274 NEGRO STATES. 



Arabs in their laws and customs ; the patriarchal sys- 

 tem prevails among them. There are regions in which 

 the federal system prevails ; many villages are leagued 

 together ; and the head men, acting as deputies of their 

 respective boroughs, meet in congress to debate ques- 

 tions of foreign policy, and to enact laws. Large 

 empires exist in the Soudan. In some of these the 

 king is a despot, who possesses a powerful body-guard, 

 equivalent to a standing army, a court, with its regu- 

 lations of etiquette, and a well-ordered system of 

 patronage and surveillance. In others he is merely 

 an instrument in the hands of priests or military 

 nobles, and is kept concealed, giving audience from 

 behind a curtain to excite the veneration of the vulgar. 

 There are also thousands of large walled cities resem- 

 bling those of Europe in the middle ages, or of ancient 

 Greece, or of Italy before the supremacy of Rome, 

 encircled by pastures and by arable estates, and by 

 farming villages, to which the citizens repair at the 

 harvest time to superintend the labour of their slaves. 

 But such cities, with their villeggiatura, their municipal 

 government, their agora, or forum, their fortified 

 houses, their feuds and street frays of Capulet and 

 Montague, are not indigenous in Africa ; their exist- 

 ence is comparatively modern, and is due to the influ- 

 ence of Religion. 



An African village (old style) is usually a street of 

 huts, with walls like hurdles, and the thatch project- 

 ing so that its owner may sit beneath it in sun or 

 rain. The door is low ; one has to crawl in order to 

 go in. There are no windows. The house is a single 

 room. In its midst burns a fire which is never suf- 

 fered to go out, for it is a light in darkness, a servant, 

 a companion, and a guardian angel ; it purifies the 



