III.] THE AFRICAN NEGRO : I. SUDANESE. 37 



From the anthropological standpoint Africa falls into two 

 distinct sections, where the highest (Caucasic) and 

 the lowest (Ethiopic) divisions of mankind have 



been conterminous throughout all known time. 9 re ,t t Dl ~ 



vide. 



Mutual encroachments and interpenetrations have 

 probably been continuous, and indeed are still going on. Yet so 

 marked is the difference between the two groups, and such is the 

 tenacity with which each clings to its proper domain, that, despite 

 any very distinct geographical frontiers, the ethnological parting 

 line may still be detected. Obliterated at one or two points, and 

 at others set back always in favour of the higher division, it may 

 be followed from the Atlantic coast along the course of the Senegal 

 river east by north to the great bend of the Niger at Timbuktu ; 

 then east by south to Lake Chad, beyond which it runs nearly due 

 east to Khartum, at the confluence of the White and Blue Niles. 



From this point the now isolated Negro groups (Base and 

 Barea), on the northern slope of the Abyssinian plateau, show that 

 the original boundary was at first continued still east to the 

 Red Sea at or about Massowa. But for many ages the line 

 appears to have been deflected from Khartum along the White 

 Nile south to the Sobat confluence, then continuously south-east- 

 wards round by the Sobat valley to Lake Albert Nyanza, up the 

 Somerset Nile to the Victoria Nyanza, and thence with a consider- 

 able southern bend round Masailand eastwards to the Indian 

 Ocean at the equator. 



All the land north of this irregular line belongs to the Hamito- 

 Semitic section of the Caucasic division, all south 

 of it to the western (African) section of the Ethiopic D Jmai^ egr 

 division. Throughout this region which comprises 

 the whole of Sudan from the Atlantic to the White Nile, and all 

 south of Sudan except Abyssinia, Galla, Somali and Masai lands- 

 the African Negro, clearly distinguished from the other main 

 groups by the above summarised physical 1 and mental qualities, 



[ Graphically summed up in the classical description of the Negress : 

 Afra genus, tota patriam testante figura, 

 Torta comam labroque tumens, et fusca colorem, 

 Pectore lata, jacens mammis, compressior alvo, 

 Cruribus exilis, spatiosa prodiga planta. 



