The Arabs of Morocco are the Moors of Spain, the Saracens of France,—tall, graceful sons of the desert, courteous, brave, hospitable, and con fiding,— descendants of the conquerors who in the first ages of the Hijira propagated the religion of Mahomed, crossed the Straits of Gibraltar, destroyed the Gothic chivalry, reigned in Spain for 700 years, invaded France, devastated Italy, and pillaged the suburbs of imperial Rome. When the last Arab king submitted to Ferdinand and Isabella, and the Moorish palaces of Granada were surrendered to the Christians, the old con querors went back to Africa, and resumed their nomade life. In Tripoli, the Arab has iimno polized the country. In Tunis, the native reappears in a smaller proportion, and in Morocco he is very scarce.
Abyssinia was peopled by Southern Semites, who crossed the Red Sea from Yemen and Had ramaut before the Arab conquest of Egypt. They were converted to Christianity iu the 4th century of the Christian era, and in the 6th they re-crossed over to Arabia, to avenge the persecu tion of Christians by a Jewish ruler, conquered Yemen, and marched to the gates of Mecca, where they were overthrown two years before 3fahorned was born. Such partial migrations and con quests have left tribal bodies from other races in the land.
The Ada i,tribes, also said to be a Semitic race, dwell on the west of the Red Sea. They call themselves Afer, but by the Arabs they are called Danakil, from their chief tribe Ad-Alli ; and Dr. Krapf was of opinion that this Afer is the Ophir of Scripture.
The Danakil, pl. Dankali, are a Hamite race who inhabit the most southerly African shores of the Red Sea as far as the Straits of Bab-el-Mandeb.
The Eloi•ob or 1111-knafi and the Masai, also liana° races, are the terror of all Negro tribes in equatorial East Africa, on account of their wars and kidnapping expeditions.
The Somali, another Hamite race, occupy the eastern promontory of Africa from near Bab-el Mandeb to the Juba on the Indian Ocean, and they border on the Galin district on the west. They have a woolly head of stiff thick hair from 6 to 8 inches long, and which is said to be always crimped.
The Fellaheen peasantry of the Lower Nile, and the Coptic Christians of the towns of Egypt, represent the ancient Egyptians. These are also represented by the Berabra or I3erber of the Nubian Nile districts, who were Christians until the fall of the Berber-Nilitic empire of Dongola in A.D. 1320. Between the Nubian Nile and the Red Sea are the I3isharin, the IIadendoa ; and rime of the Beni Amer, who, in addition to a corrupt Arabic, speak Tobedauie, a more ancient Hamite language with three genders.
The inhabitants of Shoa are about 2,500,000, of whom one-half are Christians, the Amhara, and the remainder partly Muhammadan and partly Galls. The Christians are a stout, well-formed race, from 5 feet 7 inches to 5 feet 9 inches in height, with luxuriant silky black hair.
The Galla, a Hamite race, call themselves Orma or Oroma. The word Galin means immigrants, and Orma means strong, brave men. They are partly distributed in Abyssinia, and partly in a compact body in the cast of the interior of Africa. They live in a beautiful country, extending from lat. 8° N. to 3° S., with a climate not sur passed by that of Italy or Greece, and speak a language as soft and musical as pure Tuscan. They are from six to eight millions in numbers. They are one of the finest races in Africa, of a dark-brown colour, with strong hair, and well limbed. They are a warlike, manly people, con scious of their own strength, and of a moral and noble character. Their beards are tolerably luxuriant, and their features regular and agreeable. With the exception of the southern tribes, they and their wives always appear mounted either on horses or on oxen.
Amongst them are scattered Christian tribes, but the religion of the race in general is fetish, and the seven tribes of the 1Vollo Galla are Muhammadans. The fetishists worship the ser pent as the mother of the human race, and hold their religious services under a tree. They ac knowledge a supreme being, whom they call Mulungu, and have a notion of a future state. There seem to be three natures or attributes in their supreme being, viz. Wak or Wake, supreme ; Ogli, a masculine, and Ateli, a feminine, power or embodiment. They have two holy days in the week, viz. Saturday, which they call Saubatta kenna or little Sabbath, and Sunday, which is their Saubatta gadda or greater Sabbath.
The Negro race families inhabit Africa from the southern margin of the Sahara as far as the territories of the Hottentots and Bushmen. They extend from the Senegal across to the Upper Nile, including the Upper Guinea coast ; but they have been driven from the extreme eastern parts of Africa by intruding Ilamite and Semitic families. The Negro tribe speak a number of apparently distinct languages, which cannot be reduced to ono system ; but the people themselves are of one type, and that typo quite different from those dwelling north and south of them.