At end of the Third and beginning of the Fourth Century of our era, there was a scholar, a Rhetorician, of Negro blood, living in Africa, who was a man of power. His name was Arnobe. He wrote the Latin tongue from the slopes of the Atlas Mountains. It is from him we know best how far south from the Mediterranean, the prodigious cultivation of Rome penetrated. He had the instincts, some of the training, of a scholar. He made attempt to classify dialects of the people among whom he lived, to show in what condition Latin, as spoken language, survived. His contribution to linguistic knowledge has not been slight. There was a man called Leo the African, who about 1511, traveled extensively in the Black Continent, and wrote in Arabic descriptions of Fez, Timbuctoo, the great rivers, and his experiences in crossing the Sahara. Early in the Seventeenth Century he was translated into French and I seem to remember the Elzevir Press published his books. I recall another interesting book (Seventeenth Century) about the Great Black Merchant, Buchor Sano, who declared there were still houses in his country with roofs of gold. Olandah Egniano was an African; his moving story of how he was kidnapped, then brought to America in a slave ship, is more than interesting. The date was 1793. One of the earliest dramatic _voyages_ to the African West Coast was made long before the discovery of America, by that indefatigable Portuguese explorer, Gomes Azurara, who was born in 1434. Other valiant Portuguese adventurers, such as Filippo Pigafetta, made many charming maps, some of them heightened with color, of Africa, in the early days. The first Hollander to describe the coast of the Great Black Continent was Marees, in 1617. As long ago as 1808 a _History of the Literature of the Negro_ was published, somewhat lavishly, in France. The book adds a rather long list of Negroes who have written upon science and art. Stored in the Negro, there is an unexpanded race-soul, which will be one of the future’s gifts. Whatever art in the U. S. of North America happens to be, in that the Negro will have part credit as originator. I have visited a collection of works of Degas. Marvellous, luscious color, clothing bodies that are ugly, drawn with scorn, rage; contempt for that which is women. The walls flashed colors that make the heart ache; masterly drawing, drawing that contains the skill of surgeon and observer. No. 64—A green we dream in English springs. Fresh, impatient brushing in! The usual daring, unplanned arrangement. The intrepidity of individual vision united with quaint, appealing ugliness of costume. No. 59—An interior with two women. Neither is young nor beautiful. Both are soberly clad. They wear black bonnets. Superb assurance of brush lends interest. The white of a curtained window back of them, rich with faint shadow-modeling, tones in which one _feels_ jade, sad pink. A dull rose on front of a bonnet gleams derisively. Painted in high, fine rhythm.