192 Annals of the SoutJi African Micse^im. 



as now left is the more ancient ? we assume that the dialects of, let 

 us say, the Algonquin or the Berber, the Semang or the Aryan, the 

 Bantu or the Semitic are the speech of people who had, by living 

 in common, learnt to modulate their cries into speech, and had thus 

 formed glossological groups totally independent of each other (E. 

 Eeclus), then it must be admitted that the language of the Bush- 

 Hottentot developed into a group probably more distinct than 

 any other. And as culture must perforce ati'ect language, the 

 primitiveness of that of the Hottentot-Bush races leads us to the 

 conclusion that it is not due to degeneration or retrogression, but 

 that the culture, as shown by their relics, and their language have 

 kept on a par ; and this conclusion postulates a very great antiquity. 



Distribution. 



In their homalographic scheme of the distribution of the Pygmy 

 races, including the Negritoes of Asia, Negrilloes of Africa, and the 

 alleged Pygmies (Pygmees discut^s), Schlichter, Deniker, and others, 

 locate in British East Africa the Dogbo, Arengo, &c. — who may 

 possibly be only a cross of the San. The South African Mossaro 

 (Masarwa) is found in the desert region of the Kalahari, and the 

 San Bushman and Hottentot to the north of the Orange Ei\er. 

 Northward, in Morocco, is an unnamed race. In Mentone (Monaco) 

 and Schweizersbild (Switzerland) have been found human remains 

 of these alleged Pygmies. "'^ Lastly, near the confluence of the Tigris 

 and the Euphrates, in the Persian Gulf, are the Limbans ; and in 

 the southern part of Madagascar the Kimo may perhaps be included 

 in the distribution of this ethnic group. 



Traditions, however, throw no light on the story of these members 

 of an alleged Pygmy race. "What Herodotus, Pliny, or Pomponius 

 Mela relate of them may apply to the San, but it is as likely as not 

 that it applied to the Akka and other diminutive African Negrilloes, 

 now almost restricted to the Ituri Forest of the Congo State.! 



We may, however, find a clue to the presence of the Sans either 

 in Arabia or in Somaliland in the account of the famous Egyptian 

 expedition of fine vessels to the kingdom of Punt under the reign of 

 Queen Hatschepset (1533 b.c). 



* But in the tirst-mentioned place the skulls have a strong Australian affinity. 



f Appellations often misapply. Thus A. H. Sayce's discovery from Egyptian 

 hieroglyphs that certain aboriginals of a certain district to the south-east of Egypt 

 bore the name of Trogodytes is a case in point. With the Greeks that word 

 became Troglodytes, i.e., inhabitants of caverns. As a matter of fact, subter- 

 ranean abodes, including now monolithic churches, are far from uncommon in 

 parts of Abyssinia, but they seem to have no connection with the abodes or refuges 

 of early primitive people. 



