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to believe, that the term Negro, as thus characterized, will be found to 

 have only a very restricted application. Winterbottom, in his account of 

 the native Africans of Sierra Leone, observes, that " the sloping contracted 

 forehead, small eyes, depressed nose, thick lips, and projecting jaws, 

 with which the African is usually caricatured, are by no means constant 

 traits ; on the contrary, every gradation of countenance may be met with, 

 from the disgusting picture too commonly drawn of them, to the finest 

 set of European features." We may, indeed, ascend a progressively rising 

 scale, from the Negro of Guinea, to the Mandingo of Gambia, or the 

 Foulah ; from the lowest style of the human countenance, to that of 

 the European model. As a general rule, it would appear that the 

 tribes along the coast are decidedly inferior, physically considered, to 

 those which tenant the interior countries of Senegambia and Soudan : 

 these only are mentioned, because the whole of the region from 

 Biafra, and the Gaboon coast, to Ajan and Magadoxo on the east, 

 occupying a space on both sides of the equator, from Nigritia to the 

 tropic of Capricorn, with the exception of the countries along the coast,* 

 is a terra incognita. It is, indeed, only within the last few years, that the 

 central regions of Nigritia have been penetrated by daring and devoted 

 Europeans ; and the discoveries of those who have reached, or attempted 

 to reach, the inland lake, Tschad, or the city of Timbuktoo, have 

 opened to our view nations till now unheard of, advanced in arts, com- 

 merce, and government, to a degree we were little prepared to expect ; 

 having towns of great extent, governed by laws, practising agriculture, 

 and professing the doctrines and creed of Islam, received from men 

 whose enthusiasm carried them beyond the mark which bounded the 

 ambition of the Roman, or the commercial enterprise of the Phoenician. 



To the south of Soudan, the semi-civilization which there prevails (the 

 result of the introduction of Islamism), abruptly ceases ; a barrier-chain of 

 mountains obstructs its progress. These mountains, extending from the 

 south of the Abyssinian Alps, below the tenth degree, north latitude, to join 

 the highlands of Senegambia, form the northern boundary of an elevated 

 table land, occasionally penetrated by adventurous natives from Soudan, with 

 beads and other articles of traffic, for skins and slaves ; but unmapped by the 

 European traveller. Major Denham, who visited the Valley of Mandaar, 

 to the south of the lake Tschad, approached the foot of this mountain range, 

 the bold sides of which overhang the level region. Its recesses contain the 

 abodes of numerous and barbarous tribes, whose dwellings were seen in 

 clusters on the tops and sides of the hills which overlook Mandara, and 

 whose fires, which were " nightly visible in the different nests of these un- 

 fortunate beings, threw a glare upon the bold peaks and blunt promontories 



* Namely, Congo on the west, and the Zanguebar and Mozambique country, and the region 

 around the Bay of Sofallo, on the east. 

 VOL. I. 20 



