Page:The rising son, or, The antecedents and advancement of the colored race (IA risingsonthe00browrich).pdf/101

 and which goes to substantiate what has already been said with regard to the descent of the Africans from the region of the Nile. He says:—

"I happened to be present when all the head men of the great chief Msama who lives west of the south end of Tanganayika, had come together to make peace with certain Arabs who had burned their chief town, and I am certain one could not see more finely-formed, intellectual heads in any assembly in London or Paris, and the faces and forms corresponded with the finely-shaped heads. Msama himself had been a sort of Napoleon for fighting and conquering in his younger days.

"Many of the women are very pretty, and, like all ladies, would be much prettier if they would only let themselves alone. Fortunately, the dears cannot change their darling black eyes, beautiful foreheads, nicely-rounded limbs, well-shaped forms, and small hands and feet; but they must adorn themselves, and this they will do by filing their splendid teeth to points like cats' teeth. These specimens of the fair sex make shift by adorning their fine, warm brown skins, and tattooing various pretty devices without colors. They are not black, but of a light warm brown color.

"The Cazembe's queen would be esteemed a real beauty, either in London, Paris, or New York; and yet she had a small hole through the cartilage, near the tip of her fine aquiline nose. But she had only filed one side of two of the front swan-white teeth, and then what a laugh she had! Large sections of the country northwest of Cazembe, but still in the same inland region, are peopled with men very much like those of Msama and Cazembe."