Berry — The Sierra Leone Cannibals. 25 



uation were placed, and within the groves were the royal tombs. A new grove 

 was planted for each tomb. Upon the king's death the body was laid upon a bed 

 covered with hangings and cushions aud placed on the spot chosen for his tomb. 

 Beside the dead king were laid his ornaments, his arms, and the dishes and 

 cups from which he was in the habit of eating and drinking, together with food 

 and intoxicating drink. Around the body of the king were laid the bodies of 

 his cooks, the makers of royal drinks, and attendants, who were sacrificed to 

 attend on hiiu in the next world. The whole was then covered with cloth aud 

 mats, and a great dome of wood was constructed, and the assembled people 

 threw earth upon the tomb until a great hillock was formed, aud a cUtch which 

 left only one passage of approach surrounded the mormd." (These and other 

 translations from Arabic texts were made for me by a Mullah from mss. in 

 his possession.) 



Every town of Grhaua had near to it a sacred grove, just as the towns of 

 the Congo have to the present day, to which people resorted to make their 

 offerings to the dead.' 



The Mali kingdom lasted till 1513, when it was destroyed by the Songhois. 



The ancient eiWlization of Egypt spread from south to north; and the earliest 

 seat of civilization in Africa was the country watered by the Upper Nile kuown 

 by the name of Ethiopia, and which lay between latitude 10° N". and 17° N., 

 and extended from the Eed Sea west beyond the Nile. On the western side 

 of Lake Chad the limits of habitation of the higher races of the Soudan are fixed 

 by the same bounds. The Songhois themselves say that they did not originate 

 on the banks of the Niger ; and when questioned concerning the home of their 

 fathers, they always point towards the purple dawn. 



" It is to the south of the island of Philae," says M. Dubois, " that we find 

 a similar race, and there also has ancient Egypt left indelible traces."' 



Monuments, of which a more or less consecutive chain can be traced from 

 Nubia to the Straits of Bab-el-mandeb, but especially at Meroe and Axum, 

 point to the existence in this territory, at a period of gi-eat antiquity, of a people 

 possessing the arts of a relatively high civilization. 



The principal state of this Ethiopian coimtry bore the well-known name of 

 Meroe, whose capital was a city of the same name. The people were a mixed 

 race composed of Libyans, Egyptians, Negroes, and Trogodytes, a primitive 

 nomad race inhabiting the western deserts, and probably of north African origin 

 with some admixture of the early Palaeolithic people. On the site of the city 

 of Meroe there exist remains of temples and pyramids, more primitive than 

 the Egyptian, which appears to indicate that the pyramid was a form of 



' Compare Dennet's " At the Back of the Black Man's Slind," pp. 63, 97. 

 ' " Timbuctoo the Mj-sterious," p. 91. 



