he simple and pastoral
Serreres.

The Foulahs live upon the elevated plateaus of Senegambia and around the
sources of the Rio Grande. The Mandingoes introduced the Koran among
them. French writers represent them as being capable of sustained
labor; they cultivate carefully the millet, wheat, cotton, tobacco, and
lentils, and have numerous herds. Their mutton is famous, and their oxen
are very fat. The Foulahs are mild and affable, full of _esprit_, fond
of hunting and music; they shun brandy, and like sweet drinks. It is not
difficult to govern them, as they unite good sense to quiet manners, and
have an instinct for propriety. Their horror of slavery is so great,
that, if one of them is condemned to be sold, all the neighbors club
together to pay his forfeit or purchase a ransom; so that few of them
were found in the slave-ships, unless seized in the fields, or carried
off from the villages by night.

They have mechanics who work in iron and silver, leather and wood; they
build good houses, and live in them cleanly and respectable. The Foulahs
show, quite as decidedly as the Mandingoes, that great passions and
interests have given to these parts of Africa a history and developed
stocks of men. When the Foulahs are compared with the wandering
Felatahs, from whom they came, who speak the same language and wear the
same external characters, it will be seen how Nature has yearned for her
children in these unknown regions, and set herself, for their sakes,
great stints of work, in that motherly ambition to bring them forward in
the world. Yes,--thought the Guinea trader,--these skilful Foulahs are
Nature's best gifts to man.

Their pure African origin is, however, still a contested point. Many
ethnologists are unwilling to attribute so much capacity to a native
negro tribe. D'Eichthal objects, that "a pretended negro people,
pastoral, nomadic, warlike, propagating a religious faith, to say
nothing of the difference in physical characteristics, offers an anomaly
which nothing can explain. It would force us to attribute to the black
race, whether for good or for evil, acts and traits that are foreign to
its nature. To cite only one striking example, let me recall that Job
Ben Salomon, the African, who in the last century was carried to America
and thence to England, and was admired by all who knew him for the
loftiness of his character, the energy of his religious fanaticism, and
the extent of his intelligence,--this Ben S