Chapter I: Western Branch

We shall notice three families in the _Western_ Branch of the Black Race, those of the Caffres, Hottentots, and Negroes. These general groups comprise an immense number of tribes, many of them still unknown, constituting a population of about fifty-two millions.

CAFFRE FAMILY.

The Caffres who inhabit the south-east of Africa form, so to speak, the stepping-stone or intermedium between the brown and the black nations. Their hair is woolly, but their complexion is not so dark nor their nose so flat as those of a Negro. Possessing more aptitude for civilization than the other black races, they are associated together in large communities, each of which obeys a chief, and though half wandering in their habits, occupy some very populous towns, of considerable extent, and resembling vast camps. Their clothing is very scanty, being reduced in the men’s case almost to a cloak, whilst the women are better covered in leathern garments.

The Caffres have great herds of cattle and devote themselves to agriculture. They cultivate maize, millet, beans and watermelons; make bread and beer, and manufacture earthenware, are able to utilize metals, employ iron and copper, and know how to turn both into tools and ornaments. They believe in a Supreme Being as well as in the immortality of the soul, but pervert their religious sentiments by divers superstitions.

The various tribes of this great family possess physical characteristics in common which are not to be found in other African nations. Caffres are far taller and stronger; they have well-proportioned limbs, a brown skin, black and woolly hair; the elevated forehead and the projecting nose of the European with the thick lips of the Negro, and the high prominent cheekbones of the Hottentot. Their language is sonorous, sweet, and harmonious, with a rumbling in its pronunciation.

We class with this family:

1. The Southern Caffres, who include the Amakisas, Amathymbas, or Tamboukis, Amapendas, and other tribes;

2. The Amazulas, Vatwas, and some other warlike wandering hordes who have lately advanced southward into the interior;

3. The inhabitants of Delagoa Bay, who bear a closer resemblance to the Negroes;

4. The Bechuanas and all the numerous tribes situated towards the north and in the interior, speaking a language of their own, called _Sichuana_.

The Bechuana nations are the most advanced of these four groups. The traveller Livingstone, who made a long stay in their country, has given excellent descriptions of them in his “Expedition to the Zambesi.” They have made progress in arts and civilization, inhabit large towns, have well-built houses, till the soil, and know how to preserve one year’s crop until the next. Their features tend towards an approach to those of Europeans.

In the region of the _Tammahas_, not far from Marhow, a town of ten thousand inhabitants, fields of corn several hundred acres in extent, testify to a rather forward state of agriculture and industry.

The _Maratsi_ cultivate sugar and tobacco, make knives and razors, construct their houses in masonry, and ornament them with pilasters and mouldings.

We must also affiliate to the Caffres, the inhabitants of the Mozambique coast, that is to say, that portion of the east coast of Africa between the mouth of the Zambesi and Cape Delgado. Fig. 227 represents a typical native of this district.

HOTTENTOT FAMILY.

The _Hottentots_, whom the Dutch colonists call Bosjesmans or Bushmen, inhabit the southern extremity of the continent. Their skin is of a dark yellowish hue, and it is only in consequence of their features and conformation, which are those of Negroes, that the Hottentots are placed in the Black Race, for if their colour is considered, they should be ranked in the Yellow one.

Prior to the discovery of the Cape of Good Hope by European navigators, the Hottentots formed a numerous people, whose little tribes lived happily and tranquilly under the patriarchal rule of their chiefs or elders. Composed of from three to four hundred individuals only, these hordes roved about with their flocks and assembled in villages, the houses of which being constructed of branches of trees and reed mats, were taken asunder on the signal of departure, and removed by oxen to the site of the new encampment selected by the chief. The wildest of them had for covering a cloak of sheepskins sewn together, and their weapons were a bow and poisoned arrows. This people were active and intrepid hunters, and they found an opportunity of proving to the Europeans that they were brave in war. Their cruel invaders, the Dutch, exterminated the majority of these tribes, others were violently divested of their possessions and hurled back into the forests or the deserts, where their wretched descendants still live.

The Hottentots or Bushmen seem to be the lowest of mankind, as much by their physical characteristics as by the inferiority of their intelligence. They are of small stature, yellowish complexion, and repulsive countenance. Prominent foreheads, small sunken eyes, extremely flat noses, and thick projecting lips, form the distinctive features of their face. In consequence of their miserable state of existence, they become worn out and decrepit early in life. They delight in personal adornment, and deck ears, arms, and legs with beads, and with iron, copper, or brass rings. The women colour the whole or part of their faces; for all covering, they throw over their shoulders a kind of sheepskin mantle.

We give here (fig. 228), as an accurate specimen of the Hottentot race, the portrait (from a cast in the French Museum of Natural History) of a woman of that country, who died at Paris in 1828, and who was known by the name of “The Hottentot Venus.” The physical specialty which rendered her remarkable, and which consisted in a considerable development of the posterior muscles, was merely an individual anomaly, and does not permit of any general conclusion being drawn from it as a characteristic of the Hottentot race. The skeleton of this female is preserved entire in the Museum, where a cast of the whole body, coloured as in life, may also be seen.

The Bushman’s dwelling is a low hut or a circular cavity. They formerly lived in a species of natural caves among the rocks, and a few individuals, even to the present day, occupy these same dens, which convey to us a perfect idea of man’s habitations at the time of his first appearance on the globe.

These wild beings have never been seen engaged in any other occupation than that of making or repairing their weapons and their barbed or poisoned arrows. In times of scarcity, they eat herb-roots, ants’ eggs, locusts, and snakes. Their language is a mixture of chattering, hissing, and nasal grunts.

As regards physical type, the Hottentots are small, but well-proportioned, and erect without being muscular. They are generally extremely ugly. Their nose is usually flat, their eyes long and narrow, very wide apart from each other and with the inner angle rounded as among the Chinese, whom the Hottentots resemble besides in some other respects. Their cheekbones are high set and very prominent, and form almost an equilateral triangle with their sharp-pointed chin. Their teeth are very white. The women sometimes possess pleasing figures in early youth, but later on their breasts lengthen immoderately, their stomach becomes protuberant, and sometimes the hind part of their body is covered with an enormous mass of fat. This inclination was visible to an exaggerated excess in the case of the “Hottentot Venus;” but as we have said, she merely constituted an individual exception, and it would be erroneous to set it down as a general characteristic of the whole Hottentot family.

NEGRO FAMILY.

The Negroes occupy a large part of Central and Southern Africa. Senegambia, Guinea, a portion of the western Soudan, the coast of Congo, along with the immense extent of country, as yet almost entirely unknown, which is comprised between Congo on the west and the coasts of Mozambique and Zanzibar on the east, are the dwelling-places of the Negroes, properly so called.

Guinea and Congo are the classic homes of the Negro. There live the representatives of this race, with the most characteristic and repulsive features. The belief is, that, as the incursions of Asiatic and European populations into Africa were always effected by the Isthmus of Suez and the Red Sea, the aboriginal blacks were thrust back more and more towards the west of the continent. The inhabitants of Guinea and Congo would consequently be the descendants and contemporary representatives of the primitive black stock.

Negroes are also to be found in the numerous islands of the Southern Ocean; New Guinea, New Britain, New Caledonia, Australia, Madagascar, &c., &c. In the last named large island, a vast Negro kingdom is in existence, governed by a queen, who sent ambassadors to England and France at the commencement of the present century. Finally, there are Negroes in the United States, and in the West Indies. From 1848, when slavery was declared abolished in the French possessions, the blacks have been free in those colonies, and the gradual emancipation of the Negroes which has taken place since, both in the American and Spanish territories, has completely relieved them from bondage.

We proceed to study the Negroes, firstly as regards organization, and then from the intellectual and moral stand-point.

The physiognomy of the Negro is so strongly distinctive that it is impossible not to recognize it at the first glance, even if the individual should have a fair skin. His protruding lips, low forehead, projecting teeth, woolly and half-frizzled hair, thin beard, broad, flat nose, retreating chin, and round eyes, give him a peculiar look amongst all other human races. Several are bow-legged, almost all have but little calf, half-bent knees, the body stooped forward, and a tired gait.

The masticatory muscles are more powerful in the Negro than in the White, on account of the greater length of the jaw. Their occiput is flatter than that of the White, and the great occipital hole placed further back. Dr. Madden has noticed skeletons of Negroes in Upper Egypt, showing six lumbar vertebræ instead of five, a fact which explains the length of their loins and shambling gait. The hips are less prominent than in a white man. We may add that in this race the trunk is not so broad as in the other human families, the arms are slightly longer in proportion, and the legs rather perceptibly bent, with flat and high placed calves.

The bones of the skull and those of the body are thicker and harder than in the other races.

The bony cavity of the pelvis is much narrower in the Negro than in the European, but it is broader towards the os sacrum, which renders delivery easy to a Negress. Accurate measurements show the upper portion of the pelvis to be a fourth wider in the European than in the Negro.

The thighs also differ in the Negro and the White, being very perceptibly flattened in the former.

The foot participates in this general ugliness of the limbs. Flat feet, which are sufficient to exempt from military service among the French, are not only no deformity in the Negro, but a normal characteristic. Instead of forming that curve which imparts elasticity to the whole frame, the under part of the Negro’s foot is flat, thus rendering it less fitted to support the body on marches. So apparent is this malformation in the black, that they say of him in America, “The sole of his foot makes a hole in the sand;” and it is easy, in consequence, to distinguish by a mere look the footprint of an European from that of a Negro. The first only shows the marks of the toes and heel, while the other is the impress of the entire sole, from one end to the other. Besides, the foot of the Negro is large and narrow, with wide divisions between the toes, while the nails are so sharp and pointed, that they resemble claws.

The complexion of the skin is one of the most apparent, though not most characteristic, attributes of the Negro race. The belief was long entertained that the colour of the blacks resulted from the prolonged action of the sun on their bodies, but observation has shown that such is not the case, and that their extremely dark hue by no means depends either on the intensity or brilliancy of the solar rays. White men are to be found in the central parts of Africa, in the Soudan and the Sahara, for instance, as well as among the Touaricks, whilst black tribes exist in countries subject to the most rigorous cold, such as Van Diemen’s Land, and New Zealand. In another direction, too, quite close to the white Icelanders and Norwegians, people with very dark skins may be seen, like the Laplanders; and in California, a country of cold latitude, the aborigines are, as we have stated, almost black.

The black colour resides in an oily, greasy principle, termed _pigmentum nigrum_ (black pigment), which is deposited in a layer in the mucous tissue on the cuticle. This penetrates into the hair, dyeing it black, and diffuses itself throughout the entire system even to the membranes surrounding the brain. This black mucous net-work appears to protect the skin from the violent action of an African sun, and preserves it from those inflammations which are called sun-strokes in our climate.

Crossing with the White gradually diminishes the Negro’s colour, and in proportion to the preponderance of black or white in its progenitors, the offspring presents various gradations of complexion. The following are the names which according to Valmont de Bomaire are given in the colonies to the issue of the union of the two races: 1. The child of a white man and a Negress, or of a Negro and a white woman, is called a _mulatto_, who is neither black nor white, but of a blackish yellow hue, and who has short and frizzly black hair. 2. The offspring of a white man and a mulatto woman, or of a Negro and a mulatto woman, is termed a _quadroon_, who, as regards colour, is a mixture of three-quarters white with one-quarter black, or three-quarters black with one-quarter white. In the first case the complexion is fairer; in the second, darker than that of a mulatto. 3. A white man and a fair quadroon, or a Negro and a dark quadroon produce an _octoroon_, seven-eighths white and one-eighth black, or seven-eighths black and one-eighth white. 4. The child of a White and an octoroon, or of a Negro and a dark octoroon, is in the one case almost entirely white, in the other, nearly quite black.

Valmont de Bomaire adds, that in succeeding mixed generations (the union with the white man taking place in Europe, and that with the black man, in Senegal) the complexion would grow lighter or darker, until at last a white or a black being was brought into the world. Such is the course of physical influences and the causes of deterioration or relapse in the colour of the human species. Only four or five generations of mixed blood are required in order to render the Negro stock white, and no more are wanted to make the white black. The union of a mulatto with a quadroon or octoroon woman will produce, as may be understood, other hues approaching to white or black in proportion to the progression described above. The progeny of a black and a quadroon is termed “saltatras” in the colonies; the word signifies “a leap-backwards” or a return towards the black race.

Crossings of the Negro with individuals of the Yellow or Red Races, with Asiatic Indians or American red-skins, beget offspring of varied shades of colour, bearing different designations according to the countries. These men of colour are seen in many islands of Polynesia. Possessing neither the intelligence of whites nor the submissiveness of blacks, despised by the former and hated by the latter, they constitute an equivocal caste, with no settled position, and less disposed to labour than revolt.

The colour of his skin takes away all charm from the Negro’s countenance. What renders the European’s face pleasing is that each of its features exhibits a particular shade. The cheeks, forehead, nose, and chin of the White have each a different tinge. On the contrary all is black on an African visage, even the eyebrows, as inky as the rest, are merged in the general colour; scarcely another shade is perceptible, except at the line where the lips join each other.

The skin of Negroes is very porous, so much so that the pores show visibly; but it is far from hard in all cases, being in some instances quite the reverse, smooth, satiny, and extremely soft to the touch.

The most unpleasant thing about a Negro’s skin is the nauseous odour it emits when the individual is heated by perspiration or exercise; these emanations are as hard to endure as those which some animals exhale.

A Negro’s hair is quite peculiar. Whilst that of a White is cylindrical, the Black man’s is flat. It is also short and crisp, like the wool of a sheep, and in contradistinction to the abundant supply of Europeans, the women among whom can even trail their locks on the ground, it only attains the length of a few inches. The beard, also, is very scanty and scarcely covers the upper lip.

The eye of the Negro differs also from that of the white; the iris is so dark as almost to be confounded with the black of the pupil. In the European, the colour of the iris is so strongly marked as to render at once perceptible whether the person has black, blue, or grey eyes. Nothing similar in the case of the Negro, where all parts of the eye are blended in the same hue. Add to this that the white of the eye is always suffused with yellow in the Negro, and you will understand how this organ, which contributes so powerfully to give life to the countenance of the White, is invariably dull and expressionless in the Black Race.

Nature adapts the Negro to the torrid countries he inhabits. His constitution is in general lymphatic and lethargic. His slow, sluggish gait and invincible laziness provoke Europeans, who cannot understand so much indolence. The relaxation of the limbs of the Negro betrays itself by his inertia and drowsiness, as well as by the flabby flesh of the women (Fig. 230).

Negroes are much less subject than Europeans to the influence of stimulants. The strongest spirit, rum, pepper, the most irritant spices, only feebly rouse their inert palate. Their soft, thick, oily skin, smooth and hairless, is encrusted beneath the epidermis, as we have said, with a black mucous deposit which gives it its colour. This viscid film envelopes the nervous ramifications beneath the cuticle, thus blunting the sensibility. The fine and delicate skin of the European experiences horrible torture under the lash; but even when he is torn by leathern thongs, the bleeding weals of which are sometimes, in an excess of barbarity, rubbed with pepper and vinegar, the Negro supports this cruel usage with indifference. Some blacks are seen joining the dance after this punishment, as if nothing had happened.

Before speaking of the brain and understanding of the Negro, we should make some remarks on the facial angle observed in this race. We have said that a relatively exact judgment may be formed from the size of this angle as to the value of a race of mankind, from the intellectual point of view.[10] The more obtuse the angle, the greater indication does it afford of noble and lofty sentiments; the smaller it is, the nearer the head approaches to that of animals. A prominent forehead is the sign of a developed intellect, whilst protruding jaws reveal brute instincts. Consequently, the facial angle increases or diminishes according as the forehead or the jaws project forward. The facial angle of Europeans is about 76½ degrees, sometimes reaching 81. An angle of 90 degrees, that is to say a right angle, is found in the ancient statues of Greece. But by reason of his retreating forehead and prominent jaws the Negro only exhibits a facial angle of from 61¼ to 63 degrees, approaching that of the monkey, which in those of the species to which the orang-outang and gorilla belong, is of 45 degrees.

[10] See Introduction, p. 26.

This proportionate weakness of intelligence, revealed to us by the smallness of the facial angle in the Negro, is confirmed by an examination of his brain. The labours of anatomists of our own day have established that not only is it the bulk of the brain which corresponds relatively with intellectual activity, but that the genuine indication revealing the superiority of mind in man consists in the number and depth of the furrows or circumvolutions of the brain. Now the outlines and windings of the cerebral mass in the European are so numerous and deep that they can scarcely be measured, whilst the complications in the head of the black are, as regards the same qualities, less by one half. The brain of a Negro is also perceptibly smaller than that of a White. It is the front part especially, that is to say the cerebral lobes, which is so much larger in the European, and hence the fine arch of the forehead peculiar to the White or Caucasian race.

The intellectual inferiority of the Negro is readable in his countenance, devoid of expression and mobility. The black man is a child, and like a child he is impressionable, fickle, easily affected by good treatment, and capable of self-devotion, but capable also of hatred in some cases, as well as of working out his revenge. The people of the Black Race living in a free condition in the interior of Africa, demonstrate by their habits and the state of their mind that they can hardly get beyond the level of tribe life; and on the other hand such difficulty is experienced in many colonies, in endeavouring to induce the Negroes (so indispensable has the guardianship of Europeans become to them) to maintain among themselves the benefits of civilization, that the inferiority of their intelligence, compared with that of the rest of mankind, is a fact not to be disputed.

Several instances might doubtless be adduced of Negroes who have surpassed Europeans by their capacity of mind. Generals Toussaint Louverture, Christofle, and Dessalines were no ordinary men, and Blumenbach has preserved to us the names of many illustrious blacks, among whom he mentions Jacob Captain, whose sermons, and theological writings, in Latin and Dutch, are truly remarkable. It is not from individual cases, however, but from the whole, that a judgment must be arrived at, and experience has proved that the Negroes are inferior in intelligence to all known races, not even excepting the savage people of America and the Oceanian islands.

The Negro tribes would be excessively numerous if their children lived, but negligence and laziness cause a notable proportion of their offspring to perish. The continual wars, too, in which they indulge against each other, equally impede the spread of their species, and notwithstanding the fertility of the soil in a great part of Africa, the improvidence and carelessness of the natives bring on real famines which decimate their numbers.

Another cause of depopulation that happily becomes less important every day is the trade which the blacks themselves are most eager to keep up. They sell their children for a packet of beads or for a few flasks of “fire-water.”

Thought grows sad as it carries itself back to the time, not yet very remote, when Negro traffic and slavery, which to-day form the exception, were the universal rule along the whole coast of Western Africa. Negroes then were torn ruthlessly from their country and transported to other climes to be reduced to bondage, or in other words to sacrifice life and strength for their master, and in serving him, to exhaust themselves by toil without gaining as much pity as is extended to beasts of burden. With our animals, in fact, repose succeeds fatigue and food restores vigour; whilst, in colonies subject to Europeans, dread of punishment, the lash, and the most shocking usage, subdued the Negro to forced labour.

This horrible traffic having excited universal indignation for half a century, most States decreed its abolition. France by laws passed between the years 1814 and 1848, definitively emancipated the slaves in all her possessions, and since 1860 or so, almost the whole of America has followed this example. Cruisers are now kept permanently on the coasts of Africa both by England and France, which renders the slave trade, if not impossible, at least difficult and dangerous for the grasping, barbarous men who are not afraid to devote themselves to it still.

This commerce, against which European nations have effected so much, nevertheless, reckons as its partizans the Negroes themselves. The tribes are, in fact, incessantly waging war on each other in order to take prisoners and sell them to the traders who pay prohibited visits to their shores. Even now, convoys of captives, chained together by means of forked sticks, are too often to be seen traversing the forests on their way to a slave-ship moored in some unfrequented creek.

Since the almost general abolition of slavery, many Negro tribes have been remarked to live in better accord among themselves. Fathers have some little love for their children, as they no longer entertain the hope of selling them for a bottle of rum or a glass necklace!

This bondage of the Negroes is not, we may add, a social institution of recent date. The Romans possessed black slaves, and had been preceded by the Egyptians in a custom which, at a period yet more remote, prevailed among the Assyrians and Babylonians. Three thousand years ago the Arabians and Turks carried off Negroes. They ascended the Nile in large vessels, collecting, as they went, the blacks that were delivered up to them in Nubia and Abyssinia, and returning to Lower Egypt with this cargo of human cattle, sold it for slaves.

A cruelty which occasionally approaches ferocity is the sad attribute of some African tribes. Molien said of the inhabitants of Fouta-Toro, that those Negroes had derived nothing from civilization but its vices, and the same reproach is applicable to some of the modern tribes. The natives of Dahomey, a Negro kingdom extending along the shores of the Gulf of Guinea, distinguish themselves among all other blacks by their callous and revolting inhumanity. To kill and slay is to them a pleasure, which anyone who can indulge in it rarely denies himself, and the post of executioner is sought for by the richest and most powerful in the land as affording an opportunity for the most coveted enjoyments. To form an idea of a similar excess of savagery and depravity, the shocking account should be read in the “Tour du Monde,” narrated from personal experience by Doctor Répin, who passed through Dahomey in 1856. We cannot attempt to reproduce here the picture of such cold-blooded barbarity.

The Negroes impose heavy labours on their women. Among them the wife is merely a helper in toil, a servant the more. Making flour and bread, tilling the ground, and the most fatiguing occupations, are the Negress’s lot in her own country; and it has been said, perhaps rightly, that the former slavery was possibly a benefit to her, as she at any rate changed tyrants. The Negress grinds the corn by placing it in a hollow stone and crushing it with a round flint, the flour falling through a hole in the stone and being received in a mat laid on the floor.

The religious notions possessed by the Negroes are very dim; they doubtless believe in a supreme God, in a creator; but addict themselves in excess to the practices of fetishism. Their fetishes are a kind of secondary divinities, subordinate to the great God, master of nature. Each person chooses for fetish whatever he likes--fire, a tree, a serpent, a jackal, water, a hog, down to a piece of wood shaped by the hand of man. The worship of the serpent is in much favour among the inhabitants of Dahomey. They construct tents and dwellings for these reptiles, rear them in great numbers, and allow them to rove about wherever they please. Immediate death would follow any attempt to kill or pursue the fetish serpents.

Belief in the power of chance or destiny predominates among these rude men. They feel that events do not depend on their own will, but upon some hidden influence which directs everything, and which it is necessary to render favourable to them. Hence the magicians and soothsayers whose duty it is to avert evil fate or hurtful destinies, and hence also the incalculable quantity of fetishes. Each Negro has his own, to which he offers sacrifice so long as he obtains something from it, and which he abandons the moment he recognizes its uselessness. Lamentable effect of the natural degradation of these races!

The sad defects of the Negro in his savage state should not cause his aptitudes to be forgotten. When he has been snatched from tribe life, or freed from the chains that weighed him down, the black manifests qualities which deserve to be brought into relief.

Let us remark firstly, that the Negroes, or the mulattoes resulting from their union with the whites, are often gifted with an extraordinary memory which gives them a great facility for acquiring languages. They are not slow to appropriate the language of the people amidst whom they are placed. They speak English in North America, Spanish in the Central and Southern parts of the New World, and Dutch at the Cape of Good Hope. They can even change their tongue with their masters. If a Dutch Negro enters the service of an Englishman, he will abandon his former idiom for that of the latter, and will forget his old mode of speech. Nay more, their memory sometimes retains widely diverse languages at the same time. Travellers have met negro traders in the centre of Africa, having connections with different nations, who expressed themselves in several tongues, and understood both Arabic and Koptic as well as Turkish.

The towns inhabited by the Negroes resemble European cities sometimes so much as to be mistaken for them; there is only a difference of degree in their civilization and knowledge when compared with those of Europe. Towns, properly so called, in the interior of Africa are however very much scattered, but travellers bring to light fresh information concerning the country every day, and the future will perhaps reveal to us particulars about the civilization of Central Africa, of which we have as yet hardly a suspicion.

Negroes are not bad accountants; they calculate mentally with great rapidity, far surpassing Europeans in this respect.

The industrial arts are pursued with some success by many black tribes. Iron can be extracted from its ores easily enough to admit of the trades of founders and blacksmiths being carried on in every Negro village, and some excellent handicraftsmen in both these callings are to be found in Senegambia and several of the interior regions.

Fermented drinks, such as beer, sorgho wine, &c., are also manufactured with considerable skill.

Negroes possess the talent of imitation to a very remarkable extent. They seize hold of and are able faithfully to mimic a person’s particular characteristics or behaviour if they show any ludicrous peculiarities. Negro humour is also generally gay and pleasant. They like to laugh at their masters and overseers, the children of the house, &c., and delight in making themselves merry at their expense.

Yet this imitative faculty inherent to blacks, does not go so far as to endow them with any artistic talents. Drawing, painting, and sculpture are unknown to Negroes, and it is impossible to infuse into them the smallest capacity for such subjects, either by lesson or advice. Their temples and dwellings are, in fact, only decorated with shapeless scratches; Africans of the present day are utterly unskilled in drawing and sculpture.

Negroes, if thus obtuse to the plastic arts, are on the contrary very easily affected by music and poetry. They sing odd and expressive recitatives at their festivals and sports, and in some Negro kingdoms a caste of singers is even to be met with, which is alleged to be hereditary, and whose members are also at the same time the chroniclers of the tribe.

Musical instruments are rather plentiful among the Africans. In addition to the drum, which holds so prominent a place in the music of the Arabs, they use flutes, triangles, bells, and even stringed instruments, with from eight to seventeen strings, the latter being supplied from the tail of the elephant. They also possess instruments fashioned from the rind of cucumbers, forming a sort of rude harp. The Mandigoes who live on the banks of the Senegal, about the middle of its course, have a species of clarionet, from four to five yards long.

“The Negroes,” says Livingstone, in his “Expedition to the Zambesi,” “have had their minstrels; they have them still, but tradition does not preserve their effusions. One of these, apparently a genuine poet, attached himself to our party for several days, and, whenever we halted, sang our praises to the villagers in smooth and harmonious numbers. His chant was a sort of blank verse, and each line consisted of five syllables. The song was short when it first began, but each day he picked up more information about us, and added to the poem, until our praises grew into an ode of respectable length. When distance from home compelled him to return, he expressed his regret at leaving us, and was, of course, paid for his useful and pleasant flatteries. Another, though less gifted son of Apollo, belonged to our own party. Every evening, while the others were cooking, talking, or sleeping, he rehearsed his songs, which contained a history of everything he had noticed among the white men, and on the journey. In composing, extempore, any new piece, he was never at a loss; for, if the right word did not come, he didn’t hesitate, but eked out the measure with a peculiar musical sound, meaning nothing at all. He accompanied his recitations on the _sausa_, an instrument held in the fingers, whilst its nine iron keys are pressed with the thumbs. Persons of a musical turn, too poor to buy a _sausa_, may be seen playing vigorously on a substitute made of a number of thick sorgho-stalks sewn together, and with keys of split bamboo. This makeshift emits but little sound, but seems to charm the player himself. When the _sausa_ is played with a calabash as a sounding board, it produces a greater volume of sound. Pieces of shell and tin are added to make a jingling accompaniment, and the calabash is profusely ornamented.”

The music of the Negroes is not confined, it may be remarked, to simple melody. They are not satisfied with merely playing the notes sung by the voice, but have some principles of harmony. They perform accompaniments in fourths, sixths, and octaves, the other musical intervals being less familiar to them, except when sometimes employed to express irony or censure. The advanced state of music amidst the Negro tribes is all the more noticeable from the fact that among ancient European races, among the ancient Greeks, at the most brilliant epoch of their history, for instance, no idea whatever prevailed of harmony in music.

The faculties of the blacks can consequently in certain respects become developed, and it is established that Negroes who live for several generations in the towns of the colonies, and who are in perpetual contact with Europeans, improve by the connection, and gain an augmentation of their intellectual capacities.

To sum up, then, the Negro family possesses less intelligence than some others of the human race; but this fact affords no justification for the hateful persecutions to which these unfortunate people have been the victims in every age. At the present day, thanks to progress and civilization, slavery is abolished in most parts of the globe, and its last remnants will not be slow to disappear. And thus will be swept away, to the honour of humanity, a barbarous custom, the unhappy inheritance of former times, repudiated by the modern spirit of charity and brotherhood; and with it will vanish the infamous traffic which is called the slave-trade.

No little time will, however, be needed in order to confer social equality on the enfranchised Negro. We cannot well express the scorn with which the liberated blacks are treated in North and South America. They are hardly looked on as human beings, and notwithstanding the abolition of slavery, are invariably kept aloof from the white population. Centuries will be required to efface among Americans this rooted prejudice, which France herself has had some trouble in shaking off, since an edict of Louis XIV. cancelled the rank of any noble who allied himself with a Negress, or even with a mulatto woman.

The general assuagement of manners and customs will ultimately, it must be hoped, entirely obliterate these distinctions, so cruel and unjust to the unhappy people whom a fatal destiny has condemned to a state of perpetual martyrdom, without their having done anything to deserve it, beyond coming into the world beneath an African sky.