They saw the clouds ascend from the plains: 
  It was the smoke of burning towns. 
    The confusion of the whirlwind
Was in the heart of the great chief of the blue-colored cattle. 
      The shout was raised,
        “They are friends!”
      But they shouted again,
        “They are foes!”
Till their near approach proclaimed them Matabili. 
      The men seized their arms,
And rushed out as if to chase the antelope. 
    The onset was as the voice of lightning,
And their javelins as the shaking of the forest in the autumn storm.[61]

There can be no doubt of the Negro’s deep and delicate sense of beauty in form, color, and sound.  Soyaux says of African industry, “Whoever denies to them independent invention and individual taste in their work either shuts his eyes intentionally before perfectly evident facts, or lack of knowledge renders him an incompetent judge."[62] M. Rutot had lately told us how the Negro race brought art and sculpture to pre-historic Europe.  The bones of the European Negroids are almost without exception found in company with drawings and sculpture in high and low relief; some of their sculptures, like the Wellendorff “Venus,” are unusually well finished for primitive man.  So, too, the painting and carving of the Bushmen and their forerunners in South Africa has drawn the admiration of students.  The Negro has been prolific in the invention of musical instruments and has given a new and original music to the western world.

Schweinfurth, who has preserved for us much of the industrial art of the Negroes, speaks of their delight in the production of works of art for the embellishment and convenience of life.  Frobenius expressed his astonishment at the originality of the African in the Yoruba temple which he visited.  “The lofty veranda was divided from the passageway by fantastically carved and colored pillars.  On the pillars were sculptured knights, men climbing trees, women, gods, and mythical beings.  The dark chamber lying beyond showed a splendid red room with stone hatchets, wooden figures, cowry beads, and jars.  The whole picture, the columns carved in colors in front of the colored altar, the old man sitting in the circle of those who reverenced him, the open scaffolding of ninety rafters, made a magnificent impression."[63]

The Germans have found, in Kamarun, towns built, castellated, and fortified in a manner that reminds one of the prehistoric cities of Crete.  The buildings and fortifications of Zymbabwe have already been described and something has been said of the art of Benin, with its brass and bronze and ivory.  All the work of Benin in bronze and brass was executed by casting, and by methods so complicated that it would be no easy task for a modern European craftsman to imitate them.

Perhaps no race has shown in its earlier development a more magnificent art impulse than the Negro, and the student must not forget how far Negro genius entered into the art in the valley of the Nile from Meroe and Nepata down to the great temples of Egypt.