86 
OUR RACE AND ITS ORIGIN. 
able pyramids, built in a form which indicates knowledge 
of the most enduring shape, the gorgeous temples, the 
gigantic statues, still existing, attest the departed greatness 
of their builders. Even in Europe the most surprising, 
colossal, and ancient works, known as cyclopean, must be 
attributed to the same race. 
Whilst the coloured section of the human family was 
living in highly polished palaces of porphyry, with most if 
not all the comforts of modern civilization, clothed in the 
finest raiment of dazzling hues, the white was then but a 
wandering savage, haunting the forest and the plain, living 
in hollow trees, caves, or wretchedly-contrived huts, and 
deriving a precarious subsistence from the chase, or indi- 
genous products of the soil, roots, nuts, and acorns. 
It is to the coloured race we are chiefly indebted for all 
those artificial means of support which are now possessed. 
They first cultivated the cereal grasses, selected those 
producing the largest grain, ground the wheat in mills which 
they invented, and made the flour into bread, the staff of life. 
They found out the art of weaving cloth from the fleece and 
flax, and clothed themselves with these artificial products 
instead of skins, writing on leaves of the papyrus, from 
whence we derive the word paper, even printing too was 
commenced by them on blocks. They likewise had dentists 
to supply the defects of age, and manufactured artificial teeth 
of ivory, pot and wood, set in palates of gold. Every art 
of common life was carefully studied ; preparing food in the 
most palatable form, became as much a professional study 
with the ancient Egyptian cook, as the cuisine is now with 
the polished French, or the still more skilful Chinese. Indeed 
the progress made in every department of civilized life, 
extending even unto death itself, as is still to be seen in the 
carefully preserved mummy in its elaborately prepared coffin, 
is such as to excite our astonishment. Nor can there be 
much doubt on the subject, as both the pictures of ancient 
Egypt, and the numerous relics of its former days still 
preserved in its tombs, plainly attest. The architect of the 
celebrated temple of Jerusalem was of the race of Ham, and 
