PRINCIPAL BRANCHES OF THE HUMAN FAMILY. 95 



which present in a high degree all the characters that are commonly regarded 

 as typical of the Negro; these being generally distributed among different 

 nations in various ways ; and being combined, in each instance, with more 

 or fewer of the characters belonging to the European or Asiatic. Thus the 

 race of Jolofs near the Senegal, and the Guber in the interior of Sudan, have 

 woolly hair and deep black complexions, but fine forms and regular features 

 of a European cast; and nearly the same may be said of the darkest of the 

 Kafirs of Southern Africa. The Bechuna Kafirs present a still nearer ap- 

 proach to the European type; the complexion being of a light brown, the 

 hair often not woolly but merely curled, or even in long flowing ringlets, and 

 the figure and features having much of the European character. The nations 

 of the northeast of Africa, also, present similar departures from the typical 

 characters of the Negro. 



98. There is no group which presents a more constant correspondence 

 between external conditions and physical conformation, than that composed 

 of the African nations. As we find the complexion becoming gradually 

 darker, in passing from northern to southern Europe, thence to North Africa, 

 thence to the borders of the Great Desert, and thence to the intertropical re- 

 gion where alone the dullest black is to be met with, so do we find, on 

 passing southwards from this, that the hue becomes gradually lighter in pro- 

 portion as we proceed further from the equator, until we meet with races 

 of comparatively fair complexions among the nations of Southern Africa. 

 Even in the intertropical region, high elevations of the surface have the same 

 effect, as we have seen them produce elsewhere, in lightening the complexion. 

 Thus, the high parts of Senegambia, where the temperature is moderate and 

 even cool at times, are inhabited by Fulahs of a light copper colour; whilst 

 the nations inhabiting the lower regions around them, are of true Negro black- 

 ness; and nearly on the same parallel, but at the opposite side of Africa, are 

 the high planes of Enarea and Kaffa, where the inhabitants are said to be 

 fairer than the natives of Southern Europe. Again, those races which have 

 the Negro character in an exaggerated degree, and which may be said to ap- 

 proach to deformity in persons, the ugliest blacks, with depressed forehead, 

 flat noses, and crooked legs, are in most instances inhabitants of low coun- 

 tries, often of swampy tracts near the sea-coast, where many of them have 

 scarcely any other means of subsistence than shell-fish and the accidental gifts 

 of the sea. Such tribes are uniformly in the lowest stage of society, being 

 either ferocious savages, or stupid, sensual, and indolent. Such are most of 

 the tribes along the Slave Coast. On the other hand, wherever we hear of 

 a Negro state, the inhabitants of which have attained any considerable degree 

 of improvement in their social condition, we constantly find that their phy- 

 sical 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; also the Guber of Central Sudan, among which a consider- 

 able degree of civilization has long existed, which are perhaps the finest race 

 of genuine Negroes on the whole continent, and which present in their lan- 

 guage distinct traces of original relationship to the Syro-Arabian nations, not 

 to be accounted for by any subsequent intermixture of races. 



99. The highest civilization, and the greatest improvement in physical 

 characters, are to be found in those nations, which have adopted the Moham- 

 medan religion; this was introduced, three or four centuries since, into the 

 eastern portion of Central Africa; and it appears that the same people, which 

 were then existing in the savage condition still exhibited by the pagan nations 

 further south, have now adopted many of the arts and institutions of civilized 

 society, subjecting themselves to governments, practising agriculture, and 

 dwelling in towns of considerable extent, many of which contain 10,000, and 



