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tills the ground; in the gold regions, she washes and digs; and in warlike countries, she joins the army. "It is evident," says Burton, "that such an organisation presents nought of novelty." It is probable that many readers of this book will be greatly disappointed with his chapter "Of the so-called Amazons and the Dahomian Army." But those who prefer fact to fable will be pleased to read a true and plain account of this female corps, and which they will find far superior to the unreal and romantic sketches of Commander Forbes.

The author of Dahome devotes a chapter to the "Negro's Place in Nature." It is perhaps the best written in the work, and demands a most careful perusal, not only from anthropologists, but from politicians. The matter is logically arranged; the style is simple and clear; there is no unnecessary parade of scientific terms, nor of coined polysyllables, which is this author's chief foible: it records facts which are all of them derived from personal observation, and draws inferences which, whether they accord with our own views or not, demand our attention and respect since they proceed from the only scientific explorer of the day.

At the meeting of the British Association at Newcastle last year, Dr. Hunt read a paper upon the Negro. I have read it carefully, and find it the best summary of evidence upon the Negro which has yet been published in the English language: it professed to be nothing more than a compilation; and, as such it deserves the highest praise of the anthropologist. Now, it must appear all but incredible to foreigners that, at a meeting, which we regard as our grand annual scientific reunion, a man of science reading extracts from such anatomists as Gratiolet, or from such anthropologists as Waitz, should be hissed by an ignorant mob; and that those whose business it is to feed the sentimental appetites of this rabble should have platformed a Mulatto named Craft, and palmed him off upon them as a Negro. The Negro now-a-days is the darling of a public who cannot tell a Negro when they see him; and authors or orators who desire to be popular must not venture to assert that the convolutions of his brain are less numerous and more massive than those of the European. It is needless to say that Captain Burton has not pandered to the herd; with that courageous honesty which some accuse of being rough and bitter, but which none have ventured to impeach, he has drawn the Negro as he is. In England he justly observes there are at least "two distinct creeds:-1. That of those who know him; 2. That of those who do not. This may be predicated of most other moot points; in the Negro's case, however, the singularity is, that ig norance not knowledge, sentimentality not sense, sway the practical public mind."

Captain Burton points out four popular errors "which are amply

The first is the confusion of
In England, "nigger" is a

sufficient to confuse the whole subject." the mulatto with the full-blooded negro. generic term for all the dark races, pure or half caste. In America, a single drop of black blood constitutes a man a nigger and a slave; whereas a single drop of white blood should constitute him a free man and a citizen. This is the one great evil of American slavery, and one by which Mohammedan slavery has never been tarnished. And it is owing to this in great measure that Toussaint l'Ouverture and others have been cited as samples of the true negro.

"The second error is the confusion of the negroid, the Semiticised, or the noble African with the ignoble pure negro." I have been always most anxious to impress upon men of science this fact, that the woolly-headed, black-skinned, fetid, prognathous negro is by no means to be regarded as the typical African. That he inhabits regions which are in themselves large, but which, compared with the area of this immense continent are comparatively small; and that the real African is copper-coloured, and superior in every respect to the negro, mentally and physically. I went farther than this, and asserted it as my belief that the negro inhabits only the maritime districts, or the marshy regions of the interior; that he originally belonged to the copper-coloured race, and that his degradation of type is due. entirely to the influences of climate and food. Simply repeating this belief, I will say no more in its favour at present; the interior of Africa must be better known before the geography of the negro can be mapped out, and science must make prodigious progress ere we can arrive at a satisfactory solution of that great enigma-the Negro's place in Nature.

The third fallacy cited by Burton is the belief that white men introduced slavery into Africa. We regard it as an exotic, but it is really an indigenous plant. Domestic slavery is an institution which is indispensable in such a country as Africa. It is indeed a species of serfdom; there is less degradation attached to slavery in Africa than to servitude in England; slaves often rise to great wealth and power; and, in short, it would be difficult to make them understand that they are ill-treated men. As for those who are sold (and this touches the fourth popular error), they are generally criminals or prisoners of war, who if not exported would be killed. In many parts of Africa, especially among the Mandingos, it is considered disgraceful to sell one's slave unless he has committed some very serious fault.

The slave trade may now be considered as almost extinct; and, during the next fifty years it will be definitely settled whether the export of negros on a new basis will be legitimatised or not. A famine of

labourers in our colonies would possibly bring this about; and, on the other hand, a scheme for cultivating Africa would render it advisable to retain the working population. In such a case, nothing can be done without compulsory labour; the negro must be driven up the ladder of civilisation, at the foot of which he will always lie naked and starving if left to himself. But these prospects are very distant; we are now in a transition state between the old system and the new. We have almost destroyed the old slave trade and slave labour system which tilled the New World and assisted so greatly the progress of the age, but the abuses of which have disgraced humanity. And we have not yet constructed that new system by means of which the negro shall be made a useful instrument in our hands, and by means of which also his happiness and advancement shall be secured.

It has been made a frequent source of complaint against Captain Burton that he derides the efforts of Christian missionaries to civilise the African race. Those, however, who have studied the negro in Africa without prejudice must be of the same opinion as himself. If the Christian religion could really be adopted by a savage and uneducated people, it must have had among the Africans a complete success. They have really no religion: they have certain ceremonies and certain traditions which appear to be the vestiges of a ceremonial and a creed; but they are not bigoted; they are perfectly tolerant ; they look upon the God of the white men as a Being superior to their own; and they show no great reluctance to place themselves under his protection. In the first place, however, they are quite unable to understand-not only the Trinity, and other Christian mysteries, which are above the feeble comprehension even of this advanced age-but the whole catalogue of Christian virtues-such as fatherly love, conjugal affection, mercy, pity, etc.-virtues which they do not possess, and for which, in most of their dialects, they have no equivalent words.

It is, therefore, impossible to make these savages embrace that abstract system of metaphysics, which is called the Protestant religion. The Catholic ritual having preserved much of the pious artillery of Paganism is better suited for them, and at one time Roman Christianity actually flourished in the great kingdom of the Congo. But it was only for a time. Polygamy was, and always will be, the stumblingblock of our religion in Africa, and the Bishop of Natal in proposing that Christian converts should be allowed to enjoy this institution, displayed great knowledge of Zulu character, and great ignorance of English prelates. The public will never be competent to judge of African affairs as long as they regard them from an European point of view. It is almost impossible to make them understand that polygamy and domestic slavery and other institutions which in Europe

would be detestable, are in Africa not only venial, but actually indispensable. Christian missions, then, can never succeed in Western Africa, and the most one can say is, that when the missionaries are good men (which is not invariably the case) they do a certain amount of good to those about them.

While we are making these dilettanti efforts to convert a continent by sprinkling a handful of men along its coast, a great work of proselytism is rapidly going on beyond the ken of Christian eyes. The Mohammedan Marabouts, with their spears and their Korans, are overrunning Africa; they not only destroy but they construct; they build a school in the smallest village which they conquer; and while they sanction polygamy and slavery (under grave restrictions) they prohibit gambling, drunkenness, human sacrifices, idolatry, and enjoin the worship of the One God.

The civilisation of Western Africa is at present merely a conjecture, and many years will pass before it merits to be termed an experiment. For the mere physical explorer, for such men as Livingstone and Speke, Africa is the land which of all others demands their labours. But Burton, who has not earned a reputation equal to theirs as an African explorer, is far superior to them as an explorer in the aggregate. He has performed a feat which though less sensational, is far more difficult than that of the supposed discovery of the sources of the Nile, viz., his pilgrimage to Mecca. He has travelled across the States and the Rocky Mountains to the Mormon City, and he is now about to turn his back on Africa to enter the vast world of the Brazils. If his health be preserved he will probably gain as great a reputation as a South American traveller as he has gained in Arabia and in Africa. It is, perhaps, not too much to say, that Captain Burton is the only Englishman living who could do this. He is in the truest sense of the word a cosmopolitan. He is versed in the cardinal languages of Europe; he is skilled in all the accomplishments of a soldier and a sportsman; he is a good classical scholar, a profound Orientalist, and has considerable knowledge of the natural sciences. With all this he is a thorough man of the world; unlike the travelled barbarians one so often meets, he is as much at home in Paris as in Dahome. The same inordinate thirst of knowledge which made him wish for these acquirements, the same industry and resolution which have won them for him, will most probably cling to him for some years to come, and if so, there can be little doubt that he will complete his experiences of human nature in all quarters of the globe, and gain a Humboldt-like reputation as philosopher, traveller, and author.

344

Miscellanea Anthropologica.

The Kirkhead Cave, near Ulverstone. [Extract of letter from Capt. Barrie, R.N., Swarthdale, Westmorland, 15th Sept., to W. Bollaert.] "I went yesterday with a party to grub in the soil of a cavern at Kirkhead, near Ulverstone, of which some notice has appeared in the Anthropological Journal. We found several bones of fowls and some of recent animals, all the marrow-bones broken. Only one human relic, part of the tibia of a small, but adult, man or woman. There is an immense quantity of mud in the cave, and the explorers have not reached the true bottom yet. The stuff that has been thrown out has nearly choked the mouth; so that to have fair play at it, you would require the services of half a dozen navvies to clear away the rubbish. I have seen bones of badger, rat, wild cat, wild pig, goat, goose, etc., also a bone bored through the side, as if for wearing for an ornament, a piece of the rudest pottery bearing marks of the hand on the inside, and a Roman coin: the latter was found close to the surface. There are no marks at present of any stream having flowed either in or out; but in the cave district of Yorkshire it is very common for these subterranean drains to change their course. Much more may be found with hard work; but the season is now so late, that I doubt whether another party will be got up."

Human Hybridity.

88, Cambridge Street, Pimlico, August 27th, 1864.

Sir, With respect to the question of the existence of half-breeds between Englishmen and the natives of Australia, whose frequency has been denied in the strongest terms by M. Broca, I should like to call attention to the following passage taken from a book entitled Reminiscences of Thirty-one Years' Residence in New South Wales and Victoria, by R. Therry, late one of the judges of the Supreme Court of New South Wales. London, second edition, 1863, p. 293. "Even the half-caste natural children of convicts and native women, some of the male portion of which class, on arriving at the prescribed age, are now, under manhood suffrage qualification, registered on the electoral roll of the New South Wales constituency, evince a tendency to prefer a savage to a civilised life."

This testimony seems both undeniable and decisive; and we see how it is these half-breeds have no special nick-name, a point on which M. Broca lays great stress. Being generally of convict blood, they are included in that class, as thereby already sufficiently distinguished from the free emigrant.

I am yours, etc., T. BENDYSHE.

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