f Semitic tongues is noted. Despite much effort on
the part of students, it has been impossible to show any Asiatic origin
for the Egyptian language. As Sergi maintains, "everything favors an
African origin."[60] The most brilliant suggestion of modern days links
together the Egyptian of North Africa and the Hottentot and Bushmen
tongues of South Africa.

Language was reduced to writing among the Egyptians and Ethiopians and to
some extent elsewhere in Africa. Over 100 manuscripts of Ethiopian and
Ethiopic-Arabian literature are extant, including a version of the Bible
and historical chronicles. The Arabic was used as the written tongue of
the Sudan, and Negroland has given us in this tongue many chronicles and
other works of black authors. The greatest of these, the Epic of the Sudan
(Tarikh-es-Soudan), deserves to be placed among the classics of all
literature. In other parts of Africa there was no written language, but
there was, on the other hand, an unusual perfection of oral tradition
through bards, and extraordinary efficiency in telegraphy by drum and
horn.

The folklore and proverbs of the African tribes are exceedingly rich. Some
of these have been made familiar to English writers through the work of
"Uncle Remus." Others have been collected by Johnston, Ellis, and Theal.

A black bard of our own day has described the onslaught of the Matabili in
poetry of singular force and beauty:

They saw the clouds ascend from the plains:
It was the smoke of burning towns.
The confusion of the whirlwind
Was in the heart of the great chief of the blue-colored cattle.
The shout was raised,
"They are friends!"
But they shouted again,
"They are foes!"
Till their near approach proclaimed them Matabili.
The men seized their arms,
And rushed out as if to chase the antelope.
The onset was as the voice of lightning,
And their javelins as the shaking of the forest in the autumn storm.[61]

There can be no doubt of the Negro's deep and delicate sense of beauty in
form, color, and sound. Soyaux says of African industry, "Whoever denies
to them independent invention and individual taste in their work either
shuts his eyes intentionally before perfectly evident facts, or lack of
knowledge renders him an incompetent judge."[62] M. Rutot had lately told
us how the Negro race brought art and sculpture to pre-historic Europe.
The bones of the European Negroids are almost without except