The investigations of modern travellers are of more value in researches into the ancient condition of Africa, than may at first be supposed. The geographical character of the countries, and the habits of the people have, in many instances, undergone but slight changes.* The caravan rout described by Herodotus in the fourth book (Chap. 181-185) of his history has been identified with the modern routes by Horneman, Browne, Lyon, Caillaud, and other travellers. The articles of traffic are the same, the natural productions are the same, and the Land of Dates and the negro countries are visited for the same purposes as they were two and three thousand years ago. The above named travellers, together with Mungo Park, Buckhardt, Denon, the splendid work and drawings of Gau, and the Journals of Denham, Clapperton, Caillie, and other recent explorers, furnish subjects for very interesting comparisons with ancient history.

It is our design, however, to present the results of Heeren's investigations and the observations of travellers little farther than as they relate to the question- What races of men have inhabited Africa? or more particularly, what were the ancient limits of the Negro race? From our familiar and unfortunate acquaintance with the Negro, it has become a popular impression, that he constitutes peculiarly the African race, and inhabits the larger part of the African continent—an impression both erroneous and unjust.

An examination of Ancient Africa naturally divides itself into three parts-the Carthaginian territory on the north, the Egyptian on the north and east, and the Ethiopian in the central and western regions.

North Africa had various designations and divisions. among ancient writers, drawn from some local peculiarity. The region bordering upon the Mediterranean was called "habitable Africa," embracing the northern parts of Morocco, Fez, Algiers, Tunis, and Tripoli. Its fine climate, rich and fruitful soil, and facilities for commerce, make it well worthy of the name. The next region was termed "wildbeast Lybia," and reached nearly to the borders of the great Desert, where roamed the nomad tribes. The fruitful regions invited to agriculture and commerce, and the southern to the caravan trade across the deserts into the

*Heeren, vol. 1. pp. 193, 196, 224, 320, 176.

interior, from whence were brought black slaves, and gold, and precious stones.

The Carthaginian empire assumed the precise form and character which these circumstances would naturally suggest. The Mediterranean coast was lined with colonies from Syrtis Major (modern Gulf of Sidra) to the Pillars of Hercules, and the power of Carthage extended southward, to the sandy solitudes. Her foreign possessions were, Sardinia, Corsica, Sicily in part, the Baleares, and other small islands in the Mediterranean, and colonial settlements in Spain.

There was no port, nor city, nor fruitful land where she did not, in some way or other, establish a mercantile interest. Her commerce whitened the Mediterranean, and spread its fearless sails in seas unvisited by the ships of other nations. Her agriculture clothed her hills and vallies with fruitfulness and luxuriance, while caravans from her nomad tribes, crossed the burning desert, where everlasting death-silence reigns over the dreary wastes, and brought from central regions, for her foreign marts, gems and gold, and slaves.

This animated scene of political life, and national enterprise, however, was not called into existence by the origi. nal inhabitants of Africa. It was the result of colonization. Carthage was founded, according to the usual chronology, about 878, B.C., by a Phoenician colony from Tyre-the city whose "wise men were pilots," whose king was "full of wisdom and perfect beauty," and whose selfappropriated title was, "The Goddess of the Seas."* Utica, Leptis, Hippo, Adrumetum and other smaller cities, were likewise founded upon the coast of Africa, by the Phonicians. Until after the fall of Carthage, they always maintained the ascendency in northern Africa. Proofs of this are very fully presented in Bochart, and incidentally in the second volume of Heeren's Asiatic Researches. It is also the incidental or direct testimony of Herodotus, Polybius and Scylax; and indeed all the ancient historians either affirm or assume this fact, in their notices of Africa. Herodotus gives, as a reason, why Cambyses could not induce the Phoenicians to aid him in his designs against the Carthaginians; that "they had bound themselves by

* Ezekiel, 26, 27, 28, chapters.

+ See article Phoenicians.

solemn oaths not to do such things as to make war upon their own children."*

Carthage reciprocated the affection of the mother country. When Tyre was besieged and taken by Alexander, she offered a refuge for the Tyrian merchants with their families and treasures. Diodorus, II. p. 190. The commercial treaties, also, which were naturally formed between Rome, Carthage, Utica, and Tyre, and which are preserved by Polybius (Lib. I. p. 437,) prove, beyond question, the complete predominance of the Phoenicians in the northern part of Africa. They were the war-making, treaty-making, and legislative power.

The knowledge of this fact will, probably, detract much from the interest with which some portions of the Eneid have been perused, by certain persons, while under the impression that its characters were drawn from the Negro race. The charms of the beautiful Dido, which so fascinated the heart of "pius Eneas," that the gods alone were able to rescue him, could have hardly consisted in the glossy jet of her complexion, her woolly hair, thick lips, and short corpulent frame. The graceful form of the Phoenician queen would, perchance, turn as proudly away from some of the compliments, which the taste of these admirers has paid her, as she did from the visits of her mundane lord in the realms of Pluto.

The aboriginal inhabitants of the Carthaginian territories in Africa, were composed of various tribes, whose peculiarities are described by Herodotus, with considerable minuteness. Their persons were tall and well formed; and the habit of wearing tufts of long hair, dressed in different ways, to designate the different tribes, proves them not to have been of the Negro race.

Herodotus says expressly, that the aboriginal inhabitants of northern Africa, were a different race from the Ethiopians, and comprises them under the name of Libyans.‡

We find, among them all, no traces of the Negro race, which is mentioned only in connexion with slavery or the slave trade. The personal descriptions go to identify them with the Berber race, which is spread over a large part of northern and eastern Africa, and to sustain the conclusions

*Herod. Lib. III. 19. VOL. III.

+ Lib. IV. cap. 168-181.

55

+ IV. 197

of Lawrence and Blumenbach, that they were a variety of the Caucasian family.* Remnants of these aboriginal inhabitants, are still to be found in the mountainous regions, which stretch from Mt. Atlas, nearly across Africa. They speak a language bearing no resemblance to the Arabic spoken by the Moors, from whom they keep themselves distinct. All travellers are unanimous in proThe incursions of the Vannouncing it purely African.

dals and Arabs, have pressed them back towards the south, on the borders of the Negro countries, where they still maintain their distinctive characteristics. They have, according to the description of various travellers, good features, sparkling eyes, projecting brows, sharp noses, thin lips, beard and hair thin, and a cheerful physiognomy.† In these particulars, Park, Burckhardt, Denham, and Clapperton, and Caillié agree.

The question has often been asked: To what nation did the Christian Bishops of Carthage, Hippo, and of Alexandria in Egypt, belong? Some have considered them of Negro origin, others of European. There is no evidence that the Negro race ever inhabited the north of Africa, except as the slave trade carried them thither, and then they were usually transported to other markets. After the fall of Carthage, Africa received numerous accessions of Greeks and Romans, in the principal commercial cities, and this, probably, led to the early introduction of Christianity. The natural inference therefore is, that the learned men were Greeks or Romans. They might have been of Phoenician or Libyan descent, but we have no means of determining that this was the fact.

There is another point of more importance, and of too much interest, as a historical precedent, at the present time, to be passed unnoticed-the influence of the Phoenician colonies upon the original inhabitants. Although Carthage directed her attention principally to commerce, yet she well knew that commerce could not flourish long without agriculture. With this conviction, she succeeded in bringing the native inhabitants of the most fertile regions, into the love of an agricultural life. Indeed next to arms, agriculture

Lawrence's Physiology, page 465, and note.

+ Conder's Geographical Dictionary. London, 1834. Article, Berber. #Heeren, Vol. 1. see whole of chapter 1.

was considered as the most honourable employment. Mago and Hamilcar, two distinguished Carthaginian generals, were both authors of works on husbandry. That of Mago was in twenty-eight books, embracing all departments of husbandry-the rearing of cattle, the cultivation of the vine, of fruit trees, and of grain, and the adaptation of these to particular soils and climates. It is frequently referred to by Varro, Columella, and Pliny, and shows that agriculture was deemed not unworthy of attention by the nobility.

Scylax, as quoted by Heeren, describes the country around the lesser Syrtis, and Triton Lake, as magnificently fruitful, abounding in tall fine cattle, and its inhabitants as distinguished for wealth and beauty. Another region, according to Strabo, between two and three hundred miles in length, extending southward from Cape Bon, and one hundred and fifty in width, was also distinguished for its fertility and high cultivation.* It embraced the most flourishing seaports, and was crowded with agricultural settlements. The natives gradually intermingled with the colonists, and formed the strength of the Carthaginian state. The surprising effect of this admirable policy has been noticed by most of the ancient historians. Herodotus affirms, that beyond the dominions of the Carthaginian empire, no people could be found with settled habitations, engaged in agricultural pursuits, intending, of course, to confine the remark to that part of Africa. Within her dominions, he describes some powerful tribes,-the Maxyes, the Zaueces, and Gyzantes-as engaged in the peaceful occupations of the field. Aristotle is quoted, commenting upon the same policy, in his "Treatise de politia Carthaginiensium." "It is in this way," he remarks, (that is, by agricultural settlements,) "Carthage preserves the love of her people. She sends out, continually, colonies composed of her citizens, into the districts around her, and by that means, makes them men of property. It is a proof," he adds, "of a mild intelligent government, that it assists the poor by accustoming them to labour." Cicero attributes the fall of Carthage to the abandonment of this policy-to the neglecting of agricultural interests, from a blind zeal in + Heeren, Vol. 1. page 40.

* Heeren, Vol. 1. page 57.