Liberia 



(*- 



to me on the plateaux of Eastern Africa amongst the Andorobo. 

 Likewise, two or three hundred miles east of the Congo Forest 

 I have seen the Congo Pygmy type with the squashed nose 

 appearing in tribes of mixed origin. This also occurs in the 

 eastern parts of the Bahr-al-Ghazal region of the Egyptian 

 Sudan and perhaps as well to the north and south of the River 

 Benue. But I have never seen the physical characteristics of 

 the Bushman, nor, as yet, those of the Congo Pygmy, in 

 any of the West African peoples ; though when visiting 

 Portuguese Guinea in 1883 I realised that there were 

 West African savages with prognathous profiles and savage 

 appearance. 



Specimens of the Kpwesi peoples of Central Liberia 

 seem to be of somewhat more primitive physical type than 

 the rest of the I>iberian peoples. They have dispropor- 

 tionately long arms and short legs, like some of the races 

 on the north-eastern flanks of the Congo Forest. The nose 

 has a depressed bridge, but though it is broad and rather flat 

 at the tip, the cartilage of the nostrils is thin, and does not 

 exhibit the flattened snout of the Pygmy with the aLe of the 

 nose on a level with the apex. Occasionally rather a prog- 

 nathous type shows itself amongst the Kruboys or their interior 

 relations, the Putu. But as a rule the indigenous Negroes of 

 Liberia are by no means of low or primitive stock. Many 

 of them exhibit yellow-brown skins and considerable physical 

 beauty in the proportions and contours of the body and limbs 

 and even of the face. W^herever this handsome appearance 

 occurs in the features it is due of course to an infusion, more 

 or less ancient, of Caucasian blood. 



This ancient infiltration of the Caucasian in Liberia is due 

 in the main to the Negroid styled generically Mandingo, and 

 the history of the Mandingo race is probably this : 



890 



