The philanthropy of Volney has induced him to rely more on the arguments he adduces in support of his hypothesis, than the nature of those arguments seems to admit: and the authority of an author who justly holds so high a place in the public estimation, is sufficient to give currency to error.
If plausible arguments were brought to establish the doctrine here mentioned, it would be unreasonable to refuse assent to it solely as militating against a commonly received opinion. But to fix beyond controversy an historical fact, more surely is required than ingenious conjecture, fancied resemblances, and quotations of but dubious meaning.
The subject in question ought not to be clouded by any prejudicated opinion relative to the physical differences between the white and black race of men. The evidence should be patiently weighed, and the whole left to stand on a solid basis, or fall by its own infirmity.
The Coptic language bears a manifest relationship to the Arabic and Syriac, as Volney allows. But are the languages allied, and the nations who speak them strangers to each other? It would seem, on the contrary, the subject of proof, that if the languages be indeed cognate, the nations who speak them must have proceeded from one parent stock; for what resemblance between the sonorous copiousness of the Arabic, and the ineffable mendicancy of the native African tongues[27]?
The Ethiopians, or in a more confined sense, the Abyssinians, though so much farther removed from Asia, the source of migration, are far from partaking what is properly called the negro character, as the narratives of the Portuguese writers, who first knew them, with those of Poncet, and in our times of Bruce, abundantly testify. The Fungni, or people of Sennaar, with those of Dongola, Mahas, &c. in Barabra, or Nubia, are, as all the Europeans who have seen them in Kahira can affirm, not negroes. And if all these be colonies from Syria or Arabia Felix, how are we constrained to acknowlege that the Egyptians must have been of the African race?
It has been urged that the Colossal figure of the Sphinx, near the pyramids, gave additional countenance to the opinion that the Egyptians were black, the face of that statue having been said to resemble the negro. But, not to mention that the form of the visage is now become entirely dubious, in forming statues of mere ornament, or as representations of the human figure, the artist endeavours to give the features most habitual to him, or what are most admired among his countrymen; but as to a merely emblematical figure, the same reasoning is not conclusive. Would it be imagined that a dog-headed nation once existed from the figure of Latrator Anubis? Unfortunately, of the Sphinxes at Thebes, innumerable fragments of which are yet remaining, scarcely one is entire enough to give any idea of the form of the visage which the sculptor designed to attach to it.
The statues of the Nile, it is said, were made of black marble, in allusion to his coming from Ethiopia. If this symbol, hitherto so unsatisfactorily explained, (the Sphinx,) had any relation to the same subject, might not the negro face be given to it for a similar reason[28]? It would hardly have been thought necessary to explain why the figure of the Nile was black, if the complexion of the natives of Egypt had been generally acknowleged of the same tinge.
The complete silence of the antient writers, concerning so singular a circumstance as that of the negro character of the Egyptians, if all other arguments were equally balanced, would be sufficient to decide this point in the negative. In defect, however, of historical and positive testimony, strong circumstantial evidence is drawn from the monuments of undoubted antiquity yet remaining. Among these are the small statues of Isis, &c. daily found among the ruins in various parts of Egypt. These are adorned with a profusion of long hair, peculiarly contorted, and the nose, lips, and other features, are far from resembling those of the negro. The same may be observed of the figures in alto relievo and basso relievo, on the walls at Thebes, in the caverns of Gebel-el-Silsili, &c. Of the Colossal statues at Thebes, the features are too much damaged to be adduced in proof.
The two harpers, and several other human figures in the caverns of Thebes, called Biban-el-molûk, (tombs of the kings,) and in which the colours are perfectly well preserved, have the features and complexion exactly resembling the Egyptians of the present day.
The apparent testimony of Herodotus, the earliest historian whose works have reached our days, is not so strong as might at first appear. The terms μελάγχροες και ουλότριχες are merely relative, and apply to the greater or less degree of blackness and crispature of the Egyptians, as compared with the Greeks, to whom the writer was addressing himself; and certainly cannot be confined to positive blackness or woolly hair. To corroborate this interpretation of the passage from Herodotus, may be adduced a similar one from Ammianus Marcellinus, lib. xxii. That author says, that the Egyptians are Atrati, a term of equally strong import with the μελάγχροες of Herodotus, but, like it, evidently applied in a comparative sense; for, in the very next sentence, he says, erubescunt, they blush, or grow red. It is true, indeed, negroes suffer a certain change of countenance when affected with the sentiment of shame, but it would be rather a bold assertion that the word erubescere can ever be applied to characterise the effect of that feeling on a negro. Even in the vernacular idioms of modern Europe, by the term a black man, is daily designated one of visibly a darker complexion than ourselves. Besides, what antient writer has described the inhabitants of Colchis? Was Medea, the Love of the Grecian heroes, a negress?