smith can cast brass into various ornaments, Sometimes he pours it into a cylindrical mould, so as to make a bar from which bracelets and similar ornaments can be hammered, and sometimes he makes studs and knobs by forming their shape in clay moulds."[87]

Verily, the day will come when these warlike tribes shall beat their spears into pruning-hooks, and their assagais into ploughshares, and shall learn war no more!  The skill and cunning of their artificers shall be consecrated to the higher and nobler ends of civilization, and the noise of battle shall die amid the music of a varied industry!

FOOTNOTES: 

[68] Livingstone’s Expedition to the Zambesi, pp. 216, 217.

[69] Ashango Land, pp. 288, 289, 291, 292.

[70] Western Africa, p. 257 sq.

[71] Through the Dark Continent, vol. i. p. 489.

[72] Uncivilized Races of Men, vol. i. chap, vii.

[73] Equatorial Africa, pp. 377, 378.

[74] Savage Africa, p. 216.

[75] Expedition to Zambesi, pp. 626, 627.

[76] Livingstone’s Expedition to the Zambesi, pp. 307, 308.

[77] Savage Africa, p. 219.

[78] See Savage Africa, p. 207.  Livingstone’s Life-Work, pp. 47, 48.  Uncivilized Races of Men, vol. 1. pp. 71-86; also Du Chaillu and Denham and Clappterton.

[79] Savage Africa, pp. 424, 425.

[80] Livingstone’s Expedition to the Zambesi, pp 625, 626.

[81] Savage Africa, pp 426, 427.

[82] Uncivilized Races of Men, vol. i. p. 94.

[83] Through the Dark Continent, vol. i. p. 344 sq.; also vol. ii. pp. 87, 88.

[84] Livingstone’s Zambesi, pp. 613-617.

[85] Uncivilized Races of Men, vol. i. p. 146.

[86] Ashango Land, pp 290, 291.

[87] Uncivilized Races of Men, vol. i. pp. 97, 98.

CHAPTER VIII.

LANGUAGES, LITERATURE, AND RELIGION.

     STRUCTURE OF AFRICAN LANGUAGES.—­THE MPONGWE, MANDINGO, AND
     GREBO.—­POETRY:  EPIC, IDYLLIC, AND MISCELLANEOUS.—­RELIGIONS
     AND SUPERSTITIONS.

Philologically the inhabitants of Africa are divided into two distinct families.  The dividing line that Nature drew across the continent is about two degrees north of the equator.  Thus far science has not pushed her investigations into Northern Africa; and, therefore, little is known of the dialects of that section.  But from what travellers have learned of portions of different tribes that have crossed the line, and made their way as far as the Cape of Good Hope, we infer, that, while there are many dialects in that region, they all belong to one common family.  During the Saracen movement, in the second century of the Christian era, the Arab turned his face toward Central Africa.  Everywhere traces of his language and religion are to be found.  He transformed