Page:The National geographic magazine, volume 1.djvu/158

 are undoubtedly derived. The idioms of this family are generally known as the alliteral class of languages. North of the Bantu are the Negroes proper, occupying the greater part of Africa between 5° and 15° north latitude. The negro tribes are multitudinous, and, though alike in their main physical features, are diverse in their speech.

North of the Negro are the Nuba Fulah group, apparently indigenous to Africa, but without any thing in common with the other indigenous groups. Their name, "Pullo," or "Fulah," means "yellow," and their color serves to distinguish them from the Negro. The Hottentot, Bantu, Negro, and Fulah, though distinct, have each of them the agglutinative forms of speech. The Hamites are found along the valley of the Nile, in Abyssinia, and portions of the Sudan. The Shemitic tribes occupy the larger part of the Sudan, bounded on the east by the Nile, and on the north by the Mediterranean and North Atlantic.

About one-half of the population are Negroes proper, one-fourth Bantu, one-fourth Shemites and Hamites, a few Nuba Fulahs and Hottentots. The Negroes and Bantu are Pagans; the Shemites and Hamites, Mohammedans. There are, almost, innumerable tribes, speaking different languages or different dialects. Over six hundred tribes and languages have been classified by Shilo, yet each is generally unintelligible to the other. Practically speaking, there are but two great divisions,―the Negroes and Bantu, occupying equatorial and southern Africa; and the Hamites and Shemites, northern Africa. But there is no clear-cut line even between the Mohammedan and Negro. For many hundred years the Negroes have been taken as slaves, and carried into the north of Africa, and have furnished the harems with wives, and the families with servants. The servants are often adopted into the families, so that the Negro blood now largely predominates even among the Shemites and Hamites.

A broader and more practical distinction than that of language or blood is made by the religion of the African. The Mohammedan religion was probably brought from Arabia by the Shemites. They conquered the country along the coast, and exterminated or pushed to the south the former inhabitants. Then, more slowly but steadily, Mohammedanism forced its way south by the sword or by proselyting. Within the last thirty years it has re-assumed its proselyting character, and is now more rapidly extending than at any previous time.