Page:The Negro a menace to American civilization.djvu/31



people speak of the inhabitants of the great continent of Africa in the loosest possible manner, designating them collectively as negroes. This, however, as every well-informed person knows, is by no means the case. In the first place all the northern tier of countries bordering upon the Mediterranean are inhabited by races of an entirely different description and possessing important histories. So it is with the most of the east side of the continent and southward for some considerable distance. In the extreme southwest, too, we have the Bosjesmen and the Hottentots, and neither of these belong to the negro or negroid races. Their stock is quite different. Apart from the inhabitants of Africa just indicated, as well as those who have made Africa their home coming from diverse countries, as Europe and other continents, there still remain to be taken into consideration some one hundred and thirty-two millions of others, and there are the negro and negroid races, either composed of pure and original stock, or those produced by hybridization or inter-breeding with the foreigners or with other African nations. This enormous mass of people occupy four great regions on the continent, namely the region of West Soudan and Guinea; of Central Soudan and the (27)