LESSONS IN r.THN 



M| 



to be Semitic, and placed aide by aide with the Arabia. The 

 Amazirgh or Berber tongue, spoken in many parts of Barbary, 

 was thought to hare a similar affinity. Now, however, it 

 appears that though there are many Semitic words in both 

 Coptic and Berber, yet the 

 great majority of the roots in 

 these languages are un-Scmitio. 

 What, thun, are they ? This is 

 a question difficult to answer. 

 Possibly further research may 

 show that both Coptic and 

 Berber have certain attinitir.s 

 to the tongues south and west 

 of them. Happy will it be for 

 the negro if this should finally 

 be established, for in this ease 

 he will be able to claim affinity 

 with the Egyptians, to whom 

 even the Greeks looked up with 

 respect, and whose ancient mo- 

 numents have afforded infor- 

 mation, nowhere else obtain- 

 able, with regard to the early 

 history of mankind. If the 

 Egyptians were really of the 

 race which, in the low, hot, 

 steaming districts of tropical 

 Africa, developed the physical 

 peculiarities of the negro, then 

 they must have become greatly 

 modified for the better, both 

 physically and intellectually, 

 during the lapse of years. As- 

 suming the fact to be so, then, 



two causes may have operated 

 to produce the result. Resi- 

 dent as the Egyptians were 



in the immediate vicinity of the Syro-Arabian nations, they, 

 or at least the upper classes among them, intermarrying 

 with the superior race, would in time approach its level, just as 

 the Turanian tribes have done in Europe. Moreover, their situa- 



Fig. 7. SIOUX CHIKP : TYPE OF AMERICAN BED RACE. 



to the ethnology of ancient Egypt. Thus, on finding Herodotau 

 describe the Egyptian* Tory much as if they were a negro mot, 

 it would quite vindicate hi* accuracy war* we limply to a*y 

 that he referred to the mam of the people ; while the Caoc*. 



ian diameter of the tt.ummiew 

 which hare been opened, M 

 well M that of the Egyptian- 



; . :.' 1 <<:. : u-i'U'i:'*' .'. 



would be at onoe aoooonteJ /> 

 by remembering that peoplu 

 who had been expensirely em* 

 balmed, or who had bean 

 deemed worthy of being immor- 

 talised by means of painting or 

 sculpture, would almost cer- 

 tainly be of aristocratic rank, 

 and therefore pre-eminently 

 Caucasian. 



It should be mentioned that 

 Bunsen considers the Egyptian 

 language to hare affinities both 

 with the Indo-European and 

 Semitic tongues, which he ex- 

 plains by supposing that the 

 Egyptians separated from the 

 primeval stock of mankind 

 while the Aryans and the Se- 

 mites were yet but one people. 

 The language of Nubia is 

 sometimes called Barabra, or 

 Berberine, which must not be 

 confounded with the Berber 

 or Amazirgh of the Barbary 

 States. The Nubians are in- 

 termediate in physical charac- 

 ter between the Caucasians and 

 the negroes. 



Abyssinia is a very interesting region, ethnologically viewed. 

 There are in it undoubted Semitic tribes, and others more dis- 

 tinctively African. The country consists of three great table* 

 lands rising one above another. On the second of these, that 





Pig. 9. NATIVES OP VOTTLA. JAiON : NEOROH8 OP CENTRAL 



ion at the junction of three great continents must have tended 

 to their civilisation : and this, again, may have acted favour- 

 ably on their physical and mental organisation. The supposi- 

 tion that the upper classes in the valley of the Nile were more 

 or less Caucasian, while the lower ones were somewhat akin 

 f negroes would reconcile contradictory evidence with regard 



of Tigre", long stood the old city of Amm, which was the 

 capital of a Semitic kingdom. It was in its glory in the third 

 century of the Christian era, when a missionary, Frumentius 

 by name, brought a considerable part of it over to the religion 

 of the Cross. Certain professors of Judaism in Abyssinia, 

 called Falashas, have among them a translation of the OW 



