All the household

The only instance

own. While in other countries travellers have much to say about
strange implements, in Africa they are silent.
utensils of the negroes occur elsewhere also.
of the inventive powers of negroes which we can cite, is the
Marimba, a musical instrument made of hollow gourds, which
are fastened, according to size, on a hoop which the performer
carries on a frame. He makes the shells vibrate by the blows of
a hammer, and, as may be supposed, extracts low notes from the
large, and high notes from the small cups.43 Even the training
of oxen for riding is not certainly an invention of the negroes, but
is far more likely to have been due to the Galla or other people
of Hamite origin on the Nile.

After all that has been said, it would be quite unjustifiable to pronounce the negro incapable of rising to a higher state; and yet to attribute the low grade of present civilization solely to the nature of the continent, would be to ignore entirely the difference of intellect in the various races of mankind. The advantage of Africa consisted, as we saw, in the fact that it was within possible though not easy reach of the Old World. From the latter the negroes have derived almost everything that has improved their condition. If this race had made its appearance in Australia, they would scarcely by their own strength have risen above the state of the Australian natives. Hence, in our estimate of natural talents, we must rank them far below the aborigines of America, who quite independently reached a far greater maturity. On the other hand, if Africa had been better formed, and had it been as accessible as Europe, the negroes would have raised themselves much sooner, and might now perhaps have enjoyed about the same social advantages as the Malayo-Chinese.

VII. THE MEDITERRANEAN RACE.

To the nations with which the history of ancient and modern civilization in the West has especially to deal, Blumenbach gave the name of Caucasian, but the name has been abandoned as it

43 Livingstone, Travels in Southern Africa, vol. i. p. 332.

1

Characters of the Mediterranean Race.

481

led to mistakes. The term "Mediterranean Nations" has now been -generally substituted for Blumenbach's Caucasians, and we shall therefore use it. The Mediterranean nations include all Europeans who are not Mongoloid, all North Africans, and all Western Asiatics, and, lastly, although as hybrids, the Hindoos of Northern India must be classed with them on account of their language.

The prevalent forms of skull are mesocephalic and brachycephalic, yet it is only in a single case that the average index of breadth exceeds 82°. The height of the skull generally decreases proportionately with the increase of breadth. Prognathism and prominence of the cheek-bones are equally rare. In the northern nations the colour of the skin is quite fair; it is darker in Southern Europe, and becomes yellow, red, and brown in North Africa and Arabia, and in the gipsies. The hair of the head is never so long or so cylindrical as that of Mongoloid nations, never so elliptic in section or so short as in negroes, but is generally curly. The most bearded and hairy nations occur among those races, and the North Africans alone have less beard and hair on the body. The nose has always a high bridge, and is never broad or flat as in negroes or Mongols. The lips are usually thin and never intumescent. In no other race are refined and noble features so frequent; nowhere else is that ideal of beauty so often attained, which is in reality the same among all races, for, as Rohlfs significantly remarks, a woman with so-called Caucasian features is considered beautiful by the negroes of the Soudan. With few exceptions, the languages of all the Mediterranean nations are marked by grammatical genders and a highly developed morphological structure. The race itself is divided into the Hamite, Semite, and Indo-European families. The Basques stand alone, and several tribes in and about the Caucasus remain unplaced.

I. HAMITES.

This family occupies the whole of North Africa as far as the Soudan and the coast districts of Eastern Africa northward of the equator. It is divided into three branches: the Berbers, the

+

ancient Egyptians, and the East African. In addition to the
Guanches, or aboriginal inhabitants of the Canary Islands, the
Berbers include the Libyans, the Moors, the Numidians and
Gaetulians of the old geographers, who were already acquainted
with the true name of all these nations; namely, Amazig, or
Mazig. Amazigh, or Amazirgh, in the Berberic languages signifies
"the free or independent. It is true that North Africa has
been occupied by many other nations, mostly Semitic, and also by
North European conquerors, yet the Berber strain was everywhere
able to maintain itself in full purity in the level country. In
Morocco the Berbers who yet remain free from Arab blood
still call themselves Masig, but their language is termed Shellah, or
Tamashigt. To them belong, first, the Sanhadsha of the Western
Sahara, the Azanagues of the Portuguese discoverers. The central
region of the great African desert is occupied by the Tuareg,
who call themselves Imoshag, and their language Ta-Masheg
(Mazig language), or Ta-Mashigt. Among the pure Berbers of
Algeria are the Kabyls of the French, a corruption of qabâil,
which signifies the "tribes." In Tunis the Berbers bear the
name of Suawua, and in the south-east of this dominion they are
called Jebaliya.3 The inhabitants of Siwah, the oasis of Jupiter
Ammon, the Garamantes of ancient geography, are also of Berber
origin. Lastly, the Tédas, or Tibbu, of the Eastern Sahara, must
be classed with them. In the hieroglyphic inscriptions, all these
people bear the name of Temhu, and are recognizable on the
Egyptian monuments by tattoo marks in the shape of a cross,
which are said to be still customary among Kabyl women.5

The ancient Egyptians, called Retu in the hieroglyphics, are
still more or less purely represented by the Fellâheen, the
peasantry of the Lower Nile, but in the greatest purity by the
Coptic Christians of the towns.

Of the Hamites of East Africa, the inhabitants of the Nubian

1 Movers, Das phönizische Alterthum, part 2, pp. 390–395. *

2 Rohlfs, Erster Aufenthalt in Marokko, pp. 56, 62.

3 Maltzan, Tunis and Tripolis, vol. i. p. 100.

4 See above, p. 468.

5 Recherches sur l'origine des Kabyles. Le Globe. Genève, 1871.

Ekko "The Heroces Beiers".

Nile districts, who call themselves Berâbra, or Berbers, most
resemble the ancient Egyptians. They were formerly Christians,
until the fall of the Berber Nilitic empire of Dongola in 1320.
Between the Nubian Nile and the Red Sea live tribes called
Blemmyer by the old geographers,7 Bedsha in the Axumitic
inscriptions, and also by Arab geographers.
Their purest
representatives are the Bishareen, the Hadendoa, and some of
the Beni Amer, who, in addition to a corrupt Arabic, speak
Tobedauie, a more ancient Hamite language with three genders. 8
Between the Blue Nile and the Atbara rove the nomadic tribes
of the Awlâd Abu Simbil and the Shukurieh, which latter
are not descended from Arabs, although they speak a corrupt
Arabic.9 The Kababish live as shepherds between the Nile
and Kordofan; and on both banks of the White River, above
the mouth of the Blue Nile, live the Hassanieh. Both are pro-
nounced to be Arabs, although in type they are East African
Hamites. The Niam-Niam, or Sandeh, have very long hair, and
are copper-coloured. 10 Perhaps future ethnologists will place
these also among the Hamites. To the eastern group belong
also the Dankali (sing. Danakil), who inhabit the most southerly
African shores of the Red Sea as far as the Straits of Bab-el-
Mandeb. The next are the Galla, who are partly distributed
in Abyssinia, and live partly in a compact body in the east of
the interior of Africa, from 8° north to 3° south latitude. The
name of Galla, which is equivalent to "immigrants," is quite
unknown to them; they call themselves Orma, or Oroma,
which means "strong brave men." With the exception of the
southern tribes, they and their wives always appear mounted
either on horses or oxen. They have nothing in common with
the negroes but the colour of the skin, and this is free from any
repulsive smell.12 Their hair is long and curly, and their beard

6 Hartmann, Nilländer, pp. 215, 235.

II

Lepsius, Standard Alphabet, ed. 2, p. 203.

• Werner Münzinger, Ostafrikanische Studien, pp. 341, 344 Schaffhausen, 1864.

9 Hartmann, ibid, p. 263.

10 Schweinfurth, The Heart of Africa.

11 Krapf, Reisen in Ostafrika, vol. i. p. 94.

12 Otto Kersten, Von d. Deckens Reisen in Ostafrika, vol. ii. p. 374.

tolerably luxuriant; their features are regular and agreeable, not infrequently sharply cut, and rather European than Semitic.13 The Galla are a warlike, manly people, conscious of their own strength, and of a moral and noble character.

The position of the Somali is less certain; they occupy the eastern promontory of Africa from near Bab-el-Mandeb to the Juba on the Indian Ocean, and border on the Galla district on the west. Otto Kersten 14 describes the Somali of Bardara as of lofty stature (men 5 ft. 7 in., women 5 ft. 3 in.), with long thin faces, beardless chins, piercing eyes, and a woolly head of stiff thick hair from six to eight inches long, and which is said to be always crimped. Guillain adds that a curly head among the Somali invariably indicates a cross with Arab blood. Some tribes of the Somali believe themselves to be descendants of the Koreishites of Mecca, and others of the Ansari of Medina. It is therefore quite possible that on closer examination the Somali may entirely lose their position as Hamites, and be regarded in future as mongrels between negroes and Semites. It is noteworthy that Kersten eulogizes their noble and manly character, although it was among them that the undertaking of Baron von der Decken was destined to end fatally. The position of the Eloikob, or Wakuafi, is also very obscure, as well as that of the Masai, both of which nations have become the terror of all negro tribes in equatorial East Africa, on account of their warlike and kidnapping expeditions.

There is a deplorable scarcity of skull measurements of the Hamite family. According to Welcker, the skulls of Egyptian mummies and of Kabyl heads measure 75° in height and 74° to 75° in breadth. They are therefore on the border between dolichoand mescocephaly. Even among the Egyptians the jaws project a little, and prognathism increases the further we ascend the Nile. The straw colour of the skin gradually darkens, as we advance, into red brown, deep bronze, or dark brown. In approaching the equator the hair becomes shorter and the beard more scanty. Hartmann is right in his assertion that an approximation to the negro type thus takes place proportionately with the distance from

13 Richard Brenner, in Petermann's Mittheilungen, p. 462. 1868.
14 Von d. Decken, Reisen in Ostafrika, vol. ii. pp. 318, 325.