Indigenous Races of the Earth

XGN23N881857 284

5!36 '!'HE MONOGENIS'l'S AND lers, Richardson, Barth, aud Ovorweg,397 in ] 50; n.t a mountain-pass called Wad o Taldja, about nino days' journey after 1 avi11g Mour·­zook, tho capital of F zzt\,n. IIoro is tho account, in th words of M. Vivien do aint-Martin :- 1' A little before roat:hing tho descent we have just described, at the bottom of tlt valley tlu·ougb which ono arrives at it, our trav 1- lors made a singular discovery. They found some figures cnoTavocl in deep cuttings upon tho face of the rock [a very Egyptian m tbod of recording conqu sts, as at Wadoe Magara, ncar Mt. inai, by steles]. The anci nt people of tho East lov d thus to sculpture, upon tho granite, warlike or r ligious scenes: thor exist tableaux of this nature in Assyria and iu MeJia, in Pbamicia and A ia Minor. Those which our explorers have discovercd at tho entrance of the [Snhnra] desert bav · a peculiar character. They form scvoml dis­tinct tab] anx, of which two are above all r rnarkablo. One offer'S an allegorical scone, tho other represents a scmto of pn,storal Jifo. In the fit·st, on beholds two personages, ouo w.ith tho head of a bir<l, aJJd th otho1· with a hull's, both armed with buckler and bow anu seemingly combating for tho possession of a bull: the other sh~ws a gr?up of bulls that app ar descending towards a spring to slake thcit· t~trst. The first of the. o two tablets bas a cha1·acter altogether Egyp­tzan; and tho ensemble of tbcso sculptures is very superior to what the nom,ad inhab~tants of tho north of Africa could now xocute [ co Pulszky s Chap. II., pp. 188-192, on" UnartisLical Races"]. The men of tho n01ghborhood, moreover, attr·ibuLc them to an unknowfl people who, thoy say, possessed tho country long before thorn. Barth copied with caro tho two principal tablets, and bo s nt his draw~ngs, accompanied wiLh a detailed notice, to the lcamod I~gyp­tologlst of London, Mr. Birch; who will dou btloss mako them the ohjccL ~f a serious study. According to th very competent j udg­mcut o'( tho traveller, the sculptures of Wadco Telissar6b [name of ~he place whore .nlO.Y arc fou~d] boar in tb ms lvos tho stamp of ~n~on~cstablo anLrqu:Ly. One 1s struck, furthermore, by a character­IstiC cn·cumstancc, vtz: the absence of the camel, which always holds nowadays tho first place in the clumsy sketches [as at Mt. Sinai] traced, ~ere and thcl' , by present tribes upon other rocks in divers pa1·ts of tho d sort. It is now recognized tltat tho camel was iJttro­~ uccd into Africa by tho :fit·st Arab conquerors of tho Khalifatc [this 1s not cxa:t-say rather about tho 1st century n. c.], during the VIIth century of our ra: mOJ'O anciently tho only caravan boasts of bur­tbon~~ lc maritime zone and Nigritia, were the ox and the 897 OuMt'lti'OHl' Barth und 0 u, - - - - 1862. ." ' Vfrweg& tlle,·aucliuti[J&-lleiac nach dem 1'8chad-See Dcrlin ,-as 01tod by SAINl'-MAlt'XIN, (supra, noto 890) pp. 4!11-6. ' ' THE POLYGF.NJSTS. horse. Strabo r late (lib. xvii.) how tho Maurusians [only a uialcc­tic mnLaLi n of Pltarusians, tho PTt.R IM 306 of Xth cncHis], in order to tea verso tho desert, suspended wat r-ski ns unflcr the belli 'H of their horses. Among several tL'ibcs of the ahara, th' ox is still used as a boast of transportation and carriage. Richardson saw a great number of them in a car·avan that had just crossed a 1 art of tho Soodti.n." A sight of Barth's copy would suffice to establish whether a hr atlt of E()'yptian art passed over the sculpture; but this narmtion is aJ I I can uow 1 •ar:n about it. Isolate in itR lf, this fact scarcely att.t·aet '(l my attention b foro; but bore como some fresher· coin ·i<loncos of real Egyptian monuments, still further w st in Barbary, that sh d som' plausibility upon those (by mys lf unseen) potroglyphs. An Egyp­tian blftck-<rranito royal statue, broken, 'tis tmc, bearing inscriptions with tho name of THOTMBS I (XVIlLh lynasty, 16th century D.o.), bas tumod up at Chorchol, in Algeria; 3!JO and a Phamico-lt()'yptian scaraboous, brought from tho same Jo ality, is now in J aris.4w Now, as tho cited scholars both coincide, those monuments may havo boon carried thithoe either by Phamician trad rs, or by later Roman dilet­tanti. N ithor of th m proves anything for phnmonic conquests in Africa; but we havo Jivccl to sec, in tho ease of Egyptian conquests in Assyria, snch positive evidence grow out of tho smallc t, and, at :first, most dnbi ns inclicatiGn, that I fo l tempted to add another, inoditod, fact (long unthought of in my port1olio) to the chain of posts-epooltasloft aside-now existing between ancient Egypt and old Mauritania. On tho 2Gth Doc., 1842, my revered fr'icnd, tho late HoN. JoHN PrcKmUNO- a most scientific philologist- of Boston, gave me an impression 401 of' a fhtgmont of true EgYI tian gTc nish-basalt ston , inscril>o<l wiLh some sixteen or oighto n pure hioroglyphical charac­ters (without cartoucho, but broken from a statue, 1 art of an ann being on its reverse, in good r li.cvo). This was said to havo been picked up on Lho 1·uins of Carthage, by an o:iliccr of the U. . Navy, during tho Tripolitan war; and brought directly to this country, 39B 'l'ypcs of Jlfankind, pp. 618-20. aoo 0 1n:mNJo:, Jll1ltctin At·cMotogique de t' A tlimceum Pra119ais, May, 186G, pp. 88-9. •oo Ftt1\N(JOI8 LI;NOitMAN'I', op. cit., Juno, pp. 46-7. 401 Misl~id among old pnpc~·s, I hnvo no loisuro now to son1'0h for it; but, from an on tt-y mndo at tho timo in my "Analoot~ .JEgyptiaoa," J c~n slate that its dimensions woro abo111, length 7 inches, brCt\dth 4~, t~nd thickness 2. 1'ho hioroglyphios, intaglio, ~tylc Snitio, ni'C out on a sort of j1\mb ot· plinth. Until production of my copy, let me tcrmiui\to vith a note made on its r coptiou :-"If it docs not go in support. of tho conqu sts of the Pharaohs in Barbn.ry, iL proves intercotl1'sc, at Jcnst, with Carthngc"- that is, if found at Co,rthago, for which 1 fcn.r all proof~ arc now, after so mauy years, obliterated.