Page:Light and truth.djvu/203

Rh By this event Africa was recovered to the empire. In the year 536, Belisarius, the great hero of this age, took Rome from the Goths. Though some time elapsed after this event, before the Gothic power was annihilated in Italy, the subjugation of the Ostro Goths, by Belisarius, restored Italy to the empire, A. D. 537

.—They conquered the whole world known to the ancients. The Saracens or Moors, the descendants of Ishmael, the son of Abraham, by Hagar, an Ethiopian woman, subdued Arabia, Persia, Mesopotamia, Chaldea, Syria, Palestine and the northern part of Africa. Even Sicily, and a part of Europe, became part of their dominion in A. D. 656 — 666. Their empire was divided into seven kingdoms about A. D. 936.

was one of the most remarkable men of his age. In the course of a long and harrassing war with their Dutch masters, the Brazilians had become fatigued, and their resources nearly exhausted. In the midst of their greatest despondency, a stout, active, African (slave,) named Henry Diaz, presented himself in the Brazilian camp. With the air and tone of one whose purpose had been deliberately formed, he proposed to the commander, John Fernandes, to raise a regiment of his own color, and bring them to the rescue of their common country. Although the Portuguese, and other nations of the south of Europe, have never indulged toward the colored race those rancorous prejudices which exist in the United States, yet the sudden appearance, and singular proposal, of this intrepid African, occasioned no small surprise among the Portuguese officers. The arrival of Joan of Arc in the camp of Charles the Seventh could scarcely have produced more wonder. But Diaz, though an enthusiast, made no pretension to miracles. He was well acquainted with the character of his race; and he relied upon his own influence, and tact, to develope the great qualities, which he well knew they possessed. Their situation was indeed wretched and degraded in the