148 OBSERVATIONS ON EGYPTIAN ETHNOGRAPHY, 
nions which might be cited, prove that the Copts differ greatly among themselves; and 
that they are, physically and morally, a mixture of all the nations which have succes- 
sively held dominion in Egypt, or swelled its varied population—Egyptians of various 
castes, Greeks, Romans, Arabs, Hebrews, Negroes, and some others. Such was, at least 
in part, the opinion of Pugnet, (whose memoir I have not seen,) for he separates them 
“into two divisions; those whose ancestry has been intermixed, and partly of Greek and 
Latin descent, and a class of purely Egyptian origin.”* But, after all, perhaps the 
traces which are most invariable in the Copt are derived from the Negro; and they are 
manifest in the very bones of the head and face. 
“The inhabitants of the towns of Arabia and Egypt,” says Burckhardt, “are in the 
daily habit of taking in wedlock Abyssinian as well as Negro slaves;” and, in a subse- 
quent part of his travels, the same intelligent author describes a class of people in Nubia 
who are the direct offspring of this mixture of race, and who seem, from his description, 
to answer the characters of the Copts themselves. ‘The Nouba slaves (among whom 
must be reckoned those who are born in Senaar of male Negroes and female Abyssinians) 
form a middle class between the blacks and the Abyssinians. Their features, though 
they retain evident signs of Negro origin, have still something of what is called regular ; 
their noses, though smaller than those of Europeans, are less flat than those of Negroes; 
their lips are less thick, and the cheek bones less prominent. ‘The hair of some is woolly ; 
but among the greater part it is similar to the hair of Huropeans, but stronger, and always 
curled.” Another, and yet more striking example of the Negroid conformation is seen 
in the vast Foulah or Fellatah population of central Africa, which is now spread over a 
region of fifteen hundred miles from east to west, and five hundred miles from north to 
south. That they are a mixed progeny of Arabs, Berbers and Negroes, no longer admits 
of a reasonable doubt. Such is the opinion of D’Avezac and Hodgson, Vater, Adelung, 
and most other inquirers. “In the midst of the Negro races,” observes M. D’Avezac, 
“there stands out a métive population, of tawny or copper colour, prominent nose, small 
mouth, and oval face, which ranks itself among the white races, and asserts itself to be 
descended from Arab fathers and Taurodo mothers. Their crisped hair, even woolly, . 
though long, justifies their classification among the Oulotric (woolly-haired) populations; 
but neither the traits of their features, nor the colour of their skin, allow them to be con- 
founded with Negroes, however great the fusion of the two types may be.”t These and 
other facts derived from the slave trade, when considered in connexion with the Negro 
colonization of Nubia in the reign of Dioclesian, will account, I may repeat, not only for 
every blending of race observable in that country, but also assists us in tracing the origin 
of the Copts;—not to a period of time, it is true, but to circumstances which have been 
in operation for ages, and which were once, in all probability, far more active than they 
are at present. 
By the kindness of Mr. Gliddon I possess three Coptic skulls, two of which are adult, 
and are accurately sketched in the subjoined drawings, (A and B.) 
* Prichard, Researches, II., p. 238. + Tray. in Nubia, DF eh ve 
{ For ample details of this interesting question, see D’Avezac, Usquisse générale de l’Afrique, p. 55; and Hodewo on 
the Foulahs of Central Africa, p. 5, et passim. 
