In pre-historic times the land on each side of the Red Sea is said to have joined in the south as well as in the north. By these necks of land man came to Africa from Asia in the form of dwarfs of a very low negroid type, resembling the now much-advanced pigmy of the Congo or the bushman of South Africa. Thus perhaps, say, 10,000 years ago, the Nile basin south of N. latitude 15° was peopled by a negroid species from the east. It seems also not improbable that Egypt proper and Arabia were within the domains of this negroid race.
These indigenous pigmies appear to have been at an early date ousted (say 9,000 years ago) by races of Caucasian stock resembling the Dravidians of India, of aquiline type, possibly of nearly pure Caucasian “Khafra” origin, and probably emanating from Syria, Cyprus, or Libya.
In Gallaland, Somaliland, and Abyssinia a handsome race of Caucasian ancestry, mingled no doubt with proto-negroes and Dravidians, formed originally in Southern Arabia, sprang up. The lips of this people, destined to become the basis of a world-renowned and historic type, were full and their noses straight and finely shaped, whilst their skin was dark and their hair had a tendency to curl, and like the modern Somali, Galla, or Danakil, the men grew thin and wedge-shaped beards.
It was by emigrants of this new Hamitic race to the Lower Nile Basin that the stock of the ruling type of ancient Egyptians was formed. In the latter, nevertheless, an appreciable amount of Negro blood from the early Negro population must doubtless have been absorbed.
So degraded and transformed, however, has been the ancient Egyptian type by the infusion of the blood of their many successive rulers, that though facial resemblances may remain, their famous characteristics have vanished, and the Egyptian of to-day is the descendant of Slavs and Turks, Arabs, Armenians, and Circassians.
But it was not only to Egypt that this Hamitic race extended, but also, though more faint-heartedly, towards the negroid districts to the south-west to Uganda, Zululand, and even it is thought to the Atlantic. In Uganda their descendants are now distinctly traceable.
To recapitulate:—The country of Ethiopia, which included not only the highlands of Abyssinia but also the country north, to Berber or even Dongola, was probably originally populated by a very low type of pigmy or bushman, then perhaps partially by a race of big black negroes, such as Shilluk, Dinka, Nuer, and Bari, which in turn gave way to the Hamitic race already described. The ruling class of Ethiopia, however (the present “Abyssinian” in contradistinction to the “Galla or Somali”), became of Semitic origin through the Sabæan Arab conquest of Abyssinia some 3,000 to 4,000 years ago.
The break up of the Israelitish Empire by the Abyssinians and subsequent scattering of the Jews, many of whom settled in Abyssinia, introduced a further admixture of Semitic blood.
In comparing this ancient history, much of which is little more than guesswork, with the state of affairs at the present day, we find the descendants of the original pigmies, but in a more advanced state, having been ousted from place to place at length survive in hiding, as it were, in the forests of the most central of Central Africa. The big black negro tribes have withdrawn to and are content to remain in the swampy fever-stricken districts of which no higher human race has ever yet desired to deprive them. The Ethiopians have retired before the Arab invaders to their hills, whilst the Arabs continue to dominate all the country they cared to conquer.
The Hadendoa, Ababda, Bisharin, Beni Amer, etc., Arabs who speak a “rotana” somewhat resembling the Somali language, are, undoubtedly, not true Arabs, but are probably descended from the Hamitic race above described which also was the origin of the Somali and Galla races.