Ancient Inhabitants of the Canary Islands. 375 



regarding tlie heads of Northern Africans. Independently of 

 the northern parts of Africa having been, from a very remote 

 period, in great measure, inhabited by Caucasian families, 

 which, in the lapse of ages, may have sufficiently blended 

 themselves with their African neighbours to have effected 

 some personal changes, it seems pretty certain, from the de- 

 scriptions given by modern travellers, as well as from delinea- 

 tions and descriptions of great antiquity, that the strictly 

 African type which has prevailed in Northern Africa, is not 

 precisely the same with that which is now to be found either 

 on the east or the west coast, or in Southern Africa. I shall not 

 be greatly surprised, if, in purely physical characters, there 

 should hereafter be discovered, as in other zoological produc- 

 tions of the country, an approach to those characters Avhich 

 are met with towards the Cape. 



The difficulty of the inquii-y into the origin of the ancient 

 inhabitants of the Canary Islands, is increased by the circum- 

 stance, that the African relations with the Canary Islands, in 

 remote ages, would, in all probability, have been with the 

 Northern tribes, of which, unhappily, too little is known. 

 From the statues and drawings made by the ancient Egyptians, 

 and which have been preserved to the present time, it would 

 appear that there existed in the north of Africa a large pro- 

 portion of individuals possessing the intermediate character 

 between the Caucasian variety and that of the Negroes. The 

 colour, which is not to be strictly relied upon, is a sort of 

 swarthy red ; the lips are thick ; the eyes are full, and the 

 nose somewhat flattened; yet these features, as contrasted 

 with those of the Negro, are far more delicate and regular : the 

 hair is not frizzled ; and, in males, the chin is furnished with 

 a beard of some length. Major Denham has described a people, 

 still to be found in the northern parts of Africa, distinguished 

 alike from the Caucasian Arabs who live near them, and from 

 the numerous Negro tribes with which they are brought into 

 contact by the slave-dealers, who collect their captives from 

 various parts of the Continent. Their complexion is described 

 by the Major as reddish, and his pen and his pencil alike sug- 

 gest the resemblance between this people and the ancient race 

 before alluded to. 



