1846.]

Modern History.

43

from the walls of these pyramids and temples. They settle the vexed question respecting the color and physiognomy of the ancient Ethiopians and Egyptians. Their sculptures were also paintings. The bas-reliefs were painted in colors, which are now as fixed and as fresh as they were thousands of years ago. The fact is marvellous, and shows that this art had been perfected by them to a degree that baffles all modern invention. The figures are painted uniformly in a reddish brown, with dark hair more or less curled, with handsome features and with nothing of the brutish profile. We recognize all that we read in ancient writers of the noble form and features of the men, and the charms and graces of woman. Heeren discovers their descendants, as he supposes, among the African tribes, where these ancient energies may still be traced in their mournful ruin and decay.

Such is a glance at the ancient history of Africa. Its modern history is briefly told. It is one of barbarism, injuries and woes. Still, as we have seen, the African manifests here and there a capacity, if rightly unfolded, of attaining to his primal greatness. It is to be remembered, that there is a region, as large as the whole territory of the United States, occupying the central portion of Africa, which is almost entirely unknown. It is guarded on every side by pestilence and malaria, placed there as the avenging angels of God to keep the white man from his prey. And yet this is probably included in that Ethiopia of the Greek poets, whose sacrifices were most grateful to the gods. Judging from what must be its geographical features, this is the region which ought to produce the hardiest race of men. It cannot be desert. Large rivers travel down from these regions to the ocean. While the northern deserts are cursed by the sirocco, this portion, in the opinion of Humboldt, is a vast champaign country, made healthful by mountain breezes and offering the varieties of every zone. The farther the traveller penetrates the interior, the less degraded has he generally found the inhabitants. The city of Tombuctoo was mentioned by Ptolemy more than seventeen centuries ago, and is still distinguished for its comA writer in the Edinburgh Review† states, on the July No. of 1835.

merce.

Heeren, Vol. II. p. 176.

authority of intelligent travellers, who had penetrated towards the central region on the south and east, that they found people there distinguished for the virtues of kindness and social order, whose civilization would compare with that of ancient Peru or Mexico. And what is more remarkable, nations are found in intercourse with people still more interior, who give descriptions of a social state more elevated than their own, and kingdoms celebrated for their resources, enterprise and power.

But what judgment shall we form from the African's moral constitution and susceptibilities?

Among the moral ruins of this race it is easy to see, that something beautiful hath fallen into ruin, even as their buried temples and broken obelisks point back to a state of material magnificence. Mr. Park in his travels. through western Africa was impressed with the docility of the children, the heavenly charities of woman, the bursting sensibilities, filial piety and parental love which relieved the monotony of desolation; mild traits of character beaming sweetly through the customs of barbarism. Then there is one universal fact, whose meaning cannot be mistakenthe African's love of music. Every evening, when the sun gets down, all Africa is alive with dance and song. The sound of music, rude though it be, stirs the leaves of the palm-tree from the marts of Ophir to the coast of Congo. Nor is this the yell and the war-dance of the savage. Though rude and tumultuous, Mr. Park describes it as the outbreak of emotion; and sometimes the most tender and plaintive airs were wafted from the hut of the Negro. Among the Moors who bordered upon the Negro settlements he heard nothing of the nature of music. But the music of the Negro was attended sometimes with simple extemporaneous songs, which breathed the most child-like feelings of human nature. That specimen which has probably found its way into every nursery, commencing with the words, "The poor white man, faint and weary, came and sat under our tree," is unsurpassed for genuine pathos by anything in any language, and the heart must indeed be hard in which it has not touched the place of

tears.

But farther than this: it is an undeniable fact, that the moral nature stamps its outlines upon the physical, and

1846.]

Organization.

45

gives it its configuration and coloring. We do not mean by this, that everything respecting man is to be determined by Craniology or Neurology, or whatever may be the latest form of a sensual and material metaphysics. The physiologist cannot be blind to the fact, that not merely the brain and the nerves, but the muscular system and the whole outward man, correspond in some sort to the faculties and powers that dwell within; that the physical nature is the garment of the inward man, one being fitted to the other and clothing it like a robe. Phrenology argues from without inward. We would argue from within outward; for the plastic and transforming influence comes from the soul to the body, and not the reverse. The deeper and more interior energies shape the outward to themselves and give them their moulding and contour, and so the spirit is queen over matter, and not matter over spirit. We cannot say that a man or a race have a certain organism, and therefore such is their moral character; but we may say, that they and their ancestors must have had a certain character and certain moral tendencies, since such is their physical organization. It is enough, however, for our purpose, to notice two grand divisions of the human powers, of which every man is conscious, and which in their more outward manifestations are indicated by physiology, we mean the affectional and intellectual-one having its seat in the posterior, the other in the front regions of the brain. As one class or the other is predominant in cultivated man, he will exhibit one of two kinds of excellence and glory. It will be intellect, pouring out its cold yet vivid splendors, shedding light upon the causes of events, exploring the secret places of nature and giving impulse to science and philosophy; or, on the other hand, it will be love, shedding around its warm and golden sunshine, forming a state of society simple, primitive and mild, where the kind offices and endearing charities of life are more conspicuous than the finer forms of art or the trophies of discovery. That the Caucasian belongs to the first class, nobody can doubt. Truth and reason sit enthroned upon his forehead, and irradiate the whole track of his history. Not so with the African. Both his organization and his history place him in the other class. We do not learn very minutely the nature of the ancient civilization of Africa, but we know that the forms

of its art were irregular and colossal, and not till they were transferred to Greece and came under the hand of the Caucasian, were they chiselled to that severe polish and classic grace which satisfy the intellect and make them the charm of ages. Moreover, the Ethiopians, as we have seen, are described by the Greek poets and historians as blameless, excellent, good; and their civilization is represented as a sphere of warm and peaceful effulgence. All modern travellers, especially towards the central portions of Africa where this race are formed into something like communities and states, represent them as abounding in the primitive virtues. Indeed all that we know of the Negro character goes to show, that the affectional powers prevail over the intellectual. He feels more than he thinks. He can imitate, but he cannot invent. Alas for the white man, were it otherwise! Let the African have such a measure of thought and power of intellection as should correspond with the body of his passions and sentiments, and it would go out into plans and combinations of means and ends, which would put a period to his bondage forever. But his mind does not unfold itself in this direction. His feelings are impulsive, his gratitude irrepressible and brimming over, his family attachments strong, his religious sentiment exceedingly lively and kindled by a spark into a blaze of enthusiasm. Witness the heart-moving scenes of West India emancipation.

Such being the history and nature of the African, can we doubt what will be the order of his civilization whenever its day shall arrive? It will be one founded on the moral, not the intellectual nature. He will never be distinguished for discovery, for science, for æsthetics, or philosophy. But, by those attributes which shed a mild and humanizing influence, which warm and fertilize the affections, the African is capable, when he reaches his destiny, of giving back to the European ten-fold more than he ever received. His nature is capable of reflecting in its softer shades the hues of mercy and goodness. His will be a social state peculiarly his own, adorned with a whole cluster of virtues which have never attached themselves with ease and grace to the Northern character. His past history and his natural susceptibilities all point to an auspicious future, lying, it may be, far remote in the progress and redemption of the world.

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Progress.

47

This question is every year becoming fraught with new interest, by the condition of this race upon the American. continent and their relations to the white man. We will not enlarge upon this branch of the subject; but there is one thought that forces itself upon our minds. Is it by accident merely that the two races have been thrown together upon the Western continent; and is there no Providence which is waiting to evolve some great good from this enormous wrong? On this magnificent theatre, the opening scene of the last great drama of humanity, we see offsets from every race and the rudiments of every species of civilization thrown promiscuously together. Neither has been perfect in its former isolation. Have they not been brought into this relation, that each might supply the defects of the others, and that "the latter-day glory" might collect into itself all the rays which had been separated and scattered abroad? Will not each modify and temper the others, so that somewhere in our future destiny humanity may unfold its powers with more perfect symmetry, and its light be fullorbed? And when the light of freedom and education and religion shall fall into the African mind, and he shall rise out of that social abyss into which his oppressors have plunged him, who shall say that he may not fill a most important place in perfecting the civilization of the Western world? Is it credible, that three millions of men and their descendants, having peculiar characteristics, are to have no important part in shaping our future destiny as a nation? Fallen as the African is, we read his possible condition in the history of his ancestors and the character of his race. Even his physical nature in his lowest degradation bears upon it lineaments corresponding to the moral and spiritual traits, which will appear whenever his spirit takes wing and rises into the clear light and pure air. The very worm that crawls upon the earth wears upon its body those prominences, which on the expanded wings of the released and soaring insect are changed into spangles of gold and silver.

And who are we, to doubt the possibility of his transformation? Our own release from barbarism is comparatively recent and imperfect. Go back a few centuries, and we may find our ancestors described in the graphic touches of Tacitus and Cæsar. See them in the gloomy forests of Germany, sacrificing to their grim and gory idols; drinking