Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 57.djvu/44

34 this fellow has rather a lordly port, the expression of a vigorous, brave, alert man. This, which I am disposed to term the Zulu type, from the resemblance to that people, is on many accounts the most interesting of all the groups we have to consider. My idea that it may have come from the above-named tribe is based on an acquaintance with a party of southern Africans who some forty years ago were brought to this country by a showman. I came to know them well. They were attractive fellows, of the same quality as certain blacks I had known in Kentucky. When I saw these strangers I perceived their likeness to certain able blacks whose features and quality had made impressions on my mind that remain clear to the present day. It is likely that this element of the negro people I have termed Zulu is not of any one tribe; it may be of several diverse stocks with no other common quality than that which vigor gives. They may, in part, be from Bangora tribes of the Congo Valley, or even Soudanese. The proportion of this group to the whole is small; because it merges into the other it can not well be estimated. I find that I have reckoned it in my notes as one twentieth of the whole black population.

Set over against these robust blacks, but also of high quality, is a group less distinctly limited, which has for its characteristics a rather tall, lean form, a slender neck, a high head, and a thin face, usually with a nose of better form than is commonly found, sometimes approaching the aquiline. The skin of these people is often as black as that of the Guinea folk, yet it is of another hue—a deader black, perhaps due to some difference in the skin glands. Usually, however, there is a trace of brown in the complexion. Now and then the relative straightness of the hair and their facial profiles suggest that the peculiarity of this people is due to an admixture of Semitic (probably Arabian) blood. Negroes of this type are most abundant in the northern part of the South, particularly in Virginia. They are rare in the plantation States. This is mayhap due to the fact that in the selection of people to be sold to the traders such delicate folk were retained where they belonged—as house servants. These rare negroes, which for lack of a better name will be termed Arabs, are few in number. They can not be reckoned at more than one per cent of the whole.

Besides the comparatively recognizable types above reckoned, there is another which puzzles the observer. They are of varied shapes, generally, however, rather smaller than the average. Their peculiarity consists in the reddish-brown hue of their skins, which at first suggests that they are mulattoes. Their faces and hands are often distinctly blotched with darker patches, in the manner of freckles. At times I have been inclined to regard their