46 INTRODUCTION. 



thick lips, flat nose, and woolly hair, being an exceedingly small 

 part of the African continent. 



A. — Tl.e Negro Atlantidce are distributed on the low lands, sea- 

 coasts, deltas, and courses of the rivers Senegal, Gambia, Niger, 

 and Upper Nile, nearly limited to the tropic of Cancer. The depart- 

 ure from the true Negro features is the greatest on the high or table 

 lands. 



B. — The Kaffre Atlantidce inhabit Western, Central (?), and 

 Eastern Africa, from the north of the Equator to the south of the 

 Tropic of Capricorn. Their language has two remarkable peculi- 

 arities which seem to separate it from other African tongues ; viz., 

 the system of prefixing to every noun a syllable without any sepa- 

 rate meaning, and alliterational concord, which changes the initial 

 sound of a secondary word into that of the primary one. 



C. — The Hottentot Atlantidce have " a better claim to be considered 

 as forming a second species of the genus Homo than any other sec- 

 tion of mankind." Their language contains two inarticulate ele- 

 ments, viz., h, (like other tongues,) and a peculiar and characteris- 

 tic click. 



D. — The Nilotic Atlantidce are principally the Gallas, Agows, 

 and Nubians ; through the Nubian is traced the transition from the 

 Egyptian to the Eastern Negro. 



E. — The Amazirgh Atlantidce (or Berbers) comprise the Sievans, 

 the Cabyles of the Atlas range, Tuaricks of the Sahara, and the 

 Guanches of the Canaries. These were probably the subjects of 

 Massinissa, Juba, and Jugurtha. 



F. — The JEgyptian Atlantidce comprise the Old Egyptians, the 

 subjects of the Pharaohs and the Ptolemies ; and the modern Copts, 

 in the rare cases where they are unmixed : the present dominant 

 population being Arab. 



G. — Semitic Atlantidce. Connection with the Semitic is by no 

 means synonymous with separation from the African stock ; we may 

 pass naturally from the Copts to the Semitic tribes of Abyssinia, 

 Arabia, Palestine, Syria, Mesopotamia, &c, including Syrians, 

 Assyrians, Babylonians, Phoenicians, Hebrews, Arabs, Ethio- 

 pians, &c. 



The Syrian influence on civilization has been undervalued ; 

 through the Syrians, Armenia and Arabia received the knowledge of 

 Greece, and more important still has been the influence of the pro- 

 pagandism of the Nestorian Christians in Central and Eastern Asia. 

 The Babylonians were among the first, if not the first, builders of 

 cities and founders of empires ; they also made the first application 

 of weights and measures. The achievement of alphabetic writing 



