Strong, virile, and simple-minded savages,
they lived as we may imagine prehistoric men--hunting, fighting,
marrying, and dying, with no ideas beyond the gratification of their
physical desires, and no fears save those engendered by ghosts,
witchcraft, the worship of ancestors, and other forms of superstition
common among peoples of low development. They displayed the virtues of
barbarism. They were brave and honest. The smallness of their
intelligence excused the degradation of their habits. Their ignorance
secured their innocence. Yet their eulogy must be short, for though
their customs, language, and appearance vary with the districts they
inhabit and the subdivisions to which they belong, the history of all
is a confused legend of strife and misery, their natures are uniformly
cruel and thriftless, and their condition is one of equal squalor
and want.
Although the negroes are the more numerous, the Arabs exceed in power.
The bravery of the aboriginals is outweighed by the intelligence of the
invaders and their superior force of character. During the second
century of the Mohammedan era, when the inhabitants of Arabia went forth
to conquer the world, one adventurous army struck south. The first
pioneers were followed at intervals by continual immigrations of Arabs
not only from Arabia but also across the deserts from Egypt and Marocco.
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