Page:Africa by Élisée Reclus, Volume 3.djvu/177

 and the Gambia. They are the exclusive inhabitants of the Walo, Cayor, Baol, and Jolof districts, the last mentioned, properly the name of a chief branch, being sometimes applied to the whole nation. Saint-Louis and Dakar, the two centres of French authority, both lie in Wolof territory, and in all the military stations throughout Sudan there is sure to be a Wolof colony preserving its national speech and usages. According to Tautain, the term Wolof would appear to mean "Speakers," as if all other peoples were speechless barbarians; Barth, however, proposes perhaps the less probable sense of "Blacks," in opposition to the neighbouring Fulahs, or "Red" people.

Certainly the Wolofs are "blacks of the blacks," their shiny skin having the colour of ebony, and their very lips being black, although of a lighter shade than the rest of the body. They are distinguished from most Negroes of the seaboard

by a slighter degree of prognathism, the incisors being very little inclined forward. Generally of tall stature, both sexes have an admirably proportioned bust, but [sic]lender lower extremities, undeveloped calves, flat feet, and great toe more detached than among Europeans.

The Wolof, distinct from all other forms of speech current in Africa, is a typical agglutinating language. The roots, nearly all monosyllables ending a consonants, are determined by means of suffixes, and coalesce together while remaining invariable in their different nominal, adjectival, verbal, and adverbial meanings. By these suffixes the meaning of the words is endlessly modified, verbs, for instance, being diversely conjugated in their several reciprocal, emphatic, augmentative, diminutive, accelerative, repetitive, cursative, or habitual forms by a change of the final syllable. A few roots have been borrowed from the Fulah and Mandingan tongues, and some technical terms from the Arabic; but as a