INTRODUCTORY 17

ing the countries eastward of the Nile, and the Western stretching from the western shores of that river to the Atlantic coast. One of these divisions, we have to acknowledge, was perhaps itself the original source of the civilisation which has through Egypt permeated the Western world. Both divisions alike faced north, and had their frontage to the great civilisations of their day^ along what may be described as the shore of the desert, fringing the 17th parallel of north latitude. Across this desert the native camel was the ship which bore their merchandise and maintained their intercourse with outer life. The caravan roads were the trade routes marked

for them as clearly as the trade winds marked the route to be taken on the ocean by later sailing ships. The tonnage of the big caravans was greater than the tonnage of the vessels by which at a subsequent period Drake and Magellan circumnavigated the globe, and England,

Portugal, and Holland maintained a prosperous trade with the East Indies. It was sufficient for the purposes of a considerable commerce, and there can be no doubt that from a very early period the communities of the coast were in close and constant communication with

Negroland.

(^When the history of Negroland comes to be written in detail, it may be found that the kingdoms lying towards the eastern end of the Soudan were the home of races who inspired, rather than of races who received, the traditions of civilisation associated for us with the name

of ancient Egypt. For they cover on either side of the

Upper Nile, between the latitudes of 10* and 17°, terri-

tories in which are found monuments more ancient than

the oldest Egyptian monuments. If this should prove to be the case, and the civilised world be forced to recog-

nise in a black people the fount of its original enlighten-

ment, it may happen that we shall have to revise entirely our view of the black races, and regard those who now

exist as the decadent representatives of an almost for-

gotten era, rather than as the embryonic possibility of an

B