PEN PORTRAITS.
Our most interesting descriptions of the people of Africa have been derived from the annals of Egyptian history and from the journals and letters of the many explorers who have from time to time come in contact with them.
According to history the ancient Egyptians were red men. They recognized four races of men, the red, the yellow, the black, and the white. In subsequent ages they were so desirous of preserving this aristocratic distinction of color that they represented themselves in crimson upon their monuments.
The present inhabitants of Egypt range from a yellow color in the north to a deep bronze. One writer believes that the ancient Egyptians belonged to a brown race which included the Nubian tribes and to some extent the Berber tribes of Algiers and Tunis.
The record of the greatness of ancient Egypt is preserved in her works. The pyramids, though but the ruins of their former grandeur, are the marvels of mankind. The river Nile, by means of enormous embankments, was diverted from its course to make a place for the old city of Memphis. The artificial lake of Moëro was created to make a reservoir for the Nile waters. It measured four hundred and fifty miles in circumference. Its depth was three hundred and fifty feet, and it possessed subterranean channels, flood gates, locks, and dams, by means of which a sterile wilderness could be redeemed and changed into a fruitful valley.
The mason work of the ancient Egyptians was magnificent. In the casing of the Great Pyramid, we are told, the joints are scarcely perceptible, and not wider than the thickness of paper, and the cement so tenacious that fragments of the casing stones still remain in their original position, notwithstanding the lapse of so many centuries.
At one time the whole valley and delta of the Nile from the Cataracts to the sea was covered with temples, palaces, tombs, pyramids, and pillars, and almost every stone was covered with inscriptions.
The ancient Egyptians were the first mathematicians of the Old World and the first surveyors of land. They were the first astronomers, and they not only calculated eclipses but watched the periods of the planets and constellations. They were even aware of the rotundity of the earth, although Columbus has always been credited with being the first to discover this truth.
As early as the year 1722 b.c. the signs of the zodiac were in use among the Egyptians. A delineation of these signs was found upon a mummy case in the British Museum, and the date to which they pointed indicated the autumnal equinox of the year 1722 b.c.
These ancient Egyptians had clocks and dials for measuring time, and they possessed coins of gold and silver. They were the first agriculturists of the Old World, for history tells us that they raised cereals, and gave attention to the rearing of cattle, horses, and sheep. They manufactured linen fabrics of so fine a quality that, 600 b.c., a single thread of a king's garment was comprised of three hundred and sixty-five fibers. They worked in gold and silver, in copper, bronze, and iron. The latter they tempered to the hardness of steel.
They were the first chemists, and manufactured glass and various kinds of pottery. Out of earthenware they made their boats, and manufactured vessels of paper, just as in modern times we make the wheels for railway cars out of paper. Their dentists understood the art of filling teeth with gold, and their farmers hatched poultry by means of artificial heat.
They were the first musicians, and used guitars, cymbals, drums, lyres, harps, flutes, etc. In medicine and surgery they had acquired such skill that, several hundred years before Christ the removal of cataract from the eye, a most delicate and difficult surgical operation, was performed among them. Their carpenters' and masons' tools were almost identical with those in use to-day.
All these facts of history tend to prove that ancient Egypt was a land peopled by an intellectual and refined race whose works live after them.
The great mass of the people in Lower Egypt are known as the ploughers, and are the descendants of the old Egyptians and of the Arabs who invaded the land. There are still Egyptians of unmixed ancestry to be found in the land. They are called Copts, and profess Christianity. The Arabs of pure ancestry, descendants of the conquerors of the Egyptians, are represented by the Bedouins, most of whom lead a wandering life, though a few have exchanged their nomadic life for a settled one in houses.
Among the many pleasing pictures of the nations of the interior, Dr. Barth, an explorer, furnishes one of a fine large town in Negroland proper. The houses were built partly of clay, with neatly thatched roofs of reeds; while the courtyard was fenced in with the same material. There was a cool outer building, formed of reeds and latticework, which seemed to be a reception hall for visiting and for the transaction of business; the whole surrounded by spreading trees. To add to the picture, groups of children, goats, fowls, pigeons, and—if the wealth of the family admitted—a horse or pack ox usually surrounded each hut. The people were cheerful and kindly and seemed to enjoy all that a wise Creator had provided for their sustenance.
At another town Dr. Barth found rude fortifications of clay. At this town, like the one before it, there was a dyehouse, for indigo was largely cultivated. The intervening country was exceedingly beautiful, with a great variety of vegetation. Here were many kinds of birds, known and unknown, and great herds of milk-white cattle were scattered over the rich pasture lands.
The population was small, but the people were active and industrious. Some women, bearing on their heads from six to ten calabashes filled with various things, joined the caravan, and not long after, a troop of men loaded with indigo plants passed by on their way to the dyehouse.
Extensive tobacco fields lay before them, and beehives, formed out of thick, hollow logs, were fastened to the giant branches of the colossal trees of the country. Passing through cultivated fields and populous villages where indigo was grown and prepared, his caravan reached a large, flourishing town, a little world in itself, different in external form from all that is seen in European towns, yet similar in many ways.
Here was a row of shops filled with articles of native and foreign produce, with buyers and sellers in every variety of figure, complexion, and dress. There were all the necessaries of life; the wealthy buying the more palatable things for their tables, the poor stopping to look greedily upon a handful of grain.
Here was a yard neatly fenced with reeds, and a clean, snug-looking cottage, the clay walls nicely polished, a shutter of reeds placed against the low, well-rounded door, a cool shade for the daily household work, a fine spreading tree, with its deep shadow during the hottest hours of the day, or a beautiful specimen unfolding its large featherlike leaves, or the tall date tree waving over the whole. The matron wore a clean, black, cotton gown wound round her waist; her hair was neatly dressed, and she was busy preparing the meal for her absent husband, or spinning cotton, and at the same time urging the female slaves to pound the corn. The children were naked and merry, playing about in the yard, or chasing a stubborn goat. Earthenware pots and wooden bowls, all cleanly washed, stood in order.
No one seemed idle; there was employment for all. Here was an open terrace with its many dye pots, and the people engaged in the various processes of their art. Farther on could be seen a sturdy blacksmith wielding his clumsy tools and producing, as a result of his labors, a dagger, the sharpness of which was, indeed, a surprise, when one saw the crudeness of his tools. Off in another direction men and women made use of a sheltered space along the fences to hang their cotton thread for weaving. Here was a caravan arriving with the prized kola nut, which had become as necessary to these people as tea or coffee is to the inhabitants of more civilized lands; and there a caravan starting off with salt for the neighboring towns. Arabs were seen leading their camels with heavy loads of the luxuries of the north and east, and troops of gaudy, warlike horsemen came galloping towards the palace of the governor. Everywhere was life in all its various phases.