the forearm in the Negro, a circumstance also dwelt upon as showing an approach to the anthropoid apes, facts are altogether against the statement ; there being no greater difference than is observable in individuals of any other variety of mankind. His height is seldom six feet, and rarely below five and a half; and as a rule the Negro figures are fine, especially their torso. Seen from behind, the spine usually appears depressed, owing to the greater curvature of the ribs ; the nates are more flattened than in other races, and join the thighs almost at a right angle instead of a cur\-e. Besides these char- acteristics may be mentioned the projecting upper edge of the orbit ; broad, retreating chin, and great develop- ment of lower part of the face ; small eyes, in which but little of the yellowish-white ball is .seen ; small, thick ears, standing off from the head, with a small lobe and a general stunted look; black iris; very wide zygomatic arches, giving large space for the muscles of the lower jaw; large and transverse opening of the nasal cavity. The pelvis is long and narrow, its average circumference being from twenty-six to twenty-eight inches, instead of thirty to thirty-six as in the whites-; this shape in the female, according to Yrolik and Weber, corresponds to the characteristic shape of the Negro head; those writers considering it as a type of degradation, as it ap- proaches that of the qiiadi-iimana in the more vertical direction of the iliac bones and their less width, in the smaller breadth of sacrum, and in the consequent less extent of the hips.
In the skin of the Negro there is much oily matter, and he perspires profusely, which serves to keep him in health. The Negro flourishes under the fiercest heats and unhealthy dampness of the tropics, notwithstanding the virulent epidemics and endemics of the country where the' white man soon dies; he has less nervous sensibility than the whites, and is not subject to nervous affections; is comparatively insensible to pain, bearing surgical oper- ations well; the effects of opium and other narcotics ap- pear rather in the digestive, circulatory, and respiratory functions than in the cerebral and nervous system ; he is little subject to yellow fever, and more to yaws and other cutaneous affections; he is generally very torpid under disease. The senses of the Negroes are acute ; the voice in the males is hoarse and not powerful, and in the females high and shrill. They are fond of music, and have many ingeniously contrived musical instru- ments, generally of a noisy character ; they have a keen sense of the ridiculous, and are of a cheerful disposition ; though cruel to their enemies and prisoners, and setting little value on human life, they are naturally kind- hearted, hospitable to strangers, and communicative of their joys and sorrows; the females are remarkably affectionate as mothers and children, and as attendants on the sick, even to foreigners. They are less dirtv in their persons and dwellings than most other barbarous races. They are ready to receive instruction, and to profit by it up to a certain point ; quick to perceive the beauty of goodness, they generally appreciate the ser- vices of the missionaries in their behalf, and were not their teachings counteracted by the intoxicating drink brought by traders, they would probably in time, in out- ward observances if not in reality, merit the name of semi-Christian communities. The custom of polygamy prevails among all the Negro tribes, and where these are constituted into nations or kingdoms, as in Daho- mey, the sovereign has often as many as two or three thousand wives, whom he occasionally disposes of as presents to his chief officers and favorites. In those parts of Africa where the slave-trade has flourished the Negro is lowest in the stage of civilized life. In other parts he shows a capacity for practicing the arts of life. Negroes are ingenious in the construction of their dwell- ings and in the manufacture of their weapons; they have some knowledge of the working of iron and other metals; they manufacture arms, dress and prepare the skins of animals, weave cloth, and fabricate numerous useful household utensils. Neither are they altogether
NEGRO
922
NEGRO
deficient in a knowledge of agriculture. These marks of civilization arc, for the most part, apparent in the dis- tricts either wholly or partially converted to Moham- medanism. Muiigo Park, in his account of Sego, the capital of Bambarra, describes it as a city of 30,000 in- habitants, with houses of two stories high, having flat roofs, mosques in every quarter, and ferries conveying men and horses over the Niger. " The view of this ex- tensive city," he says, " the numerous canoes upon the river, the crowded population, and the cultivated state of the surrounding country, formed altogether a prospect of civilization and magnificence which I little expected to rtnd in the bosom of Africa."
The languages of the various nations and tribes of Negroes are very numerous. Vocabularies of nearly '200 languages have been brought from Africa by the Kev. Dr. Koelle. "A slight examination of these vocabula- ries," says llr. Edwin Norris, '"seems to show that there are among the Negro idioms a dozen or more classes of languages, differing from each other at least as much as the more remote Indo-tiermanic languages do." To these Negro idioms Dr. Krapf has given the name of Nigro-IIumitic Languages. These may perhaps have affinities with some of the other African tongues, but not with any of the great well-defined families of lan- guages. For further information upon this subject, as well as upon the classification of the different Negro races, we must content ourselves with referring to Dr. Prichard's Natural Ilistonj of Man, and especially to a learned note by Mr. Edwin Norris in vol. i of that ■work (p. 3-23). It has been said that no Negro nation ever possessed a literature, or had the ingenuity to in- vent an alphabet, and until recently this was probably true ; but Christian missionaries have discovered a tribe in Western Africa, named Vti, which possess a well- constructed written language, with books, the invention of one of their number still living, who presents a case as remarkable as that of the invention of the Cherokee alphabet. Among the Negro race tliere is a great va- riety, greater, perhaps, than among any other family, yet while the several tribes have these clearly distinc- tive peculiarities, they yet bear a strong general resem- blance to each other, not only in their physical appear- ance, but in tlieir intellectual capacities, moral instincts, customs, and manners.