But it is not my business to indulge conjectures, and I shall
hasten to lay before jny readers such positive information as I
can collect on various points connected with the physical
history of these nations.
S e c t io n If.— Descriptions of the Egyptians, left hy ancient
Writers.
I have observed, that if we had no other data than the
description left by the Greeks of the personal traits of the
Egyptians^ we should certainly conclude that they were
Negroes.
There is a well-known passage of Herodotus, from which
no reader would fail to draw this inference. The authority of
this historian is of the more weight, as he had travelled in
Egypt and was therefore well acquainted, from :his own
observation, with the appearance of the people-; and rittis-well
known that he is in general very accurate and faithful in delating
the facts and describing the objects which fell under,
his - personal observation. In his account of the-people -of
Colchis, he says that they were a colony of Egyptians, and
supports his opinion by this argument, that they were “ /te -
^“7XP°£e Kal ov^<>tpvytz,” or, black in complexion and woolly-
haired.* These are exactly the words used in the description
of undoubted Negroes.
Herodotus in another place alludes to the dark complexion
of the Egyptians, as if it was very strongly marked, and indeed,
as if they were quite black. After relating the-fable of
the foundation of the Dodonaean oracle by a black pigeon,
which had fled from Thebes in Egypt, and uttered prophecies
* The same Colchians are mentioned by Pindar in the fourth Pythian ode as
being black, with the epithet KtXaivwmg:
<bamv S’ t-irur kv-
rfkvQov, Iv0a KsXai-
vanrtfftn KóA^otfft €lav
piZav, Airyra Trap’ avrip’
On which passage the scholiast observes, that the Colchians were black, and that
théir dusky hue was attributed to their descent from the Egyptians, who were of
the same complexion, v. 376.
from the beech-tree at Dodona, he adds a conjecture rej
Specting the true meaning of the story. He supposes the oracle
to have been instituted by a female captive from the Thebaid,
enigmatically described as a bird, and subjoins, that “ by
representing- the bird as black they marked that the woman
was an Egyptian.’’ ?
4 Some other writers have expressed themselvëérin similar
terms, iEschylus, in the Supplfces, 'mentions the crew-of the
Egyptian bark, as seen from an eminence on thé shore; the
person who espies thermConcludes ;them! to be Egyptians,
from their black-compl'exion.
WjdÉïrobtfi’o avSpègvrjioipeXay^pêèig-k
yviauTi XtvKwv sk ireirXuparuiv JSeïjp.” *
-The sailors too I marked, -
s Conspicuous in white robes their sable limbs,”
There are other passages in ancient writers, in which the
Egyptians are mentioned as a swarthy people, which might
with equal,propriety be applied, to a perfect black or to a
brown or dusky Nubian.
We have in one of the dialogues of Lucian a ludicrous de-
' spription of a young Egyptian, who. was represented, as belonging
to the crew of a trading, vessel at the Piraeus. It-is
$ajd of him that, IS^beqides being black, he had projecting
lips, and was very slender in the legs, and that his bairf and
the curls bushed up behind, marked him^to be a sl^ve.”^ -
This description of the hair, however, might rather apply
to «frizzled and bushy , curls, like .those, worn, as I have already
shown, by the Bar&bra and Bishari, than to the woolly
heads oj;Negroes. Mr* Legh says, in describing the Barabra
near Syene, that , their hair j& frizzled at th^ièides, .and stiffened
out with grease, resembling the sort of cpeffure, on thé?
•head of the sphinx. He adds, that the make of their limbs
* Herod, lib. ifc',
+ yEschylus in Suppl.
He,applies the same epithet to them agate: .
HirXevcravr’ <35 sTrirv^ei KÓrip,
■ffdXsi pt\ay%lp,<p afiiv <rrpdrtp'
$ Lucian. Navigatio sëu Vota. The original words are Ovyog cï, vpbs rtp
jueXay^gwc klvai, cat 7rpó%sïXóc,êcffi ,5k Kal Xerrrbg ayav rdtv <jKtXo~iv,”—— (‘ ri
Kopjj Sk Kal eg rèiiiriow b wXÓKapog avvetnretpapsvog ol!>K^AJ£-ul9epQC fprjGiv aiirbv
ilvui.