PROGNATHOUS STOCK. 289 



language as the Foulahs of Senegambia, maintain no intercourse with their 

 nation established in Houssa, and have no traditions of their origin : the 

 Felatahs, therefore, with their kindred, the Foulahs, are to be ascribed, 

 not to the Negro stock, but to that class of the indigenes of Africa 

 intermediate between the Negro and the Japetic. The characters of the 

 Foulahs have been already noticed. 



South of the line, to the Tropic of Capricorn, our knowledge of the 

 natives of Africa is limited to the nations along the east and western 

 coasts, glimpses only of the space between having been occasionally 

 obtained by Europeans. From the concurrent testimony of various 

 authorities, it appears that the languages spoken by the tribes occupying 

 these opposite coasts are referable to one origin ; and, farther, that they 

 are intrinsically identical with the dialects of the natives of the territory 

 near Delagoa Bay, and of the several Caffre tribes tenanting the country 

 south of the tropic, a circumstance of interest, as leading to the conclusion 

 that the multitudinous nations and tribes, spread over the continent of 

 subequatorial Africa, the Hottentots excepted, are branches of the same 

 stock, and that the differences in colour and physiognomy, which may 

 obtain among them, are to be attributed to extrinsic causes : not, indeed, 

 well understood, but parallel to those which have stamped the natives of the 

 kingdoms and provinces of Europe, derived from a common source, with 

 their respective national characteristics of form and features. The natives 

 of Congo, on the west, and Mozambique, on the east, have been usually 

 regarded as Negroes ; while the Caffre tribes are not generally considered 

 to come under that denomination : it would appear, however, that, as we ad- 

 vance northward, in the Caffre country, a gradual approach is observable, 

 both in features and complexion of the tribes, to the black or Negro races 

 of Congo* and Mozambique ; while, on the other hand, tribes inhabiting 

 certain districts of these countries approximate, both in stature and com- 

 plexion, to the Caffres. Among the natives of Congo, for example, whence 

 the Portuguese have long drained their colonial slaves, tribes occur, ap- 

 proaching the European in features, and of a brown olive, or sandy-red 

 complexion ; and the Movisas, the Monomugi, and Maravis, tenanting the 

 interior districts of the Mozambique region, are not decidedly black, but 

 of a dusky or brown complexion, and of a tall and athletic form. The 

 natives, however, of the districts adjacent to the coast, and along the 

 Zambesi river and its branches, as the Sowauli of Zanguebar, and the 

 neighbouring isles, the Makuanas of Mozambique Proper and the 



* In the empire of Congo are comprehended the provinces of Loango, Angola, Bemba. Matamba, 

 and Benguela, &c. ; on the east, this extensive region, forming, by a mountain range, a line of 

 separation between it and the elevated table land of central Africa. The river Zaire, or Congo, 

 rises and flows, for some distance, among mountains rich in ore, between which and the flat 

 country along the coast is a district of diversified surface, fertile, and highly populous, including 

 the province of Bemba. The low country is pestilential in the extreme. The unfortunate result 

 of Captain Tuckey's expedition up the Congo river is well known. 



VOL.1. 2P 



