Nilotic or Egyptian Population. 30t 



to have kept possession during so long a period. It is to these 

 events, then, that we attribute that blending of nations which 

 appears to have been coeval with the early ages of the Nilotic 

 family, and which amply accounts for the ethnographic diver- 

 sities everywhere manifest on the monuments. 



The second epoch is comprised in the Ethiopian dynasty of 

 three kings, which lasted forty-four years, beginning B.C. 719. 



These Meroite or Austral-Egyptian kings, during their intru- 

 sive occupation of Egypt, would naturally, and indeed neces- 

 sarily, engage the neighbouring tribes, and especially such as 

 were hostile to Egypt, as mercenary soldiers; and there are 

 more than conjectural grounds for believing that the negroes 

 themselves were thus employed. We are told in the Sacred 

 Writings, (2Chron.,chap.xii.,)that when Shishak king of Egypt 

 — who is identical with Sheshonk of the monuments — went 

 up against Jerusalem, he took with him " twelve hundred cha- 

 riots and three score thousand horsemen : and the people were 

 without number that came with him out of Egypt ; the Lubims, 

 the Sukkiims, and the Ethiopians." Of this multitude we 

 may presume that the horsemen, and people in chariots, were 

 part of the Egyptian army ; the Lubims and Sukkiims are by 

 most commentators regarded as Libyans and Meroites, while, 

 as the Ethiopians are placed last on the list, and are designated, 

 in the Hebrew original, by the name of Cush, it is not unreason- 

 able to suppose that they were Negroes. This view is sus- 

 tained by a passage in Herodotus, * who states, that in the 

 army of Xerxes which invaded Greece was a legion of Western 

 Ethiopians^ " who had hair more crisp and curling than any 

 other men." f Now, if the army of Xerxes embraced a legion 

 of African negroes, it would not be remarkable if the Egyptian 

 troops should have been composed in part of the same people ; 

 which, indeed, with respect to the Ethiopian dynasty, may be 



* In my Crania Americana, note, p. 29, 1 have employed this passage 

 to shew, that those Colchians whom Herodotus mentions as forming 

 " part of the troops of Sesostris," might have been Negroes acting as 

 mercenary or auxiliary soldiers. I am now satisfied that such explana- 

 tion is at least unnecessary ; and I, therefore, take this occasion to with- 

 draw it. 



t Polhym., cap. Ixx. 



