Social Manners.—Inclined to pleasure as the Negroes are, they of course have many games and amusements, and especially noteworthy are the formality and politeness which characterize their social life. In greet ing, expressing thanks, obliging, etc. they have established and often really fine manners. Some of these customs, now meaningless, must originally have had a good signification. Thus, two Tibbus meeting, after a long separation require almost an hour for continually-repeated formalities—a custom reminding one of Australia and Polynesia (p. 205).
Avaricc.—ne various good traits of the Negroes arc, however, often stifled by many vices. The south-eastern tribes are more barbarous and undeveloped than the western, though in the west one trait of the Negro character is more offensive—namely, the unbounded avarice which often nullifies all his better qualities. The Negro is not naturally dishonest, still less is he malicious. In order to become acquainted with his true cha racter we must not study it where he has become demoralized by Arabians or Europeans, and still less among the slaves in America. Negroes are numerous in the latter country: all the heads on Plate 83 (figs. 4, 5), Plate S6 (Av. i8, 19, 2o), Plate 89 (figs. 3, 5, 6), and Plate 90 (figs. 1-5, 8),
are of slaves from Brazil; but it is clear that the treatment of most Ameri can slaves in capturing and transporting them, and later in their servitude, developed only the evil sides of their character.
Thus the Negroes are inferior to no other race, either in character or in accomplishments. Indeed, they surpass many, and if they have not attained a higher elevation, we must seek the main cause of this in their geographical and historical conditions.
Influences of Climate, we consider their climate, which renders care about clothing and shelter unnecessary; if we consider how easily the African soil almost everywhere in the Negro countries furnishes abundant nourishment, and, furthermore, how the influx of peoples from the east has been more unceasing than elsewhere in the world; and if we also consider what the Negroes have suffered and still suffer from the Arabians, Nubians, Berbers, and Europeans, and that in spite of this they have retained their peculiarities such as we have found them, we shall conclude that the assertion that Negroes are a lower race of little intellectual ability, which "may be trained, but not educated," is entirely untrue and unscientific.