THE ETHIOPIAN RACE. 



207 



Denharn and Clapperton moreover state, that the Tibboo couriers are 

 the only persons who will undertake singly to cross the Sahara." 



On my journey from Cairo to Suez, I met the caravan returning 

 from Mecca; but it was unfortunately at night, and I obtained a view 

 of the travellers only by the light of their own torches. There seemed 

 to be a large proportion of Ethiopians ; many of them doubtless from 

 Nubia; but some, who made inquiries about Alexandria, and main- 

 tained a more independent bearing than the Egyptian Barabra, may 

 have belonged to the far West. 



The Ethiopian profile has appeared to me, to have furnished the 

 model for the Egyptian features of the earliest monuments, as far down 

 as the conclusion of the Eighteenth Dynasty: and we may otherwise 

 look in vain for representations of a people, who, at least must have 

 been intimately known to the ancient inhabitants of the Thebaid. I 

 am aware that the Desert tribes have been separately and distinctly 

 delineated, though even here, I would appeal to the profile : and after 

 making every allowance for a conventional style of art, those highly 

 finished portraits of Egyptians in which the hair is disposed in nume- 

 rous slender braids, have appeared to me intended for men of the 

 Ethiopian race. The same rule respecting the hair, will, I think, be 

 found to prevail in the mummies, (though few of these have proved 

 to be of greater antiquity than the Greek or Ptolemaic period) ; and 

 the wooden neck- pillow accompanying the mummies, was certainly 

 not an invention of men of the White race. 



On the monuments of the Eighteenth Dynasty, men of the White 

 race are frequently represented; but chiefly as slaves, or as foreigners ; 

 and they may always be distinguished by the profde, from the Egyp- 

 tians. The earliest unequivocal representations of the White race 

 occur in the grottoes of Beni Hassan ; excavated during the Twelfth 

 Dynasty, or towards the conclusion of the " time of the Pyramids ;" 

 and it should also be observed, that some of the transactions here 

 recorded, seem connected with the first appearance in Egypt of the 

 Hyksos, or Shepherds. 



The portrait of Osortasen L, discovered in Nubia, is however of a 

 somewhat anterior date; and it seems to agree best with the White 

 race, so far as I can judge from copies. Most of the monarchs of 

 the Eighteenth Dynasty, can be clearly referred to the White race; 

 and their portraits, in some instances, are even painted flesh-colour ; 

 as one of Rameses III., which I saw at Thebes. It may also be re- 



