tails of the African sheep. The steatopygu of the Hottentot
consists merely of fat traversed in various directions by strong
cellular fibres.
The pelvis of the Hottentot female bore, some resemblance
to that oPthe Negress.*: e^est à dire, il est proportionnellement
plus petit, moins évasé, la crête antérieuse de Foi des
iles plus grosse, et plus recourbée en dehors, la tubérosité de
l’ischion plus grosse.” These characters in the Negress and
the Bushman female approximate, but in an extremely sipall
degree to those of the pelvis of the simiae.
In one of two minute characters of the skeleton, M. Cuvier
recognised a correspondence between the Bushmen and
the Guanches. He says, “ la lame qui sépare la fossette
cubitale antérieure et la postérieure de l’humerus, n’etoit pas
ossifiée : il existe un trou à cet endroit, comme dans 1’ humerus
de plusieurs singes, des chiens, et de quelques autres
carnassiers. J ’ai trouvé aussi ' qde la Gouanche et la. Bos-
chismanne avoient les angles de l’omoplate plus aigues eifè
bord spinal plus prolongé que la Négresse et l’Européene.’ ’ : i
The former of these characters, namely, the foramen observed
in the humerus, or the opening into the fossa !©r cavity
of the olecranon, has been thought the more important
as it is known to exist as a constant character in many tribes
of animals, as, for example, in many of the simiae, in sddgs.,
and some other carnivorous kinds, in the wild-boar, the ehev-
rotip, and the daman. The subject has-been lately referred to
by M. Dubreuil, in a memoir presented by him to the Academy
of Sciences, on which a report has been given by M.
Flourens.* In two skulls of Guanches exhibited by M. Dubreuil,
this foramen was wanting. It is thereforenot a characteristic
of the race which inhabited the Canary Islands. M.
Flourens discovered it in the humérus of an Egyptian mummy,
and in the skeleton of a female Mulatto, btit sought for it in
vain in that of a Negress. He remarks that it exists occasionally
in Europeans. From all these facts we must conclude that
the presence or absence of this character in human skeletons
is probably an instance of individual variety.
* Mémoire sur les Caractères des Races, pris delà Tête Osseuse. Par M. Bubrueil.
CHAPTER XV.
CONCLUDING OBSERVATIONS ON THE PHYSICAL CHARACTERS
OF THE AFRICAN NATIONS, ON THEIR RELATION TO THE
i|iili!lMATE OF AFRICA, AND O« THEIR CONSTANCY OR LIABILITY
TO VARIATION.
S é c t io n I.—-Inquiry into the Relations between the Phenomena
of Variety :in the' Physical Characters of the
African Races and Climate and other external condi-
~ tiens."
I n flSonclu#ng this survey of African ethnography, I shall
endeavour to collect some inferences from the facts already
reviewed,"which may contributey ias fear as their evidence ex*
tends, to a solution of the inquiries stated at the outset of
this part of my work.
If we inquire in the first place whether the physical characters
of the African nations display themselves under any
relation to climate, facts seem t© decide the question in the
affirmative; for we might describe the limits of Negroland to
the north and south with tolerable correctness, by saying that
it is bounded on both sides by the tropics j that is, that the
native country of all the black races, properly so termed, seems
to ‘be the intertropical region. If we follow the prolongations
of Central Africa to the southward of the' tropic of Capricorn,
we find the Hottentots, in whom the hue of the Negro is
diluted to a yellowish brown, and the Kafirs, who in the
country of the Bechuanas, are said to be red or copper-coloured
; but here are no people resembling the black natives of
equatorial Africa. T© the northward of the Senegal we have
the Tuaryk in the oases of the Great Desert, and wandering
mm