to the Atlantic Coast. "One of these divisions," says Lady Lugard, "we
have to acknowledge, was perhaps itself the original source of the
civilization which has through Egypt permeated the Western world....
When the history of Negroland comes to be written in detail, it may be
found that the kingdoms lying toward the eastern end of the Soudan were
the home of races who inspired, rather than of races who received, the
traditions of civilization associated for us with the name of ancient
Egypt."[1]

[Footnote 1: _A Tropical Dependency_, James Nisbet & Co., Ltd., London,
1906, p. 17.]

If now we come to America, we find the Negro influence upon the Indian
to be so strong as to call in question all current conceptions of
American archæology and so early as to suggest the coming of men from
the Guinea Coast perhaps even before the coming of Columbus.[1] The
first natives of Africa to come were Mandingoes; many of the words
used by the Indians in their daily life appear to be not more than
corruptions or adaptations of words used by the tribes of Africa; and
the more we study the remains of those who lived in America before 1492,
and the far-reaching influence of African products and habits, the more
must we acknowledge the strength of the position of the latest thesis.
This whole subject will doubtless receive much more attention from
scholars, but in any case it is evident that the demands of Negro
culture can no longer be lightly regarded or brushed aside, and that as
a scholarly contribution to the subject Wiener's work is of the very
highest importance.

[Footnote 1: See Wiener, I, 178.]