186 



PHYSICAL HISTORY OF MAN. 



slavery may have been of modern origin ; and the race even, seems to 

 have been very little known to the ancient Greeks and Romans. I 

 have seen the Negro skull which was exhumed in the island of Malta, 

 among the ruins of Hadjerkim ; but in the absence of inscriptions, I 

 am not aware that any date has been assigned to these anomalous 

 constructions ; other than referring them indefinitely to idolatrous 

 times. In regard however to the general subject of the ancient Ora- 

 cles, I will mention, on the authority of Dr. Schembri, that " the 

 name of ' dodon,' is to this day applied by the Maltese to a particular 

 variety of black pigeon." 



At Suez, I remarked one Negro among a party of ' Arabs of the 

 Hedjaz ;' and this man wore the same costume, and appeared to be 

 living on a footing of equality with his companions. 



At Mocha, Negroes were numerous ; and they had been derived 

 from two distinct portions of Africa. Some had come, like those of 

 Egypt, from the White River of the Nile; and were called 'Nuba.' 

 These were " highly esteemed as soldiers, and as such were kept in 

 numbers by some of the more powerful chiefs of Southern Arabia." 

 The majority, however, of the Negroes I saw at Mocha, had been 

 brought from Zanzibar. 



At Mocha, I also met with a class of persons more or less mixed, 

 who were called 'Hadem;' a term which appeared to be equivalent 

 to that of 'low people,' and which was used in other instances to be 

 mentioned hereafter. They were characterized as "a sort of Arabian 

 Negro, coming from the Interior or the Desert, who, among other 

 usages, practise eating dead animals." Of the individuals pointed 

 out to me, some were not distinguishable from the Arabs of the 

 country ; but others presented traces of Negro descent, and one man 

 had the aspect of an unmixed Negro. 



At Muscat, the influx of Negroes appeared to be exclusively from 

 Zanzibar; and excepting those brought as slaves, they consisted 

 chiefly of Soahili. The latter were perhaps only visiters ; since 

 they compose the principal part of the crews of the numerous dows 

 tradino" to the African coast. The Soahili are all Muslims; and I 

 did not hear of any who were held in slavery in this part of Arabia; 

 but at Mocha, I met with slaves who called themselves Soahili 



In the streets of Bombay, I frequently fell in with Soahili; who 

 belonged as before, to the Arab shipping. But at Singapore, I saw 



