[42] Even in Africa it is found that Negroes possess great culture.  Speaking of Sego, the capital of Bambara, Mr. Park says:  “The view of this extensive city, the numerous, canoes upon the river, the crowded population, and the cultivated state of the surrounding country, formed altogether a prospect of civilization and magnificence which I little expected to find in the bosom of Africa.”  See Park’s Travels, chap. ii.

Mr. Park also adds, that the population of this city, Sego, is about thirty thousand.  It had mosques, and even ferries were busy conveying men and horses over the Niger.

[43] See Ambassades Memorables de la Companie des Indes orientales des Provinces Unies vers les Empereurs du Japan, Amst., 1680; and Kaempfer.

[44] Wilkinson’s Egypt, vol. iii. p. 340.

[45] Coleman’s Mythology of the Hindus, p. 91.  Dr. William Jones, vol. iii., p. 377.

[46] Asiatic Researches, vol. vi. pp. 436-448.

[47] Heber’s Narrative, vol. i. p. 254.

[48] Nat.  Hist. of the Human Species, pp. 209, 214, 217.

[49] Asiatic Researches, vol. i. p 427.  Also Sir William Jones, vol. iii. 3d disc.

[50] Nat.  Hist.  Human Species, p. 126.

[51] Prichard, pp. 188-219.

[52] Matt. xxiii. 4.

[53] Discours sur la cause physicale de la couleur des negres.

[54] Earth and Man.  Lecture x. pp. 254, 255.

[55] Blumenbach, p. 107.

CHAPTER III.

PRIMITIVE NEGRO CIVILIZATION.

     THE ANCIENT AND HIGH DEGREE OF NEGRO CIVILIZATION.—­EGYPT,
     GREECE, AND ROME BORROW FROM THE NEGRO THE CIVILIZATION THAT
     MADE THEM GREAT.—­CAUSE OF THE DECLINE AND FALL OF NEGRO
     CIVILIZATION.—­CONFOUNDING THE TERMS “NEGRO” AND “AFRICAN.”

It is fair to presume that God gave all the races of mankind civilization to start with.  We infer this from the known character of the Creator.  Before Romulus founded Rome, before Homer sang, when Greece was in its infancy, and the world quite young, “hoary Meroe” was the chief city of the Negroes along the Nile.  Its private and public buildings, its markets and public squares, its colossal walls and stupendous gates, its gorgeous chariots and alert footmen, its inventive genius and ripe scholarship, made it the cradle of civilization, and the mother of art.  It was the queenly city of Ethiopia,—­for it was founded by colonies of Negroes.  Through its open gates long and ceaseless caravans, laden with gold, silver, ivory, frankincense, and palm-oil, poured the riches of Africa into the capacious lap of the city.  The learning of this people, embalmed in the immortal hieroglyphic, flowed adown the Nile, and, like spray, spread over the delta of that time-honored stream, on by the beautiful and venerable city of Thebes,—­the city of a hundred gates, another monument to Negro genius and civilization, and more