Chad Basin; of East Soudan and Upper Nile; and of South Africa, where the Bantu family resides. These four regions contain from four to eight great groups of black or dark-colored people representing often very widely different races speaking dissimilar languages, entirely different in their appearances and customs, and finally, having altogether separate histories. Some of the races we know a good deal about, some of them we know but very little about and, of the great mass of them, many millions in number, we know absolutely nothing. We do know, however, that some twenty-five millions more of negroes and their descendants are living in other parts of the world besides Africa. Their descendants are either true negroes or else hybrids resulting from the former's crossing with the whites, with Indians, or other nationalities. Many of these negroes and half-castes are to be found in North and South America and the West Indies, having been forcibly introduced there through the slave-hunters of by-gone years. It is reckoned that there are some ten millions of negroes and half-breed descendants in the United States alone, and these in some sections are increasing with great rapidity, especially in the Southern States where the climate, food, and other conditions are suitable to their propagation. As the book I am now writing is chiefly devoted to a consideration of the negroes and their descendants in this country I shall not attempt to pay any attention to the major part of the great hordes of those peoples to be found in Africa. I shall here only incidentally refer to those on the west coast, known as the Gold or Slave Coast of the African Continent, and only refer to the other tribes or races as occasion requires, and that for the purpose of draw-
