234 HISTORY AND ETHNOLOGY. 



lent creatures, scarcely elevated above animal life, as for instance, the 

 Papels, Bullous, and other rude hordes, upon the coast of West Guinea, 

 and many tribes on the Slave Coast and the Bay of Benin, where the slave 

 trade has been and is still carried on to the greatest extent, exercising its 

 pernicious influence. On the other hand, wherever we hear of a negro 

 state whose inhabitants have made considerable advances in their social 

 condition, we invariably find that their physical character differs materially 

 from the distinctly stamped Negro type. The Ashantees, Soulimas, and 

 Dahomians, may serve as instances of this. The negroes of Gooba and 

 Houssa, where a considerable degree of civilization has existed for a long 

 time, are perhaps the handsomest race of true Negroes upon the continent, 

 rivalled only by the Joloffes. The latter have been a comparatively 

 civilized people since the time of their first discovery by the Portuguese. 



Monotheism has gained but little ground among the Negroes. A large 

 portion still entertain the rudest conceptions of religious matters ; one 

 third has become converted by the Moors to Mohammedanism. Islamism, 

 though much mutilated, has been naturalized in the whole of central Africa ; 

 there the Foolahs and Mandingoes are the most zealous in religion, and 

 at present are offering great obstacles to the propagation of Christianity 

 from the coast. The only spot upon which the Christian faith has planted 

 a firm foot is in South Africa, among the tribe of Beshuans, into whose 

 highlands Islamism has not penetrated. 



In sketching the principal Negro tribes, we begin with those settled in 

 the west, upon the highlands of Soudan, where the Foolahs and the Man- 

 dingoes are the most powerful tribes. 



The Foolahs inhabit a wide space, more than 700,000 square miles, 

 extending from near the mouth of the Senegal, on the Atlantic coast, and 

 Senegambia in the west, to the kingdom of Bornou and Mandara in the 

 east, and from the desert of Sahara in the north to the mountains of 

 Guinea or Kong in the south. The Foolahs are called also Foolehs, 

 Fulbies, Fellanies, Fallatahs, Fellatahs, Peuls, &c., names that belong 

 properly speaking to different tribes,, associated, however, into one nation, 

 by means of a language common to all. In Senegambia and the mountain- 

 ous country back of Sierra Leone, the Foulahs have formed four principal 

 states, Fouta-Toro, Fouta-Bondon, Fouta-Jallon, Foulahdon. The four are 

 governed by an elective chief, bearing the title of Almamy {El Imam), and 

 who may be considered as the president of an oligarchical council. In 

 other Negro countries into which these nomadic tribes have penetrated, 

 they pay tribute to the princes for the land which they occupy. The 

 Foulahs diflfer, however, so much from the true Negroes, that many travel- 

 lers are inclined to arrange them as a particular race. In turns, their 

 complexion has been described as bronze, copper red, reddish, and some- 

 times even white. Mungo Park found them in the western parts of 

 Senegambia, and Crowther on the Quorra River, mostly with tan-colored 

 complexions, silky hair, and agreeable features. Oldendorp thus describes 

 a Foulah : " His black hair was like that of Europeans ; his color less black 

 than that of the Negroes, the nose not so flat ; the lips black, not red like 

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