VARIETIES OF MANKIND. 



1357 



to a brownish yellow ; their stature is tall ; 

 their bodies spare, wiry, and muscular ; their 

 frontal profile vaulted, their nose straight or 

 even arched, their lips moderately full, their 

 hair often hanging over the neck in long twisted 

 plaits. Nearly the same description applies 

 to some of the Nubian tribes (fig. 842), of 

 which the resemblance to the Arab physiog- 

 nomy becomes very striking, although their 

 colour is jet-black ; and, [as already shown, 

 there is distinct evidence of their Negro an- 

 cestry. The languages of these Nilotic people 

 present an intermediate gradation between the 

 proper Semitic and the proper African ; and 

 all that has been made known by the explora- 

 tions in these regions, which have been carried 

 on, more or less uninterruptedly, ever since 

 the French expedition into Egypt, tends to 

 break down the line of demarcation which was 

 supposed to separate the African nations from 

 all others. To a similar result have tended 

 all those Egyptological researches which have 

 been carried on with so much ardour during 

 the same period. For a careful examination 

 of the delineations of themselves left to us in 

 the paintings and sculptures of the ancient 

 Egyptians, and of the crania preserved in their 

 sepulchres, leaves no reasonable doubt, that in 

 their physiognomy and complexion they were 

 essentially African ; although very marked va- 

 rieties in cranial conformation, and in the hue 

 of their surface, appear to have existed amongst 

 them. The Copts, or existing natives of Egypt, 

 seem, on the whole, pretty nearly to represent 

 their physical characters, although in a condi- 

 tion of comparative degradation, owing to the 

 state of subjection to which they have been re- 

 duced ; and although the existing Coptic lan- 



Fig. 843. 



guage has been undoubtedly changed from its 

 original form by the successive colonizations 

 and conquests to which the country has been 

 subjected, yet it still shows a marked affinity 

 with the proper African languages in certain 

 peculiarities of its construction. 



Lastly, the northern and north-western 

 portion of the African continent is occupied 

 by tribes whose Semitic origin is undoubted. 

 Several immigrations appear to have taken 

 place at different times from the Syro-Ara- 

 bian stock ; but that which has most claim 

 to the title of an aboriginal population, is 

 that of which the Berber races (from which 

 the north-west of Africa received the desig- 

 nation of Barbary) may be regarded as the 

 types ; the Kabyles of Algiers and Tunis (the 

 people of Abd-el-Kader), the Tuaryks of 

 Sahara, and the Shelahs or mountaineers of 

 Southern Morocco, being branches of the 

 same stock ; as were also, most probably, 

 the Guanches or ancient population of the 

 Canary Islands. These people all speak 

 dialects of a language, which has been shown 

 by Prof. Newman to be an offset from the 

 Semitic : and whilst the complexion, and even 

 the hair and physiognomy, of those which 

 approach the Negro area, present a remarkable 

 approximation to those characteristic of the 

 Negro, those of the northern and more ele- 

 vated districts retain the Caucasian type, and 

 some of them are quite fair in skin, and Euro- 

 pean in feature. But subsequently to the 

 settlement of these tribes in the regions they 

 still inhabit, there have been colonizations by 

 Phoenicians and true Arabs ; and these immi- 

 grants have for the most part remained distinct 

 from the aboriginal population (figs. 843, 844), 



Fig. 84i. 



Algerine Arabs of tfie Mozabite tribe. (From portraits taken under the direction of Prof. Milne- Edwards.) 



their languages being divergent, and their 

 habits and grade of civilisation different. Such 

 were the sovereignties of Morocco, Algiers, 



Notwithstanding its Semitic affinities, the 

 language of the North-African aborigines is 

 considered by Dr. Latham as having affinities 



and Tunis, which brought the aboriginal tribes also with the proper African tongues, and as 

 under nominal subjection to themselves, having been isolated from them without suf- 



