quently bom from Black parents, in âll parts of Africa.
Many of them are of the xanthous variety, and bavé red hair.
They seem to- be particularly numerous in the black Trace
which repeopled Sennaar some hundred years ago, where, under
the name of“ El Aknean,” “ thé 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 mahy
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 tb leave much
room for doubt, that by distant marriages a stoèk might
be propagated from persons of. this description, which might
be reckoned among the white and xanthous races of mankind.
I 4. The difference of physical characters between the Kafirs,
meaning the Amakosah, and the Negroes* known tovus;in
Western Africa, are so great as to have appeared to rnàny
travellers tobeidistinctive of separate races, and of varietiës bf
the human species, very remote from each other. The Kafirs
have been thought by intelligent rtnd accurate observers, to
resemble the Arabs more than the natives of . intertropical
Africa. The conclusion to which we are Jed by the most
careful researches into their history, is, that nothing in their
physical or moral qualities confirms 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 K osah
Kafirs, though still retaining something of the African character,
deviates very considerably from that type, and approaches
the form of the European skull, of 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
blacks or Makuani filling up the gradations that may be
imagined between the depressed forehead anqibstrongly-
mark q<§ ? African.; 'countenances ©f, the Ibos, and the well-
developed jjKeads^fand bold and animated physiognomy of
the-iAmakdsah'yi-and Amazuluh. v The complexion of these
tribes waifiety from the dark black of the
Loango or ‘Angola Negi^j^fbo^ olive*brdwn or copper colour
of'the Bechuana, who inhabit high plains beyond the tropic.
The nature , of the hair isM^e- ,of-the most general, as it is
certainly-the fh®sbcharacteri'Sfi©^ppculiarity of these nations.
Yet-even this.displaysIMeviations/ anebin^some tribes among
whom there is no probable ground for-conjecturing diversity
or intermixture* of racej the hair iswp:©sitively- stated to be not
woolly but merely curled, -or-in flowing* ringlets "of considerable
length. -
Many otfter’ instances may be colfobfedbin the preceding
survey of the African races, in which variations of a-similar
description are proved to have taken place. The more accurate
are our researches into the ethnography of this region of
the world, the less ground do we find for the opinion that the
characteristic qualifies 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 languages,
in which the language of the Kafirs and that of the
Egyptians are included, .this wilBgo far towards the proof of
a common origin. On this subject T «hall add nothing further
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