POPULAR MISCELLANY. 



7*7 



considerable respect for those animals. 

 Many of the ornaments, the handles of the 

 vessels, and the skill with which the reliefs 

 were finished, reminded the discoverers of 

 Greek patterns. Some of the vessels, too, 

 bore figures which were thought to be in- 

 scriptions or hieroglyphics, and a remark- 

 able resemblance was traced between these 

 characters and the letters of the Greek al- 

 phabet. This leads our Dutch antiquary to 

 consider the question whether there may 

 not have been some kind of a connection 

 between these Caribs and the ancient 

 Greeks. Ch. Riimelin is quoted as having 

 suggested the possibility of looking for the 

 origin of the'northern tribes of Colombia, 

 through the Guanches of the Canary Islands, 

 to the Foulahs of the Soodan. Cyries also 

 speaks of having seen hieroglyphic figures 

 representing the sun, moon, and various 

 animals, roughly cut on the granite rocks 

 of Guiana at such heights that ladders had 

 to be used to reach them. 



The Stone Age in Africa. Herr Richard 

 Andree has accumulated a large mass of 

 evidences of the existence of a stone age in 

 Africa a point which has hitherto been in- 

 volved in much doubt. The Djurs, on the 

 White Nile, still hammer their iron with a 

 block of granite ; smoothed stones are still 

 used for hammer and anvil between the 

 east coast and the Tanganyika Lake ; the 

 Hottentots and Bushmen dig roots with per- 

 forated stones; the Arabs in Egypt curry 

 their shorn sheep with flint ; the Bushmen 

 tip their arrows with bone, and the Gabiri, 

 in Bagirmi, with clay. Stories, which are 

 reminiscences of the days of stone instru- 

 ments, are told among the Hereros, and 

 among the Bazimba of Madagascar. When 

 the Europeans discovered the Canary Isl- 

 ands, they found the Guanches in the midst 

 of a stone age. This much we know of the 

 present use of stone. The historical evi- 

 dences are scarce. Diodorus Siculus says 

 the Libyans threw stones at their enemies, 

 and Agatharcides says that the Ethiopians 

 tied stone points to their arrows, while Stra- 

 bo says they tipped them with antelope- 

 horn. Vessels and implements of stone have 

 become quite common among the " finds " 

 of Egypt, and in all the countries and the 

 deserts to the western border of Morocco. 



While not more is known about the stone 

 evidences than about the other features of 

 the intermediate countries, flints and stone 

 vessels, of both crude palaeolithic and more 

 highly-finished forms are found at numer- 

 ous places in the southern point of Africa, 

 from the mouth of the Orange River to Dela- 

 goa Bay. The implements are very sim- 

 ilar in form and material to the European 

 finds, and present the same puzzle in the 

 occurrence of nephrite among them. As- 

 suming that evidences will be found at least 

 as abundantly in the countries which have 

 not yet been examined for them, the con- 

 clusion is drawn that the Africans, although 

 they have been using iron as far back in his- 

 torical times as our knowledge extends, had 

 also a stone age. 



Indistinctness of Race Divisions. Pro- 

 fessor Leon Rosny, in his forthcoming work 

 on the " Danubian Principalities," says, 

 speaking of the nationality of the Roumani- 

 ans, that that people confirms a view which 

 he has held for years, and which is also M. 

 Renan's view, that the matter of nationality 

 is very largely a question of feeling. Many 

 different elements may have contributed to 

 the formation of a Roumanian nationality, 

 but the chief one has been the fancy that 

 the people of Moldavia and Wallachia were 

 descended from a mixture of the ancient 

 Dacians with Trajan's soldiers, and were, 

 therefore, the Romans of the East, whose 

 mission it was to guard the interests of the 

 Latin race in that part of Europe. Reminis- 

 cences of Roman antiquity are still current 

 in the country, as, for example, in a popular 

 dance, the Kalusar, which represents the 

 rape of the Sabine women. Conversely, the 

 Tartars of the Dobrudja are composed of a 

 great variety of types, from that of the pure 

 European to that of the most pronounced 

 Mongolian, but they all pass alike for Tar- 

 tars. These things suggest, again and again, 

 the thought that the characteristic traits 

 which are held to be most decisive in de- 

 termining the differences between the groups 

 of mankind are in reality very flexible and 

 changeable. Physical tokens are of service 

 only for the establishment of two or three 

 grand divisions among men, and the value 

 even of these divisions is becoming more 

 and more subject to criticism. Linguistic 



