INTERESTING ENQUIRY. 
379 
civilized world has looked on them but as indeed 
enduring slaves, nor stopped to inquire whether the 
dark skin might not contain beneath it human feel- 
ings, high impulses, and germs for improvement. The 
history of the negroes in the middle ages, even, is en- 
veloped in a darkness, illustrative of the sad fate which 
for thousands of years has been gloomily suspended 
over them, and, except of Oush or Ethiopia, so often 
referred to in Holy Writ, and which perhaps did not 
include the southern and more central parts of that 
vast continent, we have few records. Now, however, 
that our own enlightened country, is striving to repay 
in some degree, the debt so long due to the Africans, 
everything which can throw light on their condition, 
social relations, institutions, and connexion with other 
nations, anciently or in modern times, is examined 
with deep interest. We have, therefore, ventured to 
put together a number of particulars, which, though 
imperfect, will, we trust, induce others who visit Africa 
to look more deeply into the subject, and to trace still 
further the analogies which exist between the institu- 
tions of the Western Africans and those of the 
Abyssinian s and Copts. That such analogies are 
numerous cannot be questioned, though they are ob- 
scure ; but if we remember how long an interval has 
elapsed, since these nations exerted an influence over the 
internal parts of their continent, and the proneness of 
a persecuted race to stand still, as it were, while 
others more favourably situated were progressing, we 
