xlii INTRODUCTION. 



Of all the African Races, the most distinct is the true Negro, 

 inhabiting a prodigious extent of country on either side of 

 the equator, and fitted, by all the characters impressed upon 

 his race, to inhabit the wild and burning regions which 

 are proper to him. In the true Negro, the skull is narrow 

 laterally, the forehead is sloping, the cheek-bones are pro- 

 minent, the jaws elongated, the front teeth oblique, the lips 

 thick, the nose is broad and flat, the irides are dark, and 

 the hair is black and what is popularly termed woolly, and 

 the colour of the skin approaches to a jet-black. This race 

 has never yet exhibited great intellectual powers ; although, 

 under the guidance of humane instruction, the youthful Afri- 

 can has proved to be not unapt to learn all that we can 

 teach to Europeans at a tender age. The temper of the 

 people is eager, light, and joyous ; but their actions indicate 

 want of reflection. They have, in some cases, united to 

 form large communities, but these have been always barbar- 

 ous, and maintained by the present tyranny of the chief. 

 Although possessed of physical powers far exceeding those 

 of the tribes which have settled in their country, they have 

 seldom united their arms to arrest the progress of their ene- 

 mies, or avenge the wrongs inflicted upon themselves. Few 

 useful arts have yet penetrated their native wilderness, and 

 the race seems at this hour to be little advanced beyond what 

 it may be conceived to have been in the earliest times. 



But the African characters recede from the grosser forms 

 typical of the true Negro, until they approach nearer to the 

 Caucasian type. Of this character are some of the races of 

 the interior, and above all, those which extend from the 

 great Sahara towards the shores of the Mediterranean, east- 

 ward through the Libyan deserts to the Nile, and southward 

 through Nubia to the high lands of Abyssinia, and again 

 into the countries of the Caffres ; and of this character, judg- 

 ing from their delineations of the human figure, were the 

 ancient Egyptians ; so that the Negro form, however typical 

 of the African race, becomes insensibly modified under the 



