THE

AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA

OF

HISTORY, BIOGRAPHY AND TRAVEL.

DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY.

ANCIENT HISTORY.

THE general consent of mankind points to the region of Central Asia as having been the original seat from which the human race dispersed itself over the globe; and accordingly, it is this region, and especially the western portion of it, which we find to have been the theatre of the earliest recorded transactions. In short, it was in Central Asia that the first large mass of ripened humanity was accumulated-a great central nucleus of human life, so to speak, constantly enlarging, and from which emissaries incessantly streamed out over the globe in all directions. In process of time this great central mass having swollen out till it filled Asia and Africa, broke up into three fragments thus giving parentage to the three leading varieties into which ethnographers divide the human species- the Caucasian, the Mongolian, and the Ethiopian or Negro-the Caucasians overspreading southern and western Asia; the Mongolians overspreading northern and eastern Asia; and the Ethiopians overspreading Africa. From these three sources streamed forth branches which, intermingling in various proportions, have constituted the various nations of the earth.

Differing from each other in physiological characteristics, the three great varieties of the human species have also differed widely in their historical career. The germs of a grand progressive development seem to have been implanted specially in the Caucasian variety, the parent stock of all the great civilized nations of ancient and modern times. History, therefore, concerns itself chiefly with this variety in the evolution of whose destinies the true thread of human progress is to be found. Ere proceeding, however, to sketch the early development of this highly-endowed variety of our species in the nations of antiquity, a few observations may be offered. regarding the other two the Ethiopian and Mongolian-which began the race of life along with the Caucasian, and whose destinies, doubtless, what

ever may have been their historical functions hitherto, are involved in some profound and beautiful manner with the bearing of the race as a whole.

ETHIOPIAN HISTORY.

A German Historian thus sums up all that is known of Ethiopian history that is, of the part which the great Negro race, inhabiting all Africa with the exception of the north-eastern coasts, performed in the general affairs of mankind in the early ages of the world: On the history of this division of the species two remarks may be made: the one, that a now entirely extinct knowledge of the extension and power of this branch of the human family must have been forced upon even the Greeks by their early poets and historians; the other, that the Ethiopian history is interwoven throughout with that of Egypt. As regards the first remark, it is clear that in the earliest ages this branch of the race must have played an important part, since Meroe (in the present Nubia) is mentioned both by Herodotus (B. c. 408) and Strabo (A. D. 20); by the one as a still-existing, by the other as a formerly-existing seat of royalty, and centre of the Ethiopian religion and civilization." To this Strabo adds, that the race. spread from the boundaries of Egypt over the mountains of Atlas, as far as the Gaditanian Straits. Ephorus, too (B. c. 405), seems to have had a very great impression of the Ethiopians, since he names in the east the Indians, in the south the Ethiopians, in the west the Celts, in the north the Scythians, as the most mighty and numerous peoples of the known earth. Already in Strabo's time, however, their ancient power had been gone for an indefinite period, and the Negro states found themselves, after Meroe had ceased to be a religious capital, almost in the same situation as that in which they still continue. The second remark on the Negro branch of the human race and its history, can only be fully elucidated when the interpretation of the inscriptions on Egyptian monuments shall have been farther advanced. The latest travels into Abyssinia show this much that at one time the Egyptian religion and civilization extended over the principal seat of the northern Negroes. Single mummies and monumental figures corroborate what Herodotus expressly says, that a great portion of

* Some years ago, a traveler, Mr. G. A. Hoskins, visited the site of this capital state of ancient Ethiopia, an island, if it may be so called, about 300 miles long, enclosed within two forking branches of the Nile. He found in it several distinct groups of magnificent pyramidal structures. Of one ruin he says 'Never were my feelings more ardently excited than in approaching, after so tedious a journey, to this magnificent necropolis. The appearance of the pyramids in the distance announced their importance; but I was gratified beyond my most sanguine expectations when I found myself in the midst of them. The pyramids of Gizeh are magnificent, wonderful from their stupendous magnitude; but for picturesque effect and elegance of architectural design, I infinitely prefer those of Meroe. I expected to find few such remains here, and certainly nothing so imposing, so interesting, as these sepulchres, doubtless of the kings and queens of Ethiopia. I stood for some time lost in admiration. This, then, was the necropolis, or city of the dead! But where was the city itself, Meroe, its temples and palaces? A large space, about 2000 feet in length, and the same distance from the river, strewed with burnt brick and with some fragments of walls, and stones, similar to those used in the erection of the pyramids, formed, doubtless, part of that celebrated site. The idea that this is the exact situation of the city is strengthened by the remark of Strabo, that the walls of the habitations were built of bricks. These indicate, without doubt, the site of that cradle of the arts which distinguish a civilized from a barbarous society. Of the birthplace of the arts and sciences, the wild natives of the adjacent villages have made a miserable burying-place; of the city of the learned -"its cloud-capt towers," its " its gorgeous palaces," its "solemn temples " there is "left not a rack behind." The sepulchres alone of her departed kings have fulfilled their destination of surviving the habitations which their philosophy taught them to consider but as inns, and are now fast mouldering into dust. Scarcely a trace of a palace or a temple is to be seen.