SEMITIC RACES. The subject of the primeval country of the Semitic races and of their languages has engaged the pens of Bunsen, Professor lgnazio Guidi, Dr. Fritz Hommel, Dr. A. von Kremer, Professor Max Muller, M. E. Ronan, Professor Sayce, Professor Eberhard Schrader, Professor Spiegel. The Semitic popu lations in Asia are the Arabians, Syrians, Samar itans, with about ten millions in British India ; in Africa, Abyssinians of Tigre and Amhara, Agow, Falasha, Gafat. During the last 3000 years, conquest and commerce, but chiefly the former, has greatly diffused this race. In various inroads, the Arab Semites have gone north ward and easWard into Persia, India, and China, and smaller parties are to be found located in Burma, in Malaya, the Archipelago, and Poly nesia. Many of them have likewise conquered and migrated westerly along the north of Africa and into Europe, where, as in Spain, they ruled for 700 years, hitt were again driven back into Africa. They are now found in Africa, as fetish worshippers, Christians, Muhammadans, and Jews.
Abyssinia is Christian, being acquainted with the chief truths of the Bible, but all much blended with merely human notions. The latest polemics there have been as to the two or three births of Christ,—born of the Father before all worlds, made man, and in the baptism at Jodan receiving the Holy Spirit. As regards the two natures of Christ, they are extreme monophysists. 11\onogatny is their church law, but concubinage i universal.
The Adal, also said to be a Semitic race, are tribes on the west of the Red Sea, who call them selves .Afer, but by the Arabs they are called Danakil, from their chief tribe Ad Alli. Dr.
Krapf is of opinion that this Afer is the Ophir of Scripture. He thinks that Ophir, in Job xxviii. 16, simply means gold dust.
The Calla race, inhabiting Shoa, and one of the finest in Africa, are strong, well-limbed, and of a dark-brown colour, living in a beautiful country, extending froin lat. 3° S. to 8° N., with a cliinate not surpassed by that of Italy or Greece. Speaking a language as soft and musical as pure Tuscan, cultivating the soil, and rearing cattle.
They are from 6 to 8 millions in numbers. Their religion, like that of all African savages, is fetish. They acknowledge a supreme being,' whom they call heaven (Mulungu), and have a notion of a future state. There seem to be three natures or attributes in their deity,—Wak or Waka, Supreme ; Ogli, a masculine, and Ateti, feminine embodi ment. They have two holy days,—Saturday, which they call Saubatta kenna, or little Sabbath ; Sunday, Saubata gudda, or g,reater Sabbath.
The Kabila, south of Algiers, are Berbers, the old Numidians, and differ in language, form, and habit of mind from the Arabs of the plains, beieg matter of fact in mind, and but little 1„rifted with the glowing imagination of the Arab. The un subdued portion dwell in the mountainous tract, with bare precipitous peaks, to the south of the Little Atlas and of Algiers. They are spare but robust ; and of smaller stature than the pomade, for the Kabila are dwellers in houses or huts (hence their name), are laborious tillers of the soil, and handicraftsmen clever in winning metals from their hills, and even in forging arms. They are wonderful horsemen, and terrible in a foray as in the days of Sallust, and are always at war with the Arabs. The slopes and valleys of their mountain country are all rich, cultivated lands, covered with olive trees and corn-fields, and the rocks are said to contain minerals. Their number is about 700,000, possessing sotne millions of acres of the very best land of Africa, watered by three rivers, and teeming with rich harvests. `rimy approach to within 120 miles of Algiers, which they separate from Constantine. They are a federal republic, and elect their own chiefs. They are the old Quinquegentes, who gave so much trouble to the Romans, who tried the soldiership of Maximinian, and sixty years after wards again revolted. Tu ferocissimos Mauri tanim populos, inaccesis montium jugisset, naturali munitione fidentes, expugnasti, recepisti, transtultisti. By Maximinian's system of trans tultsi these five nations were reduced to four. The Kabile have fends amongst themselves.