ARTS AND SCIENCES. 
505 
what similar to that which, in Europe, was deno- 
minated the feudal system. 
If we survey the state of science and of the 
arts throughout this vast continent, we shall uni- 
versally iind them in a state either of infancy or 
of decrepitude. The latter occurs in Northern 
Africa, where faint vestiges only remain of the 
glory which once flowed so copiously from these 
sources. Yet this faint remnant of ancient know- 
ledge forms the only source whence any know- 
ledge of letters is diffused throughout Africa. 
The natives are entirely destitute of any written 
language, besides that which they learn from the 
Moors J nor have they attempted to supply the 
want, even by the rudest hieroglyphical inven- 
tions. Abyssinia, which possesses also a litera- 
ture of its own, derives it equally from a foreign 
source. 
Architecture is one of the arts w^hich, contri- 
buting in the most eminent degree to the com- 
fort of the individual, and the splendour of the 
prince, ranks earliest among the pursuits of civi- 
lized nations. Assyria and Egypt produced edi- 
fices of stupendous magnitude, at a period when 
other arts and sciences were yet in their infancy. 
Architecture, as an art, may be said to be wholly 
unknown in native Africa. But for what has been 
practised in Egypt, and introduced elsewhere by 
foreigners, there would not perhaps be a stone edi- 
