Page:Ossendowski - The Fire of Desert Folk.djvu/42

26 "I do not know exactly what to say to that. I can only point out to you that this 'henna' appears to have some strange connection with the name 'Tahennu' which the Egyptians gave to a people living to the west of the Pharaoh's realm."

I often pondered on this striking similarity between the words and feel that the explanation of the Marabout may throw some light on the significance of tire Egyptian name. As a matter of fact, "light" often indicated something "sunny" or "divine," hence "men with God's skin." According to their accepted tradition the skin of the gods was red. Did there exist along the Atlantic shore of Africa a red race? Not only did it exist, but it exists still in the Basques living in the western Pyrenees and along the shore of the Bay of Biscay. In an article which I read not long ago concerning the lost Atlantis, the author makes the confident statement that the inhabitants of that continent belonged to the red race.

Although I know nothing of Mr. Grewster's qualifications or training, it seems to me that his speculative, loose hypothesis has as much to commend it as that presupposing the migration of a brown race from the edge of the Sahara and of another brown race from Iberia and the shores of the Baltic across the straits or overland bridges that formerly united Italy and Spain with the African continent.

And all this speculation as to the origin of the primitive population of North Africa sprang from a visit to