114 . Sir Charles Eliot [May 19, 



more than a hundred years, though in a few cases genealogies may go 

 back further. But even in this short period we know that there have 

 been many movements of tribes, and that the present distribution is 

 not likely to be even approximately original, though we can form no 

 idea of how many strata of population there may have been. For 

 the early history of central and southern Africa — that is, the history 

 of more than two thousand years ago — as far as I know only two 

 data are available. The first is, that unknown builders, almost 

 certainly foreign emigrants who came to work gold mines, con- 

 structed very considerable erections of stone in Rhodesia ; the 

 second is, that both classical Greek authors, as well as the monuments 

 of ancient Egypt, record that there were pygmies near the som'ces of 

 the Nile, and of course the continued existence of these pygmies 

 has been demonstrated of late years. It is certain that in many parts 

 of Africa there are dwarfish races who stand on a lower level both 

 physically and mentally than the surrounding natives. This 

 small stature is most remarkable in the pygmies of the central equa- 

 torial forests, but the bushmen of the Cape and some of the in- 

 habitants of Portuguese West Africa are also distinctly shorter than 

 the average of ordinary humanity. In East Africa there are natives 

 who have no independent tribal existence, but who live among and yet 

 distinct from their more powerful neighbours on friendly terms, but 

 still on a footing of recognised inferiority. Such a population is 

 found among the Masai and Somalis, and perhaps elsewhere. Some- 

 times they are hunters, who provide game or ivory for the superior 

 tribe, sometimes they are smiths who make its weapons, sometimes 

 they are sorcerers. I have not in my own experience seen any of 

 these races who could be called dwarfs, Init they are distinctly not 

 big men and are somewhat mean looking, and, except when their 

 special talents, such as their wonderful skill in hunting, are concerned, 

 they seem deficient in general intelligence. It is reasonable to assume 

 that they represent an earlier stratum of population, which has partly 

 been absorbed by other races and partly remained distinct in this 

 curious servile relation. 



There is one point about these people to which I would direct 

 yom' special attention, and that is, that liardly any of them have a 

 language of their own. Almost the only known exception in this 

 respect are the Bushmen. But the others, both the pygmies of the 

 central forests and the various smiths and hunters found living among 

 the Somali and Masai speak a degraded form of the language used by 

 those around them, in which the ordinary grammar and pronunciation 

 are modified. This seems to me a fact which we should bear in mind 

 in all speculations about primitive languages. There is a tendency to 

 assume that languages spoken by tribes in a low state of civilisation, 

 and indicating by their grammar and vocalmlarya low state of intelli- 

 gence, are primitive languages. I would, however, suggest that the 

 instance of these African tribes makes it possible that such languages. 



