The Zoologist — February, 1869. 1535 



but the text itself does not bear out this : there is a precision in the 

 way in which minor numbers are given that carries conviction to every 

 truth-seeker: thus it is stated that Abijah began to reign in the 

 eighteenth year of king Jeroboam ; and that he reigned three years in 

 Jerusalem, and that he had fourteen wives, twenty-two sons and six- 

 teen daughters. It is also worthy of note that the average reign of 

 each king chronicled with so much care correspond very closely with 

 that of the kings of England or European nations generally, showing 

 that the duration of human life was much the same then as now; and 

 the number of wives and children will find its parallel at the present 

 hour in Palestine. 



It has been asserted, but never demonstrated, that "Cush" in the 

 Hebrew is not the equivalent of our "Negro;" but I entirely agree 

 with Dr. Kitto in thinking it difficult to understand how any ethnolo- 

 gist could possibly have entertained a different opinion : there is not 

 a single passage in the Bible in which " Cush" cannot be fairly under- 

 stood to mean Ethiopia ; and " Cushite," Negro. 



In all ages of the world proficiency in war seems to have been 

 considered the chief good, the great desideratum : it certainly 

 was so in Judasa, and it certainly is so now: our national debts 

 all the world over are incurred with this single object: our ex- 

 penditure for education, science, art, philanthropy, or in any way 

 for the good of our fellow-creatures, is so infinitessimally small 

 that it bears no appreciable proportion to our expenditure for 

 war: it is therefore, in estimating the character of the Negro three 

 thousand years ago, that I place war first in the category of his 

 accomplishments. But let it not be supposed the Negro of that 

 date was a mere fighter : the city of Meroe, the capital of Ethiopia, to 

 this day contains splendid ruins of temples and other edifices that have 

 excited the admiration and employed the pens of Caillaud, Gau, Rup- 

 pell, Belzoni, Waddingtou, Hoskins, and a host of other accomphshed 

 travellers. What is the Negro now, after the lapse of three thousand 

 years ? I hear the philanthropist reply that slavery has degraded him ; 

 but is this shown by fact ? What is the testimony of those outspoken 

 opponents of slavery, Baker, Livingstone, Speke, Grant, Petherick ? 

 they have rendered themselves perfectly familiar with the Negro in his 

 home. Notwithstanding all its horrors, slavery has clothed and taught 

 and fed the Negro, and yet neither in a state of servile bondage nor 

 as a free inhabitant of his native morasses, does he bear a com- 

 parison with the Negro of Scripture history: he cannot fight a 



