But it is impossible that the Quichuas and Aimaras could have passed across the wide Atlantic to Europe if there had been no stepping-stone in the shape of Atlantis with its bridge-like ridges connecting the two continents.

It is, however, more reasonable to suppose that the Quichuas and Aimaras were a race of emigrants from Plato’s island than to think that Atlantis was populated from South America.  The very traditions to which we have referred as existing among the Peruvians, that the civilized race were white and bearded, and that they entered or invaded the country, would show that civilization did not originate in Peru, but was a transplantation from abroad, and only in the direction of Atlantis can we look for a white and bearded race.

In fact, kindred races, with the same arts, and speaking the same tongue in an early age of the world, separated in Atlantis and went east and west—­the one to repeat the civilization of the mother-country along the shores of the Mediterranean Sea, which, like a great river, may be said to flow out from the Black Sea, with the Nile as one of its tributaries, and along the shores of the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf; while the other emigration advanced up the Amazon, and created mighty nations upon its head-waters in the valleys of the Andes and on the shores of the Pacific.

CHAPTER VI.

The African colonies.

Africa, like Europe and America, evidences a commingling of different stocks:  the blacks are not all black, nor all woolly-haired; the Africans pass through all shades, from that of a light Berber, no darker than the Spaniard, to the deep black of the Iolofs, between Senegal and Gambia.

The traces of red men or copper-colored races are found in many parts of the continent.  Prichard divides the true negroes into four classes; his second class is thus described: 

“2.  Other tribes have forms and features like the European; their complexion is black, or a deep olive, or a copper color approaching to black, while their hair, though often crisp and frizzled, is not in the least woolly.  Such are the Bishari and Danekil and Hazorta, and the darkest of the Abyssinians.

“The complexion and hair of the Abyssinians vary very much, their complexion ranging from almost white to dark brown or black, and their hair from straight to crisp, frizzled, and almost woolly.” (Nott and Gliddon, “Types of Mankind,” p. 194.)

“Some of the Nubians are copper-colored or black, with a tinge of red.”  (Ibid., p. 198.)

Speaking of the Barbary States, these authors further say (Ibid., p. 204):