Part 1 — Part I.

PRELIMINARY CONSIDERATIONS.

CHAPTER I.

THE UNITY OF MANKIND.

In Acts xvii. 26 the apostle says, "And God hath made of one blood all nations of men to dwell on the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation." In Mark xvi. 15, 16, is recorded that remarkable command of our Saviour, "Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature. He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned." (See also Matt. xxviii. 18, 20.) Now there is a very close connection between the statement here made by the apostle, and the command here given by our Lord Jesus Christ; for it was in obedience to this command that the apostle was at that time at Athens. There, amid the proud and conceited philosophers of Greece, in the centre of their resplendent capital, surrounded on every hand by their noblest works of art and their proudest monuments of learning, the apostle proclaims the equality of all men, their common origin, guilt, and danger, and their universal obligations to receive and embrace the gospel. The Athenians, like other ancient nations, and like them, too, in opposition to their own mythology, regarded themselves as a peculiar and distinct race, created upon the very soil which they inhabited, and pre-eminently elevated above the barbarians of the earth,—as they regarded the other races of men. Paul, however, as an inspired and infallible teacher, authoritatively declares that "God who made the world and all things therein," "hath made of one blood," and caused to descend from one original pair the whole species of men, who are now by His providential direction so propagated as to inhabit "all the face of the earth," having marked out in his eternal and unerring counsel the determinate periods for their inhabiting, and the boundaries of the regions they should inhabit.

The apostle in this passage refers very evidently to the record of the early colonization and settling of the earth contained in the books of Moses. Some Greek copies preserve only the word ενος, leaving out αιματος, a reading which the vulgar Latin follows. The Arabic version, to explain both, has ex homine, or as De Dieu renders it, ex Adamo uno, there being but the difference of one letter in the Eastern languages between dam and adam, the one denoting blood, and the other man. But if we take this passage as our more ordinary copies read it, εξενος αιματος, it is still equally plain that the meaning is not that all mankind were made of the same uniform matter, as the author of the work styled Pre-Adamites weakly imagined, for on that ground, not only mankind, but the whole world might be said to be ex henos haimatos, i.e., of the same blood, since all things in the world were at first formed out of the same matter. The word αιμα therefore must be here rendered in the same sense as that in which it occurs in the best Greek authors—the stock out of which men come Thus Homer says,—

"Ετ ετεου γ εμος εστι και αιματος ημετεροιο."

In like manner those who are near relations, are called by Sophocles οι προς αιματος. And hence the term consanguinity, employed to denote nearness of relation. Virgil uses sanguis in the same sense.

"Trojano a sanguine duci."

So that the apostle's meaning is, that however men now are dispersed in their habitations, and however much they differ in language and customs from each other, yet they were all originally of the same stock, and derived their succession from the first man whom God created, that is, from Adam, from which name the Hebrew word for blood—i.e.—dam—is a derivative.

Neither can it be conceived on what account Adam in the Scripture is called "the first man," and said to be "made a living soul," and "of the earth earthy," unless it is to denote that he was absolutely the first of his kind, and was, therefore, designed to be the standard and measure of all the races of men. And thus when our Saviour would trace up all things to the beginning, he illustrates his doctrine by quoting those words which were pronounced after Eve was formed. "But from the beginning of the creation, God made them male and female, for this cause shall a man leave father and mother and cleave unto his wife" Now nothing can be more plain and incontrovertible than that those of whom these words were spoken, were the first male and female which were made in "the beginning of the creation." It is equally evident that these words were spoken of Adam and Eve for "Adam said, This is now bone of my bone, and flesh of my flesh; therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife" If the Scriptures then of the New Testament be true, it is most plain and evident that all mankind are descended from Adam.[636]

THE CURSE OF CANAAN.

It is not necessary—nay, it is not admissible—to take the words of Noah, as to Shem and Japheth, as prophetic We shall presently see that, as prophetic, they have failed. Let us not, in expounding Scripture, introduce the supernatural when the natural is adequate. Noah had now known the peculiarities of his sons long enough, and well enough, to be able to make some probable conjecture as to their future course, and then success or failure in life. It is what parents do now a-days. They say of one son, He will succeed,—he is so dutiful, so economical, so industrious. They say of another, This one will make a good lawyer—he is so sharp in an argument. Of another, they say, We will educate him for the ministry, for he has suitable qualifications While of another they may be constrained to predict that he will not succeed, because he is indolent, and selfish, and sensual. Does it require special inspiration for a father, having ordinary common sense, to discover the peculiar talents and dispositions of his children, and to predict the probable future of each of them? Some times they hit it sometimes they miss it. Shall it not be conceded to Noah that he could make as probable a conjecture, as to his sons, as your father made as to you, or as you think yourselves competent to make for either of your sons? Noah made a good hit. What he said as to the future of his sons, and of their posterity, has turned out, in some respects, as he said it would, but not exactly,—not so exactly as to authorize our calling his words an inspired prophecy, as we shall presently show.

But, if we set out to establish or to justify slavery upon these words of Noah, on the assumption God spake by Noah as to the curse and blessings here recorded, we have a right to expect to find the facts of history to correspond. If the facts of history do not correspond with these words of Noah, then God did not speak them by Noah as his own. Let us face this matter. It is said, by those who interpret the curse of Canaan as divine authority for slavery, that God has hereby ordained that the descendants of Ham shall be slaves. The descendants of Shem are not, of course, doomed to that curse. Now, upon the supposition that these are the words of God, and not the denunciations of an irritated father just awaking from his drunkenness, we ought not to find any of Canaan's descendants out of a condition of slavery, nor any of the descendants of Shem in it. If we do, then either these are not God's words, or God's words have not come true.

But it is a fact that not all of Ham's entire descendants, nor even of Canaan's descendants (on whom alone, and not at all on Ham, nor on his three other sons, Noah's curse fell), are now, nor ever have been, as a whole, in a state of bondage. The Canaanites were not slaves, but free and powerful tribes, when the Hebrews entered their territory. The Carthaginians, it is generally admitted, were descended from Canaan. They certainly were free and powerful when, in frequent wars, they contended, often with success, against the formidable Romans. If the curse of Noah was intended for all the descendants of Ham, it signally failed in the case of the first military hero mentioned in the Bible, who was the founder of a world-renowned city and empire. I refer to Nimrod, who was a son of Cush, the oldest son of Ham. Of this Nimrod the record is, "He began to be a mighty one in the earth: he was a mighty hunter before the Lord: and the beginning of his Kingdom was Babel, and Erech, and Accad, and Calneh, in the land of Shinar. Out of that land went forth Asshur and builded Nineveh, and the city Rehoboth, and Calah, and Resen, between Nineveh and Calah; the same is a great city." This is Bible authority, informing us that the grandson of Ham (Nimrod, the son of Cush) was a mighty man—the great man of the world, in his day—the founder of the Babylonian empire, and the ancestor of the founder of the city of Nineveh, one of the grandest cities of the ancient world. We are not led to conclude, from these wonderful achievements by the posterity of Cush (who was the progenitor of the Negroes), that this line of Ham's descendants was so weak in intellect as to be unable to set up and maintain a government.[637]

FOOTNOTES

CHAPTER III.

NEGRO CIVILIZATION.

Dr. Wiseman has also shown that both Aristotle and Herodotus describe the Egyptians—to whom Homer, Lycurgus, Solon, Pythagoras, and Plato resorted for wisdom—as having the black skin, the crooked legs, the distorted feet and the woolly hair of the Negro, from which we do not wish, or feel it necessary to infer that the Egyptians were Negroes, but first that the ideas of degradation and not-human, associated with the dark-colored African races of people now, were not attached to them at an early period of their history; and secondly, that while depicted as Negroes, the Egyptians were regarded by these profound ancients—the one a naturalist and the other a historian—as one of the branches of the human family, and as identified with a nation of whose descent from Ham there is no question.[638] Egyptian antiquity, not claiming priority of social existence for itself, often pointed to the regions of Habesh, or high African Ethiopia, and sometimes to the North, for the seat of the gods and demigods, because both were the intermediate stations of the progenitor tribes.[639]

There is, therefore, every reason to believe that the primitive Egyptians were conformed much more to the African than to the European form and physiognomy, and therefore that there was a time when learning, commerce, arts, manufactures, etc., were all associated with a form and character of the human race now regarded as the evidence only of degradation and barbarous ignorance.

But why question this fact when we can refer to the ancient and once glorious kingdoms of Meroe, Nubia, and Ethiopia, and to the prowess and skill of other ancient and interior African Nations? And among the existing nations of interior Africa, there is seen a manifold diversity as regards the blackest races. The characteristics of the most truly Negro race are not found in all, nor to the same degree in many.

Clapperton and other travellers among the Negro tribes of interior Africa, attest the superiority of the pure Negroes above the mixed races around them, in all moral characteristics, and describe also large and populous kingdoms with numerous towns, well cultivated fields, and various manufactures, such as weaving, dyeing, tanning, working in iron and other metals, and in pottery.[640]

From the facts we have adduced it seems to follow, that one of the earliest races of men of whose existence, civilization and physiognomy, we have any remaining proofs, were dark or black colored. "We must," says Prichard, "for the present look upon the black races as the aborigines of Kelænonesia, or Oceanica,—that is as the immemorial and primitive inhabitants. There is no reason to doubt that they were spread over the Austral island long before the same or the contiguous regions were approached by the Malayo-Polynesians. We cannot say definitely how far back this will carry us, but as the distant colonizations of the Polynesians probably happened before the island of Java received arts and civilization from Hindustan, it must be supposed to have preceded by some ages the Javan era of Batara Guru, and therefore to have happened before the Christian era."

The Negro race is known to have existed 3,345 years, says Dr. Morton, 268 years later than the earliest notice of the white race, of which we have distinct mention B.C. 2200. This makes the existence of a Negro race certain about 842 years after the flood, according to the Hebrew chronology, or 1650 years after the flood, according to the Septuagint chronology, which may very possibly have been the original Hebrew chronology. There is thus ample time given for the multiplication and diffusion of man over the earth, and for the formation—either by natural or supernatural causes, in combination with the anomalous and altogether extraordinary condition of the earth—of all the various races of men.

It is also apparent from the architecture, and other historical evidences of their character, that dark or black races, with more or less of the Negro physiognomy, were in the earliest period of their known history cultivated and intelligent, having kingdoms, arts, and manufactures. And Mr. Pickering assures us that there is no fact to show that Negro slavery is not of modern origin. The degradation of this race of men therefore, must be regarded as the result of external causes, and not of natural, inherent and original incapacity.[641]

FOOTNOTES:

CHAPTER VI.

NEGRO TYPE.

It has often been said that, independently of the woolly hair and the complexion of the Negroes, there are sufficient differences between them and the rest of mankind to mark them as a very peculiar tribe. This is true, and yet the principal differences are perhaps not so constant as many persons imagine. In our West Indian colonies very many Negroes, especially females, are seen, whose figures strike Europeans as remarkably beautiful. This would not be the case if they deviated much from the idea prevalent in Europe, or from the European standard of beauty. Yet the slaves in the colonies, particularly in those of England, were brought from the west coast of intertropical Africa, where the peculiarities of figure, which in our eyes constitute deformity in the Negro, are chiefly prevalent. The black people imported into the French and to some of the Portuguese colonies, from the eastern coast of the African continent, and from Congo, are much better made. The most degraded and savage nations are the ugliest. Among the most improved and the partially civilized, as the Ashantees, and other interior States, the figure and the features of the native people approach much more to the European. The ugliest Negro tribes are confined to the equatorial countries; and on both sides of the equator, as we advance towards the temperate zones, the persons of the inhabitants are most handsome and well formed.

In a later period of this work I shall cite authors who have proved that many races belonging to this department of mankind are noted for the beauty of their features, and their fine stature and proportions. Adanson has made this observation of the Negroes on the Senegal. He thus describes the men. "Leur taille est pour l'ordinaire au-dessus de la mediocre, bien prise et sans défaut. Ils sont forts, robustes, et d'un tempérament propre à la fatigue. Ils ont les yeux noirs et bien fendus, peu de barbe, les traits du visage assez agréables." They are complete Negroes, for it is added that their complexion is of a fine black, that their hair is black, frizzled, cottony, and of extreme fineness. The women are said to be of nearly equal stature with the men, and equally well made. "Leur visage est d'une douceur extrême. Elles ont les yeux noirs, bien fendus, la bouche et les lèvres petites, et les traits du visage bien proportionnés. Il s'en trouve plusieurs d'une beauté parfaite." Mr. Rankin, a highly intelligent traveller, who reports accurately and without prejudice the results of his personal observation, has recently given a similar testimony in regard to some of the numerous tribes of northern Negro-land, who frequent the English colony of Sierra Leone. In the skull of the more improved and civilized nations among the woolly-haired blacks of Africa, there is comparatively slight deviation from the form which may be looked upon as the common type of the human head. We are assured, for example, by M. Golberry, that the Ioloffs, whose colour is a deep transparent black, and who have woolly hair, are robust and well made, and have regular features. Their countenances, he says, are ingenuous, and inspire confidence: they are honest, hospitable, generous, and faithful. The women are mild, very pretty, well made, and of agreeable manners. On the other side of the equinoctial line, the Congo Negroes, as Pigafetta declares, have not thick lips or ugly features; except in colour they are very like the Portuguese. Kafirs in South Africa frequently resemble Europeans, as many late travellers have declared. It has been the opinion of many that the Kafirs ought to be separated from the Negroes as a distinct branch of the human family. This has been proved to be an error. In the conformation of the skull, which is the leading character, the Kafirs associate themselves with the great majority of woolly African nations.[642]

THE NEGROES.

The Negroes inhabit Africa from the southern margin of the Sahara as far as the territory of the Hottentots and Bushmen, and from the Atlantic to the Indian Ocean, although the extreme east of their domain has been wrested from them by intrusive Hamites and Semites. Most negroes have high and narrow skulls. According to Welcker the average percentage of width begins at 68 and rises to 78. The variations are so great that, among eighteen heads from Equatorial Africa, Barnard Davis found no less than four brachyrephals. In the majority dolichocephalism is combined with a prominence of the upper jaw and an oblique position of the teeth, yet there are whole nations which are purely mesognathous. It is to be regretted that in the opinion of certain mistaken ethnologists, the negro was the ideal of every thing barbarous and beast-like. They endeavoured to deny him any capability of improvement, and even disputed his position as a man. The negro was said to have an oval skull, a flat forehead, snout-like jaws, swollen lips, a broad flat nose, short crimped hair, falsely called wool, long arms, meagre thighs, calfless legs, highly elongated heels, and flat feet. No single tribe, however, possesses all these deformities. The colour of the skin passes through every gradation, from ebony black, as in the Joloffers, to the light tint of the mulattoes, as in the Wakilema, and Barth even describes copper-coloured negroes in Marghi. As to the skull in many tribes, as in the above mentioned Joloffers, the jaws are not prominent, and the lips are not swollen. In some tribes the nose is pointed, straight, or hooked; even "Grecian profiles" are spoken of, and travellers say with surprise that they cannot perceive anything of the so-called negro type among the negroes.

According to Paul Broca, the upper limbs of the negro are comparatively much shorter than the lower, and therefore less ape-like than in Europeans, and, although in the length of the femur the negro may approximate to the proportions of the ape, he differs from them by the shortness of the humerus more than is the case with Europeans. Undoubtedly narrow and more or less high skulls are prevalent among the negroes. But the only persistent character which can be adduced as common to all is greater or less darkness of skin, that is to say, yellow, copper-red, olive, or dark brown, passing into ebony black. The colour is always browner than that of Southern Europe. The hair is generally short, elliptic in section, often split longitudinally, and much crimped. That of the negroes of South Africa, especially of the Kaffirs and Betshuans, is matted into tufts, although not in the same degree as that of the Hottentots. The hair is black, and in old age white, but there are also negroes with red hair, red eye-brows, and eye-lashes, and among the Monbuttoo, on the Uelle, Schweinfurth even discovered negroes with ashy fair hair. Hair on the body and beards exist, though not abundantly; whiskers are rare although not quite unknown.

The negroes form but a single race, for the predominant as well as the constant characters recur in Southern as well as in Central Africa, and it was therefore a mistake to separate the Bantu negroes into a peculiar race. But, according to language, the South Africans can well be separated, as a great family, from the Soudan negroes.[643]

FOOTNOTES:

THE RELATION OF PHYSICAL CHARACTER TO CLIMATE.

We shall now find, on comparing these several departments with each other, that marked differences of physical character, and particularly of complexion, distinguished the human races which respectively inhabit them, and that these differences are successive or by gradations.

First, Among the people of level countries within the Mediterranean region, including Spaniards, Italians, Greeks, Moors, and the Mediterranean islanders, black hair with dark eyes is almost universal, scarcely, one person in some hundreds presenting an exception to this remark with this colour of the hair and eyes is conjoined a complexion of brownish white, which the French call the colour of brunettes. We must observe, that throughout all the zones into which we have divided the European region, similar complexions to this of the Mediterranean countries are occasionally seen The qualities, indeed, of climate are not so diverse, but that even the same plants are found sporadically, in the North of Europe as in the Alps and Pyrenees. But if we make a comparison between the prevalent colours of great numbers, we can easily trace a succession of shades or of different hues.

Secondly, In the southernmost of the three zones, to the northward of the Pyreno-Alpine line, namely, in the latitude of France, the prevalent colour of the hair is a chestnut brown, to which the complexion and the colour of the eyes bear a certain relation.

Thirdly, In the northern parts of Germany, England, in Denmark, Finland and a great part of Russia, the xanthous variety, strongly marked, is prevalent The Danes have always been known as a people of florid complexion, blue eyes, and yellow hair The Hollanders were termed by Silius Italicus, "Auricomi Batavi," the golden haired Batavians, and Linnæus has defined the Finns as a tribe distinguished by "capillis flavis prolixis."

Fourthly, In the northern division we find the Norwegians and Swedes to be generally tall, white haired men, with light gray eyes characters so frequent to the northward of the Baltic, that Linnæus has specified them in a definition of the inhabitants of Swedish Gothland. We have then to the northward of Mount Atlas, four well marked varieties of human complexion succeeding each other, and in exact accordance with the gradations of latitude and of climate from south to north. The people are thus far nearly white in the colour of their skin, but in the more southerly of the three regions above defined, with a mixture of brown, or of the complexion of brunettes, or such as we term swarthy or sallow persons.

Fifthly, In the next region, to the southward of Atlas, the native inhabitants, are the "gentes sub fusci coloris" of Leo, and the immigrant Arabs in the same country are, as we have seen by abundant testimonies, of a similar high brown hue, but varying between that and a perfect black.

Sixthly, With the tropic and the latitude of the Senegal, begins the region of predominant and almost universal black, and this continues, if we confine ourselves to the low and plain countries, through all inter tropical Africa.

Seventhly, Beyond this is the country of copper coloured and red people, who, in Kafirland, are the majority, while in inter-tropical Africa there are but few such tribes, and those in countries of mountainous elevation.

Lastly, Towards the Cape are the tawny Hottentots, scarcely darker than the Mongoles, whom they resemble in many other particulars besides colour.

It has long been well known, that as travellers ascend mountains, in whatever region, they find the vegetation at every successive level altering its character, and assuming a more northern aspect, thus indicating that the state of the atmosphere, temperature and physical agencies in general, assimilate as we approach alpine regions, to the peculiarities locally connected with high latitudes. If therefore, complexions and other bodily qualities belonging to races of men depend upon climate and external conditions, we should expect to find them varying in reference to elevation of surface, and if they should be found actually to undergo such variations, this will be a strong argument that these external characters do, in fact, depend upon local conditions. Now, if we inquire respecting the physical characters of the tribes inhabiting high tracts within either of the regions above marked out, we shall find that they coincide with those which prevail in the level or low parts of more northern tracts. The Swiss, in the high mountains above the plains of Lombardy, have sandy or brown hair. What a contrast presents itself to the traveller who descends into the Milanese, where the peasants have black hair and eyes, with strongly-marked Italian and almost Oriental features. In the higher parts of the Biscayan country, instead of the swarthy complexion and black hair of the Castilians, the natives have a fair complexion with light-blue eyes and flaxen or auburn hair. And in Atlantica, while the Berbers of the plains are of brown complexion with black hair, we have seen that the Shuluh mountaineers are fair, and that the inhabitants of the high tracts of Mons Aurasius are completely xanthous, having red or yellow hair and blue eyes, which fancifully, and without the shadow of any proof, they have been conjectured to have derived from the Vandal troops of Genseric.

Even in the inter-tropical region, high elevations of surface, as they produce a cooler climate, seem to occasion the appearance of light complexions. In the high parts of Senegambia, which front the Atlantic, and are cooled by winds from the Western Ocean, where, in fact, the temperature is known to be moderate and even cool at times, the light copper-coloured Frelahs are found surrounded on every side by Negro nations inhabiting lower districts; and nearly in the same parallel, but at the opposite side of Africa, are the high plains of Enarea and Kaffa, where the inhabitants are said to be fairer than the natives of southern Europe. The Galla and the Abyssinians themselves are, in proportion to the elevation of the country inhabited by them, fairer than the natives of low countries; and lest an exception should be taken to a comparison of straight-haired races with woolly Negroes or Shungalla, they bear the same comparison with the Danakil, Hazorta, and the Bishari tribes, resembling them in their hair and features, who inhabit the low tracts between the mountains of Tigre and the shores of the Red Sea, and who are equally or nearly as black as Negroes.

We may find occasion to observe that an equally decided relation exists between local conditions and the existence of other characters of human races in Africa. Those races who have the Negro character in an exaggerated degree, and who may be said to approach to deformity in person—the ugliest blacks with depressed foreheads, flat noses, crooked legs—are in many instances inhabitants of low countries, often of swampy tracts near the sea-coast, where many of them, as the Papels, have scarcely any other means of subsistence than shell fish, and the accidental gifts of the sea. In many places similar Negro tribes occupy thick forests in the hollows beneath high chains of mountains, the summits of which are inhabited by Abyssinian or Ethiopian races. The high table-lands of Africa are chiefly, as far as they are known, the abode or the wandering places of tribes of this character, or of nations who, like the Kafirs, recede very considerably from the Negro type. The Mandingos are, indeed, a Negro race inhabiting a high region; but they have neither the depressed forehead nor the projecting features considered as characteristic of the Negro race.[644]

FOOTNOTES:

CHAPTER VII.

CITIES OF AFRICA.

Carthage. The foundation of this celebrated city is ascribed to Elissa, a Tyrian princess, better known as Dido; it may therefore be fixed at the year of the world 3158; when Joash was king of Judah; 98 years before the building of Rome, and 846 years before Christ. The king of Tyre, father of the famous Jezebel, called in Scripture Ethbaal, was her great grandfather. She married her near relation Acerbas, also called Sicharbas, or Sichæus, an extremely rich prince, Pygmalion, king of Tyre, was her brother. Pygmalion put Sichæus to death in order that he might have an opportunity to seize his immense treasures, but Dido eluded her brother's cruel avarice, by secretly conveying away her deceased husband's possessions. With a large train of followers she left her country, and after wandering some time, landed on the coast of the Mediterranean, in Africa, and located her settlement at the bottom of the gulf, on a peninsula, near the spot where Tunis now stands. Many of the neighboring people, allured by the prospect of gain, repaired thither to sell to those foreigners the necessities of life, and soon became incorporated with them. The people thus gathered from different places soon grew very numerous. And the citizens of Utica, an African city about fifteen miles distant, considering them as their countrymen, as descended from the same common stock, advised them to build a city where they had settled. The other natives of the country, from their natural esteem and respect for strangers, likewise encouraged them to the same object. Thus all things conspiring with Dido's views, she built her city, which was appointed to pay in annual tribute to the Africans for the ground it stood upon, and called it Carthage—a name that in the Phoenician and Hebrew languages, [which have a great affinity,] signifies the "New City." It is said that in digging the foundation, a horse's head was found, which was thought to be a good omen, and a presage of the future warlike genius of that people. Carthage had the same language and national character as its parent state—Tyre. It became at length, particularly at the period of the Punic War, one of the most splendid cities in the world, and had under its dominion 300 cities bordering upon the Mediterranean. From the small beginning we have described, Carthage increased till her population numbered 700,000, and the number of her temples and other public buildings was immense. Her dominion was not long confined to Africa. Her ambitious inhabitants extended their conquest into Europe, by invading Sardinia, seizing a great part of Sicily, and subduing almost all of Spain. Having sent powerful colonies everywhere, they enjoyed the empire of the seas for more than six hundred years and formed a State which was able to dispute pre-eminence with the greatest empire of the world, by their wealth, their commerce, their numerous armies, their formidable fleets, and above all by the courage and ability of their commanders, and she extended her commerce over every part of the known world. A colony of Phoenicians or Ethiopians, known in Scripture as Canaanites, settled in Carthage. The Carthaginians settled in Spain and Portugal. The first inhabitants of Spain were the Celts, a people of Gaul, after them the Phoenicians possessed themselves of the most southern parts of the country, and may well be supposed to have been the first civilizers of this kingdom, and the founders of the most ancient cities. After these, followed the Grecians, then the Carthaginians.

Portugal was anciently called Lusitania, and inhabited by tribes of wandering people, till it became subject to the Carthaginians and Phoenicians, who were dispossessed by the Romans 250 years before Christ. (Rollin.)

The Carthaginians were masters of all the coast which lies on the Mediterranean, and all the country as far as the river Iberus. Their dominions, at the time when Hannibal the Great set out for Italy, all the coast of Africa from the Aræ Phileanorum, by the great Syrtis, to the pillars of Hercules was subject to the Carthaginians, who had maintained three great wars against the Romans. But the Romans finally prevailed by carrying the war into Africa, and the last Punic war terminated with the overthrow of Carthage (Nepos, in Vita Annibalis, liv.)

The celebrated Cyrene was a very powerful city, situated on the Mediterranean, towards the greater Syrtis, in Africa, and had been built by Battus, the Lacedæmonian. (Rollin.)

Cyrene—(Acts xi. 20.) A province and city of Libya. There was anciently a Phoenician colony called Cyrenaica, or "Libya, about Cyrene." (Acts ii. 10.).

Cyrene—A country west of Egypt, and the birthplace of Callimachus the poet, Eratosthenes the historian, and Simon who bore the Saviour's cross. Many Jews from hence were at the Pentecost, and were converted under Peter's sermon (Acts ii.). The region, now under the Turkish power, and has become almost a desert. It is now called Cairoan. Some of the Cyrenians were among the earliest Christians (Acts xi. 20); and one of them, it is supposed, was a preacher at Antioch (Acts xiii. 1). We find also, that among the most violent opposers of Christianity were the Cyrenians, who had a synagogue at Jerusalem, as had those of many other nations. It is said there were four hundred and eighty synagogues in Jerusalem.

Lybia, or Libya (Acts ii. 10), was anciently among the Greeks, a general name for Africa, but properly it embraced only so much of Africa as lay west of Egypt, on the southern coast of the Mediterranean. Profane geographers call it Libya Cyrenaica, because Cyrene was its capitol. It was the country of the Lubims (2 Chron. xii. 3), or Lehabims, of the Old Testament, from which it is supposed to have derived its name.

The ancient city of Cyrene is now called Cyreune, Cairoan, or Cayran and lies in the dominion of Tripoli. This district of the earth has lately occasioned much interest among Italian and French geographers. Great numbers of Jews resided here (Matt. xxvii. 32).

Libya, a part of Africa, bordering on Egypt, famous for its armed chariots and horses (2 Chron. xvi. 8).

Ophir, the son of Joktan, gave name to a country in Africa, famous for gold, which was renowned even in the time of Job (Job xxi. 24, xxviii. 16); and from the time of David to the time of Jehoshaphat the Hebrews traded with it, and Uzziah revived this trade when he made himself master of Elath, a noted port on the Red Sea. In Solomon's time, the Hebrew fleet took up three years in their voyage to Ophir, and brought home gold, apes, peacocks, spices, ivory, ebony and almug-trees (1 Kings ix. 28, x. 11, xxii. 48, 2 Chron. ix. 10).

Tarshish (Isa. xxiii. 1), or Tharsish (1 Kings x. 22). It is supposed that some place of this name existed on the eastern coast of Africa or among the southern ports of Asia, with which the ships of Hiram and Solomon traded in gold and silver, ivory, and apes and peacocks (2 Chron. ix. 21). It is said that once in every three years these ships completed a voyage, and brought home their merchandise. Hence, it is inferred, the place with which they traded must have been distant from Judea.

The vessels given by Hiram to Solomon, and those built by Jehoshaphat, to go to Tarshish, were all launched at Eziongeber, it the northern extremity of the eastern gulf of the Red Sea, now called the Gulf of Ahaba (2 Chron xx. 36). The name of Tarshish was from one of the sons of Javan (Gen. x. 4).

Phut (Gen. x. 6), or Put (Nah. iii. 9), was the third son of Ham, and his descendants, sometimes called Libyans, are supposed to be the Mauritanians, or Moors of modern times. They served the Egyptians and Tyrians as soldiers (Jer. xlvi. 9; Ezek. xxvii. 10, xxx. 5, xxxviii. 5).

Pul. A district in Africa, thought by Bochart to be an island in the Nile, not far from Syene (Isa. lxvi. 19).

Seba (Isa. xliii. 3) A peninsular district of African Ethiopia, deriving its name from the eldest son of Cush (Gen. x. 7), who is supposed to have been the progenitor of the Ethiopians. It is called Seba by the Hebrews.

FOOTNOTES:

CITIES OF ETHIOPIA

Ethiopian is a name derived from the "land of Ethiopia," the first settled country before the flood. "The second river that went out of Eden, to water the garden, or earth, was Gihon; the same that encompasseth the whole land, or country, of Ethiopia" (Gen. ii. 13). Here Adam and his posterity built their tents and tilled the ground (Gen. iii. 23, 24).

The first city was Enoch, built before the flood in the land of Nod on the east of Eden,—a country now called Arabia. Cain the son of Adam, went out of Eden and dwelt in the land of Nod. We suppose, according to an ancient custom he married his sister and she bare Enoch. And Cain built a city and called the name of the city after the name of his son, Enoch, (Gen. iv. 16, 17). We know there must have been more than Cain and his son Enoch in the land of Nod to build a city but who were they?... (Malcom's Bible Dictionary.)

The first great city described in ancient and sacred history was built by the Cushites, or Ethiopians. They surrounded it with walls which, according to Rollin, were eighty-seven feet in thickness, three hundred and fifty feet in height and four hundred and eighty furlongs in circumference. And even this stupendous work they shortly after eclipsed by another, of which Diodorus says, "Never did any city come up to the greatness and magnificence of this."

It is a fact well attested by history, that the Ethiopians once bore sway, not only in all Africa, but over almost all Asia; and it is said that even two continents, could not afford field enough for the expansion of their energies.

"They found their way into Europe, and built a city on the western coast of Spain, called by them Iberian Ethiopia." "And," says a distinguished writer, "wherever they went, they were rewarded for their wisdom."

The Tower of Babel—Nimrod, the son of Cush, an Ethiopian, attempted to build the Tower of Babel (Gen. x. 8-10 xi. 4-9). One hundred and two years after the flood, in the land of Shinar—an extensive and fertile plain, lying between Mesopotamia on the west and Persia on the east, and watered by the Euphrates,—mankind being all of one language, one color, and one religion,—they agree to erect a tower of prodigious extent and height. Their design was not to secure themselves against a second deluge, or they would have built their tower on a high mountain, but to get themselves a famous character, and to prevent their dispersion by the erection of a monument which should be visible from a great distance. No quarries being found in that alluvial soil, they made bricks for stone, and used slime for mortar. Their haughty and rebellious attempt displeased the Lord; and after they had worked, it is said, twenty-two years, he confounded their language. This effectually stopped the building, procured it the name of Babel, or Confusion, and obliged some of the offspring of Noah to disperse themselves and replenish the world. The tower of Babel was in sight from the great city of Babylon. Nimrod was a hunter and monarch of vast ambition. When he rose to be king of Babylon he re-peopled Babel, which had been desolate since the confusion of tongues, but did not dare to attempt the finishing of the tower. The Scriptures inform us, he became "mighty upon earth;" but the extent of his conquests is not known. (Malcom's Bible Dictionary.)

The private houses, in most of the ancient cities, were simple in external appearance, but exhibited, in the interior, all the splendor and elegance of refined luxury. The floors were of marble; alabaster and gilding were displayed on every side. In every great house there were several fountains, playing in magnificent basins. The smallest house had three pipes,—one for the kitchen, another for the garden, and a third for washing. The same magnificence was displayed in the mosques, churches, and coffee houses. The environs presented, at all seasons of the year, a pleasing verdure, and contained extensive series of gardens and villas.

The Great and Splendid City of Babylon.—This city was founded by Nimrod, about 2,247 years B.C., in the land of Shinar, or Chaldea, and made the capital of his kingdom. It was probably an inconsiderable place, until it was enlarged and embellished by Semiramis; it then became the most magnificent city in the world, surpassing even Nineveh in glory. The circumference of both these cities was the same, but the walls which surrounded Babylon were twice as broad as the walls of Nineveh, and having a hundred brass gates. The city of Babylon stood on the river Euphrates, by which it was divided into two parts, eastern and western; and these were connected by a cedar bridge of wonderful construction, uniting the two divisions. Quays of beautiful marble adorned the banks of the river; and on one bank stood the magnificent Temple of Belus, and on the other the Queen's Palace. These two edifices were connected by a passage under the bed of the river. This city was at least forty-five miles in circumference; and would, of course, include eight cities as large as London and its appendages. It was laid out in six hundred and twenty five squares, formed by the intersection of twenty-five streets at right angles The walls, which were of brick, were three hundred and fifty feet high, and eighty-seven feet broad. A trench surrounded the city, the sides of which were lined with brick and waterproof cement. This city was famous for its hanging gardens, constructed by one of its kings, to please his queen. She was a Persian, and was desirous of seeing meadows on mountains, as in her own country. She prevailed on him to raise artificial gardens, adorned with meadows and trees. For this purpose, vaulted arches were raised from the ground, one above another, to an almost inconceivable height, and of a magnificence and strength sufficient to support the vast weight of the whole garden Babylon was a great commercial city, and traded to all parts of the earth then known, in all kinds of merchandise, and she likewise traded in slaves, and the souls of men. For her sins she has been blotted from existence,—even her location is a matter of supposition. Great was Babylon of old; in merchandise did she trade, and in souls. For her sins she thus became blotted from the sight of men.

THE ETHIOPIAN KINGS OF EGYPT.

1. Menes was the first king of Egypt. We have accounts of but one of his successors—Timans, during the first period, a space of more than two centuries.

2. Shishak was king of Ethiopia, and doubtless of Egypt. After his death

3. Zerah the son of Judah became king of Ethiopia, and made himself master of Egypt and Libya; and intending to add Judea to his dominions made war upon Asa king of Judea. His army consisted of a million of men, and three hundred chariots of war (2 Chron. xiv. 9).

4. Sabachus, an Ethiopian, king of Ethiopia, being encouraged by an oracle, entered Egypt with a numerous army, and possessed himself of the country. He reigned with great clemency and justice. It is believed, that this Sabachus was the same with Solomon, whose aid was implored by Hosea king of Israel, against Salmanaser king of Assyria.

5. Sethon reigned fourteen years. He is the same with Sabachus, or Savechus the son of Sabacan or Saul the Ethiopian who reigned so long over Egypt.

6. Tharaca, an Ethiopian, joined Sethon, with an Ethiopian army to relieve Jerusalem. After the death of Sethon, who had filled the Egyptian throne fourteen years, Tharaca ascended the throne and reigned eight years over Egypt.

7. Sesach or Shishak was the king of Egypt to whom Jeroboam fled to avoid death at the hands of king Solomon. Jeroboam was entertained till the death of Solomon, when he returned to Judea and was made king of Israel. (2 Chron. xi. and xii.)

This Sesach, in the fifth year of the reign of Rehoboam marched against Jerusalem, because the Jews had transgressed against the Lord. He came with twelve hundred chariots of war, and sixty thousand horses. He had brought numberless multitudes of people, who were all Libyans, Troglodytes, and Ethiopians. He seized upon all the strongest cities of Judah, and advanced as far as Jerusalem. Then the king, and the princes of Israel, having humbled themselves, and implored the protection of the God of Israel, he told them, by his prophet Shemaiah, that, because they humbled themselves, he would not utterly destroy them, as they had deserved but that they should be the servants of Sesach, in order that they might know the difference of his service, and the service of the kingdoms of the country. Sesach retired from Jerusalem, after having plundered the treasures of the house of the Lord, and of the king's house, he carried off every thing with him, and even also the three hundred shields of gold which Salomon had made.

The following are the kings of Egypt mentioned in Scripture by the common appellation of Pharaoh:—

8. Psammetichus.—As this prince owed his preservation to the Ionians and Carians, he settled them in Egypt, from which all foreigners hitherto had been excluded; and, by assigning them sufficient lands and fixed revenues, he made them forget their native country. By his order, Egyptian children were put under their care to learn the Greek tongue; and on this occasion, and by this means, the Egyptians began to have a correspondence with the Greeks, and, from that era, the Egyptian history, which till then had been intermixed with pompous fables, by the artifice of the priests, begins, according to Herodotus, to speak with greater truth and certainty.

As soon as Psammetichus was settled on the throne, he engaged in a war against the king of Assyria, on account of the limits of the two empires. This war was of long continuance. Ever since Syria had been conquered by the Assyrians, Palestine, being the only country that separated the two kingdoms, was the subject of continual discord; as afterwards it was between the Ptolemies and the Seleucidæ. They were perpetually contending for it, and it was alternately won by the stronger. Psammetichus, seeing himself the peaceable possessor of all Egypt, and having restored the ancient form of government, thought it high time for him to look to his frontiers, and to secure them against the Assyrian, his neighbour, whose power increased daily. For this purpose he entered Palestine at the head of an army.

Perhaps we are to refer to the beginning of this war, an incident related by Diodorus; that the Egyptians, provoked to see the Greeks posted on the right wing by the king himself in preference to them, quitted the service, being upwards of two hundred thousand men, and retired into Ethiopia, where they met with an advantageous settlement

Be this as it will, Psammetichus entered Palestine, where his career was stopped by Azotus, one of the principal cities of the country, which gave him so much trouble, that he was forced to besiege it twenty nine years before he could take it. This is the longest siege mentioned in ancient history. Psammetichus died in the 24th year of the reign of Josiah king of Judah; and was succeeded by his son Nechoa or Necho—in Scriptures frequently called Pharaoh Necho.

9. Nechao or Pharaoh-Necho reigned sixteen years king of Egypt, (2 Chron. xxxv. 20,) whose expeditions are often mentioned in profane history

The Babylonians and Medes having destroyed Nineveh, and with it the empire of the Assyrians, were thereby become so formidable, that they drew upon themselves the jealousy of all their neighbours. Nechao, alarmed at the danger, advanced to the Euphrates, at the head of a powerful army, in order to check their progress. Josiah, king of Judah, so famous for his uncommon piety, observing that he took his route through Judea, resolved to oppose his passage. With this view he raised all the forces of his kingdom, and posted himself in the valley of Megiddo (a city on this side of Jordan, belonging to the tribe of Manasseh, and called Magdolus by Herodotus). Nechao informed him by a herald, that his enterprise was not designed against him; that he had other enemies in view, and that he had undertaken this war in the name of God, who was with him; that for this reason he advised Josiah not to concern himself with this war for fear it otherwise should turn to his disadvantage. However, Josiah was not moved by these reasons; he was sensible that the bare march of so powerful an army through Judea would entirely ruin it. And besides, he feared that the victor, after the defeat of the Babylonians, would fall upon him and dispossess him of part of his dominions. He therefore marched to engage Nechao; and was not only overthrown by him, but unfortunately received a wound of which he died at Jerusalem, whither he had ordered himself to be carried.

Nechao, animated by this victory, continued his march and advanced towards the Euphrates. He defeated the Babylonians; took Carchemish, a large city in that country; and securing to himself the possession of it by a strong garrison, returned to his own kingdom after having been absent three months.

Being informed in his march homeward, that Jehoaz had caused himself to be proclaimed king at Jerusalem, without first asking his consent, he commanded him to meet him at Riblah in Syria. The unhappy prince was no sooner arrived there than he was put in chains by Nechao's order, and sent prisoner to Egypt, where he died. From thence, pursuing his march, he came to Jerusalem, where he gave the sceptre to Eliakim (called by him Jehoiakim), another of Josiah's sons, in the room of his brother; and imposed an annual tribute on the land, of a hundred talents of silver, and one talent of gold. This being done, he returned in triumph to Egypt.

Herodotus, mentioning this king's expedition, and the victory gained by him at Magdolus, (as he calls it,) says that he afterwards took the city Cadytis, which he represents as situated in the mountains of Palestine, and equal in extent to Sardis, the capital at that time not only of Lydia, but of all Asia Minor. This description can suit only Jerusalem, which was situated in the manner above described, and was then the only city in those parts that could be compared to Sardis. It appears besides, from Scripture, that Nechao, after his victory, made himself master of this capital of Judea; for he was there in person, when he gave the crown to Jehoiakim. The very name Cadytis, which in Hebrew, signifies the holy, points clearly to the city of Jerusalem, as is proved by the learned dean Prideaux.

10. Psammis.—His reign was but of six years' duration, and history has left us nothing memorable concerning him, except that he made an expedition into Ethiopia.

11. Apries.—In Scripture he is called Pharaoh-Hophra; and, succeeding his father Psammis, reigned twenty-five years.

During the first year of his reign, he was as happy as any of his predecessors. He carried his arms into Cyprus; besieged the city of Sidon by sea and land; took it, and made himself master of all Phoenicia and Palestine.

So rapid a success elated his heart to a prodigious degree, and, as Herodotus informs us, swelled him with so much pride and infatuation, that he boasted it was not in the power of the gods themselves to dethrone him; so great was the idea he had formed to himself of the firm establishment of his own power. It was with a view to these arrogant conceits, that Ezekiel put the vain and impious words following into his mouth: My river is mine own, and I have made it for myself. But the true God proved to him afterwards that he had a master, and that he was a mere man; and he had threatened him long before, by his prophets, with all the calamities he was resolved to bring upon him, in order to punish him for his pride.

12. Amasis.—After the death of Apries, Amasis became peaceable possessor of Egypt, and reigned over it forty years. He was, according to Plato, a native of the city of Sais.

As he was but of mean extraction, he met with no respect, and was contemned by his subjects in the beginning of his reign. He was not insensible of this; but nevertheless thought it his interest to subdue their tempers by an artful carriage, and to win their affection by gentleness and reason. He had a golden cistern, in which himself, and those persons who were admitted to his table, used to wash their feet, he melted it down, and had it cast into a statue, and then exposed the new god to public worship. The people hastened in crowds to pay their adorations to the statue. The king, having assembled the people, informed them of the vile uses to which this statue had once been put, which nevertheless was now the object of their religious prostrations; the application was easy, and had the desired success; the people thenceforward paid the king all the respect that is due to majesty.

He always used to devote the whole morning to public affairs, in order to receive petitions, give audience, pronounce sentences, and hold his councils; the rest of the day was given to pleasure, and as Amasis, in hours of diversion, was extremely gay, and seemed to carry his mirth beyond due bounds, his courtiers took the liberty to represent to him the unsuitableness of such a behaviour; when he answered that it was impossible for the mind to be always serious and intent upon business, as for a bow to continue always bent.

It was this king who obliged the inhabitants of every town to enter their names in a book kept by the magistrates for that purpose, with their profession and manner of living. Solon inserted this custom among his laws.

He built many magnificent temples, especially at Sais the place of his birth. Herodotus admired especially a chapel there, formed of one single stone, and which was twenty-one cubits in front, fourteen in depth, and eight in height; its dimensions within were not quite so large; it had been brought from Elephantina, and two thousand men were employed three years in conveying it along the Nile.

Amasis had a great esteem for the Greeks. He granted them large privileges; and permitted such of them as were desirous of settling in Egypt to live in the city of Naucratis, so famous for its harbour. When the rebuilding of the temple of Delphi, which had been burnt, was debated on, and the expense was computed at three hundred talents, Amasis furnished the Delphians with a very considerable sum towards discharging their quota, which was the fourth part of the whole charge.

He made an alliance with the Cyrenians, and married a wife from among them. He is the only king of Egypt who conquered the island of Cyprus, and made it tributary. Under his reign Pythagorus came into Egypt, being recommended to that monarch by the famous Polycrates, tyrant of Samos, who had contracted a friendship with Amasis, and will be mentioned hereafter. Pythagoras, during his stay in Egypt, was initiated in all the mysteries of the country, and instructed by the priests in whatever was most abstruse and important in their religion. It was here he imbibed his doctrine of the metempsychosis, or transmigration of souls.

In the expedition in which Cyrus conquered so great a part of the world, Egypt doubtless was subdued, like the rest of the provinces, and Xenophon positively declares this in the beginning of his Cyropædia, or institution of that prince. Probably, after that the forty years of desolation, which had been foretold by the prophet, were expired, Egypt beginning gradually to recover itself, Amasis shook off the yoke, and recovered his liberty.

Accordingly we find, that one of the first cares of Cambyses, the son of Cyrus, after he had ascended the throne, was to carry his arms into Egypt. On his arrival there, Amasis was just dead, and succeeded by his son Psammetus.

13. Rameses Miamun, according to Archbishop Usher, was the name of this king, who is called Pharaoh in Scripture. He reigned sixty-six years, and oppressed the Israelites in a most grievous manner. He set over them taskmasters, to afflict them with their burdens, and they built for Pharaoh treasure cities, Pithon and Raamses. And the Egyptians made the children of Israel serve with rigour, and they made their lives bitter with hard bondage, in mortar and in brick, and in all manner of service in the field; all their service wherein they made them serve, was with rigour. This king had two sons, Amenophis and Busiris.

14. Amenophis, the eldest, succeeded him. He was the Pharaoh under whose reign the Israelites departed out of Egypt, and who was drowned in his passage through the Red Sea. Archbishop Usher says, that Amenophis left two sons, one called Sesothis, or Seaostris, and the other Armais. The Greeks call him Belus, and his two sons, Egyptus and Danaus.

15. Sesostris was not only one of the most powerful kings of Egypt, but one of the greatest conquerors that antiquity boasts of. He was at an advanced age sent by his father against the Arabians, in order that, by fighting with them, he might acquire military knowledge. Here the young prince learned to bear hunger and thirst, and subdued a nation which till then had never been conquered. The youth educated with him, attended him in all his campaigns.

Accustomed by this conquest to martial toils he was next sent by his father to try his fortune westward. He invaded Libya, and subdued the greatest part of that vast continent.

His army consisted of six hundred thousand foot, and twenty thousand horse, besides twenty thousand armed chariots.

He invaded Ethiopia, and obliged the nations of it to furnish him annually with a certain quantity of ebony, ivory, and gold.

He had fitted out a fleet of four hundred sail, and ordering it to sail to the Red Sea, made himself master of the isles and cities lying on the coast of that sea. After having spread desolation through the world for nine years, he returned, laden with the spoils of the vanquished nations. A hundred famous temples, raised as so many monuments of gratitude to the tutelar gods of all the cities, were the first, as well as the most illustrious testimonies of his victories.

16. Pheron succeeded Sesostris in his kingdom, but not in his glory. He probably reigned fifty years.

17. Proteus was son of Memphis, and according to Herodotus, must have succeeded the first—since Proteus lived at the time of the siege of Troy, which, according to Usher, was taken An. Mun. 2820.

18. Rhampsinitus who was richer than any of his predecessors, built a treasury. Till the reign of this king, there had been some shadow at least of justice and moderation in Egypt; but, in the two following reigns, violence and cruelty usurped their place.

19, 20. Cheops and Cephrenus, reigned in all one hundred and six years. Cheops reigned fifty years, and his brother Cephrenus fifty-six years after him. They kept the temples closed during the whole time of their long reign; and forbid the offerings of sacrifice under the severest penalties. They oppressed their subjects.

21. Mycerinus the son of Cheops, reigned but seven years. He opened the temples; restored the sacrifices; and did all in his power to comfort his subjects, and make them forget their past miseries.

22. Asychis one of the kings of Egypt. He valued himself for having surpassed all his predecessors, by building a pyramid of brick, more magnificent, than any hitherto seen.

23. Busiris, built the famous city of Thebes, and made it the seat of his empire. This prince is not to be confounded with Busirus, so infamous for his cruelties.

24. Osymandyas, raised many magnificent edifices, in which were exhibited sculptures and paintings of exquisite beauty.

25. Uchoreus, one of the successors of Osymandyas, built the city of Memphis. This city was 150 furlongs, or more than seven leagues in circumference, and stood at the point of the Delta, in that part where the Nile divides itself into several branches or streams. A city so advantageously situated, and so strongly fortified, became soon the usual residence of the Egyptian kings.

26. Thethmosis or Amosis, having expelled the Shepherd kings, reigned in Lower Egypt.[645]

FOOTNOTES:

CHAPTER VIII.

AFRICAN LANGUAGES.

In the language of the Kafirs, for example, not only the cases but the numbers and genders of nouns are formed entirely by prefixes, analogous to articles. The prefixes vary according to number, gender and case, while the nouns remain unaltered except by a merely euphonic change of the initial letters. Thus, in Coptic, from sheri, a son, comes the plural neu-sheri, the sons; from sori, accusation, hau-sori, accusations. Analogous to this we have in the Kafir ama marking the plural, as amakosah the plural of kosah, amahashe the plural of ihashe, insana the plural of usana. The Kafir has a great variety of similar prefixes; they are equally numerous in the language of Kongo, in which, as in the Coptic and the Kafir, the genders, numbers, and cases of nouns are almost solely distinguished by similar prefixes.

"The Kafir language is distinguished by one peculiarity which immediately strikes a student whose views of language have been formed upon the examples afforded by the inflected languages of ancient and modern Europe. With the exception of a change of termination in the ablative case of the noun, and five changes of which the verb is susceptible in its principal tenses, the whole business of declension, conjugation, &c., is carried on by prefixes, and by the changes which take place in the initial letters or syllables of words subjected to grammatical government."[646]

Resources are not yet in existence for instituting a general comparison of the languages of Africa. Many years will probably elapse before it will be possible to produce such an analysis of these languages, investigated in their grammatical structure, as it is desirable to possess, or even to compare them by extensive collections of well-arranged vocabularies, after the manner of Klaproth's Asia Polyglotta. Sufficient data however are extant, and I trust that I have adduced evidence to render it extremely probable that a principle of analogy in structure prevails extensively among the native idioms of Africa. They are probably allied, not in the manner or degree in which Semitic or Indo-European idioms resemble each other, but by strong analogies in their general principles of structure, which may be compared to those discoverable between the individual members of two other great classes of languages, by no means connected among themselves by what is called family relation. I allude to the monosyllabic and the polysynthetic languages, the former prevalent in Eastern Asia, the latter throughout the vast regions of the New World. If we have sufficient evidence for constituting such a class of dialects under the title of African languages, we have likewise reason—and it is equal in degree—for associating in this class the language of the ancient Egyptians.[647]

That the written Abyssinian language, which we call Ethiopick, is a dialect of old Chaldean, and sister of Arabick and Hebrew; we know with certainty, not only from the great multitude of identical words, but (which is a far stronger proof) from the similar grammatical arrangement of the several idioms: we know at the same time, that it is written like all the Indian characters, from the left hand to the right, and that the vowels are annexed, as in Devanagari, to the consonants; with which they form a syllabick system extremely clear and convenient, but disposed in a less artificial order than the system of letters now exhibited in the Sanscrit grammars; whence it may justly be inferred, that the order contrived by Panini or his disciples is comparatively modern; and I have no doubt, from a cursory examination of many old inscriptions on pillars and in caves, which have obligingly been sent to me from all parts of India, that the Nagari and Ethiopean letters had at first a similar form. It has long been my opinion, that the Abyssinians of the Arabian stock, having no symbols of their own to represent articulate sounds, borrowed those of the black pagans, whom the Greeks call Troglodytes, from their primeval habitations in natural caverns, or in mountains excavated by their own labour: they were probably the first inhabitants of Africa, where they became in time the builders of magnificent cities, the founders of seminaries for the advancement of science and philosophy, and the inventors (if they were not rather the importers) of symbolical characters. I believe on the whole, that the Ethiops of Meroe were the same people with the first Egyptians, and consequently, as it might easily be shown, with the original Hindus. To the ardent and intrepid Mr. Bruce, whose travels are to my taste, uniformally agreeable and satisfactory, though he thinks very differently from me on the language and genius of the Arabs, we are indebted for more important, and, I believe, more accurate information concerning the nations established near the Nile, from its fountains to its mouths, than all Europe united could before have supplied; but, since he has not been at the pains to compare the seven languages, of which he has exhibited a specimen, and since I have not leisure to make the comparison, I must be satisfied with observing, on his authority, that the dialects of the Gafots and the Gallas, the Agows of both races, and the Falashas, who must originally have used a Chaldean idiom, were never preserved in writing, and the Amharick only in modern times: they must, therefore, have been for ages in fluctuation, and can lead, perhaps, to no certain conclusion as to the origin of the several tribes who anciently spoke them. It is very remarkable, as Mr. Bruce and Mr. Bryan have proved, that the Greeks gave the appellation of Indians both to the southern nations of Africk and to the people, among whom we now live; nor is it less observable, that, according to Ephorus, quoted by Strabo, they called all the southern nations in the world Ethiopians, thus using Indian and Ethiop as convertible terms: but we must leave the gymnosophists of Ethiopia, who seemed to have professed the doctrines of Buddha, and enter the great Indian ocean, of which their Asiatick and African brethren were probably the first navigators.[648]

FOOTNOTES:

SHERBRO MISSION-DISTRICT, WESTERN AFRICA.

Western Africa is one of the most difficult mission-fields in the entire heathen world. The low condition of the people, civilly, socially, and religiously, and the deadly climate to foreigners, make it indeed a hard field to cultivate. I am fully prepared to indorse what Rev. F. Fletcher, in charge of Wesleyan District, Gold Coast, wrote a few months ago in the following language: "The Lord's work in western Africa is as wonderful as it is deadly. In the last forty years more than 120 missionaries have fallen victims to that climate; but to-day the converts to Christianity number at least 30,000, many of whom are true Christians. In this district we have 6,000 church members, and though they are poor, last year they gave over 5,000 dollars for evangelistic and educational work.

"Sherbro Mission now has four stations and chapels and over forty appointments, 112 church members, 164 seekers of religion, 75 acres of clear land, with carpenter, blacksmith, and tailor shops, in and upon which, twenty five boys are taught to labor, and where eleven girls are taught to do all ordinary house work and sewing, with its four day and Sunday schools, 212 in the former and more than that number in the latter, and with an influence for good that now reaches the whole Sherbro tribe, embracing a country at least fifty miles square and containing about 15,000 people. The seed sown is taking deep root there, and the harvest is rapidly ripening, when thousands of souls will be garnered for heaven. Surely we ought to thank God for past success and resolve to do much more for that needy country in the future.

"We now have Revs. Corner, Wilberforce, Evans, and their wives, all excellent missionaries, from America; then Revs. Sawyer, Hero, Pratt, and their wives, Mrs. Lucy Caulker, and other native laborers, all of whom are doing us good service. With these six ordained ministers, and twice that number of teachers and helpers, who are devoting all their time to the mission, the work is going forward gloriously. Still, there should be new stations opened and more laborers sent out immediately."[649]

FOOTNOTES: