thick or full, but seldom turned out like the thick 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 exemplifications. These: characters, though in
some respects approaching towards those of the Negro, are perfectly distinct from the
peculiarities of the mulatto or mixed breed. Most of these nations, both classes being
equally included, are originally African. By this I 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 commencement in that continent.” 217 .
The above paragraph establishes that Prichard, in accordance here
with our own views, cuts loose the population of the basin of the Nile
from all the Negro races scattered between Mount Atlas and the Cape
of Good Hope. In fact, one of Prichard’s great objects, throughout
his “ Researches,” is to show that there exists a regular gradation of
races, from the highest to the lowest types, not only in Africa, but
throughout the world. The learned Doctor spared no labor, for forty
years, to prove that this gradation is the result of physical causes, acting,
as he says, “ during chiliads of years,” upon one primitive
Adamic stock. We, on the contrary, contend, that many primitive
types of mankind were created in distant zoological provinces; and,
that the numerous facts, ignored by Dr. Prichard, which have lately
come to light from Egyptian monuments and other new sources,
confirm this view. In fact, Prichard himself, in the fifth or final
volume of his last edition, virtually abandons the position he had so
long and so ably maintained.
The range of mountains which bounds Guinea on the north is supposed,
by R it t e r and other distinguished geographers, to be the
commencement of a huge chain which trends across the continent
about the tenth degree, connecting itself with the so-called “ Mountains
of the Moon,” on the East;218 and thus constituting an impassable
wall, athwart the continent, between the North and the South.
Certain it is that the whole of Africa south of this parallel was utterly
unknown 600 years ago to any writers, sacred or profane—the coast,
on either side, until reached by navigators, in quite modern times—
the interior, or central portion of this mountain-land, continues to be
less known than even the moon’s.
One interesting fact, however, is clear: viz., that when, passing
onwards from the South, we overleap this stupendous natural wall,219
we are at once thrown among tribes of higher grade; although continuing
still within the region of jet-black skins and woolly heads.
The excessively prognathous type of the Hottentots, Congos, Guinea-
Negroes, and so forth, is no longer, we nowperceive, the prevailing type
north of this mountain-range. We here meet with features approaching
the Caucasian coupled with well-formed bodies and neatly-turned
limbs; improved cranial developments, and altogether a much higher
intellectual character. Here, likewise, the rudiments of civilization are
met with for the first time in our progress from the South. Here
and there, though surrounded by pastoral nomadism, many of the
tribes are rude agriculturists; manufacturing coarse cloth, leather,
&c.; knowing somewhat of the use of metals, and living in towns of
from ten to thirty thousand inhabitants. It must be conceded, however,
that most of this progress is attributable to foreign immigration
and exotic influences. In the fertile low-countries, beyond the Sahara
deserts, watered by rivers which descend northwards from watersheds
upon the central highlands, Africa has contained, for centuries,
several Nigritian kingdoms, founded by Mohammedans; while many
Arabs, and many more Atlantic Berbers, have settled among the
native tribes. To these influences we should doubtless ascribe tho
maintenance of their Muslim religion and infant civilization: for it
is indisputable that the rulers (petty kings and aristocracy) are not of
pure Negro lineage.220
This superiority of races north of the mountain-range does not
extend to all indigenous tribes; for Denham and Clapperton describe
some of the tribes around Bornou and Lake Tchad as extremely
Ugly, savage, and brutal. It would seem that nature preserves such
aboriginal specimens in every region of the globe: as if to demonstrate
that types are independent of physical causes, and that species of men,
like those of animals, are primitive.
We have also numerous accounts, from Bruce, Riippel, Cailliaud,
Linant, Beke, Werne, Combes et Tamisier, Rochet d’Hérieourt, Rus-
segger, Mohammqd-el-Tounsy, Lepsius, and other explorers, of Sen-
náar, Dar-F our, Kordofán, Eazoql, of the wild Shillooks, &c., bordering
on the White Nile and its tributaries, and of the western slopes of
Abyssinia; and they concur in representing most of these superlatively
barbarous tribes as characterized by Negro lineaments, more
or less well marked. Of such unaltered types we see many authentic
samples depicted on the Egyptian monuments of the XVHth dynasty;
and we find that some are referred to in the hieroglyphical inscriptions
as early as the XHth. Indeed, the first authentic evidences
extant of Expeditions, made to penetrate towards the Nile’s unknown
sources, date with the XHth dynasty, about 2300 b. c .; when Sesour-
tesen HI. had extended his conquests up the river at least as high as
&'amneh, in Upper Nubia, where a harbor, or arsenal, and a temple
(the former repaired by the Amenemhas, and the latter rebuilt by
Thotmes HI.), with other' remains, prove that the Pharaohs of the
XHth dynasty had established frontier garrisons. But, as the Tablet
of Wd.dee Haifa contains the names of nations undoubtedly Nigritian,