in some tribes varies from deep bronze to jet black, but most generally the latter
is the prevailing color.”* I give this hypothesis as I find it.
19. THE AUSTRO-AFRICAN FAMILY.
South of the Gaffers to the extremity of Africa, live the Hottentots, one of
the most singular varieties of the human species, and the nearest approximation
to the lower animals. Their stature is of the mediate class, their persons large
and clumsy, while their limbs are generally better moulded than in the northern
Negroes. They have remarkably small hands and feet, which Sparrman considers
a characteristic mark of this nation. Their complexion is a yellowish brown,
compared by travellers to the peculiar hue of Europeans in the last stage of jaundice.
Others call it a bright olive. Their hair, which is black and woolly, is
attached to the scalp in small twisted tufts, but they are nearly destitute of beard.
The head is large, the forehead low and broad, and the face extremely wide between
the cheek bones, whence it retreats rapidly to a small, contracted chin. The eyes
are small and far apart, the nose very broad and flat, and the mouth large; and
the women are represented as even more repulsive in appearance than the men.
Notwithstanding these personal disadvantages, Kolbenf asserts that among many
thousand Hottentots who had come under his observation, he never saw a bandy
leg or a crooked limb, nor any other deformities, excepting two cripples only.
The Hottentots have but very vague ideas of religious obligations, although
they are extremely superstitious. “ The faults of which they are accused are, an
inveterate indolence and gluttony, devouring every kind of animal garbage that
falls in their way, without preparation, and when thus gorged they throw themselves
down and sleep off* the effects. That they are, however, capable of
improvement, is evident from the conduct of those formed into an armed corps
by the. English, and who not only showed a sufficient degree of energy, but also
grew cleanly in their persons.”^
The preceding remarks, however, apply chiefly to the Korans and the
adjacent tribes, some of whom are naturally docile and inoffensive, while others
have lost a part of their native rudeness by their proximity to the better sort of
European colonists. But the Bosjesmans are far more savage and degraded than
any other Hottentot tribes: Lichtenstein, indeed, maintains that they are a
* Trav. in Southern Africa, II, p. 117. t Present State of the Cape of Good Hope, p. 53.
X Tucket, Maritime Geog. I ll, p. 10.
distinct people, speaking a language different from the Hottentots, and constituting
the ultimate link in the scale of humanity. They are robbers by profession?
cruel by nature, and have such a passion for destroying, that when they attack
any of the herds belonging to the colonists, they will kill every animal they
cannot drive away, rather than leave any for the owner.* These Bosjesmans,
moreover, have the Hottentot features in their utmost ugliness, although their
predatory life gives more activity and animation to their appearance. Like the
New Hollanders, their eyelids become so much closed after middle life as to
conceal the whole of the eyeball, leaving an aperture just sufficient to admit the
light-f
Their dwellings are mud hovels, bushes, caves and clefts in the rock, which
last often serve them in place of houses.—Many go naked, but others cover themselves
in the simplest manner with the skins of animals killed in the chase. They
feed on flesh when they can get it, eating it either raw or cooked indifferently; but
their chief food consists of roots, berries and plants, whence their emaciated forms
and shrivelled skin.f They have but little better idea of cleanliness than the
brute creation; and a curious fact is mentioned by Lichtenstein, who says that
many of the Hottentot tribes have a way of crouching down to the water, and
throwing it into their mouths with the forefingers of both hands.§
20. THE OCEANIC-NEGRO FAMILY.
The Oceanic-Negro|| family is dispersed extensively through the Indian
Archipelago, and is also found in many islands of the Pacific. In the texture of
the hair, in the color of the skin, and in fact in every physical relation these people
are at once recognised as members of the great Negro race. M. Bory de St.
Vincent describes them from personal observation in the following terms: Their
physical characters consist in the color of the skin, which is even blacker than
that of the darkest Ethiopians; the head is rounded, yet compressed in front and
at the sides, at the same time that the facial angle is not more acute than in other
Negroes: the hair is short and woolly, and more compact upon the head than in
any other people; the superciliary ridges and the cheek bones are extremely
* Lichtenstein, Trav. in S. Africa, II, p. 50. t Burchell, Trav. in S. Africa, I, p. 459.
X Sparrman, Trav. in Africa, I, p. 201. § Trav. in Africa, II, p. 48.
|| Called Melaniens (Homo melanicus) by Bory de St. Vincent. They have generally borne the
collective name of Papuas. See next section.