TRANSACTIONS OF THE SECTIONS. 115 



believe that in their inhospitable land they would never have attained even the 

 modest measure of advancement they have exhibited, but, on the contrary, would 

 have remained in the savage condition of some Africans, or Red Indians, whose 

 condition was far more auspicious. But the Arab is of higher intellectual quality 

 than any other race of Asia, in many respects not being surpassed even by the 

 Chinese ; and this superiority is evinced by the predominance they exercise when 

 they come into contact with any of the other races of Asia. At some very remote 

 and unknown time, a settlement of Arabs took place in the neighbouring country 

 of Syria, the evidence of whch is the existence in Hebrew of many Arabic words. 

 With this obscure exception, the long isolation of the Arabs continued down to 

 the time of Mohammed. Under the inspiration of the religion of their prophet, 

 they left their own country, and at once commenced a career of conquest which, 

 for rapidity, durability, and extent has no parallel. Transplanted to better lands 

 than their own, the Arabs appear to have improved or fallen oft", chiefly in propor- 

 tion to the quality of the race with which they commingled. They became deterio- 

 rated amongst the Syrians and Egyptians, and their greatest social advancement 

 was, probably, when they came into contact with a European people in the 

 Spanish peninsula. It was in foreign countries only that they made advance in 

 civilization. Their literature and their architecture all sprang up in foreign coun- 

 tries. They were not themselves discoverers or inventors, and the benefit they 

 conferred on mankind consisted only in their being the agents through which the 

 discoveries and improvements of other nations were widely disseminated. It was, 

 for example, through their active mediation that the arts of distillation and paper- 

 making (Chinese inventions) reached Europe ; and the western world owes to them 

 the introduction of many useful plants, as rice, cotton, the sugar-cane, the opium- 



Sioppy, the orange, and the melon. The number of Arabic words introduced into 

 breign languages varies with the influence exercised by the religion of the Arabs, 

 and the capacity of the people to comprehend it. The language has nowhere but in 

 Syria, Egypt, and Barbary made any approach to the supercession of the native 

 idioms of countries conquered by the Arabs. The great disparity which existed 

 between the manners, habits, and pronunciation of a European and an Asiatic 

 people made the number of Arabic words introduced into the Spanish language 

 comparatively inconsiderable, and their corruption great, although the power of 

 the Arabs in the Spanish peninsula endured, from first to last, 778 years. 



Life amonrj&t the Veys. By H. C. Criswick. 



On the Character of the Negro, chiefly in relation to Industrial Habits. 

 By Dr. John Davy, F.B.S. 



In this paper the chief object of its author was the vindication of the Negro, 

 who, he believes, has been unjustly considered a sluggard and inveterately idle. 



The argument used is of two kinds ; one is founded on the organization of the 

 African, excellently fitted for work, indeed the very cause, under a mistaken 

 hum.anity, of his first importation into the West Indies, with the vain hope of 

 preserving the feebler and cruelly worked natives. 



The other (resting on experience), a very extensive experience, proving that 

 with equal motives to be industrious, the negro is not inferior to the white man 

 in industry. 



The author adduces instances of conduct on the part of negro labourers that 

 would be highly creditable to Eui-opeans in the same condition of life. 



He concludes with the expression of belief that such peculiarities as belong to 

 the negi'o, as colour of skin, quality of hair, kc, are of a kind suitable to him 

 in his native climate, and beneficial under a tropical sun and in a malarious 

 atmosphere, and not of a natm-e to allow of his being considered either as a 

 distinct or inferior variety of the great human family. And further, that he is as 

 capable as the white man, under continued education, in favourable circumstances, 

 and freed from the cm-se of slavery, of becoming civilized, and of making pro- 

 gress in the liberal arts and sciences. One fact is dwelt on as of a very promising 

 kind, viz. that those tribes in the far interior, mountainous regions of Africa, 



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