VARIETIES OF MANKIND. 



1353 



Fig. 831. 



Senegal Cliief. (From a portrait taken In/ an officer 

 in the expedition of Capt. Laplace.} 



opposite sides of Africa, are the high plains of 

 Enarea and Kaffa, where the inhabitants are 

 said to be fairer than the natives of Southern 

 Europe. So, again, whenever we hear of a 

 Negro state, whose members 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 ; such are the Ashanti, the 

 Sulima, and the Dahomans of Western 

 Africa, of which last nation the king is de- 

 scribed by a recent visitor (Lieut. Forbes) as 

 many shades removed from black in his com- 

 plexion, as having quite an intellectual 

 expression of countenance, and as possess- 

 ing a remarkable symmetry of figure. It is 

 obvious, too, from the account given by the 

 same observer*, that a very complex social 

 system has developed itself among this people, 

 and that they have made considerable progress 

 in the arts of life, although this has hitherto 

 been only turned to account in furthering the 

 traffic in slaves, of which Dahomey is now the 

 centre, so far as the Slave Coast is concerned. 

 The highest civilization, and the greatest im- 

 provement in physical characters, are to be 

 found in those nations which have adopted 

 the Mohammedan religion. This was intro- 

 duced, three or four centuries since, into the 

 eastern portion of Central Africa; and it 

 appears that the same people who were then 

 existing in the savage condition still exhibited 



* Dahomey and the Dahomans, 1851. 



by the pagan nations further south, have now 

 adopted many of the arts and institutions 

 of civilised society, subjecting themselves 

 to governments, practising agriculture, and 

 dwelling in towns of considerable extent, 

 some containing even as many as 30,000 

 inhabitants a circumstance which implies a 

 considerable advancement in industry, and in 

 the resources of subsistence. The languages 

 of the Negro nations, so far as they are 

 known, seem to belong to one group ; although 

 there is a great difficulty in becoming ac- 

 quainted with them ; in consequence of the 

 entire deficiency of written records. The 

 same cause would of course give a want of 

 fixity to their vocabulary : and thus the dia- 

 lects of two nations descended from a com- 

 mon original, would be likely soon to diverge 

 from each other. Still they all present, so 

 far as is known, the same grade of develop- 

 ment, and the same grammatical forms ; and 

 various proofs of their affinity with the Semi- 

 tic tongues have been developed, these being 

 derived from similarity alike of roots and of 

 construction. The Semitic affinity of the 

 Negro nations is further indicated in a very 

 remarkable manner, by the existence of a 

 variety of superstitions and usages among the 

 Negroes of the Western Coast, which prevail 

 also among the Nilotic races whose Semitic 

 relations are most clear, as well as among 

 branches of the Semitic stock itself; this is 

 especially the case with the rite of circum- 

 cision, which seems to be universally practised 

 throughout the Negro area. 



The southern portion of the African con- 

 tinent is inhabited by a group of nations which 

 speak various dialects of the Kaflfre tongue, 

 and which recede more or less decidedly from 

 the Negro type in physical characters. Our 

 acquaintance with them, however, is at pre- 

 sent very limited ; the interior of South Africa 

 having been as yet scarcely at all explored by- 

 civilised man ; and the only people well 

 known to us being those of a few points on 

 the coast, such as Kongo on one side, and 

 Mozambique on the other ; and those of the 

 southernmost extremity, or the region of the 

 Cape. As we pass southwards from the 

 equatorial region, we find a gradual softening 

 down of the proper Negro characters ; and 

 this is greater according to the degree of civi- 

 lization, and the general improvement in ex- 

 ternal conditions. Thus, in the people of 

 Kongo (fig. 832), and in those of Mozam- 

 bique and its neighbourhood (figs. 833, 

 834), although the hair is woolly and 

 the colour black, yet the skulls are more 

 vaulted (fig. 833) and capacious anteriorly, 

 and have much less of the prognathous cha- 

 racter ; the nose is much more prominent, the 

 lips are less thick, and the general expression 

 is milder and more intellectual, than that of 

 the natives of Guinea. When we arrive at 

 the true Kaffres, the race of warlike nomadic 

 people which inhabits the eastern parts of 

 South Africa to the northward of the Hot- 

 tentots, so great a departure from the Negro 

 type presents itself, that many travellers have 



