of containing from eight to ten thousand inhabitants. The houses are circular, and resemble those of the Fulahs and other nations of Northern Africa. The Kafirs are not, as some have thought, destitute of reli- gion. The Kosas believe in a Supreme Being, to whom they give the appellation of Uhlunga, supreme, and frequently the Hottentot name Utika, beautiful. They also believe in the immortality of the soul, but have no idea of a state of rewards and punishments. They have some notion of Providence, and pray for success in war and in hunting expeditions, and during sickness for health and strength. They believe in the attendance of the souls of their deceased relatives, and occasionally, especially on going to war, invoke their aid. They conceive thunder to proceed from the agency of the Deity, and if a person has been killed by liohtning, say that] Uhlunga has been among them. On such occasions they sometimes remove from the spot, and offer an heifer or an oxj in sacrifice. Sometimes they sacrifice to rivers in time of drought, by killing an ox, and throwing part of it into the] stream. They have some superstitions resembling those connected] REMARKS ON THE KAFIRS. 289 witli the brute worship and conservation of animals prevalent among the old Egyptians. If a person has been killed by an elephant, they offer a sacrifice, apparently to appease the demon supposed to have actuated the animal. One who kills by accident a makem, or Balearic crane, or a hrom-vogel, a species of tucan, must offer a calf in atonement. Sometimes they imagine that a shuliiga, or spirit, resides in a particular ox, and propitiate it by prayers when going on hunting expe- ditions.* 1[ 7. Physical Characters of the Kafirs and Bechuanas. Mr. Barrow was the first writer who clearly distinguished and described the Kafirs : previously to his time they had been frequently confounded with the Hottentots. He says — " The Kafirs are tall, robust, and muscular, and constitute one of the finest races in the world. The complexion of some tribes varies from a deep bronze to jet-black, but most gene- rally the latter is the prevailing colour." This description re- fers to the tribes near the sea-coast. Of the Bechuanas in the interior, Mr. Barrow remarks, that " they are not, like the eastern Kafirs, invariably black, some being of a bronze colour, and others of nearly as light a brown as the Hotten- tots. Their hair," he adds, " is longer, and more inclined to be straight." The Kafirs are frequently in the practice of covering their bodies with wood-soot or charcoal mixed with fat. Can this circumstance have been overlooked by Mr. Barrow, and have caused him to believe the natural complexion of the Kosahs to be of a darker shade than more recent travellers have generally- reported it to be ? Some older writers agree entirely in their accounts of the people of Caffraria with Mr. Barrow. Lieut. A. Paterson, who visited the eastern shores of Caf- fraria, describes the complexion of the natives as of a jet-black colour ; and Dampier has thus described the people of the coast near Cape Natal, which is in the country of the Tam- * These particulars are collected from the works of MM. Barrow, Thompson, Burchell, and other travellers. VOL. ir. u 290 PHYSICAL CHARACTERS buki Kafirs: — " They are of a middle stature and well made, with oval faces, and noses neither flat nor high, but well pro- portioned. The colour of their skin is black, and their hair crisped : their teeth are white, and their aspect altogether graceful." Professor Lichtenstein has bestowed more pains on the history of this people, and has done more to elucidate it than any other writer. He says that in respect to the colour of the Kafirs, Mr. Barrow is certainly mistaken, and that their wwi- versal complexion is rather of a clear than a dark brown. Lichtenstein has given the following description as generally applicable to the Kafir nation : " The universal characteristics of all the tribes of this great nation consist in an external form and figure varying exceed- ingly from the other nations of Africa. They are much taller, stronger, and their limbs much better proportioned. Their colour is brown — their hair black and woolly. Their counte- nances have a character peculiar to themselves, and which do not permit their being included in any of the races of mankind above enumerated. They have the high forehead and promi- nent nose of the Europeans, the thick lips of the Negroes, and the high cheek-bones of the Hottentots. Their beards are black and much fuller than those of the Hottentots." " Their language is full-toned, soft, and harmonious, and spoken without clattering : their root-words are of one and two syllables — their sound simple, without diphthongs. Their pronunciation is slow and distinct, resting upon the last syl- lable. Their dialects difter in the different tribes ; but the most distant ones understand each other." " Mr. Barrow remarks very rightly that the Caffres have, in many respects, a great resemblance to Europeans, and in- deed they have more resemblance to them than either to Ne- groes or Hottentots ; this resemblance is to be remarked par- ticularly in the form of the bones of the face, and in the shape of the skull. Their countenance has, however, something in it wholly appropriate to themselves, which, no less than their colour, and the woolly nature of their hair, distinguishes them, at the first glance, from Europeans. From both the latter characteristics the translators of Mr. Burrow's Travels derive OF THE KAFIRS. 291 the principal foundations of their doubts concerning the accu- racy of his opinion with respect to their origin, giving particular weight to the circumstance that he calls the colour of some of the tribes black. This is, however, not the case with any : here is to be found one of the strongest distinctions between the CafFre and the Negro : the skin of a pure Caffre, when free from all foreign connexion, is rather a clear than a dark brown." It appears that considerable variety exists in the physical characters of the Kafir race, and that some individuals and even some tribes display greater resemblance than others to the Negroes in the interior of Africa. M. Burchell has made some remarks on this subject which appear to be important.* He says that he was led by his personal observation to adopt the opinion, that on travelling further towards the north the Kafir tribes would be found gradually to approach, in features and complexion, towards the characters belonging to the black races who inhabit the equinoctial parts of the same continent. Individuals whom he saw amonJe-ya-ma To diink Cuni (a particular Khun-wa Ghoo re a kind of drink) Dos Sanctos has given some interesting notices referring to the moral and physical history of the Mucaronga race, and particularly to the " Cafres," as he terms them, subject to the Quiteve. " The Quiteve's people," says Dos Sanctos, " are the strongest of the Mucarongas, and the best archers, and the most expert at the azagay."f " The Quiteve, for so the king is termed, is of curled hair, a gentile, which worships nothing." " I be- lieve for certain that this Caphar nation is the most brutal and barbarous in the world, neither worshipping God nor any idol, nor have image, church, or sacrifice" — " only they believe * Ma is a frequent prefix in many of the idioms of the Kafir nations, -f- Purchas's Pilgrims, p. 1548, 1551. 304 NATIONS IN THE ' the soul's inimortalitie in another workl. They confess timt there is a devili, wliich they call Musaca. They hold monkeys were in time past men and women, and call them the old people." " Every September the king goes from Zimbaobe, his citie, to a high hill, to perform obites, or exequies, to his predecessors there buried." " In this feast the king and his nobles clothe themselves in their best silks and cottons : after eight days festivall they spend two or three days in mourning, then the devili enters into one of the company, saying that he is the soul of the deceased king." " The Cafres" — of Quiteve — " are as blacke as pitch, curled, and wear their hair full of homes made of the same hair, which stand up like distaffes, wearing slender pins of wood within these locks to uphold them without bending." *' The vulgar go naked, both men and women, without shame, wearing only an apron made of a monkey's skin." " In Mocaronga some parents, as blacke as pitch, have white, gold-locked children, like Flemmings. Whilst I was in the country, the Quiteve nourished one white childe in the court as a strange prodigie. The Monamotapa kept two other white Cafres with like admiration." Mr. Bowdich's collection of papers relating to Portuguese discoveries in South Africa, contain some notices of the countries in the interior, which formerly belonged to the em- pire of Motapa and the adjoining regions.* The most im- portant of these are extracts from the despatches of Colonel Lacerda, written at Tete in 1798, containing the depositions of an adventurer named Pereira, who had penetrated into the interior, and gave an account of several kingdoms before un- known, which he reported himself to have visited. This tra- veller, whose relation has been generally credited,-f- set out from Maringa, tliree days' j ourney north of Tete, in company with traders of the Moviza, a nation of the interior. He passed through the territory of the Maravis, divided into the districts of Benerenda, Mocenda, and Mazaramba. The Maravi are i * An Account of the Discoveries of the Portuguese in the interior of Angola and jVIozambique, from original MSS. By T. E. Bowdich, Esq. Lond. 1824. ■f On this authority many places are marked in IMr. Arrowsmith's last map of Africa. INTERIOR OF SOUTH AFRICA. 305 a nation of robbers. They are the people, as it seems, who have given their name to a great lake, which d'Anville laid down in this part of Africa from the report of the missionary Liugi Mariano, under the designation of Lake Zambri, or Merawe. After passing this lake, and a rapid river termed Aroo- anga, Pereira came into the country of the Movizas, a civil- ized people, having, however, their teeth filed, who trade with the Mujaos, and through them with the coast of Zanzibar. They pay tribute to a neighbouring state, subject to a prince termed the Cassemba, whose capital, a fortified town, was visited by Pereira, after he had passed a wide but shallow lake. The sovereign is said to live in a style of great magni- ficence, clothed in silk and gold. He has, moreover, a well- disciplined army, and appoints magistrates to prevent drunk- enness among his subjects ! The writer of an excellent article in the one-hundred and twenty-fourth number of the Edinbu)-gh Review has afforded some evidence to these reports, which otherwise would have appeared entitled to little credit, derived from information given by an intelligent Arab, a native of Zanzibar, who had himself travelled in the interior of South Africa, and had vi- sited the lake in the country of the Movizas. This lake is said to be termed by the natives N'Yassa, or the " Inland Sea:" it is situated to the westward of a chain of mountains of great ele- vation, beyond which is a vast highland plain. The lake be- comes visible to the traveller, who has ascended this bordering- chain, at a great distance, in the midst of the plain, studded with innumerable islands, and extending from north-east to south-west. It is said to contain fresh water, but no hippo- potami or crocodiles, though these creatures abound in the rivers to the eastward and below the mountains. The natives of this country are, therefore, mountaineers, and they display that superiority both in the physical and social state which often distinguishes the inhabitants of elevated countries in Africa from those of the lower and hotter regions. " The Mo- viza, the Mucamango, Muchiva, the Monomoezi, are different tribes or nations inhabiting the plains above the sources of the great rivers." All these are said to be of a "■ bright brown com- plexion, tall, handsome, and vigorous, like the Amazulun, or VOL. II. X 306 RACES INHABITING the fairest of the Bechuana tribes, near the Cape of Good Hope." The Moviza and the Monomoezi are styled Vaviia, or the rich people. The fairest tribe are said to be the Wambungo, These people, according to the writer whom I am now citing, are termed white by the neighbouring black races, and give the foundation of the story so prevalent in many accounts of Africa that a white nation inhabits the interior.* To the northward of the country of Monomotapa is the em- pire of Munemu^i, extending, according to Dos Sanctos, who terms it a great Kafir country, behind the coast of Melinda, bordering towards the south on the lands of the Mauruca, a part of the Makua and of Embeve, and reaching northwards to the empire of the Abyssines." In this last assertion Dos Sanctos is probably mistaken. It is more likely that the people described border on the countries of the Galla, who wander over the plains behind the region of the Siimali, to the north- ward of the Juba. The Munemugi are probably the Monomo- ezi; Mune, Mono, or Mani, meaning sovereign, as it has been observed, is prefixed to the titles or names of many South African chiefs and sovereignties. Monomotapa, Monomoegi, Monikongo are examples. Section IV.^ — Of the Races inhabiting the Western Parts of South Africa. — Empire of Kongo. On the western side of Africa, to the southward of theequator, the inland countries are almost unknown beyond the boun- daries of the Cape colony and Namaaqualand, if we except the region comprised in the empire, so termed, of Kongo. Of the latter we have more information through the medium of the Portuguese colony, and of the missionaries who have been sent to convert the natives to the Roman Catholic re- ligion. A vast region nearly three hundred leagues in extent, reaching from Cape Lopez or Gonsalvo to Cape Negro, and in breadth to the space of two hundred leagues, is said to have been for ages subject to one sovereign, who was styled the Mani-kongo, and who governed the provinces of his wide * Edinburgh Review, No. 124, p. 352. THE EMPIRE OF KONGO. 307 domain by his Sovas, or black viceroys.* This is Lower or Southern Guinea, or the empire of Kongo. According to Professor Ritter, who has analytically exa- mined all the accounts which are likely to throw light on the physical geography of Kongo, the limit which separates the lower region of this empire from the high central table-land of Africa, is formed by chains of mountains, which run from south to north, and bear in the map constructed by Lopez, and in various geographical outlines, the names of " Serra de Cris- tal" and " de Prata," and of " Monti Freddi e Nevosi ;" they are continuous with the mountains of Dongo and Matamba, which form the eastern border of the kingdoms of Benguela and Kongo : passing in a northerly direction at right-angles with the rivers which descend from the central region towards the Atlantic, they are traversed by those rivers, and give ex- istence to the great cataracts of the Coanza and of the Zaire. The low country to the westward of this line is nearly two hundred leagues in breadth, from the sea-coast. Between the highest level of the mountain-plain which lies to the eastward of Kongo and the low lands, there is a band of broken and diversified surface, which is the richest and most populous part of the whole region. There is the celebrated province of Bamba, termed " la chiave e lo scudo, la spada e la difesa del Re," which, though only a sixth part of the empire, could set on foot 400,000 warriors. The Portuguese only frequented the lower or littoral region, abounding in sandy deserts but traversed by innumerable channels, where heats hardly tole- rable and pestilential emanations with swarms of reptiles and noxious animals expose to perpetual hazard the lives of the inhabitants.-f This was the country traversed by Captain Tuckey, who did not penetrate beyond the cataracts. It vyould seem, from this outline of the physical geography of Kongo, that the great mass of the population are the in- habitants of comparatively low plains, at no great elevation above the surface of the ocean. In the high country, and near the higher course of the Zaire, and to the eastward of " Description of Kongo in Astley's Voyages and in the fifth tome of the Algemeine Historic der Reisen. t + Ritter's Erdkunde, 1. Theil, s, 257 et seqq. X 2 308 RACES INHABITING the river Cambra, dwell the Anziko, the Angeka, and N'teka, on mountains rich in mines, and covered with forests of san- dal-wood. These people are savages who are said to feed on human flesh. In the early history of the Portuguese settlements in Kongo, the Jagas hold a very conspicuous place. They were hordes of fierce nomadic warriors, who overran the high plains to the westward of Loango and Kongo, and struck terror into the inhabitants of all the neighbouring countries. The de- scription of the Jagas answers almost exactly to that of the Mantatees and Vatwahs, who have been so formidable in their incursions on the borders of the English colony. The name of Jaga, denoting warlike nomades, is now a title of honour- able distinction, and is claimed as the exclusive right of the Cassangas, a powerful tribe, who live to the eastward of the empire of Kongo. It is in the territory of the Cassangas, according to the information obtained by Mr. Bowdich, that the most remote fairs, or trading-resorts, frequented by the Portuguese from Angola and Kongo, are held. At- tempts have been made to penetrate from the country of the Cassangas further into the interior, and to open, if possible, a communication with Mosambique, on the eastern coast. A mulatto traveller, sent from Cassanga, after a journey of two months, is said to have reached the capital of a tribe termed Muliia, a large town laid out in regular streets, where fifteen or twenty Negroes are sacrificed every day. From the Mu- luas the Cassangas receive in barter the copper which they sell to the Portuguese. The Cassangas have, for their northern neighbours, the Cachingas, and the Domges on the east, who maintain a communication with the Portuguese at Mombaza. The Mexicongos, or Kongos of the interior, de- scribe the Hocanguas as a powerful nation, beyond whom are the dominions of the Amaluca, a nation of the interior, whose* name indicates an affinity to the Kafir Amazuluh and] Amakosah. The proper inhabitants of the great empire of Kongo are] said, by the early Portuguese travellers, to have spoken one] language, divided into a number of dialects.* I shall enume-l • Lopez, Relazione del Reamedi Congo, per Fil. Pigafetta, cited byRitter, 2 3 "^ < s 43 O • .^ =3 O U V C lU O U V i I" S % S^ s J 1 ^ N O -s s s-s .ijj .^ o ^^ > o o „ i3 S «> S OS *^ 3 «3 60 -S rC 3 «- .s a^ o c9 o !^ "-I O s a =4 7*, ^ (4 u a at^liS^:. C a) >-i o! tJ ^ »- S li u a " J> oi S H o §-a^J » cC 3 C7 1) ioo e4 aj m o- c« c3 g s I S S^ -« •si ■^1-^ x>t, " c •« -ti ^ (u -g a s* § »5 ^ * ^ >>* -^ ^ ^"q a a Six :ui >>1n XI is 3 ^ a > ~ 2 ° o ® a o * g -S3 go ;3 o ^ i2 >-.2 o;5 . '-3 o \|§ ■:o J« W ^ 316 English. KOSAH. Bechuana. Dalagoa Bay. Names of Persons, Relations, and Qualities. Man uhmto muhnto ^ monhee Woman, wife pi. umunto umf-asi monuna J massari aduhast Child ^ Children S Young man People Father uhmtoana ^ lusatschana > lutscha ) ga-baanto bao unjana baato raacho lusaana 3Iother mao, l.mau, 2 maacho Brother Dead umklhueh u-file, 2 muehuluah foi molupaliaka, 2 ) alloomfjo, 4 S utile Narnes of Material Objects. Heaven isuhlu \ Sun ilanga > lelanga, ) 3Ioon Evening star injanga ngaandi s Night Water upsuhoh maasi, 1 ) niaesi, 2 s Mountain mango Salt tjua Day Tree immihti Bird Head Rain fula House inslhuh Road maano loetshatsi bussecho nieetsi puhia moossi sela diambo moomo nmnyou 317 J\roSAiMBiaUK,VlZ. c. IvONt.O DIALECTS : KoNOO DIALtCTS l\j SUIIAII.T, OR ., AlAKUANA AND „ ' MaT-EMBA AND I'ROM in bOWAULI. ,, -^x MoNJOu. Lmbomma. Oldendohp. m until, 1 muke, I mek6nqu(i, 4 mischana, 4 (a girl) te-te, 1 } titi, 2 S mania, 1,2) amaoo, 4 S molupaliiika, 2 } alloombo, 4 \ kufoa, 3 o-kua, I ma na moo ke sejana (a girl) babbe-akou moontau, 1 kentoii, 1 ^ quinto, 2 S niauana moana bantoo, 2 lata, 1, taata, 2. mama, 1 , 2 ku-foy mond, 1 mundu, 4 kentu, 4 makaintu tatta, 1, tate, 2 mama, I, 2 afTua ezooah, 1 moloongo (God) 4 moyse, 3 tan d'wa, 1 (star) maschi p maze > madje ) mago, 1 matoombe, 4 muku, 1 ) jete, 4 S riubu, 3 mere, 4 noo-ne, 1 mil tu we, 4 moye ezooloo, 1 tangua, 2 mooezy, 1 ") n'gondue, 1 > gondo, 2 ) massecha, 1 maza, 1 and 2 m zanza monqua } moonqua J booboo nioine, 2 noone, 1 } noonee, 2 S n'loo, 1 } ni'too, 2 S voula, 1 } vola, 2 i mzo, 1 and 2 mozeila, 1 ^ eiizala, 2 S sullu, 4 ) tunga, 4 S gondo, 1 ) gonde, 4 ^ 318 2 I cf o — (N-^ (N c8 oi S 2 ES^^^ -I* §-1 C 60 — ^ -S > o »^ (M ^ • ^ p. c3 5 5 -5 S - " <^ <="'?' S« O) r-3 ~, o o be Opq COMPARISON OF THE KOSAH AND KONGO. 319 A still more decisive proof of near relation is displayed between the language of the Amakosah Kafirs and the dialects of the Kongo nations, by a comparison of the personal and possessive prononns in all these idioms. The following table contains, in one column the personal and possessive pronouns in the idiom of Loango* and Kakongo ; in a second those of the dialect of Kongo ; and in a third the same words in the Kosah Kafir. It is obsei-ved by the author of the Kafir Gram- mar, that the possessive pronouns in the idiom of the Ama- kosah are formed from the genitive cases of the personal pronouns : IDIOMS OF LOANGO AND KAKONGO. IDIOMS OF KONGO. LANGUAGE OF THE AMAKOSAH. Personal Possessive Pronou7JS. Pronouns. Personal Possessive, Pronouns. or Genitives. Personal Possessive, Pronouns. or Genitives. Singular. Singular. Singular. 1st per. 2d 3d i ame u aku ka andi Plural. meno me ngue ku oyandi ndi Plural. mina am wena ako yena ake Plural. 1st per. 2d 3d tu lu ba etu etu enu enu au au tina etu nina enu yena ake The preceding collections exhibit specimens of languages spoken in the most distant parts of Southern Africa: they may be considered as exemplifying, though by a brief specimen, the idioms of the whole African continent to the southward of the equator, except the Hottentot dialects. The Suhaili on the eastern coast, near the river Juba, the Kongo languages in the west, and the Kafir in the south, occupy the extreme points of a great triangle. The instances of resemblance are sufficiently numerous to show undoubted proof of con- nexion between all these languages ; but this proof of con- nexion is of different extent in different instances. The words of the Suhaili dialect are few in addition to the numerals ; but few as they are, they show several instances of near analogy * It may be doubted whether the short syllables given as personal pronouns in the Loango dialect are the simple forms, or rather affixes or suffixes, consisting of abbreviations of the primitive forms. 320 COMPARISON OF EASTERN to the Bechuana and Kosah languages. This is likewise the case with the idioms of the Makuani and other dialects of Mosambique.* Although the instances of common words in the various idioms of Southern Africa as yet discovered, are not absolutely considered very numerous, yet they are so in relation to the extent of the vocabularies obtained and compared. When we consider the nature of these words, common to the idioms of so many distant nations, the supposition that they may have been borrowed by one people from another seems alto- gether untenable. We are ready to think that no other hypo- thesis can explain these indications of affinity in the idioms of tribes in so low a degree of social culture, and spread over countries so remote, except the obvious one that the tribes themselves were originally subdivisions of the same stock. I shall not, however, attempt to lay down this conclusion as proved with respect to all the nations whose idioms are com- pared in the preceding table, but I think it may be consi- dered as undoubted in regard to several of the most remark- able of them and to some of those which are very widely separated. In the instance of the Kosah and Kongo languages, a much stronger evidence has been shown than with respect to the remainder, and some additional proof might still be furnished. The dialects of the empire of Kongo — including the dialect of Loango in the north, that of Kongo in the south, and the Banda, or idiom of Cassanga, m the interior — may be considered as forming collectively one nearly-related family of languages. Those of the Kafir tribes are another. Between these two comes the Bechuana language. Besides analogy in particular words, the specimen of pronouns above given in- dicates a grammatical affinity between several of these idioms, and we have good reason for the opinion that this affinity is very extensive. I have shown in a preceding chapter, by a comparison of all the information I could collect respecting the grammatical system of the Kongo dialects from Grandpre, * It is remarkable that the IMakuana table of numerals, which contains the same series as the Suhaili, though abbreviated and corrupted up to five, has no proper words to express the higher terms, but repeats the lower numbers from five to ten, a fact which seems to argue a falling off into a state of extreme barbarism. 4i* ! t^l ^s ©-3^(0) (Q)F Mt ® mj^mm 31 ® wji AND WESTERN LANGUAGES IN SOUTH AFRICA. 321 Brusciotti, and from Cannecattem, as cited by Vater and Bow- dich, with the accounts given from authentic sources respect- ing the Kosah Kafir language, that the same laws of construc- tion, and the same principles of declension and conjugation, hold in all these extensively-spread languages. In a great de- gree the same laws of construction are, as I have observed, in all probability, common to all the genuine African languages ; but those of Southern Africa are by many circumstances shown to be the most intimately related. We have likewise, in the instance of these last, besides the proof of near analogy in grammatical construction, which alone would bring the re- spective languages within the same class, a further proof of relationship in the resemblance of their vocabularies. On the evidence of these facts we may, perhaps, venture to comprise them all in one family of languages. Perhaps, indeed, after taking into consideration the coinci- dences already pointed out in their respective vocabularies, and the still more decided marks of affinity which depend on gram- matical structure, we shall be warranted in comparing the re- lation between these idioms of South Africa with that which is now generally allowed to subsist between the languages of the Indo-European nations. Section VI. — Physical Characters of the Nations of inter- tropical Africa, to the southward of the Equator. We have seen that a vast region in Africa, including per- haps the whole space between the tropic of Capricorn and the equinoctial line, is principally the abode of nations con- nected by affinity of languages with the races of people who inhabit countries further towards the south. Some of the tribes comprised in this region are strongly distinguished in many respects from the Kosahs and Bechuanas. The slaves brought from Mosambique to the Cape of Good Hope are considered as a very different class of people from the Kafirs. By Mr. Barrow, for example, they are contrasted with the Kafirs. " At Mosambique and Sofala, the black people," says this excellent writer, " are all Negroes :" and he speaks VOL. II. Y 322 PHYSICAL CHARACTERS OF of the stupid Negroes of Mosambique "as inferior in many- respects to the Hottentots." The slaves exported from Kongo, which has been long a principal resort of the Portuguese traders in black men, have always been regarded by slave- dealers and planters as genuine Negroes. By those who hold the Negro race to be very distinct in physical characters from the Kafirs, and who doubt or disbelieve the asserted influence of external agencies in modifying the complexion and form of mankind, it will bethought very improbable that the natives of Mosambique and Kongo are of the same stock with the Amakosah. The difficulty of admitting this opinion will be materially lessened, if I am not mistaken, by a consideration of the fol- lowing circumstances : Whatever may be thought of the affinity of the Kafirs with the distant nations of Kongo and Mosambique, there seems no room for doubting that the people round Dalagoa Bay are tribes of that stock. We have shown that there is sufficient reason for extending this observation to the peo- ple of Mafoomo, Mattoll and Teniby. The Mapoota peo- ple seem to be fairly included in proper Kafir-land, from which their country forms a promontory : they are nearly surrounded by Kafir tribes, viz. the Zoolahs and Amapondah. By Captain Owen, and by Mr. Thompson they are consi- dered as undoubtedly of the same race. Of these Mapoota people Captain Owen has given us the following description : " A much greater variety is observable in the countenances and features of these people than is usually perceived in Ne- gro countiies, all being jet-black, with thick woolly hair, differing in nothing but this well-marked variety of features from those of the coast of Guinea. The men are stout, hand- some and athletic, and the women well-made, but generally not so well-featured as the men : still many might be called pretty." " On this coast the custom of tattooing was practised ; notching the face is universal, each tribe having its distinc- tive mark. This is common to all the Negro nations of Africa; but the people of Dalagoa Bay and to the south- ward have also a peculiar fashion for shaving and dressing THE EASTERN AND WESTERN KAFIRS. 323 their hair. The chiefs of Mapoota and Temby wear their heads shaved, except a large tuft on the crown, on which is placed a small pad or roller, into which the wool, combed out straio;ht and tight, is tucked with much neatness. The Zoolas or Vatwahs, on the contrary, shave the crown, and leave a ring of wool round the head, similarly dressed by being trussed over a pad, and kept in its place by wooden skewers."* By the variety of features here described, we are to under- stand that while the Negro form of countenance is frequent, there are many who deviate from it, and approach the Euro- pean type : a similar observation has been made among all the northern tribes of the same groupe of nations, as with respect to the people of Kongo, and the same remark has occurred to nearly all the travellers who have described the Kafirs and Bechuanas. In all the races of Eastern Africa, and in many of those of the interior, we shall find that similar variations exist. If the physical traits of the Mapoota tribe, who will, as I suppose, be admitted to be undoubtedly of the Kafir race, so nearly approach the Negro character, it will be less difficult to admit that the natives of Mosambique and Kongo belong to the same stock. The observations of the missionary Mo- ritz Thoman have been cited to prove a general resemblance in customs and manners between the Amakosah and the people of Mosambique, and many particulars collected in the preceding sections of this chapter from the descriptions given by Dos Sanctos, as well as by late writers, exemplify the same remark. By Captain Tuckey, or by the narrator of the voyage per- formed under his command, it is said that the people of Kongo are a mixed race, having no national physiognomy, and many of them resembling, in their features, the people of Europe. The attempt to account for all variations of physical character on the hypothesis of mixture of races, cannot bo adopted in this instance with any degree of probability. We are assured that there are very few Mulattoes among the people of Kongo and the Portuguese can never have been in * Owen's Narrative, vol. i. p. 78. 324 PHYSICAL HISTORY sucli u proportion to the native people, with respect to num- bers, as to produce any impression on the physical character of the race ; and it does not appear that the individuals who are said to have European features are either more fair or have hair less woolly than the remainder of the people. Professor Smith remarked that the chief, or mafooh, of Ma.- lambo, and many of his retinue, had interesting, noble counte- nances, with more of the Arab than of the Negro character.* There are, however, deviations from the black complexion and woolly hair of the Negro race among the people of Kon- go, though these deviations take place in a manner which does not allow them to be referred to intermixture of race with the Portuguese. Many, for example, have red hair, which is very rare, if it ever occurs amongst the Portuguese. The following description is collected from the accounts given by Pigafetta and Cavazzi : " The complexion of the genuine natives of Kongo is black, though not of the same degree ; some being of a deeper dye than others ; some are of a dai'k hrown, some of an olive^ and others of a blackish red, especially the younger sort. Their hair is in general black and finely curled, but some have it of a dark sandy colour. Their eyes are mostly of a fine lively black, but some of a dark sea-green colour ; they have neither flat noses nor thick lips like other Negroes. Their stature is mostly of the middle-size, and, excepting their black complexions, they much resemble the Portuguese, though some of them are more fat and fleshy than these. "-j* According to Pigafetta's statement, the " Negroes of Kon- go have black, curly, and frequently red hair." He observes that " they resemble the Portuguese pretty much, except in colour : the iris was in some black, but in others of a bluish green, and they had not the thick lips of Nubians.*';]: It appears, on the whole, very probable that all the nations of Africa, southward of the equator, with the exception of the * Pigafetta drew up, and prepared for publication, the memoirs of Lopez, who resided several years in Kongo. See Astley's Voyages, vol. iii. p. 132. -j- Modem Universal History, vol. xvi. X Reluzione del Reanie di Kongo, per F. Pigafetta. Winterbottoni's Account of Sierra Leone, vol. i. p. 197. OF THE KAFIR RACE. 325 Hottentot tribes, including the people ofthe western coast as far northward as the empire and the dialects of Kongo and Loano-o reach, and on the eastern shore the Makuana and the other inhabitants of the Mosambique country, and even the Suhaili who extend nearly to Ajan beyond the Juba, are con- nected in origin. On the sea-coast, within the tropics, these nations, especially those among them who continue in the absolutely savage state, display much ofthe Negro character. Some, perhaps, have the physiognomy which is considered as most characteristic of that description of men in an equal degree with the inhabitants of Gumea. But the tribes who dwell in the high countries in the interior, and those who ap- pear to have issued from that region at no very distant period, among whom we may perhaps include the Amakosah, deviate greatly from the ordinary Negro type. Of this they still re- tain some vestiges even in the form of their skull, as I have shown from the results of Dr. Knox's researches, in the first volume of this work. Their complexion is sometimes nearly black, although in other tribes it becomes a clear brown. The hair of many is woolly, in others it is considerably lon- ger than the hair of the Guinea Negroes, and is rather friz- zled than woolly, or, as Owen describes it, intermediate be- tween the hair of the Negro and European, and similar to the curled locks ofthe Madecasses. The form of the skull in the natives of Mosambique re- cedes considerably, as I have observed in the first volume of this work, from the type which is considered as proper to the Negro tribes, and makes an approach towards the form cha- racteristic ofthe Kafirs.* I believe that this observation may be generalised and applied to all the native races of the east- ern parts of Africa. There are several specimens of these skulls in the museum belonging to Guy's Hospital, which are marked as belonging to Mosambique Negroes, in the cata- logue of the museum, published by Dr. Hodgkin. The fact of this approximation to the form of the Kafirs in the cra- nium of the Mosambique or eastern Negroes, was long ago remarked by that excellent anatomist, who observed that the forehead in the skulls belonging to these races is more * See vol. i. p. 297- 326 WHITE NEGROES OF KONGO. elevated than in the natives of" Guinea, though somewhat nar- row and conical, and the jaw scarcely more protuberant than in the European. H 2. Of the Dondos, or White Negroes of Kongo, and the adjacent Countries. Many writers on the History of Kongo have mentioned the Dondos, or White People, who are occasionally born in that country and the adjoining provinces. The earliest ac- count of these persons is the following, which I copy exactly as I find it, from Purchas, who has given the relation of Andrew Battell. Battell was an Englishman, who was taken prisoner by the Portuguese, and resided eighteen years in Kongo and the neighbouring countries. ^' Here are sometimes borne in this countrey, white chil- dren, which is very rare among them, for their parents are Negroes. And when any of them are borne, they be presented unto the king, and are called Dondos. These are as white as any white man. These are the king's witches, and are brought up in witchcraft, and always wayte on the king. There is no man that dare meddle with these Dondos. If they goe to market, they may take what they list, for all men stand in awe of them. The king of Loango hath foure of them." Dapper gives a more particular account of these white peo- ple. He says that they have grey eyes, and red or yellow hair, and when viewed at a distance resemble Europeans. When examined more nearly, he asserts that their colour is as that of a dead corpse, and their eyes as if they were fixed in their head. Their sight is weak, and they turn their eyes like such as squint ; but they see strongly at night, especially at moonshine. It is added they are very strong, but so idle, that they would rather die than undergo any tiresome labour. The Portuguese term them Albinoes. Section VII. — On certain Anatomical Peculiarities of the Hottentots. 51 5. M. LeVaillant and other travellers have described a pe- culiarity of conformation which they represent as characteristic PECULIARITIES OF THE HOTTENTOTS. 327 of the female Hottentot. Others have denied that any such thing exists. A female of the Bushman tribe, who was long known in England under the name of the Hottentot Venus, died in Paris in 1815, and her body was there examined by M. Cuvier. From a memoir on the subject by that celebrated anatomist, we have obtained more accurate information than we before possessed on this particular, as well as in some other points relating to the organization of the Hottentot race. The following is a very brief abstract of M. Cuvier's memoir. The author begins by some observations on the habitudes of the female who is the subject of his description, during life. He remarks that her gesture had something peculiar, which resembled the movements of apes : " Elle avoit surtout una maniere de faire saillir ses levres tout a fait pareille a ce que nous avons observe dans 1 'orang-outang. Son caractere etoit gaie, sa memoire bonne. Elle dansoit a la maniere de son pays, et jouoit avec assez d'oreille de ce petit instrument qu'on appelle guimbarde. Les colliers et autres atours sau- vages lui plaisoient beaucoup, mais ce que flattit son gout plus que tout le reste, c'etoit Feau de vie. On pent meme attribuer sa mort a un exces de boisson, auquel elle se livra pendant sa derniere maladie. " Sa hauteur etoit de quatre pieds, six pouces, sept lignes. Sa conformation frappoit d'abord par I'enorme largeur de ses hanches, qui passoit dix-huit pouces, et par la saillie de ses fesses, qui etoit de plus d'un demi-pied. Du reste elle n'avoit rien de difforme dans les proportions du corps et des mem- bres. Ses epaules, son dos, le haut de sa poitrine, avoient de la grace. La saillie de son ventre n'etoit point excessive. Ses bras un peu greles, etoient tres-bien faits, et sa main char- mante. Son pied etoit fort joli, mais son genou paroissoit gros et cagneux, ce qu'on a ensuite reconnu etre du a une forte masse de graisse, situee sous la peau du cote interne." M. Cuvier thinks these characters general in the tribe, since they are attributed to the Houzouanas, by M. Le Vaillant. " Ce que notre Boschismanne avoit de plus rebutant, c'etait sa physiognomic ; son visage tenoit en partie du Negre, par la saillie des machoires, I'obliquitedes dents incisives, la 328 PECULIARITIES OF THE HOTTENTOTS. grosseur des levres, la bri^vete et le reculement du menton ; en partie du Mongole par I'enorme grosseur des pommettes, I'aplatisement de la base du nez et dela partie du front et des arcades surcilieres qui I'avoisinent, les fentes etioites des yeux." " Ses cheveux etoient noirs et laineux, comme ceux des N eg res ; la fente de ses yeux horizontale et non oblique comme dans les Mongoles, ses arcades surcilieres rectilignes, fort ecartees Tune de I'autre, et fort aplaties vers le nez, tres saillantes, au contraire, vers la tempe, et au-dessus de la pom- mette. Ses yeux etoient noirs et assez vifs : ses levres un peu noiratres, monstrueusement renflees ; son teint etoit fort basane. " Son oreille avoit du rapport avec celle de plusieurs singes, par sa petitesse, la foiblesse de son tragus, et parce que son bord externa etoit presque efface a la partie posterieure. " On a pu, quand elle s'est depouillee, verifier que la protu- berance de ses fesses n'etoit nullement musculeuse, mais que ce devoit etre une masse de consistance elastique et trem- blante, placee immediatement sous la peau. Elle vibroit en quelque sorte a tous les mouvemens. " Les seins qu'elle avoit contume de relever et de sender par la raoyen de son vetement, abandonnes a eux memes, montrerent leurs grosses masses pendantes terminees par une areole noiratre, large de plusde quatre pouces." " La couleur generale de sa peau etoit d'un brun-jaunatre. Elle n'avoit d'autres poils que quelques floccons, tres courts d'un laine semblable a celle de sa tete clair-semes sur son pubis." " A cette premiere inspection Ton ne s'apercut point de la particularite la plus remarquable de son organization. Elle tint son tablier soigneusement cache — ce n'est qu'apres sa mortqu'on a su qu'elle le possedoit." " Elle mourut le 29 Decembre, 1815." " Les premieres recherches (au Jardin du Roi) durent avoir pour objet cet appendice extraordinaire dont la nature a fait, disoit-on, un attribut special de sa race. " On le retrouva aussitot." " Le tablier n'est point un organe particulier; c'est un developpement des nymphes." I shall PECULIARITIES OF THE HOTTENTOTS. 329 not insert the details of the minute anatomical description by which this conclusion is fully established, a conclusion which completely refutes the opinion held by M. Peron, who sup- posed the females of the Bushman race to be endowed with a peculiar organ not found in other races, and such as would afford some reason for imagining a specific diversity between them and other human races. M. Cuvier seems indeed to have regarded the Bushman tribe as such a race : he erroneously supposed them to be of a different stock from the Hottentots, and seems to have looked upon them as approximating very nearly to the Simiee. He was therefore led, without any prepossession of mind, to the inference which he adopted re- specting the supposed anatomical peculiarity, and which some further remarks contribute to confirm and illustrate. He says : " On sait que le developpement des nymphes varie beaucoup en Europe ; qu'il devient en general plus considerable dans les pays chauds ; que des Negresses, des Abyssines en sont incommodees au point d'etre obligees de se detruire ces parties par le fer ou par le feu. On fait meme d'avance cette operation a toutes les jeunes filles d'Abys- sinie." " Le college de la Propagande envoya un chirurgien sur les lieux pour verifier le fait, et sur son rapport le reta- blissement de I'ancienne coutume fut autorise par la Pape." " n n'y auroit, done, de particulier dans les Boschismans que la Constance de ce developpement et son exces." The former of these supposed facts seems to be altogether a mis- take, since the Hottentots are often destitute of the pecu- liarity. M, Cuvier says further, " Le voile des Boschismannes n'est pas une de ces particularites d'organisation qui pourroient etablir un rapport entre les femmes et les singes, car ceux-ci, loin d'avoir les nymphes prolongees, les ont en general a peine apparentes." " n n'est pas de meme de ces enormes masses de graisse que les Boschismannes portent sur les fesses." " EUes offrent une ressemblance frappante avec celles qui surviennent aux feaielles des Mandrilles, des Papions, etc., et qui prennent a certaines epoques de leur vie un accroissement vraiment monstrueux." He might have found a similar analogy to the 330 M. dubreuil's observations. tails of the African sheep. The steatopyga of the Hottentot consists merely of fat traversed in various directions by strong cellular fibres. The pelvis of the Hottentot female bore some resemblance to that of the Negress : " c'est a dire, il est proportionnelle- ment plus petit, moins evase, la crete anterieuse de I'os des iles plus grosse, et plus recourbee en dehors, la tuberosite de I'ischion plus grosse." These characters in the Negress and the Bushman female approximate, but in an extremely small degree to those of the pelvis of the simiae. In one or two minute characters of the skeleton, M. Cuvier recognised a correspondence between the Bushmen and the Guanches. He says, " la lame qui separe la fossette cubitale anterieure et la posterieure de I'humerus, n'etoit pas ossifiee : il existe un trou a cet endroit, comme dans 1' hu- merus de plusieurs singes, des chiens, et de quelques autres carnassiers. J'ai trouve aussi que la Gouanche et la Bos- chismanne avoient les angles de I'omoplate plus aigues et le bord spinal plus prolonge que la Negresse et FEuropeene." The former of these characters, namely, the foramen ob- served in the humerus, or the opening into the fossa or ca- vity of the olecranon, has been thought the more important as it is known to exist as a constant character in many tribes of animals, as, for example, in many of the simise, in dogs, and some other carnivorous kinds, in the wild-boar, the chev-| rotip, and the daman. The subject has been lately referred to by M. Dubreuil, in a memoir presented by him to the Aca- demy of Sciences, on which a report has been given by M. Flourens.* In two skulls of Guanches exhibited by M. Du- breuil, this foramen was wanting. It is therefore not a charac- teristic of the race which inhabited the Canary Islands. M. Flourens discovered it in the humerus of an Egyptian mummy, and in the skeleton of a female Mulatto, but sought for it ii vain in that of a Negress. He remarks that it exists occasion-! ally in Europeans. From all these facts we must conclude that the presence or absence of this character in human skeletonsj is probably an instance of individual variety. • M6moirc sur les Caracteres des Races, pris de la Ttte Osseusc. Par M. Dubrueil.1 RELATION OF PHYSICAL CHARACTERS. 331 CHAPTER XV. CONCLUDING OBSERVATIONS ON THE PHYSICAL CHARACTERS OF THE AFRICAN NATIONS, ON THEIR RELATION TO THE CLIMATE OF AFRICA, AND ON THEIR CONSTANCY OR LIA- BILITY TO VARIATION. Section I. — Inquiry into the Relations between the Phe- nomena of Variety in the Physical Characters of the African Races and Climate and other external condi- tions. In concluding this survey of African ethnography, I shall endeavour to collect some inferences from the facts already reviewed, which may contribute, as far as their evidence ex- tends, to a solution of the inquiries stated at the outset of this part of my work. If we inquire in the first place whether the physical cha- racters of the African nations display themselves under any relation to climate, facts seem to decide the question in the affirmative; for we might describe the limits of Negroland to the north and south with tolerable correctness, by saying that it is bounded on both sides by the tropics ; that is, that the native country of all the black races, properly so termed, seems to be the intertropical region. If we follow the prolongations- of Central Africa to the southward of the tropic of Capricorn, we find the Hottentots, in whom the hue of the Negro is diluted to a yellowish brown, and the Kafirs, who in the country of the Bechuanas, are said to be red or copper-co- loured ; but here are no people resembling the black natives of equatorial Africa. To the northward of the Senegal we have the Tuaryk in the oases of the Great Desert, and wandering 332 RELATION OF PHYSICAL tribes of Arabs, in both of which races some tribes or families are said to be black ; but the same races are in general brown or almost white, and the Berbers, akin to the Tuaryk, inha- biting the second system of mountains or highlands in this quarter of the world, an elevated region eight or ten degrees in breadth and extending lengthwise through a great part of Africa, but under a temperate climate, are not like the native races of the intertropical parts, but white people with flow- ing hair, similar to the nations of Europe, and in some liigh tracts displaying all the characters of the xanthous variety of mankind. Perhaps it may be thought by some of my readers that these facts, although their bearing is sufficiently plain, are too limited in their number and extent to carry much weight of evidence, or authorise a general induction. I shall endea- vour to examine the question in a more extensive field, by following the plan suggested at the outset of this part of my work. But for that purpose it will be necessary to anticipate what properly belongs to a succeeding part of this inquiry, and to bring into comparison different zones both in Europe and in Africa, from the northern limits of the former conti- nent to the southern extremity of the latter. In thus advert- ing to European countries, and their population, I shall not enter into particulars, but merely touch upon some facts well known, and which do not require to be established by ethno- graphical researches. These researches, in relation to Europe, belong to a future part of my woik, and are not wanted for my present undertaking, which only requires a reference to some leading facts, such as may usefully be brought into a comparison with corresponding facts in the history of African nations. The mountains of Atlantica may be considered as forming the southern side of an extensive declivity or depression in the surface of our planet, which contains or rather forms the basin of the Mediterranean. In a wide sense, this basin may be described as reaching in breadth from the chain of Atlas to a boundary line which touches the most northern coast of the Mediterranean sea, and is continued on one side by the CHARACTERS TO CLIMATES. 333 Pyrenees on the other by the Alps. The northern limit of the depressed region thus described may be termed the Pyreno-Alpine line. The highlands of Atlas, or rather the southern border of that system of mountains, form moreover the northern mar- gin of another low region, the southern boundary of which is the chain ofthe Jebel Kumra, or Lunar Mountains, the border of Central Africa. If we compare the climates of the three elevated borders which rise above and contain between them the region of the Mediterranean and the Dry Sahara, we find the intermediate one much less different from the climate of the northern than from that of the southern chain which lies within the region of tropical rains and heats. That the climate of Mount Atlas is more similar to that of the Alps and Pyrenees than to that of Central Africa is proved by the fact well known in bota- nical geography, that the vegetation of Southern Europe ex- tends to the Atlantic chain. The flora ofthe northern coast of the Mediterranean undergoes no very great modification within that limit. Both of the coasts of that inland sea are considered as belonging to the same botanical province. But tropical Africa displays a widely different vegetation. In like manner, the physical characters of human races vary comparatively little from the northern limit of the Me- diterranean region to Mount Atlas, while on the border of Central Africa they display a remarkable change. The inha- bitants of this last chain of mountains are Negroes, while the Berbers of Atlas difier but little in colour and other phy- sical peculiarities from the Piedmontese and Spaniards under the northern limit of this region. Another geographical department, which may be compared with those above described, may be distinguished if we take the Pyreno-Alpine line for a southern, and the Scandinavian Alps for a northern limit. This may be termed the Central European region. We shall further increase the number of geographical de- partments, for the purpose of a more extended comparison, if we divide the Central European region, as well as the Great African region, each into three zones, or districts, in different 334 RELATION OF PHYSICAL latitudes. The European region may be divided into the lati- tudes of France, of Germany, and of Scandinavia ; and Africa into Negroland between the tropics, Kafirland beyond that line, and further southward, the country of the Hottentots. These divisions, including the Mediterranean region and the Sahara, will constitute eight zones. We shall now find, on comparing these several departments with each other, that marked differences of physical charac- ter, and particularly of complexion, distinguish the human races which respectively inhabit them, and that these differ- ences are successive or by gradations. First, Among the people of level countries within the Medi- terranean region, including Spaniards, Italians, Greeks, Moors, and the Mediterranean islanders, black hair with dark eyes are almost universal, scarcely one person in some hundreds presenting an exception to this remark : with this colour of the hair and eyes is conjoined a complexion of brownish white, which tlie French call the colour of brunettes. We must observe, that throughout all the zones into which we have divided the European region, similar complexions to this of the Mediterranean countries are occasionally seen. The qualities, indeed, of climate are not so diverse, but that even the same plants are found sporadically in the north of Europe as in the Alps and Pyrenees. But if we make a comparison between the prevalent colours of great numbers, we can easily trace a succession of shades or of different hues. Secondly, In the southernmost of the three zones, to the northward of the Pyreno-Alpine line, namely, in the latitude of France, the prevalent colour of the hair is a chestnut-brown,* • M. Esquirol has given a table indicating the varieties of temperament, or ra- ther of complexion, which displayed themselves in the hospital of the Salpetriere, at Paris, and the proportional number of individuals of each complexion. He says further, that these proportions are nearly identical with those which are pre- valent in the mass of the population of the centre of France. They are as fol- lows: Hair, chesnut-brown in 118 cases. fair or blond 39 grey or white 3G black 31 yellow or red 2 CHARACTERS TO CLIMATES. 335 to which the complexion and the colour of the eyes bear a certain relation. Thirdly, In the northern parts of Germany, England, in Denmark, Finland, and a great part of Russia, the xanthous variety, strongly marked, is prevalent. The Danes have always been known as a people of florid complexion, blue eyes, and yellow hair.* The Hollanders were termed by Silius Italicus, " Auricomi Batavi," the golden-haired Batavians, and Lin- naeus has defined the Finns as a tribe distinguished by " capillis flavis prolixis." Fourthly, In the northern division we find the Norwegians and Swedes to be generally tall, white-haired men, with light grey eyes, characters so frequent to the northward of tlie Baltic, that Linnaeusf has specified them in a definition of the inhabitants of Swedish Gothland. We have thus, to the northward of Mount Atlas, four well-marked varieties of human complexion succeeding each other, and in exact ac- cordance with the gradations of latitude and of climate from south to north. The people are thus far nearly white in the colour of their skin, but in the more southerly of the three regions above defined, with a mixture of brown, or of the complexion of brunettes, or such as we term swarthy or sallow persons. Fifthly, In the next region, to the southward of Atlas, the native inhabitants are the " gentes subfusci coloris" of Leo, and the immigrant Arabs in the same country are, as we have seen by abundant testimonies, of a similar light-brown hue, but varying between that and a perfect black. Sixthly, With the tropic and the latitude of the Senegal, begins the region of predominant and almost universal black, and this continues, if we confine ourselves to the low and plain countries, through all intertropical Africa. Eyes, chesnut or brown in 102 cases. blueor light 98 • black 17 Diet, des Sci. Med. Jacobi's Sammlungen, b. i. p. 298. * According to Dr. Clarke they still deserve this description. See his Travels in the North of Europe. -|- " Gothi corpore proceriore, capillis albidis, oculorum iridibus cinereo-coe- rulescentibus." Linna;us's Fauna Suecica. 336 RELATION OF PHYSICAL Seventhly, Beyond this is the country of copper-coloured and red people, who, in Kafirland, are the majority, while in intertropical Africa there are but few such tribes, and those in countries of mountainous elevation. Lastly, Towards the Cape are the tawny Hottentots, scarcely darker than the Mongoles, whom they resemble in many other particulars besides colour. It has long been well known, that as travellers ascend mountains, in whatever region, they find the vegetation at every successive level altering its character, and assuming a more northern aspect, thus indicating that the state of the atmosphere, temperature, and physical agencies in general, assimilate as we approach alpine regions, to the peculiari- ties locally connected with high latitudes. If, therefore, com- plexion and other bodily qualities belonging to races of men depend upon climate and external conditions, we should ex- pect to find them varying in reference to elevation of surface, and if they should be found actually to undergo such varia- tions, this will be a strong argument that these external characters do, in fact, depend upon local conditions. Now, if we inquire respecting the physical characters of the tribes inhabiting high tracts within either of the regions above marked out, we shall find that they coincide with those which prevail in the level or low parts of more northern tracts. The Swiss, in the high mountains above the plains of Lombardy, have sandy or brown hair. What a contrast presents itself to the traveller who descends into the Milanese, where the peasants have black hair and eyes, with strongly marked Italian and almost Oriental features. In the higher parts of the Biscayan country, instead of the swarthy complexion and black hair of the Castilians, the natives have a fair com- plexion with light-blue eyes and flaxen or auburn hair.* And in Atlantica, while the Berbers of the plains are of brown complexion .with black hair, we have seen that the Shuluh mountaineers are fair, and that the inhabitants of the high • I have been assured of this fact by Col. Napier. The Basques of the high tracts approaching the Pyrenees, as he informs me, are a people of strikingly dif- ferent aspect from the inhabitants of the low parts around, whether Spaniards or Bis- cayans. They are (inely made, tall men, with acjuiline noses, fair complexion, kc. CHARACTERS TO CLIMATES. 337 tracts of Mons Aurasius are completely xanthous, having red or yellow hair and blue eyes, which fancifully, and without the shadow of any proof, they have been conjectured to have derived from the Vandal troops of Genseric. Even in the intertropical region, high elevations of surface, as they produce a cooler climate, seem to occasion the appear- ance of light complexions. In the high parts of Senegambia, which front the Atlantic, and are cooled by winds from the Western Ocean, where, in fact, the temperature is known to be moderate and even cool at times, the light-copper-coloured Fiilahs are found surrounded on every side by Negro nations in- habiting lower districts ; and nearly in the same parallel, but at the opposite side of Africa, are the high plains of Enarea and Kaffa, where the inhabitants are said to be fairer than the na- tives of southern Europe. The Galla and the Abyssinians them- selves are, in proportion to the elevation of the country inhabited by them, fairer than the natives of low countries ; and lest an exception should be taken to a comparison of straight-haired races with woolly Negroes or Shungalla, they bear the same comparison with the Danakil, Hazorta, and the Bishari tribes, resembhng them in their hair and features, who inhabit the low tracts between the mountains of Tigre and the shores of the Red Sea, and who are equally or nearly as black as Negroes. We may find occasion to observe that an equally decided relation exists between local conditions and the existence of other characters of human races in Africa. Those races who have the Negro character in an exaggerated degree, and who may be said to approach to deformity in person — the ughest blacks with depressed foreheads, flat noses, crooked legs — are in many instances inhabitants of low countries, often of swampy tracts near the sea-coast, where many of them, as the Papels, have scarcely any other means of subsistence than shell-fish, and the accidental gifts of the sea. In many places similar Negro tribes occupy thick forests in the hol- lows beneath high chains of mountains, the summits of which are inhabited by Abyssinian or Ethiopian races. The high table-lands of Africa are chiefly, as far as they are known, VOL. II. z 338 RELATION OF PHYSICAL the abode or the wandering places of tribes of this character, or of nations who, like the Kafirs, recede very considerably from the Negro type. The Mandingos are, indeed, a Negro race inhabiting a high region ; but they have neither the de- pressed forehead nor the projecting features considered as characteristic of the Negro race. We may further remark, and perhaps this observation is fully as important as that of any other connected fact or coinci- dence, that physical qualities of particular races of Africans are evidently related to their moral or social condition, and to the degrees of barbarism or civilization under which they exist. The tribes in whose prevalent conformation the Negro type is discernible in an exaggerated degree, are uniformly in the lowest stage of human society ; they are either ferocious savages, or stupid, sensual, and indolent — such are the Papels, BuUoms, and other rude hordes on the coast of Western Guinea, and many tribes near the Slave Coast, and in the Bight of Benin, countries where the slave-trade has been carried on to the greatest extent, and has exercised its usually baneful influence. On the other hand, wherever we hear of a Negro state, the inhabitants of which have attained any considerable degree of improvement in their social condition, we constantly find that their physical characters deviate considerably from the strongly-marked or exaggerated type of the Negro. The Ashanti, the Sulima, the Dahomans, are exemplifications of this remark. The Negroes of Guber and Haiisa, where a con- siderable degree of civilization has long existed, are perhaps the finest race of genuine Negroes in the whole continent, unless the lolofs are to be excepted. The lolofs have been a comparatively civilized people from the era of their first discovery by the Portuguese, to which I have alluded in the preceding pages. Perhaps we ought to enumerate among the instances of physical peculiarity connected with local conditions, the woolly nature of the hair in the South African races. As this is a character common to tribes who in other respects differ so considerably from each other in the shape of the head, and other particulars of form and organization, as do the Kafirs and Hottentots, we may draw an inference that it is connected CHARACTERS NOT PERMANENT. 339 with the local circumstances either of the countries where these races now dwell, or of others which they may have heretofore inhabited. These may have been within the region still occupied by the Negroes of equatorial Africa. On simi- lar grounds we may refer to some unknown condition of cli- mate, the steatopygous deformities of the Bushmen. As these remarkable depositions of fat are not the peculiarity of one tribe, namely the Saabs, who have been erroneously looked upon as a separate race, but appear also among the Hottentots, and, as we have shown from sufficient testimony, among the Makuani, a people of different origin, who are allied to the Saabs in nothing but the savageness and squalid misery to which both tribes are reduced, we have no room for doubt that the cause of the phenomenon is some influence connected with climate and situation. If the question should be asked, why then does not the same cause produce a like effect in other instances, as among the descendants of Euro- pean colonists, the only reply will be, that the local influence is perhaps not sufficiently strong to give rise to the pheno- menon generally, but only sporadically ; and other concurring agencies may be required. It has been observed, that the descendants of Frenchmen who have settled in the Valais are not, like the native inhabitants, subject to the goitre and cretinism so frequent among the Savoyards,* and that the Plica Polonica or " Weichselzopf " to which Polish families are subject in the neighbourhood of the Vistula scarcely ever appears among Russians or Germans who are settled in the same districts.^ • Report on the Cretins of the Valais, by M. Rambuteau, prefect of the De- partment of the Simplon, in 1803, addressed to the Minister of the Interior. M. Georget, Diet, de JMedecine, art. " Idiotisme." -f- IMerkwiirdige Fiille von Plica Polonica aus vieljiihriger Erfahrung gesammelt zur Aufheilung ihrer verborgenen Formen vom Dr. Kiitzen zu Bromberg. Mit einem Vorwort iiber Rafenkrankheiten von. C. W. Hufeland. Hufeland und (Isann's Journal der praktischen Heilkunde, 1834. z2 340 CHARACTERS OF THE AFRICAN RACES Section II. — Examination of the question, whether the Physical Characters of human Races are in Africa per- manent, or liable to variation. What instances of such Deviation can he proved to have taken place ? The inquiry above stated is more important with respect to the history of mankind, than even that which relates to the connexion of physical characters with local circumstances. For if it be allowed that all the characteristics of the Negro and the Hottentot are in relation to the nature of external agencies in the countries which they inhabit, it will not immediately follow that the climates of Africa are capable of transmuting other races of men into Negroes or Hottentots, or of giving rise to peculiarities similar to those which distin- guish these tribes, in others originally destitute of them. It might still be maintained that the people so characterised are races originally constituted by nature to inhabit particular regions, and endued from their first creation with peculiari- ties which render them fit for their abode within a destined space, just as we suppose the numerous and multiform spe- cies of monkeys to have been originally distinct from each other, and each originally fitted to inhabit its own native seat. Before I proceed to point out the instances of variation which can be traced among the African races, it may be useful to attend to the following consideration. The dark-coloured nations of Africa do not appear to form a distinct race, or a distinct kind of people, separated from all other families of men by a broad line and uniform among themselves, such as we ideally represent under the term Negro. There is, perhaps, not one tribe in which all the characters ascribed to the Negro are found in the highest degree, and in general they are distributed to different races in all manners of ways, and combined in each instance with more or fewer of the characters belonging to the European or the Asiatic. The distineuishing peculiarities of the African nations, may NOT PERMANENT. 341 be summed up into four heads, viz. the characters of com- plexion, of hair, features, and figure. We have to remark, 1. That some races, with woolly hair and complexions of a deep black colour, have fine forms, regular and beautiful fea- tures, and are, in their figure and countenances, scarcely dif- ferent from Europeans. Such are the lolofs, near the Sene- gal, and the race of Guber, or of Hausa, in the interior of Sudan. Some tribes of the South African race, as the darkest of the Kafirs, are nearly of this description, as well as some families or tribes in the empire of Kongo, while others have more of the Negro character in their countenances and form. 2. Other tribes have the form and features similar to those above described : their complexion is black, or a deep olive or copper-colour approaching to black, while their hair, though often crisp and frizzled, is not the least woolly. Such are the Bishari and the Danakil and Hazorta, and the darkest of the Abyssinians. 3. Other instances have been mentioned in which the com- plexion is black, and the features have the Negro type, while the nature of the hair deviates considerably, and is even said to be rather long and in flowing ringlets. Some of the tribes near the Zambesi are of this class. 4. Among nations whose colour deviates towards a lighter hue, we find some who have woolly hair, with a figure and features approaching to the European. Such are the Bech- uana Kafirs, of a light brown complexion. The tawny Hot- tentots, though not approaching the European, differ from tiie Negro. Again, some of the tribes on the Gold Coast and the Slave Coast, and the Ibos in the Bight of Benin, are of a lighter complexion than many other Negroes, while their fea- tures are strongly marked with the peculiarities of that race. These observations can hardly be reconciled with the hy- ])othesis that the Negroes are one distinct species. We might more easily adopt the notion that there are among them a number of separate species, each distinguished by some pecu- liarity which another wants ; but on that supposition the de- viation will be so gradual from the physical character of other human races, as to undermine the ground on which the opinion 342 CHARACTERS OF THE AFRICAN RACES of a specific and strongly marked distinction has been founded. Separate species of organized beings do not pass into each other by insensible degrees. I shall now allude in a summary manner to the most re- markable instances in which deviations in the physical cha- racters of races appear, from the testimonies collected in the foregoing pages, to have actually taken place. 1. The Arab tribes who emigrated into Africa eleven or twelve hundred years ago, have undergone a very consider- able change in their physical character. I shall not repeat what I have l)efore said on this subject, but refer my readers to the seventh chapter of this book, where they will find the testimonies of travellers and naturalists, who have made the most accurate researches into the history of the Arabs of Nubia and Maghrab. The general result appears to be, that though the Arab races retain everywhere more or less of their primitive type, as they have everywhere retained their ancient manner of existence, yet ^'hey have become in many places a people of greater stature, stouter form, and more regular features than the inhabitants of the peninsula. Their complexion has also undergone a change, and, accord- ing to several accurately informed and scientific writers, such as Mr. Waddington, Dr. Riippell, and M. Rozet, there are black races in Africa, among the genuine descendants of emi- grants from Arabia. It must be remembered, that the parts of Africa which these tribes inhabit, are not the Negro coun- tries, but various tracts in Atlantica and the Sahara, and on the borders of Egypt and Nubia. 2. The native Lybian or Atlantic race, affords a parallel instance of deviation in physical character, or at least in com- plexion. Aborigines of the mountainous tracts, they are stran- gers in the Desert to which they perhaps resorted soon after the surface of the Sahara-bela-ma was abandoned by the waters which once covered it. If it seems to any one more probable that they first peopled the low country, they must be considered as foreigners in the mountainous region of At- lantica. On either supposition the Tuaryk appear to be the same people as the Berbers and Shiiluh. The former are, as we have seen, of various hues. Some tribes, as those of Gua- NOT PERMANENT. 343 lata, are said to be black, without having any other charac- teristic of the Negro, which might suggest the supposition of intermixture with the nations of Sudan. Others are yellow, or copper-coloured, and some, as we have lately observed, viz. in mountainous countries, white, and even xanthous. 3. There are no authenticated instances, either in Africa or elsewhere, of the transmutation of other varieties of mankind into Negroes. The experiment has never been tried, for al- though Europeans and Asiatics have settled, and all their de- scendants have dwelt for generations on the soil of intertropi- cal Africa, they have never adopted the manners of the abo- rigines. We are not sufficiently informed respecting the fact asserted by Oldendorp on the authority of his black inform- ants, that there are many Jews in Kongo, whose physical characters have assimilated to those of the native inhabitants. We have, however, examples of very considerable deviation in the opposite direction. The descendants of genuine Ne- groes are no longer such : they have lost, in several instances, many of the peculiarities of the stock from which they sprang. I have already described the Barabra of the Nile, and shall now only refer my readers to the testimonies which I have collected in the sixth chapter of this book, in reference to that people. It has been there stated, that although descended from the Koldagi Nuba, or Negro mountaineers of Kordofan, the Barabra exempt, as they are said to be, from intermixture with the Arabs, and other inhabitants of the Nile-valley, have, nevertheless, acquired and now display physical characters of a very difierent description from those of the Negro. A simi- lar change has taken place apparently under nearly corre- sponding circumstances in the characters of the Funge, the conquerors of Sennaar, who, though descended from the Shi- lukh Negroes, have no longer the genuine characters of the Negro race. One of the peculiarities of the nation last mentioned, is the Irequent appearance among them of a red complexion and of red hair, a phenomenon analogous, as it would seem, to the so-termed accidental developement of light varieties of complexion in the black nations, of which so many instances have been recorded. White Negroes, or Dondos, are fre- 344 CHARACTERS OF THE AFRICAN RACES quently bom from black parents, in all parts of Africa. Many of them are of the xanthous variety, and have red hair. They seem to be particularly numerous in the black race vv^hich repeopled Sennaar some hundred years ago, where, un- der the name of" EI Aknean," " the Red People," they form, according to M. Cailliaud, a separate or distinguishable caste. In other parts of Africa, the xanthous variety often appears, but does not multiply. Individuals thus characterised are like seeds which perish in an uncongenial soil. In the instance of a white Kafir, of which I have cited from Mr. Burchell a description in the preceding volume of this work, and in many examples of white Negroes described in the same place, it would appear that the complexion of such persons is not so remote from that of fair Europeans as to leave much room for doubt, that by distant marriages a stock might be propagated from persons of this description, which might be reckoned among the white and xanthous races of man- kind. 4. The difference of physical characters between the Kafirs, meaning the Amakosah, and the Negroes known to us in Western Africa, are so great as to have appeared to many travellers to be distinctive of separate races, and of varieties of the human species, very remote from each other. The Kafirs have been thought by intelligent and accurate observers, to resemble the Arabs more than the natives of intertropical Africa. The conclusion to which we are led by the most careful researches into their history, is, that nothing in their physical or moral qualities confimis the hypothesis of an Asiatic origin. They are a genuine African race, and, as it appears highly probable, only a branch of one widely-ex- tended race, to which all the Negro nations of the empire of Kongo belong, as well as many tribes both on the western and eastern side of southern Africa. The skull of the Kosah Kafirs, though still retaining something of the African cha- racter, deviates very considerably from that type, and ap- proaches the form of the European skull, or that of the Indo- Atlantic nations. To the form described by Dr. Knox as characteristic of the Kafir, the eastern Negroes of Africa appear generally to approximate ; the skulls of Mosambique NOT PERMANENT. 345 blacks or Makuani filling up the gradations that may be imagined between the depressed forehead and strongly- marked African countenances of the Ibos, and the well- developed heads and bold and animated physiognomy of the Amakosah and Amazuluh. The complexion of these tribes presents every variety from the dark black of the Loango or Angola Negro to the olive-brown or copper colour of the Bechuana, who inhabit high plains beyond the tropic. The nature of the hair is one of the most general, as it is certainly the most characteristic peculiarity of these nations. Yet even this displays deviations, and in some tribes among whom there is no probable ground for conjecturing diversity or intermixture of race, the hair is positively stated to be not woolly but merely curled, or in flowing ringlets of consider- able length. Many other instances may be collected in the preceding survey of the African races, in which variations of a similar description are proved to have taken place. The more accu- rate are our researches into the ethnography of this region of the world, the less ground do we find for the opinion that the characteristic qualities of human races are permanent and undeviating. Among the various considerations which confirm this view of the subject we must not neglect to take into the account the conclusions to which we are led by a comparison of the languages of Africa. If, as it would appear highly probable, the various idioms of Africa constitute one family of lan- guages, in which the language of the Kafirs and that of the Egyptians are included, this will go far towards the proof of a common origin. On this subject I shall add nothing fur- ther to what has been already stated in the fifth section of chapter the tenth. An attempt to analyse accumulated facts, such as those which we have now reviewed, and to deduce some general conclusion respecting the manner in which varieties in races take their rise, the theory of the causes which produce them, and the nature of the influence which these causes exert, will find its proper place after we have completed the ethnographical survey of other regions of the world. In the 346 INTELLECT OF THE AFRICAN next book we shall proceed to consider the population of Europe. Section III. — General Observations on the intellectual Faculties of the African Nations. I cannot finish the concluding reflections which form the subject of the present chapter, without adverting, in a general point of view, to the opinion of those who consider the native races of Africa as mentally inferior to the rest of mankind. I shall briefly survey the evidence deducible with reference to this question from the preceding account of the African na- tions, and from some other arguments which appear to throw light upon it. It is well known that many celebrated writers on natural history, and particularly on that of man, have regarded the natives of Africa as inferior to Europeans in intellect and in the organization contrived for the developement or exercise of the intellectual faculties. Among these writers the most eminent are Camper, Soemmering, Cuvier, Lawrence, White, Virey, and M. Bory de St. Vincent. By all of these it is maintained that Negroes make a decided approach towards the natural inferiority of the monkey tribe — that they were endowed by the Creator with the noble gift of reason in a very inferior degree, when compared with the more favoured inha- bitants of Europe. It has been well observed by a late writer that it is important to elucidate this question if possible, on several accounts; and that if it were proved to be correct, the Negro ought to occupy a different situation in society from that which has been de- clared to belong to him by the British government, and we may add, by the unanimous acclaim of the British nation. In reality the Negro — if his capabilities and aptitudes are such as some of the writers above mentioned, particularly White and Bory de St. Vincent, argue — is only fitted, by his natural constitution and endowments, for a servile state ; and the zealous friends of his tribe, Wilberforce and Clarkson and others, who are thought to have obtained an exalted station NATIONS NOT INFERIOR. 347 among the great benefactors of the human race, must be re- garded as well-meaning enthusiasts, who, under an imagined principle of philanthropy, have argued with too much success for the emancipation of domestic animals — of creatures plainly destined by nature to remain in that condition, and to serve the lords of the creation in common with his oxen, his horses, and doos. If science has led to this conclusion, and it is the true and just inference from facts, the sooner it is admitted the better : the opinion which is opposed to it must be an un- reasonable and injurious prejudice. It may be observed, that those writers who maintain the mental inferiority of the African have not extended that alle- gation to all the native races of Africa. They have restricted it, for the most part, or have principally ascribed it to the Negroes of the intertropical region, comprising, however, the Hottentots. I have endeavoured to show that the Kafir, or woolly-haired tribes in the southern parts of Africa, cannot be considered as a people permanently distinct from the Negroes; some tribes of the Kafir race, namely those who live near or within the tropic, having every attribute that can be ascribed to the most genuine Negroes. The Kafirs, in fact, are not distinguished by any decided or clearly-marked line. They are, as Dr. Knox has very properly termed them, only improved Ne- groes, or Negroes of a temperate and mountainous region. Those who maintain that a natural and permanent inferiority belongs, as a general attribute, to the Negroes, and that they form a particular race of a lower rank in the creation than white men, must extend this assertion to all the woolly-haired nations of Africa. They must, indeed, comprehend not only the Hottentots and Negroes, usually so termed, but likewise the Kafirs : all these tribes have physical characters in common, which appear to be much more distinctive and permanent than any characteristics which separate them. But if it is pretended that all the woolly-haired races in Africa are uniformly inferior in intellect to other tribes of men, the assertion is at most a gratuitous one. Nay, it is contra- dicted by the most clear and decisive testimony. Travellers in South Africa have been struck by the proofs of vigour and 348 INTELLECT OF THE AFRICAN acuteness of understanding displayed by the Amaziiluh, Ama- kosah, Bechuana, and other Kafir nations. And if the alleged inferiority of organization and of capacity in the skull is the ground on which deficiency of intellect is ascribed to the wool- ly-haired nations, this at least does not apply to the Kafirs, many of whom have a form of the head, and particularly an expansion of the anterior parts of the skull, resembling the heads of Europeans. A similar objection to this doctrine might, indeed, be fur- nished by many black races between the tropics, and among those tribes who are considered as genuine Negroes. I need not repeat what I have said respecting the physical and the intellectual characteristics of the Mandingos, and the people of Guber, Hausa, and other nations. But if the allegation of intellectual inferiority is scarcely to be maintained with respect to the woolly-haired nations con- sidered as one class, it will be still more difficult to uphold it, with any degree of probability, when we extend yet further the limit by which the African family or department of nations is defined. I am aware that the facts which I have been able to collect relating; to the languag-es of the African nations are very incomplete, and that far more extensive researches must be instituted before the subject can be said to have been elucidated in a satisfactory manner. Yet I think I have col- lected evidence sufficient to prove that the languages of many African nations, including particularly the Egyptian and the Kafir and Kongoese nations, belong to one department of human idioms. The divisions constituted by difference of language are, perhaps, not less important or less permanent than those depending on physical characters. If it should be allowed that the native races of Africa constitute, by the analogy of their languages, one department of nations, and that the ancient Egyptians are included in this class, no person will maintain their universal and permanent inferiority of intellect. This assertion has not, in fact, been made so extensively. Apish stupidity and resemblance to the orang and macauco have been predicated of the Hottentots, and chiefly of some nations on the western coast, of those tribes particularly who NATIONS NOT INFERIOR. 349 display in their conformation the peculiarities of the Negro in a strongly-marked or exaggerated degree. If these tribes are, as I have endeavoured to prove, not a distinct class of nations, but only the offsets of stems differing widely from them when existing under more favourable cir- cumstances ; if the apparent inferiority in their organization, their ugliness, thin and meagre and deformed stature, are usually connected with physical conditions unfavourable to the developement of bodily vigour — there will be no proof of ori- ginal inferiority in anything that can be adduced respecting them. Their personal deformity and intellectual weakness, if these attributes really belong to them, must be regarded as in- dividual varieties. Similar defects are produced in every human race by the agency of physical circumstances parallel to those under which the tribes in question are known to exist.* If these were reversed, it is probable that a few generations would obliterate the effect which has resulted from them. • An interesting remark, which bears upon this subject, has been made respecting the natives of some parts of Ireland : — " On the plantation of Ulster, and afterwards on the successes of the British against the rebels of 1641 and 1689, great multitudes of the native Irish were driven from Armagh and the south of Down into the mountainous tract extending from the barony of Flews eastward to the sea ; — on the other side of the kingdom the same race were expelled into Leitrim, Sligo, and Mayo. Here they have been almost ever since, exposed to the worst effects of hunger and ignorance, the two great brutalizers of the human race." The descend- ants of these exiles are now distinguished physically from their kindred in Meath, and in other districts where they are not in a state of physical degradation. They are remarkable for " open projecting mouths, with prominent teeth and exposed gums : their advancing cheek-bones and depressed noses bear barbarism on their very front." " In Sligo and the northern Mayo the consequences of two centuries of degradation and hardship exhibit themselves in the whole physical condition of the people, affecting not only the features, but the frame, and giving such an example of human deterioration from known causes as almost compensates, by its value to future ages, for the suffering and debasement which past generations have endured in perfecting its appalling lesson." "Five feet two inches upon an average, pot- bellied, bow-legged, abortively featured ; their clothing a wisp of rags, &c. — these spectres of a people that once were well-grown, able-bodied, and comely, stalk abroad into the day-light of civilization, the annual apparitions of Irish ugliness and Irish want." In other parts of the island, where the population has never un- dergone the influence of the same causes of physical degradation, it is well known that the same race furnishes the most perfect specimens of human beauty and vigour, both mental and bodily." — See an excellent paper on the Population, &c. of Ire- land, in the Dublin University Magazine, No. xlviii. p. 658 — (J75. 350 INTELLECT OF THE AFRICAN The crania of Negroes existing in European collections, and those which have been principally examined by anatomists, have been almost exclusively taken from tribes who may be supposed to have presented the most unfavourable specimens of the African organization. They have been the skulls of un- fortunate wretches kidnapped from the coast, or their enslaved offspring. It was from Negro skulls of this description that those proportional measurements were taken by Soemmering and others, from which an attempt was made to prove that the amplitude of the brain is less in the Negro than in other races of men. A string carried over the sagittal suture, and reach- ing from the root of the nose to the posterior edge of the fora- men magnum, was found by Soemmering to be shorter in Negro than in European skulls. From this and other mea- surements described in Soemmering's treatise, and of which the reader will find a sufficient account in the former volume of this work, it was inferred that the capacity of the cranium, and consequently the size of the brain, is less in Europeans than in Negroes. I have endeavoured to prove that there is a fallacy in all these statements, arising from the standard of comparison, which is a given extent of facial bones, or length of the superior maxilla ; that one of the prominent peculiarities of the strongly-marked Negro head is an absolute excess in the length of the upper jaw, the extent of which there- fore ought not to be the basis of comparison, and that from these measurements of Soemmering no decisive result can be deduced. This opinion has received a most ample con- firmation from the results of a series of observations by Pro- fessor Tiedemann, published in the Philosophical Transactions for 1836, on the brain of the Negro in comparison with the brain of the European and that of the orang-outang. In this paper the learned author proposes to answer the two follow- ing questions : — 1st. Is there any important and essential difference in the structure of the brain between the Negro and the European ? 2ndly. Has the brain of the Negro any greater resemblance to the brain of the orang-outang than has the brain of the European ? NATIONS NOT INFERIOR. 351 To these inquiries the author has obtained very satisfactory solutions. He has, in the first place, established some general conclu- sions respecting the quantity of the brain in Europeans. The opinion of Aristotle, who supposed the brain of man to be larger than that of other animals, both absolutely and rela- tively, is liable to some exceptions. These exceptions, how- ever are not numerous. The whale and the elephant alone have brains absolutely larger than the human, which consi- derably exceeds in absolute weight the brain of animals much larger than man, as the horse, the zebra, the stag, camel, lion, tiger, bear. There are more numerous exceptions to the observation that the brain is larger in man than in other ani- mals in relation to the size of the whole body. The sparrow and many small birds, as well as some of the smaller apes, and several of the rodentia, have larger brains than man in proportion to the bulk of their bodies. With respect to the weight of the brain when human heads are compared with each other, M. Tiedemann has shown that the previous researches of anatomists have led to no satisfac- tory result, and he has given the details of an extensive series of observations made by himself in a more accurate method. From these the following inferences are deducible : 1. The brain of an adult male European varies in weight from 3 lbs. 3 ozs., troy weight, to 4 lbs. 6 ozs. 2. The brains of females weigh from four to eight ounces less than those of males. There is even at birth a perceptible difference between the male and female brain ; nevertheless the female brain is, for the most part, larger than the male in proportion to the size of the body. 3. The brain arrives, on an average, at its full size towards the seventh or eighth year. 4. The vulgar opinion that the mass of the brain diminishes in old age rests on no adequate evidence. Tiedemann's induc- tion rather tends to establish the negative of this supposition. 5. The proportion of the brain to the body decreases from infancy to adult age. With this fact Tiedeman connects the greater sensibility and susceptibility of children and young 352 INTELLECT OF THE AFRICAN persons. He is of opinion that there is a connexion between the size of the brain and the intellectual capacity of individuals, and instances MM. Cuvier and Duhaytien, who had very large heads, but on this subject it does not appear that he has in- stituted any researches. In comparing the Africans with other races of men in rela- tion to the capacity of the cranium, by which he estimates the magnitude of the brain, M. Tiedemann adopted the following- method of proceeding : 1. He weighed the skull with and with- outthe under jaw-bone. 2, He then filled the cavity of the skull with dry millet-seed, through the foramen occipitale magnum. The skull was then weighed again carefully filled. 3. He then deducted the weight of the empty skull from that of the filled one, and thus obtained a measure of the capacity of the cavity of the cranium. Tiedemann has given the results of a great number of ob- servations made on this method. Forty-one instances display the capacity of the cavity of the cranium in Negroes of dif- ferent races. Seventy-seven similar measurements of male European skulls are added, twenty-four of male Asiatics of the so termed Caucasian race, twelve of female Europeans, twenty of skulls of the Mongolian, and twenty-seven of the Ame- rican race, and forty-three of the Malagar and Polynesian na- tions, in which Australians are included. The general result of these comparisons is that the cavity of the skull in the Negro is generally in no degree smaller than in European and other human races. Tiedemann concludes that " the opinion of many naturalists, such as Camper, Soemmering, Cuvier, Lawrence, and Virey, who maintain that the Negro has a smaller brain than the European, is ill-founded and " entirely refuted by my researches." He says, " I look upon Camper's facial line and facial angle as very unsatisfactory in determining the ca- pacity of the skull, the size of the brain, and the degree of intellectual power." Tiedemann has added to these remarks on the size of the brain in didiMcnt races some measurements of the medulla oblongata and spinal chord, from which he concludes that there " M'liite'bTr., ubi supra, p. M)4. tiedemann's researches. 353 is no discoverable difference between these parts in the Negro and the European, except any variety that may result from the different stature of" individuals. With respect to other as- serted points of difference, he proves that the nerves of the Negro, relatively to the size of the brain, are not thicker than those of Europeans ; that the external form of the spinal chord, the medulla oblongata, cerebellum, and cerebrum of the Negro show no important difference from those of the Euro- pean ; and that no difference can be shown to exist in the in- ward structure, and the arrangement of the cortical and me- dullary substance. The brain of the orang-outang, as well as that of the chimpanzee, differs prodigiously in size, and very considerably in its organization, from the human brain, and in all the particulars of this difference the brain of the Negro is precisely similar to that of the European. The only point in which Tiedemann could discern the slightest resemblance be- tween the brains of the Negro and that of the Simise was in the arrangement or position of the gyri and sulci on the sur- face of the hemispheres. These gyri and sulci are more nu- merous in the brain of the pongo and chimpanzee in the Hunterian Museum than they are in the human brain, either European or African, and they are likewise more regular or symmetrical. The corresponding structure appeared to Tiede- mann somewhat more symmetrical in the brains of the Negroes examined by him than in European brains ; but it is very pro- bable that this slight appearance of resemblance is only an individual variety. It appears, then, that there is no character whatever in the or- ganization of the brain of the Negro which aflords a presump- tion of inferior endowment of intellectual or moral faculties. If it be asserted that the African nations are inferior to the rest of mankind on the ground of historical facts, and because they may be thought not to have contributed their share to the ad- vancement of human arts and science, we have, in the first place, the example of the Egyptians to oppose to such a conclusion, and this will be allowed by all to be quite sufficient, if only we may be permitted to reckon the Egyptians as a native African tribe ; but those who insist on tracing tlic Egyptians from Mount Caucasus, and represent them as foreigners in Africa, VOL. II. A A 354 INTELLIGENCE OF AFRICANS and late intruders among the native people of that continent, will not admit this instance to be of any avail in our argument. But if we are confined to nations who are strictly Negroes, it will be sufficient to point out the Mandingos, as a people who are evidently susceptible of mental culture and civilization. They have not, indeed, contributed towards the advance- ment of human art and science ; but they have shown themselves willing and able to profit by these advantages when introduced among them. The civilization of many African nations is much superior to that of the aborigines of Europe during the ages which preceded the conquests of the Goths and Swedes in the north and the Romans in the southern parts. The old Finnish inhabitants of Scandinavia had long, as it has been proved by the learned investigations of Rlihs, the religion of fetishes, and a vocabulary as scanty as that of the most barbarous Africans. They had lived from immemorial ages without laws, or government, or social union ; every individual the supreme arbiter, in every thing, of his own actions ; and they displayed as little capability of emerging from the squalid sloth of their rude and merely animal existence. When conquered by people of Indo-Gerraan race, who brought with them from the East the rudiments of mental culture, they emerged more slowly from their pristine barbarism than many of the native African nations have done. Even at the present day there are hordes in various parts of northern Asia, whose heads have the form belonging to the Tartars, and to Scla- vonians, and other Europeans, but who are below many of the African tribes in civilization.* * Among the circumstances which have contributed to retard the progress of civilization in Africa, one of the most important and influential is the compact and undivided form of the African continent, and the natural barriers which render access to the great regions of the interior so remarkably difficult. It has been ob- served by Professor Ritter, that the civilization of countries is greatly influenced by their geographical forms, and by the relation which the interior spaces bear to the extent of coast. While all Asia is five times as large as Europe, and Africa more than three times as large, the littoral margins of these latter continents bear no si- milar proportion to their respective areas. Asia has seven thousand seven hundred geographical miles of coast ; Europe, four thousand three hundred, and Africa only three thousand five hundred. To every thirty-seven square miles of continent in Europe, there is one mile of coast : in Africa, only one mile of coast to one hun- NOT INFERIOR TO THAT OF OTHER NATIONS. 355 dred and fifty square miles of continent Therefore the relative extension of coast is four times as great in Europe as in Africa. Asia is in the middle, between these two extremes. To every one hundred and five square miles, it has one mile of coast. The calculation of geographical spaces occupied by different parts of the two last-mentioned continents, is still more striking. " The ramifications of Asia, excluded from the continental trapezium, make about one hundred and fifty-five thousand square miles of that whole quarter, or about one-fifth part. The ramifi- cations of the continental triangle of Europe form one-third part of the whole, or even more. In Asia the stock is much greater in proportion to the branches, and thence the more highly advanced culture of the branches has remained for the most part excluded from the great interior spaces. In Europe, on the other hand, from the different relation of its spaces, the condition of the external parts had much greater influence on that of the interior. Hence the higher culture of Greece and Italy penetrated more easily into the interior, and gave to the whole continent one harmonious character of civilization, while Asia contains many separate regions which may be compared individually to Europe, and each of which could receive only its peculiar kind of culture from its own branches." Africa, deficient in these endowments of nature, and wanting both separating gulfs, and inland seas, could obtain no share in the expansion of that fruitful tree, which, having driven its roots deeply in the heart of Asia, spread its branches and blossoms over the western and southern tracts of the same continent, and expanded its crown over Europe. In Egypt alone it possessed a river-system so formed as to favour the developement of similar productions. — Die Erdkunde von Asian, von Carl Ritter, 2. B. Berlin, 1832. Einleitung, §. 24, 25. A a2 NOTES ILLUSTRATIONS, NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. Note I. On the terms Berber, Barbaria, Barbari,S^c. with reference top. 15. Several considerations important to ethnography, are connected with the application of the term Barbar or Barbari, to different na- tions, and with that of Barbaria to different parts of Africa, and the subject deserves some inquiry. Barbary, or Barbaria, as applied to the northern region of Africa, is a comparatively modern name. It is supposed to be de- rived from the designation of the Berber people. On this I shall cite a curious passage from Leo Africanus : " Our cosmographers and historians affirm," says Leo, " that in times past, Africa was altogether uninhabited, except that part which is called the Land of the Negroes ; and most certain it is, that Barbary and Numidia were for many ages destitute of inhabit- ants. The tawny people, — gentes subfusci coloris — of the same re- gion were called by the name of Barbar, derived from the verb bar- bara, which, in their tongue, signifies to murmur, because the Afri- can language sounds in the ears of an Arabian not otherwise than the voice of brutes. Others will have Barbar to be one word twice repeated, for as much as bar in the Arabian tongue signifies a de- sert ; for they say that when King Iphricus, being by the Assy- rians or Ethiopians driven out of his own kingdom, travelled to- wards Egypt, he, seeing himself so much oppressed by his enemies, that he knew not what should become of himself and his followers, asked his people how it was possible to escape, who answered him ' Bar-bar,' that is, — ' To the desert, to the desert,' giving iiim to understand by this expression, that he could have no safer refuge than to flee over the Nile into the desert of Africa. This reason," says Leo, " agrees with those who affirm the Africans to be de- scended from the people of Arabia." * * Joh. Leon. Afric. Descriptio Africae Rerumque in e.i memorabilium, lib. i. p. 4, primae editionis. I have followed in part Purchas's quaint translation, but have altered it with reference to the text of Leo. 360 NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. All that can be inferred from these traditional stories related by Leo, is, that the real origin of the term Berber was entirely unknown among- his countrymen, and that this term was in his time among the Arabs used as the general denomination of the native African or Lybian people, as distinguished from their Arabian conquerors. The name of Barbary does not appear to have been applied by Europeans to the north-western parts of Africa, previously to the Mohammedan conquest ; but it is of much greater antiquity in the eastern side of the same continent, where it was widely extended. It seems to have comprehended the inhabitants of various countries between the Upper Nile and the Arabian Gulf. The author of the Periplus of the Erythraean sea, describes the country behind Myos Hormos and Berenice as occupied by a people called Barbari, a term which is here used as the name of a particular nation,* and Agathemerus says, that the coast of Ethiopia was termed Barbaria.f The extent of the region so named is clearly to be traced in Ptolemy's Geography. This writer terms the country on the Arabian Gulf " Troglodytica" as far to the southward as Mons Elephas. Mons Elephas was situated beyond the promontory of Mosyloa, which forms the strait of Babelmandeb. In this coast of the Troglodytes he places the Adulitee, or people of Aduli, the AvalitfE, and the Mosyli, who gave name to a port or emporium, celebrated for its trade in cinnamon, and mentioned by the author of the Periplus and by Pliny. Beyond Troglodytica to the " pro- montory of Raptum, all the coast," according to Ptolemy, " is termed Barbaria." " The inland country abounding in elephants, is termed Azania." We learn from this, that the Barbaria of Pto- lemy, is what is now called the coast of Ajan.| It seems therefore that in the early centuries after the Christian era Barbaria was the maritime region of Africa, looking towards the Erythraean or the Indian Ocean, and that the people of that coast were termed Bar- bari, or Barbarii, a name which is still preserved in the port of Barbara, and perhaps, though in a region at a considerable dis- tance from the ancient Barbaria, among the inhabitants of Dar Berber, in Upper Nubia, and among the Berberins or Barabra. The word Barbari appears in a most remarkable manner to have been used by many nations as an epithet rather than a proper name for races of people upon whom they looked with contempt as igno- * Hudson, Geog. 3Iinor. torn. i. -f Ibid. torn. ii. J Claud. Ptolem. Geog. lib. iv. cap. 8. The Byzantine writers continue to use the same term. Stephanus (de urbib. voc BapSapoo) adds, that the adjacent sea was termed Bap^apiKoi' TrtXayoc and Cosmas Indico pleustes terms the people of this region, Bap€apioi. NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 361 rant of their own language and manners. Strabo indeed, has re- marked that when Homer termed the Carians ftapjiapofonvoi lie in- tended only to imply that they spoke impure Greek, but if this was his meaning, the particular exception serves only to establish the sense of the term in general. Bdp€apoi, was the denomination of people who spoke an idiom different from the Greek. We are as- sured by Herodotus that the Egyptians likewise tenned all those who spoke a language different from their own Barbari.* It is somewhat doubtful whether he meant to say that the Egyptians applied this particular word, Barbari, or some term in their own lan- guage that was equivalent to that expression in Greek. It is still more remarkable that this identical word, or one that only differs accidentally from it by the peculiarity of Sanskrit orthography, was used by the Hindoos with a meaning precisely similar. Varvvarah, or Varvvaras — cf^qT'* — means, according to Professor Wilson, a " low man, an out-cast or barbarian," and in another sense, " woolly or curly hair, as the hair of an African." The only way of explaining, with any degree of probability, so extensive a diffusion of the term Barbarii, or Barbari, and at the same time its local application to the country and the people of the African coast, is the conjecture that Barbar was originally an Egyptian term, or name given by the Egyptians to the maritime country on the Red Sea, or its inhabitants. The word might be derived, as Leo derives it, from Bar, a desert, were it not impro- bable that an Arabian name could have been adopted by the Egyp- tians, the people so termed not being Arabians. The Coptic word (3ep€ep, signifying hot, may be the etymon of the name, if it origi- nally belonged to the country. Boptep, as well as BfpSwp, means to cast out. Could the people be hence termed "Outcasts?" These southern borderers on Egypt, probably ferocious nomades, as are the Bishari at present, being dreaded and hated by the Egyptians, and their name being equivalent to that of Savages, it is possible that it may have been borrowed by the Greeks from the Egyptians in this sense. t The Hindoos used, as it seems, the same name in both of its meanings, both as a national appellation, which was extended, however, from the natives of the Barbari coast to other crisp-haired Africans, and hkewise in the sense of outcasts or barbarians. By the Arabian conquerors of Africa, the name of Barbar, * " Baptidpovg 5e TTccvTag o'l AiyvTrrioi KaXtovai roiig /x/) u^i ofioyXwaaovg." Lib. ii. 158. f This conjecture is adopted by Mr. Kerr, in the introduction to his General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels. 362 NOTES AND ILLUSTRAXrONS. already in use as a general term for the nomadic tribes near Egypt was easily transferred to the inhabitants of the western desert. The gentile appellation of the Berbers is Amazigh, a term which reminds us of the Amakosah. Note II. On Chap. I. Section 4, p. 25. There is some discrepancy in the statements preserved respecting the language of the northern African population under the Roman government, and during the times which preceded the Mohammedan conquest. Procopius says, in reference to the inhabitants both of Mauritania and Numidia, " Phoenicum lingua etiam nunc utuntur incolae." It is extremely improbable that the Numidians ever used generally the Phcsnician language, and equally so that Procopius possessed the information requisite for ascertaining the fact. The great majority of the population used amongst themselves, in all likelihood, a speech unintelligible to the Greeks and Romans, and this was imagined to be Punic, whereas there can be little doubt that it was the idiom which the inhabitants of the country spoke before the arrival of Phoenician colonies, and which they are well-known to have presei'ved and to have used as their vernacular and only dialect long after Carthaginians and Romans had ceased to be known among them, even by name. That Latin was in common use in the cities, and among the cul- tivated part of the people, and even among classes who possessed but a moderate degree of mental culture, we may infer from the fact that the Christian teachers never appear to have used, or to have thought it necessary to learn any other speech. In Egypt we know that those who converted the people to Christianity were anxious to translate the Scriptures, and even formed three versions for the use of natives who could not read Greek. But nobody ever heard of a Punic or Lybian version, or even of any necessity to interpret from Latin into any vernacular language of North Africa. There is a letter of St. Augustin extant, in which he entreats St. Jerome to trans- late the best Greek commentators into Latin, for the use of the Christians in Africa. Even among the great variety of sects which divided the Christians of that country we do not find that any diffi- culty was experienced on account of variety in language, or that any peculiar dialect existed among them. Latin was the universal idiom of religious instruction, and it is, therefore, most probable that it was the ordinary medium of communication in the cities of Barbary. NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 363 Note III. On the Physical Characters of the Berber Race : — pacje 26 — 30. The osteological characters of the Berber race are as yet but im- perfectly known. Almost the only heads belonging to this family of nations that have been figured and examined are those of a few Guanche mummies. Very lately, however, the skull of a Berber has been described by M. Dubreuil, in a memoir presented to the Academy of Sciences, which has been already cited. The individual to whom this skull belonged was a Berber of the tribe of Krechnad, inhabitants of the plain of Metidjah. It presented, according to the author of the memoir, some traits characteristic of the Negro, and others similar to those of the European skull. The form of the cranium is oblong, and the forehead narrow and retreating, as in the Negro; but the face, though projecting and elongated, deviates from the circular shape ; the nasal bones, instead of being flat- tened, are vaulted ; the auditory foramen is nearer to the occiput than to the forehead, a character to which M. Dubreuil attaches some importance. From the examination of one cranium it would be impossible to consider anything as decided with respect to the race. Many Eu- ropean heads might be found to which the preceding description would apply. The characters noted in this skull are different from those of the Guanches, who are, however, concluded, on apparently safe grounds, to have been a branch of the Berber race. M. Dubreuil has also described a newly found Guanche skull, and his account of it has been compared by M. Flourens with that of another Guanche skull in the Museum of Paris, which it strongly re- sembles in osteological characters. These characters, which are the following, coincide in general with Blumenbach's description of Guanche skulls published in his " Decades Craniorum." This Guanche skull is of a fine oval form, the posterior part of which is much more voluminous than the anterior. It is remarkable for the height of the head, the rounded shape of the vault, the en- tire absence of angles and projections, " pardes reliefs symmetriques et adoucis. Le front domine la partie inferieure." The tem- poral fossae are considerably excavated. The auditory foramen ap- proaches the posterior part of the head, or the occiput. The occi- pital hole is rounded like the entire cranium. The face is some- what rounded, oval. The nasal fossse and the palatine vault 364 NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. have little extent : the teeth are set vertically. It is remarked by M. Dubreuil that in two Guanche mummies the coronoid apophysis of the lower javk' is more distant from the condyle than in European heads. This character exists in the Guanche mummy preserved in the Museum of Paris. It appears, according to M. Flourens, in a still greater degree in the lower jaw of an Egyptian mummy. M. Dubreuil added some observations on a perforation of the hu- merus observed in the skeletons of two Guanches, similar to that remarked by M. Cuvier in the female of the Bushman race. To this subject I have already adverted when describing the anatomical pe- culiarities of the Hottentots. Note IV. On the Vocabularies at the endof Chapter II. in pages 41, 42. The following remarks on the comparative vocabularies of the Berber and other Atlantic dialects with those of the northern African and southern European idioms, will tend to illustrate the etymology of many words in the several columns, and the relations of the dif- ferent dialects to each other. I am indebted for them to Mr. W. F. Newman, whose analysis of the Berber translation of St. Luke and Berber Grammar have been repeatedly mentioned in the preceding pages. I. Remarks on the column of Berber words. 1. In the Berber column, the word elehoua — rendered rain — seems to mean storm in the Gospel of St. Luke, and to be the Arabic el-hawa, the air or wind. Face — agadoum — should be luodam or odotn, the particle ag being only a preposition. Woman — themmetotit — seems to be a misprint for themme^o?^^ If it be correctly said that TH initial is the Berber feminine article, the word is mattut, pointing to the root, mat or mad, whence comes the Ber- ber word maddan, men. Boy — agehich — is a misprint for aqchich — AQCHICH. Call — kerar — or rather gara, is pure Hebrew, and is used in Berber in all its Hebrew senses. In Arabic it has a different sense, to read. Good, delali ; the rf is a prefix : the root is eVa-li, good, if indeed the el be not the Arabic article. The word tefoukt, which stands for sun, is used once in the Berber Gospel of St. Luke for fire, while thafath is used for light and for the oven. Comparing the Showiah column, we can hardly doubt that yb?<^ is the root, meaning ablaze, flame, light, or source of heat; afire-place — having NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 365 a remarkable similarity to the Latin focus, Italian yiioco — whence the feminine form tefoukt, corruptly tefout. But the element of fire is thimas. Dates are expressed by tini, the Arabic for a fig. 2. Comparing the two first columns, the Shillah is evidently Berber. 3. Comparing Showiah with Berber, we may remark : Sky, or heaven, in Berber, is tliagnaw — probably akin to signa, a cloud — though omitted in the table. Stars — ithran — points to the root ithra, since n final is a Berber plural ; also gethra, yethra, would be a mere provincial variation. Edfil and alfil, the same : tJmuani has the form of an Arabic plural, from singular thini. Aifki — milk — is evidently a corruption of alefki, so that nearly all the Showiah nouns are at once referable to Berber. The word /bMse, head, one may suspect to be a mistake. The verbs are less similar, but when a language is but slightly known, it is hard to obtain the verbs so accurately as to found a negative argument. We have here but six verbs to compare, of which certainly two — to eat and to sit — are the same, and probably a third — to speak — so that it would be futile to reason from them. The evidence before us seems, therefore, to indicate the Showiah to be only a dialect of Berber. 4. In the Tuaryk column, a few words are Arabic, viz. mat-' — a man, — zain — good, — yehamma — hot. Also aghemar, akhmar — a horse • — is probably the same word as Arabic hhamar — an ass : — teele — a sheep — may be compared with the Arabic tali — a lamb, unless it is the same word as the Showiah ouly, with the article t prefixed. Laghrum — a camel — is doubtless the same as elghouvi, under a dif- ferent system of orthography. Head, in Berber, is i^A/; in Tuaryk, ighrof. If ghr here, as elsewhere, denotes the Arabic ghain, the word is better written ighof, identical with ikhf. We may how- ever remark, that in the Gospel of St. Luke the Berber word for head is aqarroy, [in Langle's, ikhf and agarwi.] Khool, which stands in the Tuaryk column for fish, in Arabic means vinegar : possibly its strict application in Tuaryk may be to pickled fish. If these remarks hold, nearly all the remaining Tuaryk is Berber. 5. In the Siwah column, the words samak — fish, — saint — year, — are Arabic, and probably akhmar, as was observed. Of the rest it is easy to count thirteen that are Berber, and eighteen whicli may, indeed, be Berber, but which are not manifested to be such by the table. In the Tuaryk column I can only count five for the eighteen in the Siwah. Hence the evidence of the table seems to be that the Siwah is less near to the Berber than is the Tuaryk. 366 NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 6. The Tibboo does not seem to have a single word in common with the Berber in this table. For a cow, the Tibboo has farr^ which seems to be Hebrew. In Arabic the same word means a rat or mouse. 7. Not one word in the Biscayan is like any other language in the table, except gamelua, a camel. 8. The Coptic is nearly as peculiar ; yet mashg — the ear — may be compared with Berber a/Hzow^A — ormazzogh, — and so — to drink — is the same in both languages. 9. The Amharic seems to borrow more largely from Ethiopic, or Arabic, than the rest. 10. The Barabra says amanga for water. — [The termination ga ovka is evidently a formative in the language, as appears in ademga, from Arabic adem — a man, — anebky from 'aneb — grapes. Com- pare windje^a, onvka, mantra, ukke^a, kabakAa, arykAa, gem^a, awa^a, edin^a, murte^ra,] No other word appears common to it with any language in the table. The general result from the data before us is as follows : I. The Coptic, Biscayan, Barabra, Tibbo, and Berber, are all as unlike each other as English and Arabic. 11. Nearest to the Berber seems to betheShillah, of which, how- ever, we have but few words : the Showiah and Tuaryk are each near akin to the Berber : the Siwah dialect less close to it than either, yet having much in common with the other dialects. Of the derivations alluded to in the note to page 16, three seem quite satisfactory, viz. thala, augela, and tipasa. Few, probably, will think atlas, atlantis, sufficiently like adhraar to infer that the former is a corruption of the latter. If amjjsaga come from am- sagar, it proves nothing to the point, for sagar is a vulgar Arabic corruption of shagar — or shadjar — a true Arabic word, meaning- trees, a plantation. But what, then, is «w ? A river ? Besides, the r is too rough to be so easily elided ; and we might rather expect the word in Latin orthography to have been ampsagara. Note V. On the Fidalis, with reference to page 73. We have seen that in a variety of instances more accurate local investigation, when opportunities have occurred, or more extensive researches, when history or philology have afforded lights, has con- tributed to remove a prejudice which had led many writers on ethno- NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 367 graphy, or travellers in Africa, to set down those nations who differ physically from the Negroes, as strangers to the African continent, unconnected with its aboriginal population. The Chinese have been represented as Hottentots, the Kafirs as Arabs, the Berbers and other tribes of Atlantica have been deduced from Assyria or Palestine, the Barabra of Nubia have been supposed to be foreigners who came by sea from India, the Egyptians have been represented to be a Se- mitic tribe, or a Caucasian nation. Further investigation has cor- rected all these notions, and has given us reason to conclude that the Hottentots are, in all probability, the oldest inhabitants of South Africa ; that the Kafirs have nothing in common with the Arabs, but are akin to other black and woolly-haired African nations ; that the Berbers are the aborigines of Atlantica ; the Barabra allied to the black Nouba of Kordofan ; and the Egyptians neither Semites nor Indo-Europeans, but if we can rely, in any instance, on history and analogy in the structure of languages, a genuine African stock, and intimately connected with the black or dark-brown Ethiopians. A similar opinion, and on nearly the same grounds, has been ad- vanced, as we have seen, respecting the race of Fulahs, who, in Western Guinea, afford the strongest instance of deviation from the prevalent physical character of the African tribes. The Fulahs have been thought to be a northern people, driven into their present abode from countries far to the northward of the Senegal. This no- tion appears to have been adopted in order to explain the phenomena of their physical diversity. We have seen that it is contradicted by local investigation, and that the Fulahs are, as far as evidence can be collected, among the aboriginal inhabitants (that term being used in the sense in which I have adopted it) of higher Senegambia. Later observations have afforded some additional support to the opi- nion that the Fulah or Felatah race are not, when the great body of the nation is considered, removed at so wide a distance from other African nations as by some it has been imagined. As far as we can judge of their language from the specimens collected of it, we should determine it to be a genuine African idiom. The physical characters of the Felatah were thought by Mr. Lander, who had lived among both nations, to bear a decided resemblance to the Red Kafirs, a fairer tribe of the same stock with the Amakosah. The Felatahs have been very lately visited and described by Mr. Oldfield, an intel- ligent traveller, who, being a medical man, was likely to direct his attention to physical peculiarities so often neglected by ordinary 368 NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. travellers, to the great regret of those readers who search their books in vain for some aid in ethnographical researches. In the great Felatah town of Rabbah, the population of which is said to be immense,* as well as in many other places, Mr. Oldfield had abundant opportunities of becoming acquainted with the moral and physical characters of this race. On the lower parts of the Niger the Felatahs are new inhabitants : they have come thither in great numbers from Soccatoo, and have built towns, after expelling or destroying the natives of the country. A sufficient space of time has not yet elapsed to admit of the hypothesis that these Felatahs are merely a mixed breed between the original Foules and the Negro population, which M. MoUien has imagined to be the case in Fouta- diallo. Even in Soccatoo and the adjoining provinces, the abode, or at least the dominion of the Felatahs is but of two generations. And the physical character of these people, as described by Mr. Oldfield, certainly does not coincide with the opinion that they are a kind of Mulattoes, and that those individuals amongst them who resemble in many respects the Negro, owe their similitude to intermixture; a notion which the much-lamented Clapperton was inclined to entertain. " The Felatahs," says Mr. Oldfield, " are above five feet ten in height, very straight, and muscular. They have small heads and woolly hair. I looked in vain for Felatahs with straight hair, but I did not find one. Their complexion is a little brighter than that of the natives of the neighbouring towns : they have small noses, thin lips, rather a handsome mouth, and an intelligent expression of countenance." t Mr. Oldfield describes particularly a female who was brought to him as a patient, and the description has no resemblance to that of a Mulatto, nor does it agree with the supposition that the race of Fulah, when of dark complexion and woolly hair, owe their cha- racters to the fact that they are really of Negro descent, and only Felatahs by name and adoption. Mr. Oldfield says, " the invalid was one of the finest girls I have seen in this country. Her colour was a light brown, her features regularly formed, beautiful black eyes, Grecian nose, a small mouth, with teeth as white as ivory. There was nothing denoting the thick lips or flat nose of the Negro, but the contrary." He adds that " the Felatah ladies are very par- * Narrative of an Expedition into the Interior of Africa by the River Niger, by Macgregor Laird and 11. A. K. Oldfield. London, 1837. Vol. ii. p. 60, Mr. Oldfield's Narrative. t Ibid. p. 85. NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 369 ticular in adorning their persons : their toilet occupies them several hours : their toes and. hands are stained with a beautiful purple colour, by means of henna-leaves, moistened and kept applied dur- ing the night. They have the extraordinary practice of staining their teeth with the acid of the Gorra-nut and indigo, and with the juice of a shrub, by which the four front teeth are dyed of different colours, one blue, another yellow, another purple, the fourth remaining white. Their eyelids are pencilled with sulphuret of antimony. Their hair, or wool, is plaited in perpendicular knots of four or five inches long. They besmear themselves with a red pigment, which is supposed to lighten the colour of the skin, and correct the odour of perspiratiun. They are clean in their persons, and perform ablu- tions twice a-day in the river." "The Felatalis are fond of danc- ing and other amusements, and, like all the Africans I have met with, pass their nights at new and full moon in this diversion." Note VI. On the Eboes, and other Nations near Benin and on the Lower Niger. — See page 96. Some additional particulars have been collected by Mr. Oldfield ■respecting the Ibo, or Eboes, and the neighbouring tribes of Ne- groes in the countries bordering on the Lower Niger. He says that the Eboes have the Negro features in the greatest degree, and the -Ibbodo next. The skin of the Eboes is of alight copper-colour. The Nufie, or Nufanchi, are a very handsome race of people, mild and gentle in disposition, and industrious. The higher he proceeded up the river the less marked was the African physiognomy. This is attributed by Mr. Oldfield to intermixture with Arabs or Moors ; but the number of Arabs is by much too inconsiderable to produce any change in the great mass of the inhabitants ; and the fact is, moreover, a general one, and observed in parts where no such intermixture can be imagined to exist. The Ibbodo above mentioned appear to be the people of Kakunda, a country on the western bank of the Lower Niger, higher up than Eboe, and on the borders of Yarriba. On the opposite side of the river are NyfFe, Nufie or Tappa, and lower down, Funda : Jacoba and Adamowa lie to the eastward. Mr. Oldfield has given vocabu- laries of the languages of some of these countries, from which I shall extract the ten first numerals. The reader may observe that many words in them resemble terms which occur in the tables of numerals VOL. H. -B B 370 NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. in page 113, exemplifying the languages of S6dan, or the interior of Negroland, though the similar words do not always denote the same numerals. On the otlicr hand, they are quite unlike the numerals be- longing to the languages of Western Guinea and Senegambia, which may be seen in page 99. EBOE. SHABBE.* NUFiE, or NUPAYSEE. HAUSA.+ FELATAH 1. Ofu war'nee wornee diJih goh 2. Ab'boar hooswarba og6bar bu diddee 3. Atto hooswar'tar ogutar wiiku tattie 4. Anno hoos war'nee ogwi'nee fddu ni 5. G. E'sa E'see ar'rcke hof'tritwarnee ogootso ogoosuiee bere shiddah j6wy j6ago 7. 8. As'sa Assato hooiibwarabar hooartri6ssa ogootwabee ogoolutar bocqua tockquas joardidee jotackie 9. 10. 20. Te'nnani Eree Osu tuar'nee atchabba atcharinee ogootwarne oquo woshee turrah gomar ashereen joami sappo sasso 100. E'ggoijesee (Arab.) asharaba No wosheesoh TE VII. daree sasso ejoa With reference to page 220. I may have expressed myself somewhat too decidedly in this passage as to the assent given by M, de Schlegel to my conclusions deduced from a comparison of the Indian and Egyptian mytholo- gies. The preface to which I have referred contains a profoundly philosophical and comprehensive survey of the relations which dis- play themselves between some of the most celebrated nations of an- tiquity, when compared in reference to their religious dogmas, their science and philosophy, and their political institutions. In regard to the ancient Indians and Egyptians who constitute the chief subject • Kakunda is termed by the natives Ibbodah, and their language Shabbe. -j- I have added the numerals in the Hausa and Felatah languages from Mr. Oldfield's collection, partly because the orthography of some words differs from that given in the preceding tables, and in part because there is an evident relation be- tween several words in both these sets of numerals and others collated with them. For example, several of the Ebo numerals appear to be Felatah words disguised by prefixes or abbreviations : the Shabbe and Nufie appear to have the same elements as the Hausa, disguised in like manner. On comparing this table with that given in page 113 above, the reader will perceive an extensive connexion between all the languages thus exemplified : similar elements are common to nearly all of them. For example, egu, ogu, oku, or something equivalent, is found in many of them contained in the numeral _y?rf. NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 371 of inquiry, M. cle Schlegel has dwelt more especially on the circum- stances in each particular of their intellectual history, which distin- guish them from each other, and are calculated to suggest doubts as to the fact of any direct intercourse between them, or even to disprove its existence since the commencement at least of the his- toric age, and of those times during which the nations of antiquity attained their peculiar developement, and those traits of character which serve to individualize them. M. de Schlegel seems to attri- bute to me the intention of establishing, by the comparison which I endeavoured to institute, more than he is willing to concede. Perhaps I have not defined with sufficient precision the limits within which my inferences were, or ought to have been, restricted. My conclusions will indeed be found to connect very closely the early mental culture of the Egyptians and of the Indians. Their tenour is not, however, unless I mistake M. de Schlegel, irreconcil- able with his views, since he appears fully to allow that certain ge- neral principles were common to these nations as an original ground- work of their religious and philosophical systems. If this be con- ceded or regarded as well established, the greater the diversity manifested between them in their subsequent developement, the more will the facts be found favourable to my argument, since they will carry back with fuller evidence the mutual resemblance and con- nexion discovered between these nations to a remote period of an- tiquity. But on this topic I must refer my readers again to the work in which it is discussed, without much apprehension as to their acquiescence in my conclusions ; and if their assent extends no further than that given by M. de Schlegel, or at least fully im- plied in his observations, it will answer my purpose in adverting to this subject, and will furnish a sufficient ground-work for the re- marks which I have advanced, in the pages which follow the above- cited passage. Note VIII. Referring to pages 248, 249, on the Cush of the Hebrew Scrip- tures, the AldioTreg of the LXX. The name Cush, in the Hebrew Scriptures, is rendered by the Septuagint AiSioTree, or Ethiopians. The people generally so termed in Egypt were the Ethiopians of Meroe, the subjects of Queen Candace, but the same name, as we learn from its use by Diodorus, 372 NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. was extended to some of tlie neighbouring nations, but always re- stricted to black people. Cush, in the older historical parts of the Old Testament, is, how- ever, applied evidently to nations living to the eastward of the Red Sea. Hence an ambiguity in its meaning in some passages. The subject has been discussed by Bochart and Michaelis. Among the Hebrew writers of later times, there can be no doubt that this name belongs exclusively to African nations. The Ethio- pians who were connected with Egypt by political relations are termed by these writers, Cush. Thus, Tirkahah, the Cushite in- vader of Judah, may be identified with Tearchon, an Ethiopian chief, mentioned by Strabo, and both are probably identical with Tarakos, who is set down by Manetho as an Ethiopian king of Egypt. In the earlier ages the term Cush belonged apparently to the same nation or race ; though it would appear that the Cush, or Ethiopians of those times, occupied both sides of the Red Sea. The Cush mentioned by Moses are pointed out by him to be a nation of kindred origin with the Egyptians. In the Toldoth Beni-Noach, or Archives of the sons of Noah, it is said, that the Cush and the Mizraim were brothers, which means, as it is generally allowed, na- tions nearly allied by kindred. It is very probable that the first people who settled in Arabia were Cushite nations, who were afterwards expelled or succeeded by the Beni-Yoktan, or true Arabs. In the enumeration of the de- scendants of Cush in the Toldoth Beni-Noach, several tribes or set- tlements are mentioned apparently in Arabia, or Saba and Havilah. When the author afterwards proceeds to the descendants of Yoktan, the very same places are enumerated among their settlements. That the Cush had in remote times possessions in Asia, is evident from the history of Nimrod, a Cushite chieftain, who is said to have pos- sessed several cities of the Assyrians, among which was Babel, or Babylon, in Shinar. Long after their departure the name of Cush remained behind them on the coast of the Red Sea. It is probable that the name of Cush continued to be given to tribes who had succeeded the genuine Cushites, in the possession of their ancient territories in Arabia, after the whole of that people had passed into Africa, as the English are termed Britons, and the Dutch race of modern times, Belgians. In this way it may have happened, that people, remote in race from the family of Ham, are yet named Cush, as the Midianites,^ who were descended from NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 373 Abraham. The daughter of Jethro, the Midianite, is termed a Cushite woman. Even in this instance the correspondence of Cush and Ethiopia has been preserved. We find the word rendered ^thiopissa by the LXX., and in the verses of Ezechiel, the Jewish Hellenistic poet, Jethro is placed in Africa, and his people termed Ethiopians. Sepphora is introduced replying thus to a query of Moses :* — " AijSuj/ filv r) yjj vaffa KXrHerai, ^ive, oiKovffi d' avT-))v (pvXa TravToiojv ytvwv, AlOloTTte dvdpeg [ikXaveg :" On the whole it it may be considered as clearly established that the Cush are the genuine Ethiopian race, and that the country of Cush is generally in Scripture that part of Africa above Egypt. In support of these positions may be cited not only the authority of the Septuagint, and the writers above mentioned, but the concur- ring testimony of the Vulgate and all other ancient versions with that of Philo, Josephus, Eupolemus, Eustathius, all the Jewish commentators and Christian fathers. There is only one writer of antiquity on the other side, and he was probably misled by the facts above considered, which, as we have seen, admit of a different ex- planation, f It may be worth while to notice, that the Ethiopians are by the Greeks divided into two departments, probably those of the two sides of the Arabian Gulf : — thus Homer terms them — AiBioTTSQ Toi SixQcL StSaiarai, taxaroi avdpuiv, Ol [ikv 5v(JO[ikvov YirepiovoQ, oi S' aviovTog.lii • Euseb. Prsep. Evan. Lib. ix. cap. 28. I believe this passage escaped both Bochart and Michaelis. + The single dissentient is the writer of Jonathan's Targum, and on this autho- rity the learned Bochart, supported by some doubtful passages, maintains that the land of Cush was situated on the eastern side of the Arabian Gulf ; however, it has been satisfactorily proved, by the authors of the Universal History, and by Michaelis, that many of these passages require a different version, and prove that the land of Cush was Ethiopia. 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