\U2 THE CUCAL. 



bones flat, the nias(|ue long and oval, and the nose aquiline 

 and thin enough for any prince. Conscious of liis own 

 beauty and strength, he stood up among the rest as an old 

 Macedonian might have stood up among the Egyptians he 

 had contjuered. We tried to find out his parentage. My 

 companions presumed he was an "African," i.e. imported 

 during the times of slavery. He said, No : that he was 

 a Creole, island born ; but his father, it appeared, had been 

 in one of our iS^egro regiments, and had been settled after- 

 wards on a Government grant of land. Whether his beauty 

 was the result of ' atavism ' of the reappearance, under 

 the black skin and woolly hair, of some old stain of white 

 blood ; or whether, which is more j)robable, he came of some 

 hiuher African race ; one could not look at him without 

 hopeful surmises as to the possible rise of the Xegro, and as 

 to the way in which it will come about, the only way in 

 which any race has permanently risen, as far as I can ascer- 

 tain ; namely, by the appearance among them of sudden sports 

 of nature ; individuals of an altogether higher type ; such a 

 man as that terrible Daaga, whose story has been told. If I 

 am any judge of physiognomy, such a man as that, having 

 what the Xegro has not yet had " la carriere ouverte aux 

 talents," might raise, not himself merely, but a whole tribe, to 

 an altogether new level in culture and ability. 



Just after passing this gang we found, lying by the road, 



